Mr. Plummer differed, and said so.
"It'll influence mine. James Bailey is not yet eighteen. To send him
to prison will do him more harm than good. If his case is to come
under the First Offenders Act, we shall know where we are."
"We might make a recommendation to that effect," suggested Captain
Rudd.
"Excuse me," interposed Mr. Moss, "but I doubt if I could agree to our
doing that. I'm afraid that Master Bailey deserves some punishment.
This is not the first time he has done this sort of thing. He was
dismissed from his last two places for dishonesty."
Again the foreman shook his head.
"That didn't come out in the evidence. You know, gentlemen, what we
have to do is to dismiss from our minds any knowledge of the parties
which we may have outside the case, and confine our attention to the
sworn testimony."
Mr. Moss smiled, declining to be pooh-poohed.
"That's all very well in theory, Mr. Grice, but in practice it won't
do. Nichols, with his fish-cart, has done a daily round in this
country of some twenty miles or so for the last twelve or fourteen
years. I doubt if there is a person in this room who has not some
knowledge of him. As for Bailey, his mother lives within a hundred
yards of my house; I have known him ever since he was born. I am
acquainted, too, with his last two employers, and with the
circumstances under which he left them."
"I know nothing of either of the parties," said Captain Rudd.
"You are a new-comer. I doubt, as I say, if any other person present
can say the same."
If any other person could, he didn't. There was a pause--broken by the
foreman.
"Let us understand our position. Eight of us say guilty--Mr. Tyler
goes with the majority; two of us have not yet made up our minds; and
Mr. Longsett is the only one who says not guilty. May I inquire, Mr.
Longsett, on what grounds you favour an acquittal?"
"You've no right to ask me anything of the kind. This is not the first
jury I've served on. Although you're foreman, you're only like the
rest of us. What you've got to do is to ask me if I say guilty or not
guilty. I say not guilty.
"I believe, Mr. Longsett," insinuated Mr. Moss, "that Bailey is a
relation of yours?"
"That's no business of yours."
"Then are we to understand, Mr. Longsett"--the foreman spoke with
almost ominous suavity--"that you have arrived at a point at which you
are impervious to argument?"
"I say not guilty."
"Even though it may be demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that
the prisoner is guilty?"
"It's no good talking to me, Mr. Grice. I say not guilty."
The foreman, stretching out his hands in front of him, looked round
the table with an air which was eloquent with deprecation. Old Parkes
banged his fist upon the board.
"And I say guilty, and I hope they'll give him seven years--the
thieving varmint!"
"Arrived at a state of sudden conviction--eh, George?"
This was Mr. Timmins, who was middle-aged and jaunty.
"Some people are easily convinced," growled Mr. Longsett.
"You're not one of that sort, are you, Jacob?"
This again was Mr. Timmins.
"You won't convince me."
Nor, judging from the expression of Jacob's visage, did there seem to
be much probability of their being able to do anything of the kind.
There was another interval of silence--broken this time by Captain
Rudd.
"Then because this gentleman chooses to differ from us, without
condescending to give us his reason for so doing, are we to stultify
ourselves, and is justice to be baulked? Is that the situation, Mr.
Foreman?"
"Excuse me, Captain Rudd, but Mr. Longsett is not alone. I also say
not guilty. The observation of Mr. Parkes, expressing a hope that the
prisoner will get seven years, shows to me that a spirit of malignancy
is in the air, and to that spirit I am unable to subscribe."
The speaker was Mr. Plummer. The others looked at him. The foreman
spoke.
"Pardon me, Mr. Plummer, but why do you say not guilty?"
"Because I decline to be a participator in the condemnation of this
mere youth to a ruthless term of penal servitude."
"But, my dear sir, he won't get penal servitude--Mr. Parkes was only
joking. He'll get, at the outside, three months."
"That would be too much. It would be sufficient punishment for one of
his years--my views on the subject of juvenile delinquency I have
never disguised--that he should be requested to come up for judgment
when called upon."
