"Nancy Stair."
And after, Jamie Henderlin swore that it was he who ran across the grounds, on his way home from a wedding, and that he had heard the shots and mentioned them to his mother on his arrival at the Burnside, thus identifying the small figure I had seen running through the shaft of light, and wiping away the last black mark on the slate against Danvers.
Mr. Magendie asked permission at this point to address the court, saying that the defense had been reserved by Mr. Carmichael's wish, and that the manner of the duke's taking off had been a known thing to both of them for more than a week, but that Mr. Carmichael had stood his trial in order that every charge against him might be cleared away. And after raising public expectation to its highest, and ridiculing the idea that a man of intelligence should murder another and leave a weapon heavily marked with his own name by the side of the dead; or that because a man had uttered some threats of again challenging one whom he had already met upon the field of honor, he should be accused of being a midnight assassin, there was called the last witness for the defense:
"Lord Rothermel!"
The entrance of this distinguished statesman, whose friendship for the great Pitt kept him constantly in the public eye, caused little less than a sensation. As he took the oath, I had a near view of him; his dignified bearing, his age, and his notable integrity showing at every turn, the tones of his voice filling the court with a peculiar resonance while he deponed as follows:
"I come," he said, "as a messenger from Mr. Pitt, who regrets that his Majesty's affairs, connected with the troublous times in France, prevent his leaving London. I have his deposition, however, and the case has been fully set before me by him, so that I feel I am in a position to tell the whole truth of this disastrous affair and to set Mr. Carmichael before the world as a free man.
"There existed between Mr. Pitt and the late Duke of Borthwicke, as the world knows, a peculiar friendship. On the third morning after the duke's death there came to Mr. Pitt a packet, taken from Stair House and mailed about five of the morning upon which the duke died, directed in the duke's hand, containing three things:
"First—The findings of the Lighthouse Commission.
"Second.—Some information from the French, a document of twenty-two pages, writ in a cipher known to but five persons in the United Kingdom, which paper alone convinced Mr. Pitt of the authenticity of the document; and last, a personal letter, the original of which Lord Rothermel begged to read before it be given to the jury:
"My ever dear Pitt: