“I was at it.”
“And the verdict?”
“The verdict was guilty, with a recommendation to mercy for his great age, and the want of premeditation in the crime.”
“Well, go on.”
“The Judge concurred, and he will not be executed.”
“He will be banished, however—banished for life,” said she, in a low, faltering voice.
“To believe himself he asks no better, he made a speech of nigh an hour in his defence, and if it had not been that at the last he attempted a sort of justification of what he had done, the Judge would not, in all probability, have charged against him; but the old fellow insisted so strongly on the point that a poor man must always look to himself and not to the law for justice, that he destroyed his case.”
“And was there not one to advise him?”
“Apparently not; and when the Chief Baron named a lawyer to defend him, the old fellow refused the aid, and said, ‘The work that’s done for nothing is worth nothing. I’ll just speak for myself.’”
“And this other man—O’Rorke, I mean—where was he?—what did he do?”