"But, my dear sir, if the magistrates leave us a free hand to do our
duty, why can't we leave them a free hand to do theirs? The issue we
have to decide upon is a very simple one; the responsibility of acting
on that decision will be theirs."
Mr. Plummer settled his spectacles on his nose and was silent. Captain
Rudd addressed him.
"I suppose you will not deny, sir, that all the evidence goes to prove
the prisoner's guilt?"
"There are degrees in guilt."
"Possibly--but you admit that there is guilt, even though it may only
be in the positive degree?"
Again Mr. Plummer was still. Mr. Slater called to Mr. Longsett across
the table:
"You're a sportsman, Jacob, and I'm a sportsman. I tell you what I'll
do. I'll toss you, guilty or not guilty. I can't stop messing about
here all day--I've got my beasts to dress."
Mr. Longsett was obviously tempted; the offer appealed to the most
susceptible part of him. Still, he shook his head.
"No," he grunted, as if the necessity of announcing such a refusal
pained him. "I shan't."
Mr. Plummer was scandalised.
"Such a proposal is disgraceful--it ought not to be allowed to be
made. Making of justice a mockery!"
Mr. Slater declined to be snubbed--at least by Mr. Plummer.
"Seems to me as if you don't quite know where you are. First you want
to preach to the magistrates, then you want to preach to the jury;
perhaps you think you're at the corner of High Street?"
There were those who smiled. The reference was to Mr. Plummer's
fondness for open-air expositions of "the Word." Mr. Grice drummed
with his fingers on the table.
"Come, gentlemen, come! we're wasting time. As business men we ought
to know its value. Now, Mr. Longsett, I've too much faith in your
integrity not to know that you're open to conviction. Tell us, where
do you think the evidence for the prosecution is not sufficiently
strong?" Mr. Longsett did not justify the foreman's faith by
answering. "Be frank, on what point are you not satisfied?"
After more than momentary hesitation Mr. Longsett replied, without,
however, raising his eyes.
"It's no use talking to me, Mr. Grice, so that's all about it. I say
not guilty!"
Mr. Moss explained.
"The plain fact is, Mr. Foreman, Mr. Longsett is a relation of the
prisoner; he ought not to have been on this jury at all."
This time Mr. Longsett did raise his eyes--and his voice too.
"I've as much right to be on the jury as you have--perhaps more. Who
do you think you are? I pay my way--and I pay my servants too! They
don't have to county-court me before they can get their wages. Only
the other day I was on a jury when they were county-courting you. So
it isn't the first jury I've been on, you see."
Mr. Moss did not seem pleased. The allusion was to a difference which
that gentleman had had with one of his servants, and which had been
settled in the county court. Again the foreman drummed upon the board.
"Order, gentlemen, order!"
Mr. Timmins turned to Mr. Hisgard. He winked.
"Have a game at crib, Bob? I knew Jacob would be here, so I came
provided!"
He produced a cribbage-board. Once more the foreman interposed.
"Keep to the business we have in hand, please, gentlemen."
"Oh, they can have their game, I don't mind. Perhaps I came as well
provided as anyone else."
As he replied Jacob took from his pocket a brown paper parcel of
considerable dimensions. Tom Elliott, who was sitting by him,
instantly snatching it, passed it on to Mr. Hisgard.
"Have a sandwich, Mr. Hisgard?"
"No, thank you. But perhaps Mr. Timmins will?"
He passed the packet to Mr. Timmins. That gentleman made a feint of
opening it. Mr. Longsett, rising from his chair, reached for his
property across the table.
"None of that; give it back to me." Mr. Timmins tossed the packet to
the other end of the table.
"Now, Timmins, what do you mean by that? Do you want me to wipe you
across the head?"
Mr. Timmins addressed Mr. Grice. "Now, Mr. Foreman, won't you offer
the jury a sandwich each? It is about our dinner-time."
Mr. Grice eyed the packet in front of him as if he were more than half
disposed to act on the suggestion.
