“Certes this is a serious matter.” Tom turned this dark piece of scoundrelism over in his mind a while, then asked —

“Suffered the woman also by the storm?”

Several old heads among the assemblage nodded their recognition of the wisdom of this question. The sheriff, however, saw nothing consequential in the inquiry; he answered, with simple directness —

“Indeed did she, your Majesty, and most righteously, as all aver. Her habitation was swept away, and herself and child left shelterless.”

“Methinks the power to do herself so ill a turn was dearly bought.

She had been cheated, had she paid but a farthing for it; that she paid her soul, and her child’s,