decorum, and stood the picture of misery, rage, and
scorn.

Just then the court arose for a brief recess. Glad
to breathe for a moment the fresher air, the specta-
tors retired, the jury returned into their room, the
sheriff and the crown prosecutor sauntered to their
respective offices, the panel of petit jurors escaped in
a body, the prisoner withdrew from the front of the
dock, and sat unseen, pondering his chances between
the gallows and an acquittal; -- even the criers of the
court abandoned their posts, and the younger mem-
bers of the bar, who usually gathered round the
advocate on these occasions, greeting him with
pleasant compliments, and polite and reverent atten-
tions, seeing him thus moody, drifted to the lobby,
and in it paid court to some other, and secondary
legal luminary who was there holding his levee.
For awhile the advocate was left alone; then, emerg-
ing through the large folding doors into the corridor
or lobby, now cumbered with the gossipping groups,
through which he passed, solitary and in his gown,
like Caesar in his robe passing through the midst of
the conspirators, he proceeded past the doors of the
offices occupied by the various crown officials. None
spoke to the old man, he spoke to none, but his breast
burned in agony, and a cloud was on his brow, like
the smoke that wreathes around the crater of a vol-
cano. His eyes seemed to shoot forth sparks, and his
lips were muttering. Anger and sorrow were upon
his face, but, turning a corner in the building, he
was now hidden from the view of the multitude, and
strode along the main corridor towards the huge
double staircase that, midway therein, wound down

[[116]]

p115 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p116w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p116a

v?