This last assertion produced an instant and evident sensation throughout the whole place. The judge on the bench, with whom were seated several noblemen and gentlemen of the county, the counsel at the bar, the people throughout the court, were engaged in conversation on it. There was a general buzz and murmur of voices in the court, when the clerk of the arraigns called, “Silence!” and Mr. Balguy began with his witnesses. He produced a number of farmers of the neighbourhood, who declared that they had heard the severest language of hatred used by their labourers against Mr. Drury, adding they would not be in his shoes for a trifle. They said this was not only on account of his using so much machinery, but on account of his timing them, and docking their wages, and his slave-driving way, as they called it. Many labourers were called who gave the same evidence. Mr. Balguy then called several haymakers to show that Mr. Woodburn’s words were, not that he wished something would fortunately rid the country of Mr. Drury, but that some fortunate circumstance would take him somewhere else. He next showed by the evidence of Mr. Drury’s own bailiff, who was in the meadows when Mr. Drury left, that it was half-past six o’clock by his watch, and then by the evidence of George Woodburn and Betty Trapps that Mr. Woodburn entered the house exactly as the old cuckoo clock in the hall struck six. That the time of the bailiff and of the clock at Woodburn Grange agreed, was also proved by the people of both farms going to and returning from work at exactly the same hour, morning, noon and evening. This evidence having been gone through, Mr. Balguy said that little more was required. He would only remark that it was shown that there were many persons in the neighbourhood hostile to Mr. Drury. That Mr. Woodburn’s words in the hay-field were meant by him to express a wish that some stewardship, such as his eminent agricultural talents warranted, might call Mr. Drury from a neighbourhood where his views were not favourably received. That was the “fortunate” circumstance which Mr. Woodburn alluded to. Then, as he had shown by a complete _alibi_ that Mr. Woodburn could not possibly be at Wink’s Ferry when Mr. Drury lost his life, he contended first, that if that catastrophe were a murder, it could not have been perpetrated by Mr. Woodburn; and secondly, that it had yet to be shown that it was a murder at all. He was, therefore, sure that the jury would acquit his client instantly and entirely. The judge in summing up, came to the same conclusion. It was, he said, for the jury to decide, whether what had been shown to be impossible, if the respectable evidence of Mr. Drury’s own bailiff, and of the family of the prisoner as to time, was to be believed, could be possible: for his own part he did not believe in impossibilities. The jury consulted for a moment, and the foreman arose and declared the unanimous verdict to be—NOT GUILTY!