"Angus Ray is dead.

Ralph Ray is his eldest son." "It's against the law, I tell you," said Willy.
"You seem learned in the law, young farmer; enlighten us, pray." "My mother, as relict of my father, has her dower, as well as her own goods and chattels, which came from her own father, and revert to her now on her husband's death." "True; a learned doctor of the law, indeed!" said the constable, turning to his fellows.
"I have also my share," continued Willy, "of all except the freehold.
These apportionments the law cannot touch, however it may confiscate the property of my brother." "Look you, young man," said the constable, facing about and lifting his voice; "every commissioner must feel that the law had the ill-luck to lose an acute exponent when you gave up your days and nights to feeding sheep; but there is one point which so learned a doctor ought not to have passed over in silence.

When you said the wife of the deceased had a right to her dower, and his younger son to his portion, you forgot that the wife and children of a traitor are in the same case with a traitor himself." "Be plain, sir; what do you mean ?" said Willy.
"That wise brain of yours should have jumped my meaning; it is that Angus Ray was as much a traitor as his son Ralph Ray, and that if the body of the latter is not delivered to judgment within fourteen days, the _whole_ estate of Shoulthwaite will be forfeited to the Crown as the property of a felon and of the outlawed son of a felon." "It's a quibble--a base, dishonorable quibble," said Willy; "my father cared nothing for your politics, your kings, or your commonwealths." The constables shifted once more in their seats.
"He feels it when it comes nigh abreast of himself," said one of them, and the others laughed.
Rotha was in an agony of suspense.

This, then, was what the woman had meant by her forebodings of further disaster to the semiconscious sufferer in the adjoining room.

The men rose to go.