When Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, received a summons to attend
the Grand Jury, or to answer the contrary at his peril, he was glad.
"For now," he thought, "I shall share in the duties of democracy and be
brought face to face with the realities of life."
"Mrs. Wilson," he said to the landlady, as she brought in his breakfast,
"what does this summons mean by describing the Court as being in the
suburbs of the City of London? Is there a Brixton Branch?"
"O Lordy me!" cried the landlady, "I do hope, sir, as you've not got
yourself mixed up with no such things; but the Court's nigh against St.
Paul's, as I know from going there just before my poor nephew passed
into retirement, as done him no good."
"The summons," Mr. Clarkson went on, "the summons says I'm to inquire,
present, do, and execute all and singular things with which I may be
then and there enjoined. Why should only the law talk like that?"
"Begging your pardon, sir," replied the landlady, "I sometimes do think
it comes of their dressing so old-fashioned. But I'd ask it of you not
to read me no more of such like, if you'd be so obliging. For it do make
me come over all of a tremble."
"I wonder if her terror arises from the hideousness of the legal style
or from association of ideas?" thought Mr. Clarkson as he opened a
Milton, of which he always read a few lines every morning to dignify the
day.
On the appointed date, he set out eastward with an exhilarating sense of
change, and thoroughly enjoyed the drive down Holborn among the crowd of
City men. "It's rather strangely like going to the seaside," he remarked
to the man next him on the motor-'bus. The man asked him if he had come
from New Zealand to see the decorations, and arrived late. "Oh no," said
Mr. Clarkson, "I seldom think the Colonies interesting, and I distrust
decoration in every form."
It was unfortunate, but the moment he mounted the Court stairs, the
decoration struck him. There were the expected scenes, historic and
emblematic of Roman law, blindfold Justice, the Balance, the Sword, and
other encouraging symbols. But in one semicircle he especially noticed a
group of men, women, and children, dancing to the tabor's sound in naked
freedom. "Please, could you tell me," he asked of a stationary
policeman, "whether that scene symbolises the Age of Innocence, before
Law was needed, or the Age of Anarchy, when Law will be needed no
longer?"
"Couldn't rightly say," answered the policeman, looking up sideways;
"but I do wish they'd cover them people over more decent. They're a
houtrage on respectable witnesses."
"All art--" Mr. Clarkson was beginning, when the policeman said "Grand
Jury?" and pushed him through a door into a large court. A vision of
middle-age was there gathering, and a murmur of complaint filled the
room--the hurried breakfast, the heat, the interrupted business, the
reported large number of prisoners, likely to occupy two days, or even
three.
Silence was called, and four or five elderly gentlemen in
black-and-scarlet robes--"wise in their wigs, and flamboyant as
flamingoes," as a daily paper said of the judges at the Coronation--some
also decorated with gilded chains and deep fur collars, in spite of the
heat, entered from a side door and took their seats upon a raised
platform. Each carried in his hand a nosegay of flowers, screwed up
tight in a paper frill with lace-work round the edges, like the bouquets
that enthusiasts or the management throw to actresses.
"Are those flowers to cheer the prisoners?" Mr. Clarkson whispered, "or
are they the rudimentary survivals of the incense that used to
counteract the smell and infection of gaol-fever?"
"Covent Garden," was the reply, and the list of jurors was called. The
first twenty-three were sent into another room to select their foreman,
and, though Mr. Clarkson had not the slightest desire to be chosen, he
observed that the other jurors did not even look in his direction.
Finally, a foreman was elected, no one knew for what reasons, and all
went back to the Court to be "charged." A gentleman in black-and-scarlet
made an hour's speech, reviewing the principal cases with as much
solemnity as if the Grand Jury's decisions would affect the Last
Judgment, and Mr. Clarkson began to realise his responsibility so
seriously that when the jurors were dismissed to their duties, he took
his seat before a folio of paper, a pink blotting-pad, and two clean
quill pens, with a resolve to maintain the cause of justice, whatever
might befall.