"I really don't think, Mr. Longsett, that you ought to eat sandwiches
out of a pure spirit of contradiction."
"Never mind what you think; you give me back my property, or I'll give
the whole lot of you in custody." The parcel was restored to him. He
brandished it aloft. "There you are, you see, a lot of grown men go
and steal another man's property, and you treat it as a joke. A mere
lad goes and looks at a truss of mouldy hay, and you want to ruin him
for life. And you call that justice! You ain't going to get me to take
a hand in no such justice, so I tell you straight!"
"It went a little farther than 'looks,' didn't it, Mr. Longsett?
'Looks' won't carry even mouldy hay three miles across country."
"And 'looks' won't carry my property from where I'm sitting down to
where you are! If Jim Bailey's a thief, so's Tom Elliott--there's no
getting over that. Why ain't we sitting on him instead of on that
there young 'un?"
"See here, Jacob." Mr. Timmins stretched out towards him his open
palm. "Here's a sporting offer for you: if you'll bring Jim Bailey in
guilty, I'll bring in Tom Elliott!"
"I won't bring in neither; the one's no more a thief than the other."
"Nice for you, Tom, eh?"
"Oh, I don't mind. I know Jacob. It's not the first time a member of
your family's been in trouble, is it, Jacob?"
"By----! if you say that again I'll knock the life right out of you!"
The foreman rapped upon the table.
"Order, gentlemen, order! Keep to the business in hand, if you
please."
Mr. Longsett confronted him, towering over Elliott, with clenched
fists and flashing eyes.
"Keep him in order then--don't keep on at me! You make him keep a
civil tongue in his head, or I will." He glared round the board. "I
don't care for the whole damned lot of you. I'm as good as any one of
you--perhaps better! I'm here to do my duty according to my conscience
and conviction, and I'm going to do it, and I say not guilty, and if
we stop here till Christmas you won't make me say no different!"
This announcement was followed by an interval of silence; then Captain
Rudd attempted to voice the sense of the meeting.
"In that case, Mr. Foreman, we may as well intimate to the court that
we are unable to agree."
"What'll be the consequence of that?"
"The prisoner'll have to stand another trial, when, should none of his
relations happen to be upon the jury, there will be no hesitation
about bringing in a verdict of guilty--in which case the young scamp
will get his deserts."
Stretching his body across the table, Jacob shook his clenched fist in
the speaker's face.
"Look here, Captain Rudd, you may be a captain, but you're no blooming
gentleman, or you wouldn't talk like that. Captain or no captain, the
next time you say anything about Jim Bailey being a relation of mine
I'll crack you in the mouth!" Straightening himself, Jacob shook his
fist at the eleven. "And I say the same to every one of you. It's no
affair of yours what Jim Bailey is to me--so just you mind it."
The captain curled, at the same time, his lip and his moustache, his
bearing conveying the scorn which he doubtless felt.
"If you suppose, sir, that I shall allow you to play the common bully
with impunity, you are mistaken. You forget yourself, my man!"
"Oh, no! I don't forget myself--it's you who forgot yourself. And as
for playing the common bully, it's you began it. You're trying to
bully me when you taunt me with Jim Bailey being my relation; you
think if you keep it on long enough you'll frighten me into acting
against my sense of duty."
The foreman intervened sharply: "Order! Mr. Longsett, your language is
improper and irregular; if you are not careful I shall have to report
it to the court."
"It's no more improper and irregular than theirs is. We're here to say
guilty or not guilty, not to pry into each other's private affairs. If
they don't make no personal remarks, I shan't."
"Listen to reason, Mr. Longsett. Do I understand, Mr. Plummer, that
you will acquiesce in a verdict of guilty if we prefer a
recommendation to the court that the case shall be treated under the
First Offenders Act?"
"You are at liberty to so understand, Mr. Grice."
"And you, Mr. Longsett? If we are unable to agree the prisoner will
have to go back to prison, and, on his again standing his trial, I
have no hesitation in saying that he will be found guilty, when he
will be likely to receive much less lenient treatment than now, when
we are ready and willing to recommend him to mercy."
