“That is much like the special pleading of a criminal--is it not, colonel? If I had really murdered the poor man, would not this be my method of explaining every thing? You see, I do not deny what several witnesses could prove; the fact that I quarreled with Conway, came to high words, uttered insults, exhibited anger, followed him from the court-house at dusk--I acknowledge all that, but add, that I struck into a by-road and went home! That sounds suspicious, I assure you, even to myself, to-day. Imagine the effect it promised to have then, when I was a man charged with murder--who would naturally try to frame such a statement as would clear him--and when a large portion of the community were excited and indignant at the murder. “Such had been the truly unfortunate scene in the clerk’s office,--the fatality which made me follow the man going to his death, and my known enmity of long standing, supported the hypothesis of my guilt. There was another, and even more fatal circumstance still,--the discovery of the knife with which George Conway had been slain. That knife was my own; it was one of peculiar shape, with a handle of tortoise-shell, and I had often used it in presence of my friends and others. A dozen persons could make oath to it as my property; but it was not needed; the scene at the grave made that useless. I evidently did not deny the ownership of the weapon which had been used in the commission of the murder. At the very sight of it, on the contrary, in the hands of the brother of my victim, I had turned pale and fainted! “This was the condition of things when the special term of the court, held expressly to try me, commenced at Dinwiddie.” XXII. THE TRIAL. “A great crowd assembled on the day of the trial. Judge Conway had vacated the bench, as personally interested, and the judge from a neighboring circuit had taken his place. “Below the seat of the judge sat the jury. Outside the railing, the spectators were crowded so closely that it was with difficulty the sheriff made a passage for my entrance. “To one resolution I had adhered in spite of the remonstrances of all my friends,--to employ no counsel. In this determination nothing could shake me. A disdainful pride sustained me, mingled with bitter obstinacy. If I, the representative of one of the oldest and most honorable families in the county of Dinwiddie was to be branded as a murderer,--if my past life, my family and personal character, did not refute the charge,--if I was to be dragged to death on suspicion, gibbeted as a murderer, because some felon had stolen my pocket-knife, and committed a crime with it,--then I would go to my death unmoved. I would disdain to frame explanations; let the law murder _me_ if it would; no glib counsel should save my life by technicalities; I would be vindicated by God and my past life, or would die.