Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/98

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

been a Pembroke practicing successfully at the bar in the county. So while there was a current of disapproval against him, there was a strong under-*current of local sympathy in his favor also.

Pembroke appeared early on the ground that morning, with Miles. It was his first opportunity except at the Campdown races to meet the county people of all classes generally. He went about among them cool, affable, and smiling.

"Oyez, oyez, oyez!" the sheriff's loud voice rang out from the court house steps—and the crowd poured into the old brick building, and Pembroke, slipping in by another way entered upon the strain which lasted for five days and nights.

Great as the crowd was at first, it increased every day. Within two hours of the swearing in of the jury, just what Cave had predicted came to pass. The prosecution saw that the jury was on the side of a Pembroke—the Pembrokes had always been prime favorites with juries in that county, and the present one was no exception. Naturally, this nettled the attorney-general and the other great men who appeared for the State. It was certainly an exasperating thing to come so far to find twelve men obstinately bent on seeing things from the point of view of a handsome, plausible young advocate. The court, however, was all that could be desired. The attorneygeneral expressed his belief to his colleagues that if French Pembroke relied upon an eloquent speech, and the precedent of a Pembroke always carrying the winning colors in a jury trial,