CHAPTER XLVIII.

SENTENCE AND DEATH.


SILENCE, silence! shouted the indignant crier, and the
episodical cause of Burke, _v._ Sharp, was speedily hushed.

The eyes of all now concentred on the miserable criminal; for the time,
every thing else seemed forgotten. Roger, Grace, and Ben, grouped
together in the midst of many friends, who had crowded round them to
congratulate, leaned forward like the rest of that dense hall, as simply
thralled spectators. Mr. Grantly lifted up a pair of very moistened eyes
behind his spectacles, and looked earnestly on, with his wig, from
agitation, wriggled tails in front. The judge (it was good old Baron
Parker) put on the black cap to pronounce sentence. There was a pause.

But we have forgotten Simon Jennings--what was he about? did that
"cynosure of neighbouring eyes" appear alarmed at his position, anxious
at his fate, or even attentive to what was going on? No: he not only
appeared, but was, the most unconcerned individual in the whole court:
he even tried to elude utter vacancy of thought by amusing himself with
external things about him: and, on Wordsworth's principle of inducing
sleep by counting

"A flock of sheep, that leisurely pass by,
One after one,"

he was trying to reckon, for pleasant peace of mind's sake, how many