“I never fired the gun, my lord,” replied Joey, in a calm steady voice.
“The prisoner has answered for me,” replied Mr Trevor, recovering himself; “we are perfectly aware that by making a statement of accidental murder, we could safely have left the prisoner in the hands of an intelligent jury; but the fact is, my lord, that the prisoner never fired the gun, and therefore could not be guilty of the murder imputed to him.”
Mr Trevor had felt, upon our hero’s assertion, that his case was hopeless; he roused up, however, to make a strong appeal to the jury; unfortunately, it was declamation only, not disproof of the charges, and the reply of the prosecuting counsel completely established the guilt of our hero upon what is called presumptive evidence. The jury retired for a few minutes after the summing up of the judge, and then returned a verdict against our hero of Guilty, but recommended him to mercy. Although the time to which we refer was one in which leniency was seldom extended, still there was the youth of our hero, and so much mystery in the transaction, that when the judge passed the sentence, he distinctly stated that the royal mercy would be so far extended, that the sentence would be commuted to transportation. Our hero made no reply; he bowed, and was led back to his place of confinement, and in a few minutes afterwards the arms of the weeping Mary were encircled round his neck.
“You don’t blame me, Mary?” said Joey.
“No, no,” sobbed Mary; “all that the world can do is nothing when we are innocent.”
“I shall soon be far from here, Mary,” said Joey, sitting down on the bedstead; “but, thank Heaven! it is over.”
The form of Emma Phillips rose up in our hero’s imagination, and he covered up his face with his hands.
“Had it not been for her!” thought he. “What must she think of me! a convicted felon! this is the hardest of all to bear up against.”
“Joey,” said Mary, who had watched him in silence and tears, “I must go now; you will see her now, will you not?”
“She never will see me! she despises me already,” replied Joey.