Roland Cashel Volume Ii Part 59

This anxiety was now at its climax, for, directly in front of them, a small door had just opened, and a crowd of men entered, and took their seats in the gallery.

Their grave countenances, marked by watching and eager discussion, at once proclaimed that they were the jury.

There was a low murmur heard throughout the court as they took their seats; and instinctively many an eye was turned towards the dock, to watch how _he_ bore himself in that trying moment With a steady gaze fixed upon the spot from which his doom was to be spoken, he stood erect, with arms folded and his head high. He was deathly pale; but not a trace of anything like fear in the calm lineaments of his manly features.

"The jury seem very grave," whispered Upton to Frobisher.

"I wish that stupid old judge would bestir himself," replied Lord Charles, looking at his watch; "it wants four minutes to five: he 'll scarcely be in court before it strikes, and I shall lose a pony through it."

"Here he comes!--here he comes!" said another; and the Chief Baron entered the court, his face betraying that he had been aroused from sleep.

"Are you agreed, gentlemen of the jury?" asked the judge, in a low voice.

"Not perfectly, my Lord," said the foreman. "We want your Lords.h.i.+p to decide a point for us; which is--If we should be of opinion that any grave provocation led to the death of Kennyf.e.c.k, whether our verdict could be modified, and our finding be, in consequence, for manslaughter, and not murder?"

"The indictment," said the judge, "does not give you that option. It is framed without any count for the minor offence. I ought, perhaps, also to observe, that nothing has transpired in the evidence given here, this day, to warrant the impression you seem inclined to entertain. Your verdict must be one of Guilty or Not Guilty."

"We are of opinion, my Lord," said a juryman, "that great lat.i.tude in the expression of temper should be conceded to a young man reared and educated as the prisoner has been."

"These sentiments, honorable to you as they are, cannot be indulged at the expense of justice, however they may find a fitting place in a recommendation to mercy; and even this must be accompanied by something more than sympathies."

"Well said, old boy!" muttered Frobisher to himself. "My odds are looking up again."

"In that case, my Lord, we must retire again," said the foreman; and the jury once more quitted the court, whose occupants at once resumed all the lounging att.i.tudes from which the late scene had aroused them.

Exhaustion, indeed, had overcome all save the prisoner himself, who paced the narrow limits of the dock with slow and noiseless steps, raising his head at intervals, to watch the gallery where the jury were to appear.

In less than half an hour the creaking of a door awoke the drowsy court, and the jury were seen re-entering the box. They continued to talk among each other as they took their seats, and seemed like men still under the influence of warm discussion.

"Not agreed!" muttered Frobisher, looking at his book. "I stand to win, even on that."

To the formal question of the Court, the foreman for an instant made no reply, for he was still in eager conversation with another juror.

"How say you, gentlemen of the jury? Are you agreed?"

"We are, my Lord," said the foreman; "that is to say, some of the jury have conceded to the rest for the sake of a verdict."

"This does not seem to me like agreement," interposed the judge. "If you be not of the same mind, it will be your duty to retire once more, and strive by the use of argument and reason to bring the minority to your opinion; or, in failure of such result, to avow that you are not like-minded."

"We have done all that is possible in that respect, my Lord; and we beg you will receive our verdict."

"If it be your verdict, gentlemen," said the judge, "I desire nothing more."

"We say, Not Guilty, my Lord," said the foreman.

There was a solemn pause followed the words, and then a low murmur arose, which gradually swelled till it burst forth into a very clamor, that only the grave rebuke of the Bench reduced to the wonted decorum of a court of justice.

"I am never disposed, gentlemen of the jury, to infringe upon the sacred prerogative which environs your office. You are responsible to G.o.d and your own consciences for the words you have uttered here, this day; but my duty requires that I should be satisfied that you have come to your conclusion by a due understanding of the facts laid before you in evidence, by just and natural inferences from those facts, and by weighing well and dispa.s.sionately all that you have heard here, to the utter exclusion of anything you may have listened to outside of this court. Is your verdict in accordance with these conditions?"

"So far, my Lord, as the mysterious circ.u.mstances of this crime admit, I believe it is. We say 'Not Guilty,' from a firm conviction on our minds that we are saying the truth."

