l the verdant charities of life. The law which in other lands
is looked to for protection and security, was regarded by them as an
instrument of tyranny; they neither understood its spirit nor trusted
its decisions; and when its blow fell upon them, they bent their heads
in mournful submission, to raise them when opportunity offered in wild
and stern defiance. Its denunciations came to them sudden and severe;
they deemed the course of justice wayward and capricious, the only
feature of certainty in its operation being that its victim was ever
the poor man. The passionate elements of their wild natures seemed but
ill-adapted to the slow-sustained current of legal investigation; they
looked upon all the details of evidence as the signs of vindictive
malice, and thought that trickery and deceit were brought in arms
against them. Hence each face among the thousands there bore the traces
of that hardened, dogged suffering that tells us that the heart is
rather steeled with the desire to avenge than bowed to weep over the
doomed.

Before the court-house a detachment of soldiers was drawn up under arms,
their unmoved features and fixed attitudes presenting a strange contrast
to the excited expressions and changeful gestures of those about them.
The crowd at this part was thickest, and I could perceive in their eager
looks and mute expressions that something more than common had attracted
their attention. My own interest was, however, directed in another
quarter; for through the open window of the court-house I could hear
the words of a speaker, whom I soon recognised as the counsel for the
prisoners addressing the jury. My foraging-cap passed me at once
through the ranks, and after some little crushing I succeeded in gaining
admission to the body of the court.

Such was the crowd within, I could see nothing but the heads of a
closely-wedged mass of people, save at the distant part of the court
the judges, and to their right the figure of the pleader, whose back was
turned towards me.

Little as I heard of the speech, I was overwhelmed with surprise at what
I did hear. Touching on the evidence of the 'approver' but slightly, the
advocate dwelt with a terrific force upon the degraded character of a
man who could trade upon the blood of his former friends and associates.
Scarce stopping to canvass how the testimony bore home upon the
prisoners, he burst forth into an impassioned appeal to the hearts of
the jury on faith betray