"He's going to give the judges a run for their money!"
"If he's got to die, he'll die game!" gleefully whispered various of his partisans.
As for the widow, her handsome passionate face was deadly pale and emptied of all expression; this gave her a sort of tragic sinister beauty, reminiscent of the faces of the funereal statues in the Fields of Grammary.
"Not the sort of woman I'd like to meet in a lonely lane at night," was the general comment she aroused.
Then the Clerk of Arraigns called out "Silence!" and in a solemn voice, Master Polydore said, "Endymion Leer and Clementina Gibberty, hold up your hands." They did so. Whereupon, Master Polydore read the indictment, as follows: "Endymion Leer, and Clementina Gibberty, you are accused of having poisoned the late Jeremiah Gibberty, farmer, and law-man of the district of Swan-on-the-Dapple, thirty-six years ago, with a fruit known as the berries of merciful death."
Then the plaintiff, a fresh-faced young girl (none other, of course, than our old friend, Hazel) knelt at the foot of the dais and was given the great seal to kiss; upon which the Clerk of Arraigns led her up into a sort of carved pulpit, whence in a voice, low, but so clear as to penetrate to the furthest corners of the hall she told, with admirable lucidity, the story of the murder of her grandfather.
Next, Mistress Ivy, flustered and timid, told the Judges, in somewhat rambling fashion, what she had already told Master Nathaniel.
Then came the testimony of Peter Pease and Marjory Beach, and, finally, the document of the late farmer was handed round among the Judges.
"Endymion Leer!" called out Master Polydore, "the Law bids you speak, or be silent, as your conscience prompts you."
And as Endymion Leer rose to make his defence, the silence of the hall seemed to be trebled in intensity.