at me well, my Lord, and you may trace in the countenance of the hardened felon you are about to adjudge to death, the features of a boy whom, some seven years ago, you accused before a London magistrate of the theft of your watch. On the oath of a man who has one step on the threshold of death, the accusation was unjust. And, fit minister of the laws you represent! you, who will now pass my doom,—you were the cause of my crimes! My Lord, I have done. I am ready to add another to the long and dark list of victims who are first polluted, and then sacrificed, by the blindness and the injustice of human codes!"
While Clifford spoke, every eye turned from him to the Judge, and every one was appalled by the ghastly and fearful change which had fallen over Brandon's face. Men said afterwards, that they saw written there, in terrible distinctness, the characters of death; and there certainly seemed something awful and preternatural in the bloodless and haggard calmness of his proud features. Yet his eye did not quail, nor the muscles of his lip quiver. And with even more than his wonted loftiness, he met the regard of
