case unseen by some of
them, a new discovery appears to explain the fact. It is this. The ivy
which grew on the wall of the house, and which reached to the window
of Mr. Cashel's dressing-room, is found torn down, and indicating the
passage of some one by its branches. On the discovery of this most
important circumstance, the Chief Justice, accompanied by several other
gentlemen, proceeded in a body to the chamber, and demanded admittance.
From them you will hear in detail what took place,--the disorder in
which they found the apartment; heaps of papers littered the floor;
letters lay in charred masses upon the hearth; the glass of the window
was broken, and the marks of feet upon the window-sill and the floor
showed that some one had entered by that means. Lastly--and to this fact
you will give your utmost attention--the prisoner himself is found with
his clothes torn in several places; marks of blood are seen upon
them, and his wrist shows a recent wound, from which the blood flows
profusely. Although cautioned by the wise foresight of the learned judge
against any rash attempt at explanation, or any inadvertent admission
which might act to his prejudice hire-after, he bursts forth into a
violent invective upon the murderer, and suggests that they should
mount their horses at once, and scour the country in search of him. This
counsel being, for obvious reasons, rejected, and his plan of escape
frustrated, he falls into a moody despondency and will not speak.
Shrouding himself in an affected misanthropy, he pretends to believe
that he is the victim of some deep-planned treachery,--that all these
circumstances, whose detail I have given you, have been the deliberate
schemes of his enemies. It is difficult to accept of this explanation,
gentlemen of the jury; and, although I would be far from diminishing
in the slightest the grounds of any valid defence a man so situated may
take up, I would caution you against any rash credulity of vague and
unsupported assertions; or, at least, to weigh them well against the
statements of truth-telling witnesses. The prisoner is bound to lay
before you a narrative of that day, from the hour of his leaving home to
that of his return, to explain why he separated from his companion, and
came back alone by a path he had never travelled before, and at night;
with what object he entered his own house by the window,--a feat
of considerable difficulty and of some danger. His disordered and
bloo