[THE CASE FOR THE CROWN CONCLUDES.]
After that the court adjourned till to-morrow. Mr. Alexander Taunton's performance wound up the programme of the day's entertainment, as it appeared to me, with adequate spirit.
At the inn or hotel, or whatever they called it, at which I was stopping, every one was talking of the trial. The chambermaid, who waited on me at dinner, could talk of nothing else. She went gabble, gabble all the time that she was in the room, and it seemed to me that she stopped in the room as much as she possibly could. Her manners, if rustic, were familiar.
She had witnessed Tommy's arrival at the court.
"A more dreadful-looking wretch I never saw. It gave me quite a feeling to look at him. He's got pig's eyes. And cruel! There was cruelty all over him!"
Poor Tommy! She must have had an insufficient view, or she was prejudiced. A milder-mannered man was never charged with having cut a throat, nor, I verily believe, a tenderer-hearted one.
"And they tell me his wife was in court. I never! She must be a one! I'd have drowned myself sooner than let people know I was the wife of a man like that. She must be almost as bad as he is, or she would never have dared to show her face."
Alas for the rarity of Christian charity! Dear, dear, how these Christians do love each other! To think that that sweet-faced, true-hearted woman should have been spoken of like that!
"They're sure to hang him, that's one comfort. I think it's a shame they don't hang him out of hand, without making all this fuss about it. I think such creatures ought to be hung directly they catch 'em."
"Before ascertaining if they are guilty?"