Delaware; or, The Ruined Family. Vol. 3

by G. P. R. James

The judge's exposition of the law, and his classification of the evidence adduced, was clear, judicious, and impartial; and, on dismissing the jury to deliberate, he called upon them, to cast away from their minds the remembrance of every thing but what they had heard in that court, and never to forget, that the duty they were then called upon to perform, involved the most awful responsibility which it is possible for a human being to undertake.

The eyes of each of the prisoners were fixed upon the jury-box while the judge addressed the jurors; and it was remarked, that at one particular point of the summing up, where the declaration of the young sailor, and his conduct throughout the whole transaction, were clearly stated, Harding turned extremely pale, and casting down his eyes, remained in deep thought.

In a very few minutes the jury re-appeared in court, and the foreman announced their verdict of guilty against Smithson, Harding, and his paramour; not guilty, in regard to the young sailor, except on the count referring to the robbery.

As the fatal words rang in her ear, the unhappy woman dropped down on the floor of the dock, as if she had been shot. Smithson alone muttered a few words in his peculiar slang, consigning the judge and jury to the place for which his own deeds qualified him much better. Harding remained profoundly silent; and heard not only the announcement of his condemnation, but the awful sentence that followed it, with calm but steadfast composure.

While sentence of death was passing on Harding, Smithson, and Sarah Ings, the head of a woman, dressed in deep mourning, pale, haggard, and agitated, but with the traces of former beauty shining through all, was seen gazing eagerly upon the judge; till at length he turned to Walter Harrison, and informed him that, at the suggestion of the king's counsel on the occasion, his sentence should be reserved for farther consideration. At those words a passionate flood of tears were seen to burst from the poor woman's eyes, which had been dry as the desert before; and she hurried eagerly from the court ere the crowd made their way towards the door.

CHAPTER XI.

There are some men so highly gifted with fine and generous feelings, that they feel a sort of sympathetic excitement in the trials and behaviour of murderers and highwaymen--prize the rope that hanged a noted criminal, and guard, as a relic, the implement with which some great crime was perpetrated. We own the narrowness of our own mind in these respects, and turn without reluctance for a time from the fierce and ruthless deeds of men in the last stage of human depravity, to scenes where the same passions, and perhaps the same vices, had to struggle with the bonds of education and circumstances, and were restrained to crooked and confined passages, by all the respects of rank, and station, and a well preserved name.

On the Saturday morning which succeeded the trial of Harding and his accomplices, the Earl of Ashborough sat waiting for his carriage, which was to be at his door at nine precisely, in order to whirl him and his niece down to one of his country seats, for the purpose of spending the Christmas holidays with true old English hospitality, as the newspapers term it, amidst his neighbours and tenants.

About three weeks had now elapsed since the return of his nephew and the dismissal of Mr. Tims, and agents had been appointed by the earl to examine into that worthy's accounts, in which they had hitherto made but small progress. The noble lord had in the meanwhile pursued his plan of speaking of his ci-devant lawyer, and treating him in every respect with calm and supreme contempt. But Mr. Tims had at the same time proceeded upon his plan also; and scarcely a daily or a weekly newspaper appeared--from that which instructs and bullies the statesman, to that which sets the pot-house in a roar--that did not contain some galling allusion to the Earl of Ashborough and his private affairs.

His lordship took no notice, but still the same attack went on; and though he spoke not a word upon the business to any one, yet it was evident that the annoyance he felt was sufficient seriously to affect his health. A physician's carriage was seen almost daily at his door; and in the end, it being discovered that the length of time he had spent that year in the dull and smoky atmosphere of London, had hurt his constitution, it was determined that he should set out for the country, and not return till his parliamentary duties absolutely compelled his attendance in the House of Peers. The carriage then was ordered, and his lordship, with his usual punctuality, was ready to the moment. The carriage, however, and his lordship's niece, were anything but ready to the moment; and the earl was sitting in attendance upon their will and pleasure, and in no very quiescent mood, when the loud clatter of a horse's feet beneath the windows, broke the silence; and in a moment after, a letter, brought by express from the little county town of ----, was put into his hand, together with another, bearing his address in the handwriting of Henry Beauchamp.