The judge enters the court, and takes his seat on the bench. You ask, with astonishment, "When will the barristers come?" Why, there, do you not see his lordship rise, and make an obeisance to the gentlemen who sit in the box above us? These are the barristers. You may seem as unbelieving as you choose, but such is the case. The fact is, and I should have mentioned it before, when Irish barristers go on the circuit[23] they do not burthen themselves with wigs or gowns—forensic paraphernalia, to which their legal brethren on the English side of the Channel attach such infinite importance, that you might fancy they thought all wit and wisdom[24] to be attached to them. You can scarcely imagine a more unformal or unceremonious court than that to which I have introduced you. The attorneys sit round the table, mingled with the "gentlemen of the press," the barristers are in the boxes immediately over the attornies, and the audience sit or stand where and how they can.
There is a pause—for a great murder trial is to come on—O'Connell has just been engaged for the defence—is occupied in the other court, and the judge must wait until he can make his appearance. During this pause you see a familiarity between the bench and the bar which seems strange to your English eyes. Yet, after all, what is it? Will the laws be a whit less honestly administered or advocated because the judge and one of the lawyers (Chief Baron O'Grady and Recorder Waggett) are laughing together? Depend on it, that, if the opportunity comes, the judge will fling out one of his bitter sarcasms against the barrister, and I know little of the barrister if he does not retort—if he can!
A bustle in the court. Does O'Connell come? No; but a message from him, with the intimation that the trial may go on, and he will "drop in" in half an hour. The clerk of the peace reads the indictment—the murderer pleads "Not Guilty," stands in the dock with compressed lips, and bursting veins, and withering frown, and scowling eyes—a fit subject for the savage pencil of Spagnaletto.
While the indictment is reading, a very dandified "middle-aged young gentleman," attired in a blue coat, with enormous brass buttons, a crimson silk neckcloth, and a most glaring pair of buckskins, jumps on the table, makes way across it with a "hop, step and jump," and locates himself in a box directly under the judge. You inquire, who is that neophyte?—the answer is, Carew Standish O'Grady, the registrar[25] of the circuit, barrister-at-law, and nephew to the judge. You turn up your eyes in wonder—the prothonotary of an English court would scarcely sport such a fox-hunter's garb.
The trial commences. Serjeant Goold states the case—advantageously for the prisoner, for the learned Serjeant has so defective an utterance that he is scarcely audible even to the reporters below him. But his serjeantcy gives him that precedence at the bar, on account of which the chief conduct of Crown prosecutions devolves to him. Meanwhile the Chief Baron turns to the High Sheriff, and cracks jokes; his hopeful nephew, less ambitious, produces a bag and some salt, and merely—cracks nuts.
The opening is over—the chief witness (probably an approver or King's evidence) is brought on the table—he is sworn, and attempts to baffle justice by kissing his thumb instead of the book. There is a dead silence in the court; for it is felt that the moment is awful with the fate of a fellow-creature.
He has just been successful for an Orangeman against a Catholic; but what does that matter? The people do justice to his merit; so he succeeds, what care they against whom?
Another pause—a buzz in the court—"quite a sensation," as a dandy might exquisitely exclaim—the prisoner's eyes brightens up with the gleam of hope—he sees O'Connell, at last, seated among the barristers. What! is that O'Connell? that stalwart, smiling, honest-looking man? The same. Never did a public man assume less pretension to personal appearance. Yet, if you look closely, you may observe that he does anything but neglect the graces. His clothes are remarkably well made, the tie of his cravat is elaborate, his handsome eye-glass is so disposed that it can be seen as well as used, and his "Brutus" (for 'twould be heinous to utter the word "wig") gives an air of juvenility which his hilarious manners fully confirm.
Until this moment of his entering the court, he knows nothing of the case—he has not yet received a brief. Mr. Daltera (you will remember that the scene is in Cork—the time 1827), the lame attorney, hands him a bulky brief, (which he puts, unread, into the bag,) and an abstract of the case, written on one sheet of paper. His blue eyes calmly glance over this case—he takes in, at that glance, all its bearings, and he quietly listens to the evidence of the accomplice. The cross-examination commences. Every eye is watchful—every ear on the qui vive—every man in court stretches forward to see the battle between "the Counsellor" and "the witness." You may see the prisoner with an eager glance of expectation—the witness with an evident sense of the coming crisis. The battle commences with anything but seriousness; O'Connell surprises the witness by his good humour, and instantly sets him at ease. He coaxes out of him a full confession of his own unworthiness,—he tempts him, by a series of facetious questions, into an admission of his "whole course of life,"—in a word, he draws from his lips an autobiography, in which the direst crimes are mingled with an occasional relief of feeling or of fun. The witness seems to exult in the "bad eminence" on which his admissions exalt him. He joins in the laugh at the quaintness of his language,—he scarcely shrinks from the universal shudders at the enormity of his crimes. By degrees he is led to the subject of the evidence he has just given, as an accomplice,—the coil is wound round him imperceptibly; fact after fact is weakened, until, finally, such doubt is thrown upon all that he has said,—from the evident exaggeration of part,—that a less ingenious advocate than O'Connell might rescue the prisoner from conviction on such evidence. The main witness having "broken down," (as much from the natural doubt and disgust excited in the minds of an Irish jury, by the circumstance of a particeps criminis being evidence against one who may have been more sinned against than sinning,—who may have been seduced into the paths of error by the very man who now bears testimony against him,) the result of the trial is not very difficult to be foreseen. If there is any doubt, the matter is soon made clear by a few alibi witnesses—practiced rogues with the most innocent aspects, who swear anything or everything to "get a friend out of trouble." The chances are ten to one that O'Connell brings off the prisoner. If he is not acquitted, he may, at least, be only found guilty on the minor plea of "manslaughter."
But the chances are that he will be acquitted, for few juries ever resisted the influence of O'Connell's persuasive eloquence.