Law, take thy victim--May she find the mercy
In yon mild heaven, which this hard world denies her!
It was an hour ere the jurors returned, and as they traversed the crowd with slow
steps, as men about to discharge themselves of a heavy and painful
responsibility, the audience was hushed into profound, earnest, and awful
silence.
"Have you agreed on your chancellor, gentlemen?" was the first question of the
Judge.
The foreman, called in Scotland the chancellor of the jury, usually the man of
best rank and estimation among the assizers, stepped forward, and with a low
reverence, delivered to the Court a sealed paper, containing the verdict, which,
until of late years, that verbal returns are in some instances permitted, was
always couched in writing. The jury remained standing while the Judge broke the
seals, and having perused the paper, handed it with an air of mournful gravity
down to the clerk of Court, who proceeded to engross in the record the yet
unknown verdict, of which, however, all omened the tragical contents. A form still
remained, trifling and unimportant in itself, but to which imagination adds a sort of
solemnity, from the awful occasion upon which it is used. A lighted candle was
placed on the table, the original paper containing the verdict was enclosed in a
sheet of paper, and, sealed with the Judge's own signet, was transmitted to the
Crown Office, to be preserved among other records of the same kind. As all this
is transacted in profound silence, the producing and extinguishing the candle
seems a type of the human spark which is shortly afterwards doomed to be
quenched, and excites in the spectators something of the same effect which in
England is obtained by the Judge assuming the fatal cap of judgment. When
these preliminary forms had been gone through, the Judge required Euphemia
Deans to attend to the verdict to be read.
After the usual words of style, the verdict set forth, that the Jury having made
choice of John Kirk, Esq., to be their chancellor, and Thomas Moore, merchant,
to be their clerk, did, by a plurality of voices, find the said Euphemia Deans Guilty
of the crime libelled; but, in consideration of her extreme youth, and the cruel
circumstances of her case, did earnestly entreat that the Judge would
recommend her to the mercy of the Crown.
"Gentlemen," said the Judge, "you have done your duty--and a painful one it
must have been to men of humanity like you. I will undoubtedly transmit your
recommendation to the throne. But it is my duty to tell all who now hear me, but
especially to inform that unhappy young woman, in order that her mind may be