"We're going to agree."
"That's good hearing. You agree to a verdict of guilty, coupled with a
recommendation to mercy?"
"I don't do nothing of the kind."
"Then what do you agree to?"
"I agree to a verdict of not guilty--that's what I agree to."
"Then, in that case, we're likely to disagree. You can hardly expect
eleven men to go against the weight of evidence for the sake of
agreeing with you."
"There's no hurry that I knows on. We'll wait a bit. I have heard of
juries being locked up for eight-and-forty hours. I daresay before
that time some of you'll have changed your minds. Seems to me that
there's three or four already that can change their minds as easy as
winking." He began, with a certain amount of ostentation, to untie the
string which bound his brown paper parcel. "I'm getting peckish. If
you don't mind, Mr. Foreman, we'll talk things over while I'm eating."
The unfolding of the paper revealed the fact that it contained a
comfortable number of succulent-looking sandwiches. The eleven eyed
them--and their owner--sourly. Carefully taking the top one of the
heap between his finger and his thumb Mr. Longsett took a bite at it.
Seldom has the process of attacking a sandwich had a more attentive
audience.
"I say, Jacob," observed Mr. Timmins, "aren't you going to give me
one?"
"What, give you the food from between my own lips! Not if I know it.
We may be here till this time to-morrow. I've got to think of myself,
Mr. Timmins."
"I'm not going to stop here till this time to-morrow, Jacob Longsett!"
As he spoke old Parkes banged his fist upon the table.
"All right, George Parkes, nobody asked you to, so far as I know.
Seems to me you're uncommon keen to send the lad to gaol."
"I don't wish the lad no harm."
"Seems to me as how you do."
"I say I don't!"
Mr. Parkes punctuated each of his remarks with a bang upon the board.
"Then why don't you do what you've sworn to do, and bring him in not
guilty along of me?"
"I don't care what I brings him in. It don't make no odds to me. It
ain't none of my affair. I've got my own business to 'tend to, and
when a man's got to my years he don't care to meddle in no one else's.
I'm willing to bring him in not guilty along of you, Jacob Longsett."
"That's more like it. If there was more like you and me, George
Parkes, we'd soon be outside of this."
Captain Rudd, who had listened to this short dialogue without evincing
any signs of approbation, once more endeavoured to urge the foreman to
action.
"Don't you think, Mr. Foreman, that the time has arrived for you to
communicate the fact of our disagreement to the court?"
Mr. Longsett made haste to differ.
"Excuse me, Mr. Foreman, but, if Captain Rudd will allow me, I don't
think it has. We haven't been here hardly any time. There's no hurry,
so long as we're doing our duty. I daresay we'll all agree yet before
we've finished. All we want is a little patience."
"And something to eat," said Mr. Timmins.
"Then do you mean to say," exclaimed Mr. Longsett, as he commenced
upon another sandwich, "that you'd send a young lad to gaol, and blast
his good name for ever, just because you're hungry?"
"May I be permitted to make a remark?" The inquiry came from Mr.
Tyler. He was holding his handkerchief to his ear; his general
expression was one of suffering. "Considering how little of the
evidence I really heard I don't wish it to be supposed that I have any
objection to a verdict of not guilty. And I may add that not only is
my earache driving me nearly mad, but my health, as a whole, as some
of you know, is bad, and I am easily exhausted. Had I supposed that
any of this sort of thing would have taken place I should have
procured a medical certificate excusing me. I appeal to gentlemen to
arrive as rapidly as possible at a decision, which will enable me to
obtain measures of relief."
"Hear, hear!" Mr. Longsett rapped with his knuckles on the table.
"I'd never have come," declared old Parkes, "if I'd a known I was
going to be kep' all day without my dinner. When a man gets to my
years he wants his victuals regular. I didn't have hardly no
breakfast, and I ain't had nothing since."
