“There’s old Kemmis,” as they caught a glimpse of the Crown agent; “he’s the boy that doctored the jury list.  Fancy, a jury chosen out of all Dublin, and not one Catholic!  As if that could be fair!” And then he named the different judges.  “Look at that big-headed, pig-faced fellow on the right—­that’s Pennefather!  He’s the blackest sheep of the lot—­and the head of them!  He’s a thoroughbred Tory, and as fit to be a judge as I am to be a general.  That queer little fellow, with the long chin, he’s Burton—­he’s a hundred if he’s a day—­he was fifty when he was called, seventy when they benched him, and I’m sure he’s a judge thirty years!  But he’s the sharpest chap of the whole twelve, and no end of a boy afther the girls.  If you only saw him walking in his robes—­I’m sure he’s not three feet high!  That next, with the skinny neck, he’s Crampton—­he’s one of Father Mathews lads, an out and out teetotaller, and he looks it; he’s a desperate cross fellow, sometimes!  The other one, you can’t see, he’s Perrin.  There, he’s leaning over—­you can just catch the side of his face—­he’s Perrin.  It’s he’ll acquit the traversers av’ anything does—­he’s a fair fellow, is Perrin, and not a red-hot thorough-going Tory like the rest of ’em.”

Here John was obliged to give over the instruction of his brother, being enjoined so to do by one of the heavy-hatted policemen in his front, who enforced his commands for silence, with a backward shove of his wooden truncheon, which came with rather unnecessary violence against the pit of John’s stomach.

The fear of being turned out made him for the nonce refrain from that vengeance of abuse which his education as a Dublin Jackeen well qualified him to inflict.  But he put down the man’s face in his retentive memory, and made up his mind to pay him off.

And now the business of the day commenced.  After some official delays and arrangements Sheil arose, and began his speech in defence of John O’Connell.  It would be out of place here to give either his words or his arguments; besides, they have probably before this been read by all who would care to read them.  When he commenced, his voice appeared, to those who were not accustomed to hear him, weak, piping, and most unfit for a popular orator; but this effect was soon lost in the elegance of his language and the energy of his manner; and, before he had been ten minutes on his legs, the disagreeable tone was forgotten, though it was sounding in the eager ears of every one in the Court.

His speech was certainly brilliant, effective, and eloquent; but it satisfied none that heard him, though it pleased all.  It was neither a defence of the general conduct and politics of the party, such as O’Connell himself attempted in his own case, nor did it contain a chain of legal arguments to prove that John O’Connell, individually, had not been guilty of conspiracy, such as others of the counsel employed subsequently in favour of their own clients.