The Tables Turned | Page 4

even when you havn't just had a baby. And the skim milk was long ago gone, and the leasing, and the sack of tail-wheat, and the cheap cheeses almost for nothing, and the hedge-clippings, and it was just the bare ten shillings a-week. So at last, when we had heard enough of eighteen shillings a-week up in London, and we scarce knew what London meant, though we knew well enough what ten shillings a-week in the country meant, we said we'd go to London and try it there; and it had been a good harvest, quickly saved, which made it bad for us poor folk, as there was the less for us to do; and winter was creeping in on us. So up to London we came; for says Robert: "They'll let us starve here, for aught I can see: they'll do naught for us; let us do something for ourselves." So up we came; and when all's said, we had better have lain down and died in the grey cottage clean and empty. I dream of it yet at whiles: clean, but no longer empty; the crockery on the dresser, the flitch hanging from the rafters, the pot on the fire, the smell of new bread about; and the children fat and ruddy tumbling about in the sun; and my lad coming in at the door stooping his head a little; for our door is low, and he was a tall handsome chap in those days.--But what's the use of talking? I've said enough: I didn't steal the loaves--and if I had a done, where was the harm?
_J. N_. Enough, woman? Yes, and far more than enough. You are an undefended prisoner. You have not the advantage of counsel, or I would not have allowed you to go on so long. You would have done yourself more good by trying to refute the very serious accusation brought against you, than by rambling into a long statement of your wrongs against society. We all have our troubles to bear, and you must bear your share of them without offending against the laws of your country--the equal laws that are made for rich and poor alike.
A Voice. You can bear her troubles well enough, can't you, old fat guts?
_J. N_. (_scarcely articulate with rage_). Officer! officer! arrest that man, or I will arrest you!
[USHER again makes a vain attempt to get hold of some one.
_J. N_. (_puffing and blowing with offended dignity_). Woman, woman, have you anything more to say?
_M. P_. Not a word. Do what you will with me. I don't care.
_J. N_. (_impressively_). Gentlemen of Jury, simple as this case seems, it is a most important one under the present condition of discontent which afflicts this country, and of which we have had such grievous manifestations in this Court to-day. This is not a common theft, gentlemen--if indeed a theft has been committed--it is a revolutionary theft, based on the claim on the part of those who happen unfortunately to be starving, to help themselves at the expense of their more fortunate, and probably--I may say certainly--more meritorious countrymen. I do not indeed go so far as to say that this woman is in collusion with those ferocious ruffians who have made these sacred precincts of justice ring with their ribald and threatening scoff's. But the persistence of these riotous interruptions, and the ease with which their perpetrators have evaded arrest, have produced a strange impression in my mind. (Very impressively.) However, gentlemen, that impression I do not ask you to share; on the contrary, I warn you against it, just as I warn you against being moved by the false sentiment uttered by this woman, tinged as it was by the most revolutionary--nay, the most bloodthirsty feeling. Dismiss all these non-essentials from your minds, gentlemen, and consider the evidence only; and show this mistaken woman the true majesty of English Law by acquitting her--if you are not satisfied with the abundant, clear, and obviously unbiassed evidence, put before you with that terseness and simplicity of diction which distinguishes our noble civil force. The case is so free from intricacy, gentlemen, that I need not call your attention to any of the details of that evidence. You must either accept it as a whole and bring in a verdict of guilty, or your verdict must be one which would be tantamount to accusing the sergeant and constables of wilful and corrupt perjury; and I may add, wanton perjury; as there could be no possible reason for these officers departing from the strict line of truth. Gentlemen I leave you to your deliberations.
Foreman of Jury. My lord, we have already made up our minds. Your lordship need not leave the Court: we find the woman guilty.
_J. N_. (_gravely nodding his