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The walls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being filled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of Yorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great families of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against the dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform brown of the panelling.
"It is easy to see, friend, that you were born far from the marches of Scotland," quoth the stranger, with a bitter smile. "North of Humber there is no man who would not know the handiwork of Devil Douglas, the black Lord James." "And how fell you into his hands?" asked John. "I am a man of the north country, from the town of Beverley and the wapentake of Holderness," he answered.
Gwynplaine knew that meant that he was to descend. He obeyed. He descended the stairs step by step. They were very narrow, each eight or nine inches in height. There was no hand-rail. The descent required caution. Two steps behind Gwynplaine followed the wapentake, holding up his iron weapon; and at the same interval behind the wapentake, the justice of the quorum.
Behind the first man the gate, which had been ajar, enlarged the opening suddenly, and allowed egress to two other men; then to a fourth. This fourth was the wapentake, clearly visible in the light of the torch. In his grasp was his iron staff.
In England an insensible demolition constantly pulverizes and dissevers laws and customs. You must understand in our day that neither the sheriff, the wapentake, nor the justice of the quorum could exercise their functions as they did then.
To the silence of the wapentake had succeeded the vision of torture to be endured. It was a step, indeed, forward; but a tragic one. He saw the dark enigma of the law under the power of which he felt himself increasing in obscurity. The human form lying on the earth rattled in its throat again. Gwynplaine felt some one touching him gently on his shoulder. It was the wapentake.
Next below the county as a political subdivision of England came the hundred, or wapentake, as it was called in the northern shires. One of the oldest political units of the country, perhaps the very oldest, it had become the least important of all.
The greater part of the small group of government functions which were undertaken in these barbarous times were fulfilled by local gatherings of the principal men. A district formed from a greater or less number of townships, with a meeting for the settlement of disputes, the punishment of crimes, the witnessing of agreements, and other purposes, was known as a "hundred" or a "wapentake."
It may be that to the extent to which a wolf can understand mankind he felt that he was an outlaw. Gwynplaine rose. Resistance was impracticable, as Gwynplaine knew. He remembered Ursus's words, and there was no question possible. He remained standing in front of the wapentake.
Alderman was a title anciently given to various judicial officers, as the Alderman of all England, Alderman of the King, Alderman of the County, Alderman of the City or Borough, alderman of the Hundred or Wapentake. These were all judicial officers. See Law Dictionaries. Boyer.
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