Sir John waved his right hand dramatically when he uttered these words, the effect of which--in the language of the local reporter--was "Sensation in Court."
He then went on to describe the events of the afternoon when the shot was fired.
He was not likely to be mistaken in the prisoner's face. He had no wish to take an oath that it was the prisoner, but he was morally certain that it was he.
Then followed a good deal of collateral evidence that the police had gathered up and spliced together. The prisoner had been seen by a number of people that afternoon with a gun under his arm. He wore a cloth cap, such as Sir John had described. He had been seen crossing Polskiddy Downs, which, as everyone knew, abutted on Treliskey Plantation. He had expressed himself very bitterly on several occasions respecting Sir John, and had talked vaguely about being quits with him some day. Footprints near the hedge behind which the shot was fired tallied with a pair of boots in the prisoner's house; also, the prisoner returned to his own house within an hour of the shot being fired.
The magistrates looked more and more grave as the chain of evidence lengthened out, though most of them had quite made up their minds before the proceedings began.
Ralph, in spite of all advice to the contrary, pleaded "not guilty," and being allowed to speak in his own defence, availed himself of the opportunity.
"Why should I want to kill the squire?" he said, in a tone of scorn. "God will punish him soon enough." (More sensation in court.) "That he has behaved badly to us," Ralph went on, "no unprejudiced person will deny, though you, being landowners yourselves, approve. I don't deny that he acted within his legal rights. So did Shylock. But had he the heart of a savage, to say nothing of a Christian, he could not have acted more oppressively. I told him that he killed my father--and I repeat it to-day!" (Renewed sensation.) "I did go out shooting on that day in question. My gun licence has not expired yet. Mr. Hooker told me I could shoot over Dingley Bottom any time I liked, and I was glad of the opportunity, for our larder was not overstocked, as you may imagine. I crossed Polskiddy Downs, I admit--it is the one bit of common land that you gentry have not filched from us----" (Profound sensation, during which the chairman protested that if prisoner did not keep himself strictly to his defence, the privilege of speaking further would be taken from him.) "As you will, gentlemen," Ralph said indifferently. "I do not expect justice or a fair hearing in a court of this kind."