"If it do not come out, you will squeeze it out, that is clear," rejoined Justice Whistler; "but the man stands committed, the warrant is made out, and there is nothing to be done but to send him to the gaol. I am sorry I did not send the constables on with him at once."
"I am very glad you did not," said Sir Matthew. "As to the warrant, it is but a bit of parchment, which will shrivel up in my kitchen fire in a minute; and so we will have him up into the justice-room to re-examine him before we send him--"
"Back to his father," said Justice Whistler, supplying the words, and shrugging his shoulders. "Well if you will act in such a way, I suppose I must help you to do it gracefully. Let us go to the justice-room. Call the clerk. Leave the whole business to me, and do not be afraid. Whatever you may hear or see, I will get you out of the business--and in your own way," he added, seeing his fellow justices hesitate.
"Well, well," replied Sir Matthew Scrope; "if in our own way that will do; but let me beg of you, Mr. Justice Whistler, not to plunge us further in the mire than we are at present."
"A capital simile," muttered the London justice between his teeth, as he led the way to the justice-room, which communicated by a long passage with the mansion of Sir Matthew Scrope.
The clerk was then called, the magistrates took their stations in formal array, the table was diligently strewed with papers, and an order was given to bring in the prisoner.
"Ahem!" cried Sir Matthew Scrope, as Langford appeared between two constables. "Ahem! ahem!" said his fellow justices; and Sir Thomas Waller, who now--like a tennis ball, which, having been struck in one way by the hand of a strong player, is met by his opponent's racket, and is driven further back in the opposite direction--was inclined to go further than any of his colleagues, according to the new impulse which he had received, added, with a simpering smile, "Pray, be seated, sir. Ahem! You rascal, why don't you give the gentleman a chair?" and he bent his brows as frowningly on the constable as if he had committed petty larceny at least.
Langford was pale, and his features somewhat worn and haggard, with all the anxiety, agitation, and distress of mind which he had gone through, within the last week; neither was his heart well at ease when he regarded either his father's situation or his own at that moment, and felt that his recovered parent might remain in sickness and in anguish, and even pass the gates of death, without the consolation of his son's presence; while he, perhaps, manacled and treated like a common felon, was detained in the solitary wretchedness of a prison upon the charge of murdering his own brother. Nevertheless, a faint smile came over his lip at the somewhat burlesque exhibition of Sir Matthew Waller, and it instantly flashed across his mind that something must have occasioned a change in the worthy justice's feelings towards him, both from the sudden alteration and great embarrassment of his manner. He threw himself into the chair, however, that was placed for him, and leaning his elbow on the table, gazed upon the magistrates, thinking, "What next?"
"You stand before us, sir," said Mr. Justice Whistler, in a pompous tone, "accused of the murder of Edward Lord Harold. Ahem!"
There was something in the man's whole manner that roused Langford's indignation and contempt at the same time; and he replied, with his lip curling and his nostril expanding, "I sit before you, sir, committed on that charge; at least, if I believe what you told me not above three hours ago."