of justice. A bench, raised on a narrow platform to
the height of a man above the floor, and protected in front by a light railing,
ran along one of its sides. In the centre was a seat, furnished with rude arms,
that was always filled by the presiding judge. In front, on a level with the
floor of the room, was a large table, covered with green baize, and surrounded
by benches; and at either of its ends were rows of seats, rising one over the
other, for jury-boxes. Each of these divisions was surrounded by a railing. The
remainder of the room was an open square, appropriated to the spectators.
    When the judges were seated, the lawyers had taken possession of the table,
and the noise of moving feet had ceased in the area, the proclamations were made
in the usual form, the jurors were sworn, the charge was given, and the court
proceeded to hear the business before them.
    We shall not detain the reader with a description of the captious
discussions that occupied the court for the first two hours. Judge Temple had
impressed on the jury, in his charge, the necessity for despatch on their part,
recommending to their notice, from motives of humanity, the prisoners in the
gaol, as the first objects of their attention. Accordingly, after the period we
have mentioned had elapsed, the cry of the officer to »clear the way for the
grand jury,« announced the entrance of that body. The usual forms were observed,
when the foreman handed up to the bench two bills, on both of which the Judge
observed, at the first glance of his eye, the name of Nathaniel Bumppo. It was a
leisure moment with the court; some low whispering passed between the bench and
the Sheriff, who gave a signal to his officers, and in a very few minutes the
silence that prevailed was interrupted by a general movement in the outer crowd;
when presently the Leather-stocking made his appearance, ushered into the
criminal's bar under the custody of two constables. The hum ceased, the people
closed into the open space again, and the silence soon became so deep that the
hard breathing of the prisoner was audible.
    Natty was dressed in his buck-skin garments, without his coat, in place of
which he wore only a shirt of coarse linen-check, fastened at his throat by the
sinew of a deer, leaving his red neck and weather-beaten face exposed and bare.
It was the first time that he had ever crossed the threshold of a