“Silence!” she called, in her loud voice. “What fools make such an uproar at the door?” Instantly her guests and retainers sank abashed into their places, and thus a view was given of the entrance. There the steward, a small, shrewd-visaged man, and the porter were struggling to bring in a great-limbed, burly fellow who resisted with all his might though his hands were tied behind him. “Who have you there, Sir Steward?” asked his mistress, her eagle eye upon them and her clenched fist resting on the table. “Madam, ’tis a vagrant caught in the third offence,” panted the steward, as he and the porter pulled the prisoner forward by main force. Old Madam, as she was so often called, looked searchingly at the prisoner, a stout, ill-favored man dressed in ragged clothing and hanging his head, as if ashamed of his plight. “How can you prove the charge?” Lady Crabtree asked sharply. “Look at his slit ear, my lady,” said the steward; “his second offence of begging in this parish was here too, yet he hath the boldness to come here again, with his ear bored at that.” “A very valiant beggar certainly,” she remarked, eying the vagrant with pitiless contempt. “You are a rogue,” she added, addressing the captive; “but what have you to say?” “I asked but for a herring,” the man replied sullenly, looking up, and Betty saw that he was cross-eyed, with an evil cast of countenance. “And will hang for a herring, fool!” said old Madam, harshly; “and it would be right, for with that body you should work or die. Take him to the justice,” she added to her steward, “and tell him I will pay for the rope.” The two servants began to drag the prisoner back, and he offered no great resistance, seeming to accept his fate with sullen indifference; but Betty Carew rose from her seat. “Surely, madam,” she cried, “you will not hang this poor man for asking for a herring?” Lady Crabtree looked up with grim indifference. “He is a valiant beggar, wench,” she said coolly, “and you know King Henry’s law?” Betty looked at her with passionate scorn in her young face. “By heaven, madam,” she cried, “you are a brute!” Now this honest expression of her own feelings so pleased the strange old woman that she burst into a hearty fit of laughter. Meanwhile the steward and the porter had paused in amazement, and the prisoner stood between them with a look of dogged wretchedness upon his face. “Go talk to the king’s grace, Mistress Betty,” said old Madam, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes; “this realm is full of these knaves, and we must hang them or they will cut our throats.” “Is life so cheap?” cried Betty, looking at her with shining eyes; “have we not all to answer for our doings? I pray you, madam, spare this fellow for shame of the herring!” Lady Crabtree looked thoughtfully at the vagrant, and then some strange notion moved her again to laughter.