"I tell you what it is," cried Slater; "I want my dinner, and I've got
my business to attend to--this is the busiest day of the week for me.
So far as I can see it doesn't make much difference how we bring it
in. You say that if you bring him in guilty you're going to get him
off: then why shouldn't you bring him in not guilty right away? If you
bring him in guilty I can't help thinking that he ought to be
punished--he won't care nothing for your bringing him in guilty if he
isn't; while, if you bring him in not guilty, he'll thank his stars
for the narrow squeak he'll think he's had, and it'll be a lesson to
him as long as he lives."
"There is," allowed Mr. Plummer, "a good deal in what Mr. Slater
says."
"There is one thing against it," murmured Mr. Moss. His voice was
rather squeaky, and, as if conscious of the fact, he generally
produced it as softly as he could.
"What's that?"
"The evidence. We are supposed to be influenced by the evidence, and
by that only."
"It struck me that the evidence was all one-sided."
"Precisely--on the side of the prosecution. Since the case was
practically undefended the presumption is that the prisoner had no
defence to offer."
"But, as practical men," persisted Mr. Plummer, "does it not occur to
you that there is a good deal in what Mr. Slater says? If we find the
lad not guilty we shall teach him a lesson, and, at the same time, not
be placing on his character an ineffaceable slur. We might, for
instance, state in open court, through the mouth of our worthy
foreman, that we are willing to give the prisoner the benefit of the
doubt."
"But there is no doubt. Let us do justice though the heavens fall.
Have you yourself any doubt that James Bailey stole Samuel Nichols's
corn and hay?"
"Ah, dear sir, there is only One who can say. He has no doubt. We are
not omniscient."
"That sort of talk may be all very well in a pulpit, Mr. Plummer. It
is out of place in a court of law when we are dealing with ascertained
facts."
Mr. Plummer raised his hands and shook his head, as if he was sorry
for Mr. Moss.
"Let us show mercy, that we may be shown it," he all but whispered.
"In other words," struck in Captain Rudd, "we are to do evil in order
that good may come--even to the extent of prostituting truth."
"I am afraid, in our present situation, these things are not arguable.
Some of us, thank Heaven, see things through eyes of our own."
"Precisely, and it is because they don't appear to be arguable that I
once more suggest to the foreman that the court be informed that we
are unable to agree."
"And I again take leave to differ. Why now, there's"--Mr. Longsett
pointed with his finger--"one--two--three--four--five of us as says
not guilty. We're agreeing more and more every minute. I dare bet any
money we'll all be like one family before we get outside this room. If
the foreman ain't got no particular objection I'll have a moistener. I
never could eat dry." Taking a black bottle out of an inner pocket in
his overcoat he applied it to his lips. Such of the eleven as were not
keenly observant ostentatiously turned their eyes another way. He took
a long and hearty pull, then he smacked his lips. "Good stuff that; I
always like a drop when I've been eating--helps digestion."
"This is more than human nature can stand," groaned Mr. Timmins. "Mr.
Foreman, I move that the magistrates be informed that we are unable to
agree, and I request that you put that motion without further delay."
"I second that motion," said Captain Rudd.
"And I say no!"
Jacob flourished his bottle. Mr. Timmins's visage, as he confronted
Mr. Longsett, became slightly inflamed.
"We don't care what you say. Do you think we're going to sit here,
watching you guzzling, as long as ever you please? If you want
to give a proper verdict you give one which is according to the
evidence--we're not going to let you play the fool with us, Jacob, my
boy."
Extending the open palm of his left hand, Mr. Longsett marked time on
it with the bottle which he was holding in his right.
"Excuse me, Mr. Foreman, but perhaps I know a bit of law as well as
the rest of you, and I say that the law is this, that before a jury
can tell the court anything it's got to agree upon what it's going to
tell. And what I mean by that is this, that before any one of us--I
don't care if it's the foreman, or who it is!--can tell the court that
we disagree we've got to agree to disagree--and I don't agree!"
