His vocabulary was limited, his rhetoric clumsy,
and Major Carruthers denounces his delivery as halting, his very
voice dull and monotonous; also his manner, reflecting his mind on
this occasion, appears to have been perfectly unimpassioned. He had
been saddled with a duty and he must perform it. He would do so
conscientiously to the best of his ability, for he seems to have
been a conscientious man; but he could not be expected to put his
heart into the matter, since he was not inflamed by any zeal born
of conviction, nor had he any of the incentives of a civil advocate
to sway his audience by all possible means.
Nevertheless the facts themselves, properly marshalled, made up a
dangerous case against the prisoner. Major Swan began by dwelling
upon the evidence of motive: there had been a quarrel, or the
beginnings of a quarrel, between the deceased and the accused; the
deceased had shown himself affronted, and had been heard quite
unequivocally to say that the matter could not be left at the stage
at which it was interrupted at Sir Terence's luncheon-table. Major
Swan dwelt for a moment upon the grounds of the quarrel. They were
by no means discreditable to the accused, but it was singularly
unfortunate, ironical almost, that he should have involved himself
in a duel as a result of his out-spoken defence of a wise measure
which made duelling in the British army a capital offence.
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