Charles Tyrrell; or, The Bitter Blood. Volumes I and II

by G. P. R. James

Everard expressed his opinion, that she might go in safety, and consequently she set off as soon as horses could be procured.

She found Lucy much more seriously ill than she had expected. She had kept up, and exerted herself, to appear well till Charles Tyrrell had left her; but from that moment had become worse, and all the effects of the fatigue, and grief, and cold, and anxiety, that she had undergone, told upon her health, and reduced her to a situation of great danger. She was slightly better than she had been on the day that her mother arrived, and the fresh hopes which Mrs. Effingham brought her, tended to give a favourable turn to her malady.

We must now, however, pause, and once more go back to the scenes in which our tale first began, in order to show how far those hopes were realized or disappointed.

CHAPTER XXVI.

It was the morning of the trial, and the session-house was, as may be supposed crowded almost to suffocation, for the case of Charles Tyrrell had excited a degree of interest through the whole country round, unequalled in the memory of man. The whole history of the Tyrrell family, as we have given it in the beginning of this book, was buzzed about, with a thousand additions and improvements, from imagination, malice, and that love of the marvellous, which makes liars of one third, and fools of another third of the world.

Among the lower classes an impression seemed to prevail, that young Charles Tyrrell would certainly be condemned, not, indeed, from a general belief of his guilt, for that belief was by no means general; but from an impression that the sort of fate which seemed to dog his family, was about to bring it to an end in his own person, and, indeed, more than one of the jurors was affected by this sort of feeling, and went into the box with an impression that they had very little to do, but listen to the witnesses, and condemn the prisoner.

As soon as the trial was called on, Charles Tyrrell surrendered himself, and appeared at the bar. He was very pale, and his countenance was calm and firm, but grave, and even sad. There was, however, a noble expression on that face, an upright and manly character in his whole demeanour; a tranquillity, not at all approaching boldness, which produced a universal impression in his favour, and made one of those general murmurs run through the court, which nearly always evince some sudden change in the popular feeling.

The judge, in this instance, did not command silence, as he had been led to believe, by all he had heard since he came into the town, that a prepossession existed against the young baronet, and he was not sorry to see that prepossession counteracted by the favourable impression of his personal appearance.

On the first formalities being gone through, Charles Tyrrell pleaded "Not Guilty!" in a clear and distinct voice, and looked round the court with a calm, firm glance, which confirmed the feeling excited in his favour.

The counsel who conducted the cause for the crown, was one of those wise and conscientious men, who suffer no degree of passion to mingle with the exercise of their functions. We have occasionally, indeed, persons at the bar, who, when called upon to act the awful part of public accuser, suffer their own vanity to be implicated in the success of their cause, and strive, not so much to elicit truth, as to establish the case they have undertaken. Such, however, was not the character of the gentleman who appeared against Charles Tyrrell. He uttered not one word that was calculated to produce prejudice in the minds of the jury. He stated clearly and distinctly the evidence he had to produce against the prisoner at the bar. He pointed out in mild terms, the inferences which were to be drawn from the witnesses, and he ended by expressing a hope that the prisoner would be able to produce such evidence, on his own part, as would relieve the minds of the jury from any doubt as to the fact of his innocence.