Mr. Moss put a question to the foreman.
"Is that really the case?"
The foreman smiled a wintry smile--and temporised.
"I shouldn't positively like to say."
"But I do say positively. You can ask the magistrates, if you like,
and see if I'm not right. Why, if you go into court now and say that
we disagree I shall say we don't! I shall say that if we only have a
little more time we shall agree yet; all we want's a chance of talking
it over."
The foreman, pressing his fingers together, addressed Mr. Longsett
with an air that was acid.
"Then, according to you, if one member of a jury chooses to make
himself objectionable his colleagues are at his mercy?"
Jacob rose from his seat in such a flame of passion that it almost
seemed he was going to hurl his bottle at the foreman's head.
"Don't you call me objectionable, Mr. Grice! I won't have it! I'm no
more objectionable than you are! I've got as much right to an opinion
as you, and because my opinion don't happen to be the same as yours
you've no right to call me names. If we all start calling each other
names a nice state of things that'll be. A pretty notion of a
foreman's duties you seem to have!"
Mr. Grice, who was not pugilistic, turned a trifle pale; he did not
seem happy. Captain Rudd, tilting his chair backwards, and thrusting
his hands into his trouser pockets, looked up at the ceiling.
"This is the sort of thing which brings the jury system into
contempt."
"What's that, Captain Rudd?" Mr. Longsett, who was still upon his
feet, chose his words with much deliberation, emphasising them with
shakings of his fist. "You mean you're the sort, I suppose? You're
quite right, you are. You've been in the army, you see, and you think
we're soldiers, to come to heel whenever you tell us, and that's where
you're mistaken, Captain Rudd. We're free Englishmen, and we don't
choose to have you come the officer over us--and that's how you make
the thing contemptible by trying."
There was silence. His colleagues seemed to be arriving at the
conclusion that Jacob was a difficult man to differ with.
"It strikes me," said Mr. Timmins, when the silence was becoming
painful, "that if the law is really such that we've got to stop here
till our good Jacob takes it into his generous head to let us go, you
and I, Mr. Hisgard, might have that little game of crib I was speaking
of; it may help us forget where we are, and that we're not going to
have any dinner till it's past supper time."
"Just you wait a minute. Perhaps," replied Mr. Hisgard, "I may be
allowed to say a word." No one appeared to have any objection. "What I
wish to remark is this. With all deference, I think Mr. Slater spoke
as a practical man. I don't see that there's much difference between
saying guilty and at the same time asking the magistrate to award no
punishment, and, as Mr. Slater puts it, bringing it in not guilty
right away."
Mr. Timmins, who had been shuffling a pack of cards, replaced them on
the table.
"All right. Let's have it that way and make an end of it. Suppose we
all say not guilty and caution him not to do it again--what's the
odds?"
"So far as I'm concerned," observed Tom Elliott, "I'm willing to bring
him in not guilty. It's my belief he's been led into it all along, and
I know perhaps as much about it as anyone. There's a good deal about
the affair what's been kept quiet by both sides. Perhaps I might have
said a word for one."
Mr. Moss interrogated the foreman with uplifted eyebrows.
"Do you think it does make any difference?"
The foreman shrugged his shoulders. He was still. Captain Rudd spoke
for him.
"It makes the difference between right and wrong--that's all."
Mr. Plummer leaned his elbows on the table; his spectacled countenance
wore its most benevolent smile.
"Hearken to me, dear sir. We are all Christian men----"
"Not necessarily at this moment; at this moment we are jurymen--only
jurymen."
Mr. Plummer sighed, as if in sorrow. He turned to the others, as if
desiring their forgiveness for the captain.
"This gentleman--I trust he will pardon me for saying so--puts a curb
upon his natural generosity. His is what we may, perhaps, term the
military mind--precise, and, if we may say so, just a little--the
merest atom--hard. For my part I think, Mr. Foreman, we might, as
Christian men, conscientiously return a negative finding, intimating
at the same time that, owing to the prisoner's tender years, we are
not unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt."
