The proceedings were at length opened by the attorney-general, the
witnesses examined, and turned over to us for cross-examination.
This part of the duty was performed by my associate. The business
fairly begun, my distraction was lessened. My mind, driven to a
point, made a decisive stand; and the sound of Edgerton's voice,
as he proposed his questions, served still more to dissipate my
confusion. I furnished him with sundry questions, and our examination
was admitted to be quite searching and acute. My friend went through
his part of the labor with singular coolness. He was in little or
no respect excited. He, perhaps, was deficient in enthusiasm. If
there was no faltering in what he said, there was no fine phrensy.
His remarks and utterance were subdued to the plainest demands
of the subject. They were shrewd and sensible, not particularly
ingenious, nor yet deficient in the proper analysis of the evidence.
He acquitted himself creditably.
It was my part to reply to the prosecuting attorney; but when I
rose, I was completely confounded. Never shall I forget the pang of
that impotence which seemed to overspread my frame, and to paralyze
every faculty of thought and speech. I was the victim to my
own ardor. A terrible reaction of mind had taken place, and I was
prostrated. The desire to achieve greatness--the belief that it
was expected from me--the consciousness that hundreds of eyes were
then looking into mine with hungering expectation, overwhelmed me!
I felt that I could freely have yielded myself for burial beneath
the floor on which I stood. My cheeks were burning, yet my hands
were cold as ice, and my knees tottered as with an ague. I strove
to speak, however; the eyes of the judge met mine, and they looked
the language of encouragement--of pity. But this expression only
increased my confusion. I stammered out nothing but broken syllables
and incoherent sentences. What I was saying, I know not--how long
I presented this melancholy spectacle of imbecility to the eyes of
my audience, I know not. It may have been a few minutes only. To
me it seemed an age; and I was just endued with a sufficient power
of reflection to ask myself whether I had not better sit down at
once in irreversible despair, when my wandering and hitherto vacant
eyes caught a glance-a single glance--of a face opposite.
It was that of my uncle! He was perched on one of the loftiest
benches, conspicuous among the crowd--his eyes keenly fixed upon
mine, and his features actually brightened by a smile of triumphant
malice and exultation.
That glance restored me. That single smile brought me strength. I
was timid, and weak, and impotent no longer. Under the presence
of habitual scorn, my habitual pride and independence returned to
me. The tremors left my limbs. The clammy huskiness which had loaded
my tongue, and made it cleave to the roof of my mouth, instantly
departed; and my whole mind returned to my control as if beneath the
command of some almighty voice. I now saw the judge distinctly--I
could see the distinct features of every juryman; and with the pride
of my restored consciousness, I retorted the smile upon my uncle's
face with one of contempt, which was not without its bitterness.