It was a place that through
the rest of the year was haunted with the shadowy memories of old
kings and queens, unhappy, discrowned, imprisoned; but to-day all those
shadows had fled, and not a soul in the vast hall felt the presence of
any but a living sorrow, which was quivering in warm hearts.
But that sorrow seemed to have made it itself feebly felt hitherto, now
when Adam Bede's tall figure was suddenly seen being ushered to the side
of the prisoner's dock. In the broad sunlight of the great hall, among
the sleek shaven faces of other men, the marks of suffering in his face
were startling even to Mr. Irwine, who had last seen him in the dim
light of his small room; and the neighbours from Hayslope who were
present, and who told Hetty Sorrel's story by their firesides in their
old age, never forgot to say how it moved them when Adam Bede, poor
fellow, taller by the head than most of the people round him, came into
court and took his place by her side.
But Hetty did not see him. She was standing in the same position Bartle
Massey had described, her hands crossed over each other and her eyes
fixed on them. Adam had not dared to look at her in the first moments,
but at last, when the attention of the court was withdrawn by the
proceedings he turned his face towards her with a resolution not to
shrink.
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