The captain dissented.
"What sort of mind do you call yours, sir? Were we to return such a
verdict, we should make of ourselves the laughing-stock of England."
The foreman shook his head.
"I hardly think England will interest itself in our proceedings to
that extent. Similar verdicts in similar cases are, I imagine, more
common than you may suppose. I am not advocating such a course, but I
believe it would be logically possible for us to inform the
magistrates that, while some of us entertain strong opinions on the
subject of the prisoner's guilt, being desirous to arrive at a state
of agreement, and also bearing in mind the youth of the accused, we
are willing to acquiesce in a verdict of acquittal."
"I agree to that," cried Mr. Longsett. "That's fair enough. Now, is it
all settled?"
"I'm not."
The speaker was the captain. All eyes were turned on him.
The foreman spoke.
"Don't you think, captain, you--might swallow a gnat?"
"I don't wish to set myself up as a superior person, but, under the
circumstances, I'm afraid I can't."
"Quite so. Now we know where we are." Mr. Longsett composed himself in
his chair; planting his hands against his sides he stuck out his
elbows; he screwed up his mouth. "It just shows you how one man can
play skittles with eleven others."
The captain was silently contemptuous.
"I really doubt if it matters." It was Mr. Moss who said it; he
whispered an addition into the captain's ear: "If the young scamp
isn't hung to-day he'll be hung to-morrow."
The captain ignored the whisper; his reply was uttered with sufficient
clearness.
"Perhaps, sir, your sense of duty is not a high one."
The eleven eyed each other, and the table, and vacancy; a spirit of
depression seemed to be settling down upon them all. Old Parkes, with
elongated visage, addressed a melancholy inquiry to no one in
particular. "What's us sitting here for?"
Jacob responded--"That's what I should like to know, George. Perhaps
it's because a gentleman's made up his mind to ruin a poor young lad
for life."
The captain took up the gauntlet.
"I presume it is useless for me to point out to you that your
statement is as incorrect as it is unjustified. I have heard a good
deal about the absurdities of the jury system. I may tell you, sir,
that you have presented me with an object-lesson which will last me
the rest of my life. It occurs to me as just possible that the sooner
the system is reformed the better."
"Ah! I daresay it would. Then gentlemen like you would be able to
grind poor lads under your feet whenever it suited you. Oh, dear, no!
You think yourself somebody, don't you, captain?"
Captain Rudd looked as if he would if he could; in his eyes there
gleamed something very like a foreshadowing of assault and battery.
The foreman made a little movement with his hands, which, possibly,
was intended to be a counsel of peace. Anyhow, the captain allowed the
last word to be Jacob's. Mr. Tyler, his handkerchief still pressed to
his ear, appealed to the captain in a tone of voice which was almost
tearful.
"As man to man, sir, let me beseech you to take pity on the dreadful
situation we are in."
"To what situation do you allude, sir?"
"I am alluding, sir, to the dreadful pain which I am enduring in my
left ear; you can have no conception of its severity. Besides which I
have a sadly weakly constitution generally--as is well known to more
than one gentleman who is now present. I have suffered for the last
twenty years from chronic lumbago, together with a functional
derangement of the liver, which, directly any irregularity occurs in
my hours or habits, invariably reduces me to a state of collapse. I
assure you that if this enforced confinement and prolonged abstention
from my natural food endures much longer, in my present state of
health the consequences may be highly serious."
"I don't follow your reasoning, sir. Because you are physically
unfitted to serve upon a jury, and culpably omitted to inform the
court of the fact, you wish me not to do my duty, you having already
failed to do yours?"
"I wish you," sighed Mr. Tyler, "to be humane."
"This is the first jury ever I was on," groaned Mr. Parkes, shaking
his ancient head as if it had been hung on wires, "and I'll take care
that it's the last. Such things didn't ought to be--not when a man's
got to my years, they didn't. Who's young Jim Bailey, I'd like to
know, that we should go losing our dinners acause of him? Hit him over
the head and ha' done with it--that's what I say."
