Doctor Aire, moreover, would have demanded attention under any circumstances. Apart from the fascination of his subject, there was authority in the clipped, methodical manner of his speech. Just now he was telling of the last case of Appeal of Murder, that relic of early ages whereby one acquitted of a death-crime could be compelled to defend himself anew by the might of his body. As late as 1819, it appeared, one Thornton, when acquitted, and when the dead girl’s brother had made Appeal of Murder against him, had thrown down in challenge to “wager of battel”—this we were in time to hear—a gauntlet as strange as the occasion, without either fingers or thumbs, made of white tanned skin, ornamented with sewn tracery and silk fringes, crossed by a narrow band of red leather with leather tags and thongs for fastening.
Cosgrove was listening. But of a sudden it seemed to me that his attention was curiously directed beyond Doctor Aire, beyond the vicissitudes of the accused and acquitted Thornton, who had needed to go on trial again with only the prowess of his body to defend himself.
“Listening, surely,” I told myself, and asked myself, “For what?” . . .
Doctor Aire’s recital went on, encyclopedically.
“Lord Ellenborough had to admit that the procedure was competent, although there had not been a whisper of the Appeal throughout the kingdom for forty years. But the curious crowd was disappointed when the appellant withdrew; so there was no gladiatorial exhibition for the chief justice to preside over. It is extremely unlikely that Mary Ashford’s brother had ever intended to carry his Appeal into force, he being a slighter man of body than the appellee—and for that reason Thornton had probably been emboldened to make the brave show he did with his extraordinary gauntlet of white tanned leather.”
In the half-darkness underneath the musicians’ gallery were a pair of listeners who had been within neither the range of my vision nor the scope of my thought. Now one of them, the young American, Bob Cullen, became in an instant the cynosure of the company.
For the youth, scarcely more than a lad, rose from his seat beside Lib Dale, and the exclamation that came from his lips twisted every neck in the Hall.
“So that was it!” The expression of ire on those young, unformed features was almost comical.
Despite a hurried, “Bob, don’t be sil,” from Lib, the youth advanced a couple of steps toward Cosgrove, leaving no doubt against whom his wrath was directed. He raised his shaking arm and pointed at the Irishman, he opened his mouth and was attempting articulate words, but only one word issued, a smothered one:
“You—you—”