"Page eight, number twenty-one," shouted the black-robed usher, who
guided the jurors as a dog guides sheep, and wore the cheerful air of
congenial labour successfully performed. Turning up the reference in the
book of cases presented to each juror, Mr. Clarkson found: "Charles
Jones, 35, clerk; forging and uttering, knowing the same to be forged, a
receipt for money, to wit, a receipt for fees on a plaint note of the
Fulham County Court, with intent to defraud."
"This threatens to be a very abstruse case," he remarked to a red-faced
juror on his right.
"A half of bitter would elucidate it wonderful to my mind," was the
answer.
But already a policeman had been sworn, and given his evidence with the
decisiveness of a gramophone.
"Any questions?" said the foreman, looking round the table. No one
spoke.
"Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the genial usher, and all but Mr.
Clarkson held up a hand.
"Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve," counted the usher, totting up the
hands till he reached a majority. "True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page
eleven, number fifty-two."
"Do you mean to tell me that is all?" asked Mr. Clarkson, turning to his
neighbour.
"Say no more, and I'll make it a quart," replied the red-faced man,
ticking off the last case and turning up the new one, in which a doctor
was already giving his evidence against a woman charged with the wilful
murder of her newly-born male child.
"Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the usher. "Two, four, six, eight,
ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page fourteen, number
seventy-two."
"Stop a moment," stammered Mr. Clarkson, half rising; "if you please,
stop one moment. I wish to ask if we are justified in rushing through
questions of life and death in this manner. What do we know of this
woman, for instance--her history, her distress, her state of mind?"
"Sit down!" cried some. "Oh, shut it!" cried others. All looked at him
with the amused curiosity of people in a tramcar looking at a talkative
child. The usher bustled across the room, and said in a loud and
reassuring whisper: "All them things has got nothing to do with you,
sir. Those is questions for the Judge and Petty Jury upstairs. The
magistrates have sat on all these cases already and committed them for
trial; so all you've got to do is to find a True Bill, and you can't go
wrong."
"If we can't go wrong, there's no merit in going right," protested Mr.
Clarkson.
"Next case. Page fourteen, number seventy-two," shouted the usher again,
and as the witness was a Jew, his hat was sent for. "There's a lot of
history behind that hat," said Mr. Clarkson, wishing to propitiate
public opinion.
"Wish that was all there was behind it," said the juror on his left. The
Jew finished his evidence and went away. The foreman glanced round, and
the usher had already got as far as "Signify," when a venerable juror,
prompted by Mr. Clarkson's example, interposed.
"I should like to ask that witness one further question," he said in a
fine Scottish accent, and after considerable shouting, the Jew was
recalled.
"I should like to ask you, my man," said the venerable juror, "how you
spell your name?" The name was spelt, the juror carefully inscribed it
on a blank space opposite the charge, sighed with relief, and looked
round. "Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the usher. "Two, four, six,
eight, ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page six, number
eleven."
Number eleven was a genuine murder case, and sensation pervaded the room
when the murdered man's wife was brought in, weeping. She sobbed out the
oath, and the foreman, wishing to be kind, said, encouragingly, "State
briefly what you know of this case."
She sobbed out her story, and was led away. The foreman glanced round
the tables.
"I think we ought to hear the doctor," said the red-faced man. The
doctor was called and described a deep incised wound, severing certain
anatomical details.
"I think we ought to hear the constable," said the red-faced man, and
there was a murmur of agreement. A policeman came in, carrying a brown
paper parcel. Having described the arrest, he unwrapped a long knife,
which was handed round the tables for inspection. When it reached the
red-faced juror, he regarded the blade closely up and down, with
gloating satisfaction. "Are those stains blood?" he asked the policeman.
"Yes, sir; them there is the poor feller's blood."
The red-faced man looked again, and suddenly turning upon Mr. Clarkson,
went through a pantomime of plunging the knife into his throat. At Mr.
Clarkson's horrified recoil he laughed himself purple.
"Well said the Preacher you may know a man by his laughter," Mr.
Clarkson murmured, while the red-faced man patted him amicably on the
back.
"No offence, I hope; no offence!" he said. "Come and have some lunch. I
always must, and I always do eat a substantial lunch. Nice, juicy cut
from the joint, and a little dry sherry? What do you say?"
