Part 13 (2/2)

'Thought you had! Goodness me! that's just like you laymen. You keep back the chief points in a case, and then you're angry with us because we don't guess them by instinct. Why didn't you tell the judge this when he was examining you?'

'Because it wasn't said in the prisoner's presence.'

'Pooh! Why, it was evidence of motive. But there, it's no good trying to explain the law of evidence to you. If any thing's gone wrong, you have yourself to thank for it--a good deal, that's all. What shall you take?'

And they fell to on the refreshments before them.

Meanwhile the barristers, whose self-imposed code forbade them to enter a public hotel room in a town where the a.s.sizes were being held, had straggled off, some to the County Club, and others to the common-room reserved for their especial use in the chief hotel of the place.

Among the latter was Tressamer, who found Prescott awaiting him anxiously, and trying, with poor success, to get through the wing of a fowl. He (Prescott) looked pale and dejected; but Tressamer rushed into the place in a state of exaggerated buoyancy, and loudly called for a bottle of champagne.

'George, how goes it?' cried his friend.

'All went merry as a marriage-bell,' returned the other. 'Have no fear; keep up your heart, old man. Leave it to me; I'll get her off.

Much obliged to you for going away, though. Young Pollard did come some croppers, I can tell you. Buller's against us, of course, on the evidence; but what do I care? I'll get the jury, see if I don't. I'll make a speech this afternoon the like of which hasn't often been heard in this dead-and-alive hole. Lewis, beware! Here's confusion to the guilty, and safety to the innocent!'

He had rattled on in a jerky, excited, nervous manner, and he wound up by drinking off nearly a tumblerful of champagne. Prescott could hardly make him out. He feared the strain of the last few weeks was unhinging his friend's mind.

'Gently,' he said, remonstrating; 'you must keep cool, or you will spoil everything. Beware of old Buller. When he is giving you the most rope, he is getting ready to come down on you most heavily at the end.

I think you'll find it a weak jury. They will do pretty well as the judge tells them.'

'Don't you be afraid, Charlie,' retorted the other in the same unnaturally careless strain; 'it's my case, and I know how to manage it. I've sworn to save her, and, by G.o.d! I'll do it, if I have to declare I did the thing myself! By Jove, didn't I touch up that scoundrel in the witness-box, though! You saw me, Beltrope?'

He called to another barrister, who had been present in court the whole morning.

'Yes, I know,' answered Beltrope; 'but you'd better be awfully careful, Tressamer. So far as I could see, your line of defence is that Lewis must have done it. Now, unless you're prepared with some very strong evidence against him, you'd far better change that tack before it's too late. You'll have old Buller dead against you, as Prescott says, and, I dare say, the jury too. Whatever you do, don't leave it in such a way that they must convict one or the other.'

'Rubbis.h.!.+ You don't understand,' replied Tressamer. 'Wait till you've heard my speech, that's all. Well, I must be off.' He drank some more champagne. 'I want to have a wash just to cool my head.'

And he darted out of the room to go upstairs. The other barristers looked at each other and exchanged meaning glances. They did not like to say much out loud before Prescott, who was known to be Tressamer's friend; but they whispered together, and the tenor of their whispers was precisely that of Prescott's own reflections. Tressamer, they agreed, had lost his head through over-excitement, and would probably create a scene in court that afternoon.

So anxious did Prescott feel, that he at last resolved to bare his own feelings to his friend in the hope of thereby sobering him. He accordingly went up to his bedroom, where he found him with his head in a basin of water, and addressed him in very grave accents:

'George, you must listen to me. You have told me that you love Eleanor Owen, and I suppose, as she has you to defend her, that she returns your love. Now, I have a confession to make to you. I love her, too.'

'What! You, Charles!' He was certainly sobered for the moment.

'Yes. You know I saw something of her as a child. I was fond of her then, I recollect. But to-day, when I saw her, so beautiful, so innocent, in that dreadful place, I found another feeling overmastering me. Oh, do not be afraid! She shall never know it. I shall not try to take her from you. I am not the sort of man to rob his friend. But, George, let me say this to you: that if anything--oh, the thought is horrible!--if any miscarriage of justice should occur, I shall blame you. I shall never forgive you if she comes to harm through your means. Be careful. Oh, great Heaven, man, do your best, your very best! It is the crisis of our lives--of all our lives.

Beware how you fail to prove yourself worthy of your trust.' And without waiting for an answer he turned away, and hastened back to his own work in the Nisi Prius Court.

In spite of the confident opinions expressed by the barristers, the judge's mind was less firmly settled than they supposed. Sir Daniel Buller was in the judges' private room at the court-house, sharing a dish of cutlets with Sir John Wiseman. And, of course, they were discussing the case.

'I tell you what it is, Wiseman,' the first judge was saying, 'there is something in this case that hasn't come out yet. So far, there has been absolutely no real defence. Waiter!'

The waiter darted into the room.

'Look at this cutlet! It's burnt to a cinder. Take it away. And tell your cook, with my compliments, that it's always better to have a thing underdone than overdone, because if it's not cooked enough you can always do it more, but if it's cooked too much you can't do it less. D'you hear?'

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