the strength, the mainstay of the country; it was the source whence the rising generation drew their earliest notions of piety and right conduct.  Nothing in the world could replace home influence, the parents’ teaching and example—­nothing!  And this poor boy, now threatened with imprisonment, had a mother.  He had a mother.  Did the Court appreciate the import of those words?  Did they realize what it meant to shatter that hallowed bond, to deprive the parent of her offspring’s help and consolation—­the child of its mother’s fostering care?  Let them consider the lives of all t hose great men of the past who were known to have had mothers—­Themistocles, Dante, Virgil, Peter the Hermit and Madame de Maintenon—­why had they achieved distinction in the world?  What was the secret of their greatness?  A mother’s affectionate guidance in youth.  They had not been torn, as children, from her loving arms.

A good many people were already sobbing.  But the orator had noticed that something was wrong.  He consulted a small scrap of paper and then continued in the same conversational tones as before.

He had no mother.  He was an orphan.  An orphan!  Did the Court realize what it meant?  No, he dared not ask them to picture to themselves all that was implied in that bitter word.  An orphan.  Nobody to instil those early lessons of piety . . . to grow up wild, neglected, despised. . . .  It was impossible for a man to avoid going astray in such terribly unnatural conditions.  Everybody else had parents to counsel and direct them; he alone was bereft of this blessing.  It was cruel, it was illogical, to apply the same standard to him as to those fortunate other ones.  Let the Court call to mind the names of those who had deviated from the narrow path of duty; did they not all belong to this unhappy class?  It might safely be inferred that they had no mothers!  Such person were to be pitied and helped, rather than condemned for what was the fault not of their natures but of their anomalous situation in life.  To rescue a motherless young soul from the brink of perdition was the noblest task of a Christian.  And this was still, thank Heaven, a Christian country, despite the ever-swelling invasion of that irreligious foreign element which threatened to break up the old faith in God.  The Madonna was still worshipped; together with the Saints.  Their precious relics and other holy amulets still proved their efficacy in the hour of danger.

Amulets—­ah, that reminded him.

To kill a man with a view to possessing yourself of his substance was an unpardonable crime.  Now what had this boy done?  Let them take the so-called robbery first.  Well, no robbery had been committed, in spite of the notorious fact that this Protestant, this foreigner was known to be loaded with money.  His client had fought down the temptation, the almost irresistible temptation, of appropriating the gold.  Let them remember that!  The minutest investigation failed to reveal anything save a single coin which he had attached to a string and hung about his neck.  Motives, not deeds!  What were his motives for this strange act?  An unconscious application of the homoeopathic principle.  He had taken it as a safeguard, an amulet, in the childish belief that it might protect him on future occasions against insults such as those he had undergone.