If there was one man in that vast assembly who, next to the prisoner, was most wretched, that man was the prisoner’s counsel. He was young, and this was only his third or fourth brief; and this was, moreover, the first occasion upon which he had ever been entrusted with an important case. He was an intensely nervous and excitable man, and failure would be to him worse than death; and he felt failure inevitable. He had not one inch of ground for the defence; and, in spite of the prisoner’s repeated protestations of his innocence, he believed that prisoner to be guilty. He was an earnest man; and this belief damped his earnestness. He was a conscientious man; and he felt that to defend Richard Marwood was something like a dishonest action.
The prisoner pleaded “Not guilty” in a firm voice. We read of this whenever we read of the trial of a great criminal; we read of the firm voice, the calm demeanour, the composed face, and the dignified bearing; and we wonder. Would it not be more wonderful were it otherwise? If we consider the pitch to which that man’s feelings have been wrought; the tension of every nerve; the exertion of every force, mental and physical, to meet those five or six desperate hours, we wonder no longer. The man’s life has become a terrible drama, and he is playing his great act. That mass of pale and watchful faces carries him through the long agony. Or perhaps it is less an agony than an excitement. It may be that his mind is mercifully darkened, and that he cannot see beyond the awful present into the more awful future. He is not busy with the vision of a ghastly structure of wood and iron; a dangling rope swinging loose in the chill morning air, till it is tightened and strained by a quivering and palpitating figure, which so soon grows rigid. He does not, it is to be hoped, see this. Life for him today stands still, and there is not room in his breast—absorbed with the one anxious desire to preserve a proud and steady outward seeming—for a thought of that dreadful future which may be so close at hand.
So, Richard Marwood, in an unfaltering voice, pleaded “Not guilty.”
There was among that vast crowd but one person who believed him.
Ay, Richard Marwood, thou mightest reverence those dirty hands, for they have spelt out the only language, except that of thy wretched mother, that ever spoke conviction of thy innocence.
Now the prisoner, though firm and collected in his manner spoke in so low and subdued a voice as to be only clearly audible to those near him. It happened that the judge, one of the celebrities of the bench, was afflicted with a trifling infirmity, which he would never condescend to acknowledge. That infirmity was partial deafness. He was what is called hard of hearing on one side, and his—to use a common expression—game ear happened to be nearest Richard.
“Guilty,” said the judge. “So, so—Guilty. Very good.”
“Pardon me, my lord,” said the counsel for the defence, “the prisoner pleaded not guilty.”
“Nonsense, sir. Do you suppose me deaf?” asked his lordship; at which there was a slight titter among the habitués of the court.
The barrister gave his head a deprecatory shake. Of course, a gentleman in his lordship’s position could not be deaf.
“Very well, then,” said the judge, “unless I am deaf, the prisoner pleaded guilty. I heard him, sir, with my own ears—my own ears.”
The barrister thought his lordship should have said “my own ear,” as the game organ ought not to count.
“Perhaps,” said the judge, “perhaps the prisoner will be good enough to repeat his plea; and this time he will be good enough to speak out.”
“Not guilty,” said Richard again, in a firm but not a loud voice—his long imprisonment, with days, weeks, and months of slow agony, had so exhausted his physical powers, that to speak at all, under such circumstances, was an effort.
“Not guilty?” said the judge. “Why, the man doesn’t know his own mind. The man must be a born idiot—he can’t be right in his intellect.”
Scarcely had the words passed his lordship’s lips, when a long low whistle resounded through the court.
Everybody looked up towards a corner of the gallery from which the sound came, and the officials cried “Order!”
Among the rest the prisoner raised his eyes, and looking to the spot from which this unexampled and daring interruption proceeded, recognized the face of the man who had spelt out the words “Not guilty” in the railway carriage. Their eyes met: and the man signalled to Richard to watch his hands, whilst with his fingers he spelt out several words slowly and deliberately.
This occurred during the pause caused by the endeavours of the officials to discover what contumacious person had dared to whistle at the close of his lordship’s remark.
The counsel for the prosecution stated the case—a very clear case it seemed too—against Richard Marwood.
“Here,” said the barrister, “is the case of a young man, who, after squandering a fortune, and getting deeply in debt in his native town, leaves that town, as it is thought by all, never to return. For seven years he does not return. His widowed and lonely mother awaits in anguish for any tidings of this heartless reprobate; but, for seven long years, by not so much as one line or one word, sent through any channel whatever, does he attempt to relieve her anxiety. His townsmen believe him to be dead; his mother believes him to be dead; and it is to be presumed from
