Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/518

88 Wilfred was committed to take his trial at the winter jail-delivery on a charge of wilful murder. The evidence against him was overwhelming. Hester sold Ings and collected all the money she could, that, if gold would buy his redemption, it might be done; for herself, she had perfect faith in his innocence, and was confident of his acquittal, but few persons, if any shared in her feelings. The best legal advice had been retained for the accused, and the trial came on shortly before Christmas. Hester was the only witness for her son. The woman Jessy's evidence damaged his cause considerably. She contradicted herself over and over again, and at last, flurried and confused, she burst into tears, and crying out that she would say anything to get her young master off. There was nobody to speak with certainty as to the prisoner's having been at home by a certain hour but his mother; he had put his horse into the stable himself, the groom being absent at the fair, and Jessy could not swear that he was in to tea; she believed not; only one cup was used.

Two witnesses, laborers on a farm near the Ings, swore to having seen and spoken to the prisoner after the hour stated; they said he was riding fast, and seemed agitated, but it was too dark to see his face. Nelly Price also had her word against him; it was drawn from her reluctantly, in the midst of shame-faced tears and noisy sobs, but it quite overthrew the attempt to prove an alibi. She stated that she had watched until dark, in the garden, for Wilfred's return from Leeford, and had not seen him go by. The prisoner never looked toward her, but murmured that he had gone home by the bridle-road and Low Lane to avoid passing the Glebe Farm. The former witnesses, on being recalled, said that it was on the highway, nearly a mile from the place where the lower road branched off, and nearer to the Ings, that they encountered the accused. These two decent men, being strictly cross-examined, never swerved from their first story an iota, and agreed in every particular. They were individuals of decent character; both had worked on the prisoner's farm, and acknowledged him to be a liberal and kind master. Their evidence was not to be shaken. As a final and damning proof of guilt, the watch of which the nmrdered man had been robbed was produced; it had