ame the manners on the hostile side--the haggard
consciousness of guilt, the drooping tone, the bravado and fierce strut
which sought to dissemble all this. Not one amongst all the witnesses,
assembled on that side, had (by all agreement) the bold natural tone of
conscious uprightness. Hence it could not be surprising that the storm
of popular opinion made itself heard with a louder and a louder sound.
The government itself began to be disturbed; the ministers of the
sovereign were agitated; and, had no menaces been thrown out, it was
generally understood that they would have given way to the popular
voice, now continually more distinct and clamorous. In the midst of all
this tumult obscure murmurs began to arise that Barratt had practised
the same or similar villainies in former instances. One case in
particular was beginning to be whispered about, which at once threw a
light upon the whole affair: it was the case of a young and very
beautiful married woman, who had been on the very brink of a catastrophe
such as had befallen my own wife, when some seasonable interference, of
what nature was not known, had critically delivered her. This case arose
'like a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand,' then spread and
threatened to burst in tempest upon the public mind, when all at once,
more suddenly even than it had arisen, it was hushed up, or in some way
disappeared. But a trifling circumstance made it possible to trace this
case:--in after times, when means offered, but unfortunately no
particular purpose of good, nor any purpose, in fact, beyond that of
curiosity, it _was_ traced: and enough was soon ascertained to have
blown to fragments any possible conspiracy emanating from this Barratt,
had that been of any further importance. However, in spite of all that
money or art could effect, a sullen growl continued to be heard amongst
the populace of villainies many and profound that had been effected or
attempted by this Barratt; and accordingly, much in the same way as was
many years afterwards practised in London, when a hosier had caused
several young people to be prosecuted to death for passing forged
bank-notes, the wrath of the people showed itself in marking the shop
for vengeance upon any favourable occasion offering through fire or
riots, and in the meantime in deserting it. These things had been going
on for some time when I awoke from my long delirium; but the effect they
had produced upon a weak and obstinate a