tenderly as if he had been a sucking babe; fomentations, applications, hot potations: but he soon came to again, without any hope or wish to repeat the dread attempt: he was kept in bed, closely watched, and Stephen Cramp, together with his rival, Eager, remained continually in alternative attendance; until a day or two recovered him as strong as ever. "I told you, Simon Jennings, that your time was not yet come."

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE TRIAL.

THE trial now came on, and Roger Acton stood arraigned of robbery and murder. I must hasten over lengthy legal technicalities, which would only serve to swell this volume, without adding one iota to its interest or usefulness. Nothing could be easier, nothing more worth while, as a matter of mere book-making, than to tear a few pages out of some musty record of Criminal Court Practice or other Newgate Calendar-piece of authorship, and wade wearily through the length and breadth of indictments, speeches, examinations, and all the other learned clatter of six hours in the judgment-halls of law. If the reader wishes for all this, let him pore over those unhealthylooking books, whose exterior is dove-coloured as the kirtle of innocence, but their inwards black as the conscience of guilt; whitened

sepulchres, all spotless without; but within them are enshrined the quibbling knavery, the distorted ingenuity, the mystifying learnedness, the warped and warping views of truth, the lying, slandering, bad-excus ng, good-condemning principles and practices of those who cater for their custom at the guiltiest felon's cell, and would glory in defending Lucifer himself.

In the case of sheer innocence, indeed, as Roger's was, or in one of much doubt and secrecy, where the client denies all guilt, and the counsel sees reason to believe him,-let the advocate manfully battle out his cause: but where crime has poured out his confessions in a counsellor's ear, is not this man bought by gold to be partaker and abettor in his sins, when he strives with all his might to clear the guilty, and not seldom throws the hideous charge on innocence ? If the advocate has no wish to entrap his own conscience, nor to damage the tissue of his honour, let him reject the client criminal who confesses, and only plead for those from whom he has had no assurance of their guilt; or, better far, whose innocence he heartily believes in.

Such an advocate was Mr. Grantly, a barrister of talents and experience, who, from

motives of the purest benevolence, did all that in him lay for Roger Acton. In one thing, however, and that of no small import, the kindly cautious man of law had contrived to do more harm than good: for, after having secretly made every effort, but in vain, to find Ben Burke as a witness,—and after having heard that the aforesaid Ben was a notorious poacher, and only intimate at Hurstley with Acton and his family,-he strongly recommended Roger to say nothing about the man or his adventure, as the acknowledgment of such an intimacy would only damage his cause: all that need appear was, that he found the crock in his garden, never mind how he “thought” it got there: poachers are not much in the habit of flinging away pots of gold, and no jury would believe but that the illreputed personage in question was an accomplice in the murder, and had shared the spoil with his friend Roger Acton. All this was very shrewd, and well meant; but was not so wise, for all that, as simple truth would have been nevertheless, Roger acquiesced in it, for a better reason than Mr. Grantly's,— namely this; his feelings toward poor Ben had undergone an amiable revulsion, and, well

aware how the whole neighbourhood were prejudiced against him for his freebooting propensities, he feared to get his good rough friend into trouble if he mentioned his nocturnal fisheries at Pike island; especially when he considered that little red Savings' Bank, which, though innocent as to the getting, was questionable as to rights of spending, and that, really, if he involved the professed poacher in this mysterious affair, he might put his liberty or life into very serious jeopardy. On this account then, which Grace could not entirely find fault with, (though she liked nothing that savoured of concealment,) Roger Acton agreed to abide by Mr. Grantly's advice; and thus he never alluded to his connection with the poacher.

Enlightened as we are, and intimate with all the hidden secrets of the story, we may be astonished to hear that, notwithstanding all Mr. Grantly's ingenuity, and all the siftings of crossquestioners, the case was clear as light against poor Acton. No alibi,-he lived upon the spot. No witnesses to character; for Roger's late excesses had wiped away all former good report : kind Mr. Evans himself, with tears in his eyes, acknowledged sadly that Acton had once been a regular church-goer, a frequent communicant;