plot of which some one
should make a clean breast. On the other hand, the prisoner was a
fine young gentleman, an only son, and had been fighting the Turks,
though it would have been better to have fought the French among his
own countrymen. He had come ingenuously forward to deliver his
cousin, and a deliberate murderer was not wont to be so generous,
though may be he expected to get off easily on this same plea of
misadventure. If it was misadventure, why did he not try to do
something for the deceased, or wait to see whether he breathed
before throwing him into this same pit? though, to be sure, a lad
might be inexperienced. For the rest, as to these same sights of
the deceased or his likeness, he (the judge) was no believer in
ghosts, though he would not say there were no such things, and the
gentlemen of the jury must decide whether it was more likely the
poor youth was playing pranks in the body, or whether he were
haunting in the spirit those who had most to do with his untimely
end. This was the purport, or rather the no-purport, of the charge.

The jury were absent for a very short time, and as it leaked out
afterwards, their intelligence did not rise above the idea that the
young gentleman was thick with they Frenchies who wanted to bring in
murder and popery, warming-pans and wooden shoes. He called stoning
poultry a trifle, so of what was he not capable? Of course he
spited the poor young chap, and how could the fact be denied when
the poor ghost had come back to ask for his blood?

So the awful suspense ended with 'Guilty, my Lord.'

"Of murder or manslaughter?"

"Of murder."

The prisoner stood as no doubt he had faced Turkish batteries.

The judge asked the customary question whether he had any reason to
plead why he should not be condemned to death.

"No, my lord. I am guilty of shedding Peregrine Oakshott's blood,
and though I declare before God and man that I had no such purpose,
and it was done in the heat of an undesigned struggle, I hated him
enough to render the sentence no unjust one. I trust that God will
pardon me, if man does not."

The gentlemen around drew the poor old father out of the court so as
not to hear the final sentence, and Anne, half stunned, was taken
away by her uncle, and put into the same carriage with him. The old
man held her hands closely and could not speak, but she found voice,
"Sir, sir, do not give up hope. God will save him. I know what I
can do.