as comparatively trivial, to the issue of the trial itself.  Indeed, that thought might be said to be constant, though others intruded on it occasionally without obscuring it, like light clouds that cross the moon.  As to the details of the scene of which he was about to be so prominent an actor, he knew nothing; for the warders never opened their lips to him, except officially, and Mr. Balfour had never happened to come to grief in the course of his professional practice in that particular locality before.

But the fact was that the jail of Cross Key, though situated in so out-of-the-way a spot, was a model establishment in its way, and built upon the very highest principles of architecture, as connected with the administration of the criminal law.  No prisoner was ever taken out of it for trial at all, but was conducted by an underground passage into the court-house itself—­indeed, into the very heart of it, for a flight of steps, with a trap-door at the top, led straight into the dock, in which he made his appearance like a Jack-in-the-box, but much more to his own astonishment than to that of the spectators.

Imagine the unhappy Richard thus confronted, wholly unexpectedly, with a thousand eager eyes!  They devoured him on the right hand and on the left, before him and behind him; they looked down upon him from the galleries above with a hunger that was increased by distance.  Even the barristers in the space between him and the judge turned round to gaze at him, and the judge himself adjusted his spectacles upon his nose to regard him with a searching look.  Not a sound was to be heard except the monotonous voice of the clerk reading the indictment; it was plain that every one of that vast concourse knew him, and needed not that his neighbor should whisper, “That is he.”  Was his mother there? thought Richard, and above all, Was Harry there?  He looked round once upon that peering throng; but he could catch sight of neither.  The former, with a thick veil over her features, was, indeed, watching him from a corner of the court; but the only face he recognized was that of his attorney, seated immediately behind a man with a wig, whom he rightly concluded to be Mr. Sergeant Balais.

There was a sudden silence, following upon the question, “How say you, Richard Yorke, are you guilty of this felony, or not guilty?” The turnkey by the prisoner’s side muttered harshly behind his hand, “They have called on you to plead.”

“Not guilty,” answered Richard, in a loud, firm voice, and fixing his eyes upon the judge.

A murmur of satisfaction ran softly through the court-house.  His hesitation had alarmed the curious folks; they were afraid that he might have pleaded “Guilty,” and robbed them of their treat.  Not a few of them, and perhaps all the women, were also pleased upon his own account.  He was so young and handsome that they could not choose but wish him well, and out of his peril.