A grating of bolts—­a rustling of chains, were heard behind.  The low door-way at the back of the dock opened, and between turnkeys Mitchel entered.

Ascending the steps to the front of the dock, and lifting, as he advanced, the glazed dark cap he wore during his imprisonment, as gracefully as if he entered a drawing-room, he took his stand in a firm but easy attitude.  His appearance was equally removed from bravado and fear.  His features, usually placid and pale, had a rigid clearness about them that day we can never forget.  They seemed, from their transparency and firmness, like some wondrous imagination of the artist’s chisel, in which the marble, fancying itself human, had begun to breathe.  The eye was calm and bright—­the mouth, the feature round which danger loves to play, though easy, motionless, and with lips apart, had about it an air of immobility and quiet scorn, which was not the effect of muscular action, but of nature in repose.  And in his whole appearance, features, attitude and look, there was a conscious pride and superiority over his opponents, which, though unpresuming and urbane, seemed to speak louder than words—­“I am the victor here to-day.”

He saluted quietly those friends about the dock he had not that day seen, conversing with one or two, and bowing to those at a distance.  He then directed his eyes to the court.

After some preliminary forms, Baron Lefroy commenced operations, by stating that he had called the case the first that morning, in order to give time for any application to be made in court by, or on behalf of, the prisoner of the crown.

Again there was a silence of some minutes.  The judges looked at each other inquiringly.  The crown prosecutor watched the prisoner’s counsel.  Upon the prisoner himself all other eyes were fixed.

There was no reply.

“Business proceeded.”  The “Clerk of the Crown,” rising to ask the usual question—­“If Mr. Mitchel had anything to say why judgment should not be passed upon him?”

“I have,” he answered, and after a momentary look at judges, jury-box and sheriff, he slowly continued:  “I have to say that I have been tried by a packed jury—­by the jury of a partisan sheriff—­by a jury not empanelled, even according to the law of England, I have been found guilty by a packed jury obtained by a juggle—­a jury not empanelled by a sheriff, but by a juggler.”

Here he was interrupted by the sheriff rising, and, in high indignation, claiming the protection of the court.

“That is the reason,” continued Mitchel, “that is the reason why I object to the sentence being passed on me.”