d, that when searched--in prison, and not before (for the
agitation that reigned over all assembled in the room at Moorside that
dreadful day, had confounded even those accustomed to deal with
suspected criminals)--there were found in his pocket a small French gold
watch, and also a gold brooch, which the Ladies of the Castle had given
to Margaret Burnside. On these being taken from him, he had said
nothing, but looked aghast. A piece of torn and bloody paper, which had
been picked up near the body, was sworn to be in his handwriting; and
though the meaning of the words--yet legible--was obscure, they seemed
to express a request that Margaret would meet him on the moor on that
Saturday afternoon she was murdered. The words "Saturday"--"meet
me"--"last time"--were not indistinct, and the paper was of the same
quality and colour with some found in a drawer in his bedroom at
Moorside. It was proved that he had been drinking with some dissolute
persons--poachers and the like--in a public-house in a neighbouring
parish all Saturday, till well on in the afternoon, when he left them in
a state of intoxication--and was then seen running along the hill-side
in the direction of the moor. Where he passed the night between the
Saturday and the Sabbath, he could give no account, except once when
unasked, and as if speaking to himself, he was overheard by the jailor
to mutter, "Oh! that fatal night--that fatal night!" And then, when
suddenly interrogated, "Where were you?" he answered, "Asleep on the
hill;" and immediately relapsed into a state of mental abstraction.
These were the chief circumstances against him, which his counsel had
striven to explain away. That most eloquent person dwelt with affecting
earnestness on the wickedness of putting any evil construction on the
distracted behaviour of the wretched man when brought without warning
upon the sudden sight of the mangled corpse of the beautiful girl, whom
all allowed he had most passionately and tenderly loved; and he strove
to prove--as he did prove to the conviction of many--that such behaviour
was incompatible with such guilt, and almost of itself established his
innocence. All that was sworn to _against_ him, as having passed in that
dreadful room, was in truth _for_ him--unless all our knowledge of the
best and of the worst of human nature were not, as folly, to be given to
the winds. He beseeched the jury, therefore, to look at all the other
circumstances that did indeed