Now, as her story was substantially the same that has been already given to the reader, it is not necessary to recapitulate it here. Only in one respect it differed from the stories she had hitherto told to her landlady or housekeeper, Mrs. Brown, of Westminster Road; as on this occasion she reserved all allusion to any real or fancied marriage between herself and the nobleman she claimed as her lover, and then accused as the accomplice of thieves and assassins, in the murder and robbery at Castle Lone, on the night preceding the day appointed for his own marriage with its heiress!
It would be impossible to describe the effect of this terrible testimony on the minds of all who heard it.
The Bench, the Bar, and the Jury, whom, it would seem, nothing in this world had power to startle, astonish, or discompose, sat like statues.
Scarcely less immovable was the young Duke of Hereward, the subject of this awful charge, who sat back in his seat with an air of grave curiosity, and with the composure of a man who was master of the situation.
But the crowd which filled the court-room seemed utterly confounded by what they heard. Upon the whole, they either disbelieved this witness, or distrusted their own ears. Their young laird, as she called the present duke, was their model of all wisdom, goodness, magnanimity. Truly, they had heard a rumor of some little love-making between the young laird and a handsome shepherdess at Ben Lone, probably this same Rose Cameron; even these rumors they did not fully credit; but that the noble young Duke of Hereward should be the accomplice of thieves and murderers in the robbery at Castle Lone, and the assassination of Sir Lemuel Levison, on the very night preceding the morning appointed for his marriage with Sir Lemuel's daughter!
Oh! the charge was too preposterous, as well as too horrible, to be entertained for an instant.
Finally the prevailing opinion settled into this: that the young laird had probably admired the handsome shepherdess a little, and had left her for the heiress; and that, from jealousy and for revenge, the girl was now perjuring herself to ruin her late lover.
Would her testimony be believed? Would it have weight enough to cause the arrest of the young duke?
"Eh, sirs! what an awfu' event the like o' that wad be!" whispered one gray-haired clansman to another.
And all bent eager ears to hear the remainder of the testimony which was still going on.