"You must excuse me, Captain Rudd," said Mr. Timmins, "but why can't
you strain a point as well as the rest of us? Why shouldn't we, as a
body of practical men, take a merciful view of the position and give
the boy another chance? He is only a boy after all."
"We are not automata though we are jurymen, and surely we may, without
shame, allow ourselves to be actuated by the dictates of our common
humanity."
Thus Mr. Plummer. Mr. Slater agreed with him in a fashion of his own.
"Let the boy go and have done with it--I daresay we can trust Jacob to
give him a good sound towelling."
"He's had that already."
There was a grimness in Mr. Longsett's tone which caused more than one
of his hearers to smile.
"I'll be bound his mother's crying her eyes out for him at home."
This was Tom Elliott. Mr. Plummer joined his hands as if in
supplication.
"Poor woman!" he murmured.
"It comes hard upon the mothers," said Mr. Hisgard.
"And Jim Bailey's mother is as honest and hard-working a woman as ever
lived--that I know as a fact. And she's seen a lot of trouble!"
As he made this announcement Mr. Timmins shuffled his pack of cards,
as if the action relieved his mind. For some moments everyone was
still. Suddenly Mr. Tyler, who had been looking a picture of misery,
broke into audible lamentations.
"Oh dear! oh dear! I'm very ill! Won't anyone take pity on a man in
agony?"
So intense was his sympathy with his own affairs that the tears
trickled down his cheeks. Mr. Timmins endeavoured to encourage him.
"Come, Mr. Tyler, come! Bear up! It'll soon be over now!"
"If anything serious comes of the cruel suffering which is being
inflicted on me I shall look to you gentlemen for compensation. I'm a
poor man; it's always a hard struggle, with my poor health, to make
two ends meet. I can't afford to pay doctors' bills which have been
incurred by the actions of others!"
"That's pleasant hearing--what do you think, Mr. Hisgard?--if we've
got to contribute to this gentleman's doctors' bills! Come, Mr. Tyler,
don't talk like that, or soon we shall all of us be ill. I know I
shall!"
There was a further pause. Then Mr. Moss delivered himself.
"I'm bound to admit that what Mr. Timmins has said of the prisoner's
mother I know to be correct of my own knowledge. Mrs. Bailey has been
a widow for many years; she has brought up a large family with the
labour of her own hands; she has had many difficulties to contend
with, and is deserving of considerable sympathy. There is that to be
said. Come, Captain Rudd, for once in a way let us be illogical. If
you will agree to a verdict of not guilty I will."
Captain Rudd, his head thrown back, continued for some moments to
silently regard the ceiling. The others watched him, exhibiting, in
various degrees, unmistakable anxiety. Finally, with his eyes still
turned ceilingwards, he capitulated.
"All right. Let it be as you say. Rather than the gentleman in front
of me should perish on his chair, and other gentlemen should suffer
any longer from the absence of their 'natural food,' I am willing to
be joined with the rest, and, with you, to place myself under the
dominion of Mr. Jacob Longsett's thumb."
"Hear, hear! Bravo!" There were observations expressive of
satisfaction from different quarters; but Mr. Longsett, in particular,
was enthusiastic in his approbation.
"Your words does you honour, captain!"
"You think so?--I'm sorry we differ."
The foreman rapped upon the table.
"Order, gentlemen, please. Then may I take it that, at present, we are
finally agreed upon a verdict of not guilty?"
"Coupled," corrected Mr. Moss, "with an intimation to the effect that,
considering the prisoner's age, we have been willing to give him the
benefit of the doubt."
"Precisely. Does any other gentleman wish to make an observation?
Apparently not. Then may I also take it that we are ready to return
into court?"
Acclamations in the affirmative rose from all sides. The foreman rang
the hand-bell which was in front of him. The usher appeared.
* * * * *
So the prisoner was acquitted, no one in the court having the faintest
notion why.