Then mercy hides her face, for the youthful judge lays down calmly the most astounding of eighteenth-century judicial dogmas. “It stands prisoner,” declares this Buller, “to show how he came by the bill in order to prove he did not know it to be forged.” So--musty old twiners of red tape--they cannot fasten the guilt upon the man, thus with impotent _tu quoque_ they demand that he shall prove his innocence. Since they cannot rip him open in the witness-box, they shift their own burden upon his shoulders. Since he cannot prove his innocence, they deem him guilty, forgetting the good British legal converse of this proposition. Bewildered by judicial hair-splitting, the jury at last withdraw. No direct evidence convicts him--circumstances, prejudice rather, the whispered stories of numerous E.I.C. bills (forgeries all) that have passed through the hands of the engraver. If one indictment does not draw, others will follow--he had the motive, means, and opportunity, and he flew to his razor when the runners came to take him. Half an hour of such reasoning kneads the brains of jury into proper hanging shape, and they decide that to Tyburn the prisoner must go. Quiet and brave, as he has been through his long trial, the man in the dock rises to his feet when his judges return. Courage is stamped on the strong, deep lines of his face, though the face is white as his soft ruffles, or as the snowy vest that lies beneath his russet coat. Coming forward, he listens calmly while they declare him guilty, bowing to the Bench. A thrill runs through the court when the foreman pronounces the dread word, but, though all hearts are throbbing with pain, one fond hope rises in every breast--that the power of a gracious king will rescue this erring genius from a shameful death. Also, the poor servant himself thinks first of his royal master; for as he is conducted back to loathsome Newgate, he tells the friends around him that, although he has been the victim of persecution, he can perceive a beam of mercy. Alas, he could not know his sovereign!