We retired to
consider, at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic
vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble
that we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain extracts
from the Judge's notes re-read. Nine of us had not the smallest
doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any one in the
Court; the dunder-headed triumvirate, having no idea but
obstruction, disputed them for that very reason. At length we
prevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes
past twelve.
The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury-box,
on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes rested
on me with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a
great gray veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time,
over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict, "Guilty,"
the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty.
The Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether
he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed
upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the
leading newspapers of the following day as "a few rambling,
incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to
complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of
the Jury was prepossessed against him." The remarkable declaration
that he really made was this: "MY LORD, I KNEW I WAS A DOOMED MAN,
WHEN THE FOREMAN OF MY JURY CAME INTO THE BOX. MY LORD, I KNEW HE
WOULD NEVER LET ME OFF, BECAUSE, BEFORE I WAS TAKEN, HE SOMEHOW GOT
TO MY BEDSIDE IN THE NIGHT, WOKE ME, AND PUT A ROPE ROUND MY NECK."
The End.
