The Tables Turned | Page 4

me; let alone that
he could pick up things here and there. Rabbits and hares some of them,
as why should he not? And I could earn a little too; it was not so bad
there. And then and for long the place was a pretty place, the little grey
cottage among the trees, if the cupboard hadn't been so bare; one can't
live on flowers and nightingale's songs. Then the children came brisk,
and the wages came slack; and the farmer got the new reaping-machine,
and my binding came to an end; and topping turnips for a few days in
the foggy November mornings don't bring you in much, 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