I have seen a good number of murderers in my day, but I have seldom seen one with such marks of Cain on his countenance as the man at the bar." "Well, I am no physiognomist, but I don't think his face strikes me as bad. It certainly is gloomy and depressed, and not unnaturally so, considering his situation." "Only look at his low, resolute brow, his downcast eye, his white compressed lips. He never looks up,--just watch him." "His forehead is not so low if he had that mass of black hair removed, and is very square, which some people say is a good sign. If others are to be influenced by such trifles as you are, it would have been much better if the prison barber had cut his hair a little previous to the trial; and as for downcast eye, and compressed lip, it is all part and parcel of his inward agitation just now; nothing to do with character, my good fellow." Poor Jem! His raven hair (his mother's pride, and so often fondly caressed by her fingers), was that, too, to have its influence against him? The witnesses were called. At first they consisted principally of policemen; who, being much accustomed to giving evidence, knew what were the material points they were called on to prove, and did not lose the time of the court in listening to anything unnecessary. "Clear as day against the prisoner," whispered one attorney's clerk to another. "Black as night, you mean," replied his friend; and they both smiled. "Jane Wilson! who's she? some relation, I suppose, from the name." "The mother,--she that is to prove the gun part of the case." "Oh, aye--I remember! Rather hard on her, too, I think." Then both were silent, as one of the officers of the court ushered Mrs Wilson into the witness-box. I have often called her "the old woman," and "an old woman," because, in truth, her appearance was so much beyond her years, which could not he many above fifty. But partly owing to her accident in early life, which left a stamp of pain upon her face, partly owing to her anxious temper, partly to her sorrows, and partly to her limping gait, she always gave me the idea of age. But now she might have seemed more than seventy; her lines were so set and deep, her features so sharpened, and her walk so feeble. She was trying to check her sobs into composure, and (unconsciously) was striving to behave as she thought would best please her poor boy, whom she knew she had often grieved by her uncontrolled impatience.
He had buried his face in his arms, which rested on the front of the dock (an attitude he retained during the greater part of his trial, and which prejudiced many against him). The counsel began the examination. "Your name is Jane Wilson, I believe?" "Yes, sir." "The mother of the prisoner at the bar?" "Yes, sir," with quivering voice, ready to break out into weeping, but earning respect by the strong effort at self-control, prompted, as I have said before, by her earnest wish to please her son by her behaviour. The barrister now proceeded to the important part of the examination, tending to prove that the gun found on the scene of the murder was the prisoner's.