"Enough," said the judge. "Clerk, record the verdict." Then turning to the dock, towards which every eye was now bent, he continued: "Roland Cashel, a jury of your countrymen, solemnly sworn to try you on the charge of murder, have this day p.r.o.nounced you 'Not Guilty.' You go, therefore, free from this dock, to resume that station you occupied in society, without stain upon your character or blemish upon your fame.

The sworn verdict we have recorded obliterates the accusation. But, for the sake of justice, for the interests of the glorious prerogative we possess in trial by jury, for the sacred cause of truth itself, I implore you, before quitting this court, to unravel the thread of this dark mystery, so far as in you lies,--to fill up those blanks in the narrative you have already given us,--to confirm, to the extent in your power, the justice of that sentence by which you are restored once more to the society of your friends and family. This, I say, is now your duty; and the example you will give, in performing it, will reflect credit upon yourself, and do service to the cause of truth, when you and I and those around us shall be no more."

It was with stronger show of emotion than Cashel had yet displayed that he leaned over the dock and said,--

"My Lord, when life, and something more than life, were in peril, I deemed it right to reserve certain details from the notoriety of this court. I did so, not to involve any other in the suspicion of this guilt, whose author I know not. I did not do so from any caprice, still less from that misanthropic affectation the counsel was ungenerous enough to ascribe to me. I believe that I had good and sufficient reasons for the course I adopted. I still think I have such. As to the rest, the discovery of this guilt is now become the duty of my life,--I owe it to those whose words have set me free, and I pledge myself to the duty."

The Bench now conferred with the Crown lawyers as to the proceedings necessary for the discharge of the prisoner; and already the crowds, wearied and exhausted, began to withdraw. The interest of the scene was over; and in the various expressions of those that pa.s.sed might be read the feelings with which they regarded the result. Many reprobated the verdict as against law and all the facts; some attributed the "finding"

to the force of caprice; others even hinted the baser motive, that they didn't like "to hang a man who spent his income at home;" and others, again, surmised that bribery might have had "something to do with it."

Few believed in Cashel's innocence of the crime; and even they said nothing, for their convictions were more those of impulse than reason.

"Who could have thought it!" muttered Upton, as, with a knot of others, he stood waiting for the crowd to pa.s.s out.

Frobisher shrugged his shoulders, and went on totting a line of figures in his memorandum-book.

"Better off than I thought!" said he to himself; "seven to five taken that he would not plead--eight to three that he would not call Linton.

Long odds upon time won: lost by verdict four hundred and fifty. Well, it might have been worse; and I 've got a lesson--never to trust a Jury."

"I say, Charley," whispered Upton, "what are you going to do?"

"How do you mean?"

"Will you go up and speak to him?" said he, with a motion of his head towards the dock.

Frobisher's sallow cheek grew scarlet. Lost and dead to every sense of honorable feeling for many a day, the well had not altogether dried up, and it was with a look of cutting insolence he said,--

"No, sir; if I did not stand by him before, I 'll not be the hound to crawl to his feet now."

"By Jove! I don't see the thing in that light. He's all right now, and there 's no reason why we should n't know him as we used to do."

"Are you so certain that he will know _you?_" was Fro-bisher's sharp reply as he turned away.

The vast moving throng pressed forward, and now all were speedily commingled,--spectators, lawyers, jurors, witnesses. The spectacle was over, and the empty court stood silent and noiseless, where a few moments back human hopes and pa.s.sions had surged like the waves of a sea.

The great s.p.a.ce in front of the court-house, filled for a few moments by the departing crowd, grew speedily silent and empty,--for day had not yet broken, and all were hastening homeward to seek repose. One figure alone was seen to stand in that spot, and then move slowly, and to all seeming irresolutely, onward. It was Cashel himself, who, undecided whither to turn, walked listlessly and carelessly on.

As he turned a corner of a street, a jaunting-car, around which some travellers stood, stopped the way, and he heard the words of the driver.

"There's another place to spare."

"Where for?" asked Cashel.

"Limerick, sir," said the man.

"Drive on, b------t you," cried a deep voice from the other side of the vehicle; and the fellow's whip descended with a heavy slash, and the beast struck out into a gallop, and speedily was out of sight.

"Did n't you see who it was?" muttered the speaker to the man beside him.

"No."