'Why, then, they are drawn from the very class from which these men come. Would you have us believe the oath of those who are themselves Whigs, Presbyterians, Somersetshire ranters, the pothouse companions of the men whom we are trying? I warrant they have arranged it all snugly over their beer-- snugly, snugly, the rogues!'
'Will you not hear the witnesses, your Lordship?' cried our counsel, shamed into some little sense of manhood by this outrage.
'Not a word from them, sirrah,' said Jeffreys. 'It is a question whether my duty towards my kind master the King--write down "kind master," clerk--doth not warrant me in placing all your witnesses in the dock as the aiders and abettors of treason.'
'If it please your Lordship,' cried one of the prisoners, 'I have for witnesses Mr. Johnson, of Nether Stowey, who is a good Tory, and also Mr. Shepperton, the clergyman.'
'The more shame to them to appear in such a cause,' replied Jeffreys. 'What are we to say, gentlemen of the jury, when we see county gentry and the clergy of the Established Church supporting treason and rebellion in this fashion? Surely the last days are at hand! You are a most malignant and dangerous Whig to have so far drawn them from their duty.'
'But hear me, my Lord!' cried one of the prisoners.
'Hear you, you bellowing calf!' shouted the Judge. 'We can hear naught else. Do you think that you are back in your conventicle, that you should dare to raise your voice in such a fashion? Hear you, quotha! We shall hear you at the end of a rope, ere many days.'
'We scarce think, your Lordship,' said one of the Crown lawyers, springing to his feet amid a great rustling of papers, 'we scarce think that it is necessary for the Crown to state any case. We have already heard the whole tale of this most damnable and execrable attempt many times over. The men in the dock before your Lordship have for the most part confessed to their guilt, and of those who hold out there is not one who has given us any reason to believe that he is innocent of the foul crime laid to his charge. The gentlemen of the long robe are therefore unanimously of opinion that the jury may at once be required to pronounce a single verdict upon the whole of the prisoners.'
'Which is--?' asked Jeffreys, glancing round at the foreman--
'Guilty, your Lordship,' said he, with a grin, while his brother jurymen nodded their heads and laughed to one another.
'Of course, of course! guilty as Judas Iscariot!' cried the Judge, looking down with exultant eyes at the throng of peasants and burghers before him. 'Move them a little forwards, ushers, that I may see them to more advantage. Oh, ye cunning ones! Are ye not taken? Are ye not compassed around? Where now can ye fly? Do ye not see hell opening at your feet? Eh? Are ye not afraid? Oh, short, short shall be your shrift!' The very devil seemed to be in the man, for as he spoke he writhed with unholy laughter, and drummed his hand upon the red cushion in front of him. I glanced round at my companions, but their faces were all as though they had been chiselled out of marble. If he had hoped to see a moist eye or a quivering lip, the satisfaction was denied him.
'Had I my way,' said he, 'there is not one of ye but should swing for it. Aye, and if I had my way, some of those whose stomachs are too nice for this work, and who profess to serve the King with their lips while they intercede for his worst enemies, should themselves have cause to remember Taunton assizes. Oh, most ungrateful rebels! Have ye not heard how your most soft-hearted and compassionate monarch, the best of men--put it down in the record, clerk--on the intercession of that great and charitable statesman, Lord Sunderland--mark it down, clerk--hath had pity on ye? Hath it not melted ye? Hath it not made ye loathe yourselves? I declare, when I think of it'--here, with a sudden catching of the breath, he burst out a-sobbing, the tears running down his cheeks--'when I think of it, the Christian forbearance, the ineffable mercy, it doth bring forcibly to my mind that great Judge before whom all of us--even I--shall one day have to render an account. Shall I repeat it, clerk, or have you it down?'
'I have it down, your Lordship.'
'Then write "sobs" in the margin.