“He may have been mistaken,” observed old Sleech.
“Not a bit of it,” said his son, “he knows Harry almost as well as I do. He has met him scores of times, both at Mr Coppinger’s house and at some of the places which Harry used to frequent. Never fear, it is all right; I shall soon be out of this, and down at Stanmore to enjoy myself. I say, father, we shall want a little ready money to keep up the game. We must make the old trees fall right and left, and you know, at a pinch, you and I can sell a few dirty acres. In my opinion there is nothing like enjoying a thing when we have got it.”
The further conversation between the father and his estimable son need not be repeated. Silas had fallen considerably in his parent’s estimation since he had so committed himself as to get into prison. He was, also, not quite so sanguine as his son was as to the result of the trial; but he performed a parent’s part in securing the best counsel to be obtained. He also made interest with the governor to procure a better room and superior food for his son. Silas did not, however, exhibit the gratitude which might have been expected.
“It would not do to let the heir of Stanmore dangle on a gibbet, eh, dad, would it?” he observed, when his father told him what he had done. “No chance of that, or I could not joke on the subject.”
The day of the trial arrived. Silas Sleech stood at the bar. He gazed round the court with an air of confidence, and nodded familiarly to some of his acquaintances. His eye fell for a moment as he encountered the stern glance of Mr Coppinger, Mr Kyffin, and other persons who had been brought in as evidence against him. The case was gone into. He was ably defended, and his counsel laid great stress on the non-appearance of the person whose signature he was said to have forged, and whose ruin it appeared he had taken great pains to effect. Silas smiled as he heard these remarks, and attempted to throw an expression of injured innocence into his countenance. The counsel for the Crown replied; but the defence made by the defendant’s counsel seemed to have great weight with the jury, when there was a slight movement in the court. A slip of paper was put into the hand of the Crown counsel. He turned round and spoke a few words to a well-dressed young man, who had at that time entered.
“The defendant declares,” he observed, “that no evidence can be brought forward to prove that he forged the signature of Mr Stephen Coppinger, asserting that it was the act of another person. Here stands that other person, whose statement you will hear. I produce him as a witness; should you consider him unworthy of belief, you will acquit the prisoner; if not, I am ready to prove that no other person than Silas Sleech, the prisoner at the bar, could have committed the forgery.”
As Silas caught sight of the countenance of the young man, he gazed at him as at one risen from the dead, and a sudden tremor seized his frame.
“He knows I did not do it; he knows I did not,” he gasped out; but Harry Tryon took no notice of him.
Harry briefly and clearly gave an account of the circumstances with which the reader is already acquainted.
The jury were perfectly satisfied of the guilt of the prisoner.