e a hardship to deny
full counsel to prisoners in criminal cases, I shall not pretend to say;
but if it be, 'tis a hardship of the law's making, and not of mine nor
of my lord's; and none have suffered by it (at least in our day) but
those who had broken the law.

The Serjeant then stopped a minute, and whispered with his junior. After
which he turned to the Judge. "My Lord, we that are of counsel for the
crown desire to do nothing that is hard where a person's life is at
stake. We yield to the prisoner any indulgence for which your Lordship
can find a precedent in your reading; but no more: and so we leave the
matter to you."

_The Clerk of Arraigns._ Crier, proclaim silence.

_The Crier._ Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! His Majesty's Justices do strictly charge
all manner of persons to keep silence, on pain of imprisonment.

_The Judge._ Prisoner, what my Brother Wiltshire says, the law is clear
in. There is no precedent for what you ask, and the contrary practice
stares us in the face for centuries. What seems to you a partial
practice, and, to be frank, some learned persons are of your mind, must
be set against this,--that in capital cases the burden of proof lies on
the crown, and not on the accused. Also it is my duty to give you all
the assistance I can, and that I shall do. Thus then it is: you can be
allowed counsel to examine your own witnesses, and cross-examine the
witnesses for the crown, and speak to points of law, to be started by
yourself,--but no further.

He then asked her what gentleman there present he should assign to her
for counsel.

Her reply to this inquiry took the whole court by surprise, and made her
solicitor, Houseman, very miserable. "None, my Lord," said she.
"Half-justice is injustice; and I will lend it no color. I will not set
able men to fight for me with their hands tied, against men as able
whose hands be free. Counsel, on terms so partial, I will have none. My
counsel shall be three, and no more,--Yourself, my Lord, my Innocence,
and the Lord God Omniscient."

These words, grandly uttered, caused a dead silence in the court, but
only for a few moments. It was broken by the loud mechanical voice of
the crier, who proclaimed silence, and then called the names of the jury
that were to try this cause.

Mrs. Gaunt listened keenly to the names,--familiar and bourgeois names,
that now seemed regal; for they who owned them held her life in their
hands.

Each juryman was sworn in the grand ol