twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and a dark
eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was plainly dressed in
black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and dark, was gathered in
a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out of his way than for ornament.
As an emotion of the mind will express itself through any covering of the body,
so the paleness which his situation engendered came through the brown upon his
cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite
self-possessed, bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet.
    The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, was not
a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a less horrible sentence
- had there been a chance of any one of its savage details being spared - by
just so much would he have lost in his fascination. The form that was to be
doomed to be so shamefully mangled, was the sight; the immortal creature that
was to be so butchered and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss
the various spectators put upon the interest, according to their several arts
and powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish.
    Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to an
indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that he was a
false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, prince, our
Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers means
and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars against our said serene,
illustrious, excellent, and so forth; that was to say, by coming and going,
between the dominions of our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth,
and those of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and
otherwise evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our
said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation to send to
Canada and North America. This much, Jerry, with his head becoming more and more
spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with huge satisfaction, and so
arrived circuitously at the understanding that the aforesaid, and over and over
again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood there before him upon his trial; that the
jury were swearing in; and that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready to
