"
The jury, having heard the Judge's address, bowed and retired, preceded
by a macer of Court, to the apartment destined for their deliberation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
Law, take thy victim--May she find the mercy
In yon mild heaven, which this hard world denies her!
It was an hour ere the jurors returned, and as they traversed the crowd
with slow steps, as men about to discharge themselves of a heavy and
painful responsibility, the audience was hushed into profound, earnest,
and awful silence.
"Have you agreed on your chancellor, gentlemen?" was the first question
of the Judge.
The foreman, called in Scotland the chancellor of the jury, usually the
man of best rank and estimation among the assizers, stepped forward, and
with a low reverence, delivered to the Court a sealed paper, containing
the verdict, which, until of late years, that verbal returns are in some
instances permitted, was always couched in writing. The jury remained
standing while the Judge broke the seals, and having perused the paper,
handed it with an air of mournful gravity down to the clerk of Court, who
proceeded to engross in the record the yet unknown verdict, of which,
however, all omened the tragical contents. A form still remained,
trifling and unimportant in itself, but to which imagination adds a sort
of solemnity, from the awful occasion upon which it is used.
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