To his surprise, however, he found that, notwithstanding all his own great strength, he could not move him in the least, and that the dark man before him stood rooted like a rock to the floor.
"Beware!" said Lieberg, lifting up his finger with a scornful smile, as the prisoner drew back in some astonishment--"beware!" and at the same moment one of the turnkeys opened the door to enquire what was the matter.
Lieberg went out without making any reply, and the prisoner was once more left alone.
"Ay," said Martin when he was by himself; "now if they have a cell in the place fit to receive a man that has murdered his own father, they should put that fellow into it. How the scoundrel was taken in, to tell all his rascality!--I don't believe a word of it--never peach. I know a little bit about women, too, and I'll bet my life she doesn't say a word--only those rascally fellows may get it out of her; those lawyers. I have seen them puzzle a cleverer head than hers with their questions. However, we will see: a man can but die once, and I'd rather do that while I'm about it, than give the poor girl up into the hands of such an infernal villain as that, even if I had the papers to give him, which, thank God, I have not!--for no man can tell what he will do when he is tempted.--I suppose it will go hard with me after all!" And with this not very pleasant reflection, Martin cast himself into a chair, and appeared to give himself up to calculate the chances for and against himself, with a heavy brow and a sad and anxious eye.
CHAPTER XLI.
Man, in his collective quality, is undoubtedly a gin-drinker, a lover of ardent spirits, a seeker of all that stimulates the palate, both mental and corporeal. The wholesome food of every-day life we soon learn to loathe, and even the excitement of the imagination by the mimic scene or tale of fictitious distress, is willingly cast away for the more potent taste of real sorrow and actual crime. How we flock to see the trial of any notorious criminal!--how eagerly we watch the workings of apprehension, and anguish on his countenance!--how critically we examine the gradations of emotion, and fear, and awe, and despair, as they move the stubborn features, or make the strong frame writhe! How we gloat upon the deadly anguish of a fellow-human heart through all the terrible scenes in the administration of justice, from the first examination of the captured criminal, to the last dread moment upon the fatal drop!
Is it then, indeed, that man loves to witness misery, that he enjoys the spectacle of agony in a creature like himself? No; no more than he enjoys pain in his own person when he drinks those burning things from which his infant lips would have drawn back, or eats those flaming condiments which set the palate in a blaze. Stimulus--it is all for stimulus! Stimulus that makes up one half of all the enjoyments of the passions, the great ingredient in strife and exertion, the incentive in the course of glory, the companion of ambition!
The criminal court at York was filled to the doors. The reporters for the London newspapers were all present, come down to the mart of excitement for the purpose of hawking it in retail over the whole country. Manifold were the lawyers present to hear what they justly expected would prove a curious case, and the rest of the place was occupied by a various multitude, not only from the city itself and the neighbouring county, but from various parts of England, and even from the capital. There was expectation in every countenance, and each little movement that took place in the court created not only a slight rustling murmur, and a motion of every head forward to see what was taking place, but also produced the palpitation of many a heart from mere eagerness and anxiety for the result. A great part of the crowd consisted, as is usually the case, of women, and a more than ordinary interest had been excited amongst the fairer and tenderer portion of the community, by the rumours which had been circulated regarding the prisoner Martin. He had become, as it were, the hero of the day; and his long evasion of the officers' pursuit, his sojourn on the moors, and his capture in attempting to escape from a distant cottage, had all been magnified, and made the theme of wonder and comment, so that more than one penny pamphlet, containing an account of "the adventures of Harry Martin," had been produced from the brains of several marvel-mongers in York. Then, again, there was the tale of his beautiful young wife and her mother having followed him to the place of his confinement; and a report was current that the old woman had been heard to say, on several occasions, that Harry was not guilty, and that it would prove so; which created a very general belief in his innocence amongst the many whose ignorance of all the mass of crime that exists in this world renders them ever ready to believe that those who boldly assume virtue, are virtuous.
The first cause that came on was one of no possible amusement to any but the parties concerned; one of those cases of horse-stealing or sheep-stealing, which sadly try the patience of an expecting auditory, when something more interesting, if not more important, is to follow immediately after. The counsel, however, on both sides, were brief, the jury themselves were impatient, and that trial was soon over; for it is no less true than strange, that even in courts of justice the accidental circumstances connected with any particular case make an immense difference in the portion of attention paid to the investigation thereof, though the crime and the punishment remain the same.
The judges of the land, indeed, generally hold, as far as is necessary, that calm and dignified impartiality which preserves the same estimation of all things submitted to their judgment, without any reference to aught but that which is brought before them. Such is not the case, however, either with juries or with the gentlemen of the bar, and any vulgar crime will be investigated, judged, and punished, with a rapidity truly surprising, when the same act, dignified by the situation of the parties, or brought into notice by something new and striking in the mode of its perpetration, will occupy a court for whole days, and call forth the most profound affections in the breasts of jurors, counsellors, and auditory.