Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/260

 *sentative spirits of whom you proud Englishmen of the twentieth century are the heirs.'

"And then a strange thing happened. No sooner had this answer been written on the tablets of my brain, than this gaslit room grew dimmer than it already was, and there seemed to arise a kind of commotion among you gentlemen of the jury. And when at last I found the courage to lift my eyes outwards from my thoughts, and they looked towards you, I saw with a thrill of surprise, as if by the agency of magic, that each one of your faces had been blotted out. Each was shrouded in an intense darkness. But while I continued to gaze upon the place that had contained you, almost with a feeling of horror, a shadowy haze seemed to play over it, and a number of strange faces peopled the gloom. They were more than twelve in number; they were more than twenty; they were more than a hundred. For the most part they were those of men old and austere. Each face seemed to be that of a person of infinite power and dominion, of one accustomed to walk alone. Each was marked by a kind of superhuman composure, as though having spent its youth in every phase of stress, it had emerged at last upon the summits of the mountains, where the air is rarefied, and where it is possible to hold a personal intercourse with Truth. Some of the faces were grave, some a little sinister, but the eyes of each had a forward, upward look which conferred an expression upon them of entrancing beauty.

"Stealthily, rapidly, but with a superhuman composure these noble shadows ranged themselves in the jury-box, in the room of you gentlemen who