Mr. Grant's experience of juries turned out to be well founded. Ned, as he stood pale but firm and composed in the dock, felt that his case was well-nigh desperate when he heard the speech for the prosecution. His long and notorious ill-will against the deceased, "one of the most genial and popular gentlemen in that part of the great county of Yorkshire," was dwelt upon. Evidence would be brought to show that even on the occasion of his mother's marriage the happiness of the ceremonial was marred by the scowls and menacing appearance of this most unfortunate and ill-conditioned lad; how some time after the marriage this young fellow had violently assaulted his stepfather, and had used words in the hearing of the servants which could only be interpreted as a threat upon his life. This, indeed, was not the first time that this boy had been placed in the dock as a prisoner. Upon a former occasion he had been charged with assaulting and threatening the life of his schoolmaster, and although upon that occasion he had escaped the consequences of his conduct by what must now be considered as the ill-timed leniency of the magistrates, yet the facts were undoubted and undenied.
Then the counsel proceeded to narrate the circumstances of the evening up to the point when Mr. Mulready left the house.
" Beyond that point, gentlemen of the jury," the counsel
said, " nothing certain is known. The rest must be mere conjecture; and yet it is not hard to imagine the facts. The prisoner was aware that the deceased had gone to the mill, which is situated a mile and a half from the town. You will be told the words which the prisoner used: 'It will be my turn next time, and when it comes I will kill you, you brute.'
" With these words on his lips, with this thought in his heart, he started for the mill. What plan he intended to adopt, what form of vengeance he intended to take, it matters not, but assuredly it was with thoughts of vengeance in his heart that he followed that dark and lonely road to the mill. Once there he would have hung about waiting for his victim to issue forth. It may be that he had picked up a heavy stone, maybe that he had an open knife in his hand; but while he was waiting, probably his foot struck against a coil of rope, which, as you will hear, had been carelessly thrown out a few minutes before.
"Then doubtless the idea of a surer method of vengeance than that of which he had before thought came into his mind. A piece of the rope was hastily cut off, and with this the prisoner stole quietly off until he reached the spot where two gates facing each other on opposite sides of the lane afforded a suitable hold for the rope. Whether after fastening it across the road he remained at the spot to watch the catastrophe which he had brought about, or whether he hurried away into the darkness secure of his vengeance we cannot tell, nor does it matter. You will understand, gentlemen, that we are not in a position to prove these details of the tragedy. I am telling you the theory of the prosecution as to how it happened. Murders are not generally done in open day with plenty of trustworthy witnesses looking on. It is seldom that the act of slaying is witnessed by human eye. The evidence must therefore to some extent be circumstantial. The prosecution can only lay before juries the antecedent circumstances, show ill-will and animus, and lead the jury step by step up to the point when the murderer and the victim meet in some spot at some time when none but the all-seeing eye of God is upon them. This case is, as you see, no exception to the general rule.
" I have shown you that between the prisoner and the deceased there was what may be termed a long-standing-feud, which came to a climax two or three hours before this murder. Up to that fatal evening I think I shall show you that the prisoner was wholly in fault, and that the deceased acted with great good temper and self-command under a long series of provocations; but upon this evening his temper appears to have failed, and I will admit frankly that he seems to have committed a very outrageous and brutal assault upon the prisoner. Still, gentlemen, such an assault is no justification of the crime which took place. Unhappily it supplies the cause, but it does not supply an excuse for the crime.
" Your duty in the case will be simple. You will have to say whether or not the murder of William Mulready is accounted for upon the theory which I have laid down to you and on no other. Should you entertain no doubt
upon the subject it will be your duty to bring in a verdict of guilty; if you do not feel absolutely certain you will of course give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt."
The evidence called added nothing to what was known at the first examination, The two servants testified to the fact of the unpleasant relations which had from the first existed between the deceased and the prisoner, and detailed what they knew of the quarrel. Charlie's evidence was the most damaging, as he had to state the threat which Ned had uttered before he went out.
The counsel for the defence asked but few questions in cross-examination. He elicited from the servants, however, the fact that Mr. Mulready at home was a very different person from Mr. Mulready as known by people in general. They acknowledged that he was by no means a pleasant master, that he was irritable and fault-finding, and that his temper was trying in the extreme. He only asked one or two questions of Charlie.
" You did not find your stepfather a very pleasant man to deal with, did you?"
" Not at all pleasant," Charlie replied heartily.
" Always snapping and snarling and finding fault, wasn't he?"
" Yes, sir, always."
" Now about this threat of which we have heard so much on the part of your brother, did it impress you much? Were you frightened at it? Did you think that your brother intended to kill your stepfather?"
" No, sir, I am sure he didn't; he just said it in a passion.
He had been knocked about until he could hardly stand, and he just said the first thing that came into his head, like fellows do."
" You don't think that he went out with any deliberate idea of killing your stepfather?"
"No, sir; I am sure he only went out to walk about till he got over his passion, just as he had done before."
" It was his way, was it, when anything put him out very much, to go and walk about till he got cool again ?"
" Yes, sir."
For the defence Mr. Simmonds was called, and produced the threatening letters which Mr. Mulready had laid before him. He stated that that gentleman was much alarmed, and had asked that a military force should be called into the town, and that he himself and his colleague had considered the danger so serious that they had applied for and obtained military protection.
Luke Marner and several of the hands at the mill testified to the extreme unpopularity of their employer among his men, and said that they should never have been surprised any morning at hearing that he had been killed.
Dr. Green and Mr. Porson testified very strongly in favour of Ned's character. This was all the evidence produced. Mr. Grant then addressed the jury, urging that beyond the fact of this unfortunate quarrel, in which the deceased appeared to have been entirely to blame and to have behaved with extreme brutality, there was nothing whatever to associate the prisoner with the crime. The young gentleman before them, as they had heard from the testimony of gentlemen of the highest respectability, bore an excellent character. That he had faults in temper he admitted, such faults bein» the result of the lad havino-been brought up among Indian servants; but Dr. Green and Mr. Porson had both told them that he had made the greatest efforts to master his temper, and that they believed that no ordinary provocation could arouse him. But after all what did what they had heard amount to? simply this, the lad's mother had been married a second time to a man who bore the outward reputation of being a pleasant, jovial man, a leading character among his townsmen, a popular fellow in the circle in which he moved.