Poor Carrie was to weep many tears before she saw the end of this sad matter.
CHAPTER XXXII
The Courts were crowded on the day that Philip Meadowes stood his trial at the Old Bailey. The case attracted a vast deal of attention in its day, and if all the cross-questioning of Phil’s case were reported here, they would make a ponderous volume, that no one would ever finish. So the outlines of the trial must suffice for the story.
‘How say you, Philip Richard William Meadowes, Are you Guilty of the felony and murder whereof you stand indicted, or Not guilty?’
‘Not guilty.’
‘How will you be tried?’
‘By God and my country.’
‘God send you a good deliverance.’
So ran the time-honoured prelude; and the listening crowds echoed the prayer, for Phil made a very interesting prisoner.
He stood in the dock and looked round him, nodding to right and left as he recognised friends among the crowd, as easy and self-possessed as any man in the house.