“Things are changed since then, ain’t they?” said Dockwrath, with a laugh. And then he went to look up his flock, and take them into court. “I’ll meet you in the hall, Mr. Mason, in twenty minutes from this time.”
And so the play was beginning on each side.
LXVIII
The First Day of the Trial
And now the judge was there on the bench, the barristers and the attorneys were collected, the prisoner was seated in their presence, and the trial was begun. As is usual in cases of much public moment, when a person of mark is put upon his purgation, or the offence is one which has attracted notice, a considerable amount of time was spent in preliminaries. But we, who are not bound by the necessities under which the court laboured, will pass over these somewhat rapidly. The prisoner was arraigned on the charge of perjury, and pleaded “not guilty” in a voice which, though low, was audible to all the court. At that moment the hum of voices had stayed itself, and the two small words, spoken in a clear, silver tone, reached the ears of all that then were there assembled. Some had surmised it to be possible that she would at the last moment plead guilty, but such persons had not known Lady Mason. And then by slow degrees a jury was sworn, a considerable number of jurors having been set aside at the instance of Lady Mason’s counsel. Mr. Aram had learned to what part of the county each man belonged, and upon his instructions those who came from the neighbourhood of Hamworth were passed over.
The comparative lightness of the offence divested the commencement of the trial of much of that importance and apparent dignity which attach themselves to most celebrated criminal cases. The prisoner was not bidden to look upon the juror, nor the juror to look upon the prisoner, as though a battle for life and death were to be fought between them. A true bill of perjury had come down to the court from the grand jury, but the court officials could not bring themselves on such an occasion to open the case with all that solemnity and deference to the prisoner which they would have exhibited had she been charged with murdering her old husband. Nor was it even the same as though she had been accused of forgery. Though forgery be not now a capital crime, it was so within our memories, and there is still a certain grandeur in the name. But perjury sounds small and petty, and it was not therefore till the trial had advanced a stage or two that it assumed that importance which it afterwards never lost. That this should be so cut Mr. Mason of Groby to the very soul. Even Mr. Dockwrath had been unable to make him understand that his chance of regaining the property was under the present circumstances much greater than it would have been had Lady Mason been arraigned for forgery. He would not believe that the act of forgery might possibly not have been proved. Could she have been first whipped through the street for the misdemeanour, and then hung for the felony, his spirit would not have been more than sufficiently appeased.
The case was opened by one Mr. Steelyard, the junior counsel for the prosecution; but his work on this occasion was hardly more than formal. He merely stated the nature of the accusation against Lady Mason, and the issue which the jury were called upon to try. Then got up Sir Richard Leatherham, the solicitor-general, and at great length and with wonderful perspicuity explained all the circumstances of the case, beginning with the undoubted will left by Sir Joseph Mason, the will independently of the codicil, and coming down gradually to the discovery of that document in Mr. Dockwrath’s office, which led to the surmise that the signature of those two witnesses had been obtained, not to a codicil to a will, but to a deed of another character. In doing this Sir Richard did not seem to lean very heavily upon Lady Mason, nor did he say much as to the wrongs suffered by Mr. Mason of Groby. When he alluded to Mr. Dockwrath and his part in these transactions, he paid no compliment to the Hamworth attorney; but in referring to his learned friend on the other side he protested his conviction that the defence of Lady Mason would be conducted not only with zeal, but in that spirit of justice and truth for which the gentlemen opposite to him were so conspicuous in their profession. All this was wormwood to Joseph Mason; but nevertheless, though Sir Richard was so moderate as to his own side, and so courteous to that opposed to him, he made it very clear before he sat down that if those witnesses were prepared to swear that which he was instructed they would swear, either they must be utterly unworthy of credit—a fact which his learned friends opposite were as able to elicit as any gentlemen who had ever graced the English bar—or else the prisoner now on her trial must have been guilty of the crime of perjury now imputed to her.
Of all those in court now attending to the proceedings, none listened with greater care to the statement made by Sir Richard than Joseph Mason, Lady Mason herself, and Felix Graham. To Joseph Mason it appeared that his counsel was betraying him. Sir Richard and Round were in a boat together and were determined to throw him over yet once again. Had it been possible he would have stopped the proceedings, and in this spirit he spoke to Dockwrath. To Joseph Mason it would have seemed right that Sir Richard should begin by holding up Lady Mason to the scorn and indignation of the twelve honest jurymen before him.
