Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/153

Rh in all that crowded court there were but two persons who had not condemned Tom Erichsen before the trial began.

His own impressions may be noted. They were very intense, and very irrelevant. The court was much smaller than he had supposed; the judge and he were scarce twenty feet apart; that was Culliford’s wig almost under his nose; and there was a certain homeliness in such proximity, as also in the easy conversational tone with which the barristers presently got to work. The judge was a depressing old gentleman with a permanently pained expression; one of the first things Tom noticed about him was that the scarlet of his robes and that of the judgment seat were a violently bad match. As for the jury, their twelve hats were piled on the window-sill behind their heads; and Tom found himself more interested in the different sizes, shapes and qualities than in the faces of the men who were to decide his fate. Then the jury-box reminded him of the churchwardens’ pew in his father’s church, and he saw with dim eyes until a strident formula made him start, whereupon he pleaded “Not guilty” with a catch in his voice which so vexed him that he repeated his plea with emphasis, and glanced defiantly right and left. On his right were spectators and reporters in descending rows as at a theatre; but because the court was so much smaller than he had pictured it, there were also fewer spectators than he had been prepared to face. He was some hours in discovering that as many more were gloating upon the hair of his head and the tips of his ears from the public galleries behind his back.

The swearing-in of the jury again reminded him of Winwood days; the functionary employed had just such an intonation as a neighbouring curate there, and was