218 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



out from the evidence. His own lawyers were cowed, and 

 the pale and frightened wretch listened with ghastly face, 

 chattering teeth, and trembling hands to the Judge's charge 

 to the jury, which sounded in its solemn tones and terrible 

 denunciations much more like a sentence of death than a 

 charge — when, as he was apparently about winding up with 

 positive instructions to the jury to find the prisoner guilty — 

 there was the sound of carriage wheels outside, and then a 

 sudden commotion in the court. 



In a moment the Sheriff stepped forward and placed a slip 

 of paper in the hands of the Judge, who had paused at the 

 first sound, and now read the paper calmly over twice ; then 

 deliberately throwing back his spectacles, he nodded assent 

 to the Sheriff, who, with a sort of half smile upon his face, 

 made his way out of the court room, and in a moment re- 

 turned, pushing through the crowd, bearing in his arma the 

 attenuated form of the missing boy, William Smith ! 



Such a thrill and murmur as ran through that court room, 

 — the old miser, who had at first sprung to his feet, con- 

 vulsively dropped, swooning, into his seat, for the child had 

 been artfully draped in white, and looked as if it might have 

 just come from the grave, and the hoary-headed villain really 

 did not know whether it was dead or alive, — for Mattie ! ten- 

 der, timid, gentle Mattie ! — had kept her little companion's 

 counsel, as she had promised, in spite of all the threats of her 

 father, and all the terrors of a public trial. Indeed, poor 

 child, she did not know herself whether he was alive, and had 

 been almost crying her life away because, in her innocence, 

 she supposed the neighbors who had presented her father 

 must of course have known the fact of his murder before they 

 did it — he was in truth dead to her ! 



The scene that follows baffles description. Old Saunders 

 was borne from the court room in convulsions, and shriek was 

 heard following shriek from him until the doors of the jail 

 closed upon him. The Judge then ran rapidly over the facta 



