more than ordinary interest; and there was a unity in this possessing
interest; all were talking on the same subject, the case in which Agnes
had so recently appeared in some character or other; and by this time
it became but too certain in the character of an accused person. Pity
was the prevailing sentiment amongst the mob; but the opinions varied
much as to the probable criminality of the prisoner. I made my way into
the office. The presiding magistrates had all retired for the
afternoon, and would not reassemble until eight o'clock in the evening.
Some clerks only or officers of the court remained, who were too much
harassed by applications for various forms and papers connected with
the routine of public business, and by other official duties which
required signatures or attestations, to find much leisure for answering
individual questions. Some, however, listened with a marked air of
attention to my earnest request for the circumstantial details of the
case, but finally referred me to a vast folio volume, in which were
entered all the charges, of whatever nature, involving any serious
tendency--in fact, all that exceeded a misdemeanor--in the regular
chronological succession according to which they came before the
magistrate. Here, in this vast calendar of guilt and misery, amidst the
_aliases_ or cant designations of ruffians, prostitutes, felons,
stood the description, at full length, Christian and surnames all
properly registered, of my Agnes--of her whose very name had always
sounded to my ears like the very echo of mountain innocence, purity,
and pastoral simplicity. Here in another column stood the name and
residence of her accuser. I shall call him _Barratt_, for that was
amongst his names, and a name by which he had at one period of his
infamous life been known to the public, though not his principal name,
or the one which he had thought fit to assume at this era. James
Barratt, then, as I shall here call him, was a haberdasher--keeping a
large and conspicuous shop in a very crowded and what was then