I don't know whether I was any more cowardly than most boys of my age;
but I certainly felt a curiously nervous sensation that morning, and I
was not alone in it; for Esau had a strange scared look, and his fair
hair did not curl nearly so tightly as usual.
"Eh?" he said, "feel frightened?" in answer to a question. "No, I don't
think I do; but I wish they'd leave the door open so that a fellow could
run."
But there were no doors open for us to escape, and at last, after a
weary time of waiting, the big policeman who had us in his charge bent
down to us in the place where we were waiting, and said--
"Your case comes on next. There, hold up, my lads. Speak out, both of
you, like men, and tell the whole truth. It's Sir Thomas Browning
to-day."
I listened to him, but I felt as if I was growing hopelessly confused,
and that I should never be able to say a word in my defence, while when
I looked at Esau, I found that he was looking at me with his forehead
full of wrinkles.
"It's all very well for him to say `hold up.' He haven't got to be
tried," he whispered. "I'm 'fraid it's all up with us, Gordon. Wish we
could be together when they sends us off."
"Now then!" said the policeman, clapping me on the shoulder; "it's us.
Don't you be scared. Sir Thomas is a good 'un."
The next minute Esau and I were standing somewhere with our constable
close by, and somewhere before us, in places that looked like pews, sat
a number of gentlemen, some of whom wore wigs. Some were writing, and,
seen as it were through a mist, a number of people looking on. Next, in
a confused way, I saw a red-faced, white-headed gentleman, who took off
his spectacles to have a good look at us, and put them on again to read
a paper before him.
It was all dim and strange, and there was quite a singing in my ears, as
I looked vacantly about while some talking went on, ending by a voice
saying--
"Kiss the book."