to proceed to take the chair at some popular municipal assembly; and
this was just the thing qualified to please those who were on his own
side, and mortify the feelings of the party so bitterly opposed to him.
There was a bravado in it, and an apparent contempt, not of the law so
much as of the existing authorities of the law, which was well
qualified to have this double effect.

And now the outer doors of the Court were opened, and the crowd--at
least as many as were able to effect an entrance--rushed in. Martin
and John Kelly were among those nearest to the door, and, in reward of
their long patience, got sufficiently into the body of the Court to be
in a position to see, when standing on tiptoe, the noses of three of
the four judges, and the wigs of four of the numerous counsel employed.
The Court was so filled by those who had a place there by right, or
influence enough to assume that they had so, that it was impossible
to obtain a more favourable situation. But this of itself was a great
deal--quite sufficient to justify Martin in detailing to his Connaught
friends every particular of the whole trial. They would probably
be able to hear everything; they could positively see three of the
judges, and if those two big policemen, with high hats, could by any
possibility be got to remove themselves, it was very probable that
they would be able to see Sheil's back, when he stood up.

John soon began to show off his forensic knowledge. He gave a near
guess at the names of the four counsel whose heads were visible,
merely from the different shades and shapes of their wigs. Then he
particularised the inferior angels of that busy Elysium.

"That's Ford--that's Gartlan--that's Peirce Mahony," he exclaimed, as
the different attorneys for the traversers, furiously busy with their