These words, delivered with much feeling, but in a spirit of calm determination, seemed to thrill through the entire assemblage; and even the senior judge stopped to confer for some minutes with his brother on the bench, in evident hesitation what course to adopt. At length he said,—
“However we may regret the course you have followed in thus depriving yourself of that legitimate defence the constitution of our country provides, we see no sufficient reason to deviate from the common order of proceeding in like cases. I will now, therefore, address the jury, who have already heard your words, and will accord them any consideration they may merit.”
“It may be, my Lord,” said Cashel, “that evidence so strongly imbued with probability may induce the gentlemen in that box to believe me guilty; in which case, I understand, your Lordship would address to me the formal question, 'If I had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon me.' Now, if I am rightly informed, any observations of a prisoner at such a moment are regarded rather in the light of petitions for mercy, than as explanations or corrections of falsehood. I have, therefore, only now to say, that, whatever decision you may come to, the Court shall not be troubled further with interference of mine.”
The Judge bowed slightly, as if in reply to this, and began his charge; but the foreman of the jury, leaning forward, said that his fellow-jurors had desired him to ask, as a favor to themselves, that the prisoner might be heard. A short conference ensued between the Bench and the Crown counsel, which ended by the permission being accorded; and now Cashel rose to address the Court.
“I will not,” said he, “abuse the time of this Court by any irrelevant matter, nor will I advert to a single circumstance foreign to the substance of the charge against me. I purpose simply to give a narrative of the last day I passed with my poor friend, and to leave on record this detail as the solemn protestation of innocence of one who has too little to live for to fear death.”
With this brief preface he began a regular history of that eventful day, from the hour he had started from Tubbermore in company with Mr. Kennyfeck.
The reader is already familiar with every step and circumstance of that period, so that it is not necessary we should weary him by any recapitulation; enough if we say that Cashel proceeded with a minuteness devoid of all prolixity, to mention each fact as it occurred, commenting as he went on upon the evidence already given, and explaining its import without impugning its truth. Juries are ever disposed to listen favorably to a speaker who brings to his aid no other allies than candor and frankness, and who, without pretensions to legal acuteness, narrates facts with clear and distinctive precision. Leaving him, therefore, still speaking, and in the irresistible force of truth gradually winning upon his hearers, let us quit the court for a brief time, and passing through the crowded space before the doors, traverse the town, densely thronged by curious and eager visitors. We do not mean to linger with them, nor overhear the comments they passed upon the eventful scene beside them; our business is about a mile off, at a small public-house at a short distance from the roadside, usually frequented by cattle-dealers and the customers at the weekly markets. Here, in a meanly-furnished room, where, for it was now evening, a common dip candle shed its lugubrious yellow light upon the rude appliances of vulgar life, sat a man, whose eager expectancy was marked in every line of his figure. Every now and then he would arise from his chair, and, screening the candle from the wind, open the window to look out.
The night was dark and gusty; drifting rain beat at intervals against the glass, and seemed the forerunner of a great storm. The individual we have spoken of did not seem to care for, if he even noticed, the inclemency; he brushed the wet from his bushy beard and mustaches with indifference, and bent his ear to listen to the sounds upon the road in deepest earnestness. At last the sound of horses' feet and wheels was heard rapidly approaching, and a car drove up to the door, from which a man, wrapped up in a loose frieze coat, descended, and quickly mounted the stairs. As he reached the landing, the door of the room was thrown vide, and the other man, in a low, but distinct, voice said, “Well, what news?”
“All right,” said he of the frieze coat, as, throwing off the wet garment, he discovered the person of Mr. Clare Jones. “Nothing could possibly go better; my cross-examination clinched Keane's evidence completely, and no jury could get over it.”
“I almost wish you had let him alone,” said the other, gruffly, and in evident discontent; “I foresee that the sympathy the scoundrel affected will be troublesome to us yet.”