length and
breadth of indictments, speeches, examinations, and all the other
learned clatter of six hours in the judgment-halls of law. If the reader
wishes for all this, let him pore over those unhealthy-looking books,
whose exterior is dove-coloured as the kirtle of innocence, but their
inwards black as the conscience of guilt; whitened sepulchres, all
spotless without; but within them are enshrined the quibbling knavery,
the distorted ingenuity, the mystifying learnedness, the warped and
warping views of truth, the lying, slandering, bad-excusing,
good-condemning principles and practices of those who cater for their
custom at the guiltiest felon's cell, and would glory in defending
Lucifer himself.

In the case of sheer innocence, indeed, as Roger's was--or in one of
much doubt and secresy, where the client denies all guilt, and the
counsel sees reason to believe him--let the advocate manfully battle out
his cause: but where crime has poured out his confessions in a
counsellor's ear--is not this man bought by gold to be a partaker and
abettor in his sins, when he strives with all his might to clear the
guilty, and not seldom throws the hideous charge on innocence? If the
advocate has no wish to entrap his own conscience, nor to damage the
tissue of his honour, let him reject the client criminal who confesses,
and only plead for those from whom he has had no assurance of their
guilt; or, better far, whose innocence he heartily believes in.

Such an advocate was Mr. Grantly, a barrister of talents and experience,
who, from motives of the purest benevolence, did all that in him lay for
Roger Acton. In one thing, however, and that of no small import, the
kindly cautious man of law had contrived to do more harm than good: for,
after having secretly made every effort, but in vain, to find Ben Burke
as a witness--and after having heard that the aforesaid Ben was a
notorious poacher, and only intimate at Hurstley with Acton and his
family--he strongly recommended Roger to say nothing about the man or
his adventure, as the acknowledgment of such an intimacy would only
damage his cause: all that need appear was, that he found the crock in
his garden, never mind how he "thought" it got there: poachers are not
much in the habit of flinging away pots of gold, and no jury would
believe but that the ill-reputed personage in question was an accomplice
in the murder, and had shared the spoil with his friend Roger Acton. All
this w