edge. Mr. Browborough had stolen his horse, and
had repeated the theft over and over again. The evidence of it all
was forthcoming,--had, indeed, been already sifted. But Sir Gregory
Grogram, who was prominent in affairs, knew that the theft might be
condoned.

Nevertheless, the case came on at the Durham Assizes. Within the last
two months Browborough had become quite a hero at Tankerville. The
Church party had forgotten his broken pledges, and the Radicals
remembered only his generosity. Could he have stood for the seat
again on the day on which the judges entered Durham, he might have
been returned without bribery. Throughout the whole county the
prosecution was unpopular. During no portion of his Parliamentary
career had Mr. Browborough's name been treated with so much respect
in the grandly ecclesiastical city as now. He dined with the Dean on
the day before the trial, and on the Sunday was shown by the head
verger into the stall next to the Chancellor of the Diocese, with a
reverence which seemed to imply that he was almost as graceful as
a martyr. When he took his seat in the Court next to his attorney,
everybody shook hands with him. When Sir Gregory got up to open his
case, not one of the listeners then supposed that Mr. Browborough
was about to suffer any punishment. He was arraigned before Mr.
Baron Boultby, who had himself sat for a borough in his younger
days, and who knew well how things were done. We are all aware how
impassionately grand are the minds of judges, when men accused of
crimes are brought before them for trial; but judges after all are
men, and Mr. Baron Boultby, as he looked at Mr. Browborough, could
not but have thought of the old days.

It was nevertheless necessary that the prosecution should be
conducted in a properly formal manner, and that all the evidence
should be given. There was a cloud of witnesses over from
Tankerville,--miners, colliers, and the like,--having a very good
turn of it at the expense of the poor borough. All these men must be
examined, and their evidence would no doubt be the same now as when
it was given with so damnable an effect before those clean-sweeping
Commissioners. Sir Gregory's opening speech was quite worthy of Sir
Gregory. It was essentially necessary, he said, that the atmosphere
of our boroughs should be cleansed and purified from the taint of
corruption. The voice of the country had spoken very plainly on the
subject, and a verdict had gone forth t