Quality and Others | Page 7

a bit flowery, as the sayin' is--but I know myself he was
sittin' over his boots day and night, to the very last. You see I used to
watch him. Never gave 'imself time to eat; never had a penny in the
house. All went in rent and leather. How he lived so long I don't know.
He regular let his fire go out. He was a character. But he made good
boots."
"Yes," I said, "he made good boots."
And I turned and went out quickly, for I did not want that youth to
know that I could hardly see.

1911

THE GRAND JURY--IN TWO PANELS AND A FRAME
Read that piece of paper, which summoned me to sit on the Grand Jury
at the approaching Sessions, lying in a scoop of the shore close to the
great rollers of the sea--that span of eternal freedom, deprived just there
of too great liberty by the word "Atlantic." And I remember thinking,
as I read, that in each breaking wave was some particle which had
visited every shore in all the world--that in each sparkle of hot sunlight
stealing that bright water up into the sky, was the microcosm of all
change, and of all unity.
PANEL I
In answer to that piece of paper, I presented myself at the proper place
in due course and with a certain trepidation. What was it that I was
about to do? For I had no experience of these things. And, being too
early, I walked a little to and fro, looking at all those my partners in this
matter of the purification of Society. Prosecutors, witnesses, officials,
policemen, detectives, undetected, pressmen, barristers, loafers, clerks,
cadgers, jurymen. And I remember having something of the feeling that
one has when one looks into a sink without holding one's nose. There
was such uneasy hurry, so strange a disenchanted look, a sort of
spiritual dirt, about all that place, and there were--faces! And I thought:
To them my face must seem as their faces seem to me!
Soon I was taken with my accomplices to have my name called, and to
be sworn. I do not remember much about that process, too occupied
with wondering what these companions of mine were like; but
presently we all came to a long room with a long table, where nineteen
lists of indictments and nineteen pieces of blotting paper were set
alongside nineteen pens. We did not, I recollect, speak much to one
another, but sat down, and studied those nineteen lists. We had
eighty-seven cases on which to pronounce whether the bill was true or
no; and the clerk assured us we should get through them in two days at
most. Over the top of these indictments I regarded my eighteen fellows.
There was in me a hunger of inquiry, as to what they thought about this
business; and a sort of sorrowful affection for them, as if we were all a
ship's company bound on some strange and awkward expedition. I
wondered, till I thought my wonder must be coming through my eyes,

whether they had the same curious sensation that I was feeling, of
doing something illegitimate, which I had not been born to do, together
with a sense of self-importance, a sort of unholy interest in thus dealing
with the lives of my fellow men. And slowly, watching them, I came to
the conclusion that I need not wonder. All with the exception perhaps
of two, a painter and a Jew looked such good citizens. I became
gradually sure that they were not troubled with the lap and wash of
speculation; unclogged by any devastating sense of unity; pure of doubt,
and undefiled by an uneasy conscience.
But now they began to bring us in the evidence. They brought it
quickly. And at first we looked at it, whatever it was, with a sort of
solemn excitement. Were we not arbiters of men's fates, purifiers of
Society, more important by far than Judge or Common Jury? For if we
did not bring in a true bill there was an end; the accused would be
discharged.
We set to work, slowly at first, then faster and still faster, bringing in
true bills; and after every one making a mark in our lists so that we
might know where we were. We brought in true bills for burglary, and
false pretences, larceny, and fraud; we brought them in for
manslaughter, rape, and arson. When we had ten or so, two of us would
get up and bear them away down to the Court below and lay them
before the Judge. "Thank you, gentlemen!" he would say, or words to
that effect; and we would go up again, and go on bringing in true bills.
I noticed that