In a moment he was down on his knees by the boy’s side, chafing the small cold hands and wrists, while Mrs. Burnham, kneeling on the other side, was dipping her handkerchief into a glass of water, and bathing the lad’s face.

Bachelor Billy turned on his knees and looked up angrily at Sharpman.  “Mayhap an’ ye’ve killet ‘im,” he said, “wi’ your traish an’ your lees!” Then he rose to his feet and continued:  “Can ye no’ tell when a lad speaks the truth?  Mon! he’s as honest as the day is lang!  But what’s the use o’ tellin’ ye? ye ken it yoursel’.  Ye wull be fause to ’im!”

His lips were white with passion as he knelt again by the side of the unconscious boy.

“Ye’re verra gude to the lad, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Burnham, who had raised Ralph’s head in her arms and was pressing her wet handkerchief against it; “ye’re verra gude, but ma mind is to tak’ ‘im hame an’ ten’ till ‘im mysel’.  He was ower-tired, d’ye see, wi’ the trooble an’ the toil, an’ noo I fear me an they’ve broke the hert o’ ’im.”

Then Bachelor Billy, lifting the boy up in his arms, set his face toward the door.  The people pressed back and made way for him as he passed up the aisle holding the drooping body very tenderly, looking down at times with great compassion into the white face that lay against his breast; and the eyes that watched his sturdy back until it disappeared from view were wet with sympathetic tears.

When the doors had closed behind him, Sharpman turned again to the jury, with a bitterly sarcastic smile upon his face.

“Another chapter in the made-up tragedy,” he said, “performed with marvellous skill as you can see.  My learned friend has drilled his people well.  He has made consummate actors of them all.  And yet he would have you think that one is but an honest fool, and that the other is as innocent as a babe in arms.”

Up among the people some one hissed, then some one else joined in, and, before the judge and officers could restore order in the room, the indignant crowd had greeted Sharpman’s words with a perfect torrent of groans and hisses.  Then the wily lawyer realized that he was making a mistake.  He knew that he could not afford to gain the ill-will of the populace, and accordingly he changed the tenor of his speech.  He spoke generally of law and justice, and particularly of the weight of evidence in the case at bar.  He dwelt with much emphasis on Simon Craft’s bravery, self-sacrifice, poverty, toil, and suffering; and, with a burst of oratory that made the walls re-echo with the sound of his resonant voice, he closed his address and resumed his seat.