"Thank you very much indeed," said Mr. Clarkson, instantly benign. "You
are most kind, but I always have coffee and a roll and butter."
"O my God!" exclaimed the red-faced man, and speaking across Mr.
Clarkson to another substantial juror, he entered into discussion on the
comparative merits of dry sherry and champagne-and-bitters.
Soon after two they both returned in the comfortable state of mind
produced by the solution of doubt. But Mr. Clarkson's doubts had not
been solved, and his state of mind was far from comfortable. All through
the lunch hour he had been tortured by uncertainty. A plain duty
confronted him, but how could he face it? He hated a scene. He abhorred
publicity as he abhorred the glaring advertisements in the streets. He
had never suffered so much since the hour before he had spoken at the
Oxford Union on the question whether the sense for beauty can be
imparted by instruction. He closed his eyes. He felt the sweat standing
on his forehead. And still the cases went on. "Two, four, six, eight,
ten, twelve. True Bill. True Bill. Two, four, six, eight...."
"Now then, sleepy!" cried the red-faced man in his ear, giving him a
genial dig with his elbow. Mr. Clarkson quivered at the touch, but he
rose.
"Gentlemen," he began, "I wish to protest against the continuation of
this farce."
The jury became suddenly alert, and his voice was drowned in chaos.
"Order, order! Chair, chair!" they shouted. "Everybody's doing it!" sang
one.
"I call that gentleman to order," said the foreman, rising with
dignity. "He has previously interrupted and delayed our proceedings,
without bringing fresh light to bear upon our investigations. After the
luncheon interval, I was pleased to observe that for one cause or
another--I repeat, for one cause or another--he was distinctly--shall I
say somnolent, gentlemen? Yes, I will say somnolent. And I wish to
inform him that the more somnolent he remains, the better we shall all
be pleased."
"Hear, hear! Quite true!" shouted the jury.
"Does it appear to you, sir, fitting to sit here wasting time?" Mr.
Clarkson continued, with diminishing timidity. "Does it seem to you a
proper task for twenty-three apparently rational beings--"
"Twenty-two! Twenty-two!" cried the red-faced man, adding up the jurors
with the end of a pen, and ostentatiously omitting Mr. Clarkson.
The jurors shook with laughter. They wiped tears from their eyes. They
rolled their heads on the pink blotting-paper in their joy. When quiet
was restored, the foreman proceeded:
"I have already ruled that gentleman out of order, and I warn him that
if he perseveres in his contumacious disregard of common decency and the
chair, I shall proceed to extremities as the law directs. We are here,
gentlemen, to fulfil a public duty as honourable British citizens, and
here we will remain until that duty is fulfilled, or we will know the
reason why."
He glanced defiantly round, assuming an aspect worthy of the last stand
at Maiwand. Looking at Mr. Clarkson as turkeys might look at a stray
canary, the jurors expressed their applause.
But the genial usher took pity, and whispered across the table to him,
"It'll all come right, sir; it'll all come right. You wait a bit. The
Grand Jury always rejects one case before it's done; sometimes two."
And sure enough, next morning, while Mr. Clarkson was reading Burke's
speeches which he had brought with him, one of the jurors objected to
the evidence in the eighty-seventh case. "We cannot be too cautious,
gentlemen," he said, "in arriving at a decision in these delicate
matters. The apprehension of blackmail in relation to females hangs over
every living man in this country."
"Delicate matters; blackmail; relation to females; great apprehension of
blackmail in these delicate matters," murmured the jury, shaking their
heads, and they threw out the Bill with the consciousness of an
independent and righteous deed.
Soon after midday, the last of the cases was finished, and having
signified a True Bill for nearly the hundredth time, the jurors were
conducted into the Court where a prisoner was standing in the dock for
his real trial. As though they had saved a tottering State, the Judge
thanked them graciously for their services, and they were discharged.
"Just a drop of something to show there's no ill-feeling?" said the
red-faced man as they passed into the street.
"Thank you very much," replied Mr. Clarkson warmly. "I assure you I have
not the slightest ill-feeling of any kind. But I seldom drink."
"Bless my soul!" said the red-faced man. "Then, what _do_ you do?"