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Updated: May 6, 2025
The silent audience was packed close up to the rail back of which was stationed the judge's stand and jury-box. Within the railing there was scanty room; every member of the local bar was there, and many lawyers from counties round about. Erect in the grave-faced assemblage, there stood one man, pale of face but with burning eyes.
His innumerable letters breathing all the tenderness of affectionate solicitude, intended but for the eyes of her he loves, are read in open court; attested copies are shown to the judge, or handed up to the jury-box. The course of his true love is traced from the bubbling fountain of first acquaintance to the broad river of his passionate devotion.
By a desperate effort he managed to rally his senses sufficiently to remember that he had been accused of being a seditious person, though whether the accusation had been made yesterday, or the day before, or half a century ago, he was wholly unaware. Turning towards the jury-box, he enquired of the nearest occupant whether he had been found guilty of sedition.
On the jury, it so happened, was an elderly Quaker, in his full array of drab coat, vest, and breeches, with the regulation blue stockings. He had long whitish hair, and a Quaker hat in front of him on the ledge of the jury-box. He was what might be called a "factor" in the situation, which it was no easy matter to know in a moment how to deal with.
A case had just closed, and the last juror's back was seen escaping through the door in the wall of the jury-box.
I congratulate you, gentlemen, that you had not rendered an adverse verdict." "Your Honor!" said Eli; and he cleared his throat; "I desire it to be known that, even as the case stood last night, this jury had not agreed to convict, and never would have!" There was a hush, while a loud scratching pen indorsed the record of acquittal. Then Wood walked down to the jury-box and took Eli's hand.
Though I had never heard him speak in a court I had read in the newspapers that he was "Our golden-tongued orator," and father had been used to say that, "Dingley was a whirlwind." But now, when he rose, and turned toward the jury-box and began, his voice sounded stiff and cold, as if he brought it out with a great effort. He didn't shake his finger at the jury, as Mr.
All he could remember of the speech was Erskine leaning over the jury-box and in low tones, full of meaning and tremulous with passion, uttering the commonplace words: "Gentlemen of the Jury, if you give a verdict against my client I shall leave this court a miserable man!"
This state of things, disagreeable in itself, proved most unfortunate in its influence on his subsequent fate; for, had he retained his previous popularity in the county, the last deplorable catastrophe would certainly never have happened: since every lawyer knows full well, that, in capital cases especially, juries are merely the exponents of public sentiment, and that the power of any judge to cause the excited sympathies of a whole community to sink into calm indifference at the railing of a jury-box is about as effective as was the command of the Dane in arresting the in-rolling waters of the ocean.
Never had he looked more so than he did to-day. He at once took in the nature of the scene, which had a peculiar interest for him. Before him was the as yet empty judge's rostrum, and at its right the empty jury-box, between which, and to the judge's left, as he sat facing the audience, stood the witness-chair where he must presently sit and testify.
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