pectator, absorb the
dust, and tell no tales.

And now the judge having taken his place, the lesser men in office
being duly seated beneath him, and the contending barristers having
sufficiently dived into their blue bags, the prisoner is summoned,
under various indictments, to take his trial for the murder of Myles
Ussher; whereupon Thady is called upon by the gaoler, and, rising
from his seat, takes his stand at the bar. In his position there,
he is just enabled to raise his arm to the railing of the dock, and
to rest his hand upon it during the ten long, horrid, wasting hours
which he is destined to pass in his present painful position. His
face is pale, and--always thin and sad--now thinner and sadder than
ever; his eyes wander round the court, and as they at length alight
on Father John, who is seated next to Mr. McKeon on the attorneys'
benches, a kind of gentle smile softens his features, and shows how
great a relief he feels the presence of a friend to be. In answer to
the clerk of the crown, he declares himself not guilty, professes
himself ready for his trial, and the business of the day commences.

The first thing that has to be done is to call over the long panel,
and the names of all competent persons in the county, from whom the
jury is to be selected. But even preparatory to this, the counsel for
the defence commence their fight. Mr. O'Laugher, who, as the phrase
goes, is with Mr. O'Malley, begins by declaring that the list from
which the names are read is an illegal list--a foolish, useless,
unauthoritative list--nothing but balderdash, moonshine, and waste
paper--all empty sounds, and consisting of a string of names
as little to the purpose in the present case as a regimental
roll-call. The sub-sheriff, who with infinite clerkly care, and
much sub-shrieval experience, has made out the list, opens wide
his disturbed ears, and begins to feel somewhat uncomfortable. Mr.
O'Laugher goes on to declare that the present list, instead of being
one properly, legally, and expressly drawn out for March 183--, is
only a copy of the one in use during the summer assizes in the last
year, and assures the judge with much indignant emphasis, that he
cannot allow his client to submit to the injustice of receiving a
verdict from a jury composed under such atrocious circumstances.

The objection is listened to with as much gravity as though a
statement had been made that the prisoner had been in Newfoundland at
the time