The blacksmith had bragged in his cups at the Red Lion that Wilfrey Lawson of the constable's court at Carlisle would have Ralph Ray in less than a week.

Robbie Anderson had overheard this, and had reported it at the Moss.

Robbie professed to know better, and to be able to laugh at such pretensions.

Willy was more doubtful.

He thought his better education, and consequently more intimate acquaintance with the history of such conflicts with the ruling powers, justified him in his apprehensions.
He sat with his mother while the business was going on downstairs, apparently struggling with an idea that it was his duty to comfort her, but offering such curious comfort that the old dame looked up again and again with wide eyes, which showed that her son was suggesting to her slower intellect a hundred dangers and a hundred moods of sorrow that she could neither discover for herself nor cope with.
Towards nine the "maister men" of Wythburn began to arrive at Shoulthwaite.