Frivolities Part 10

"Excuse me, Mr. Foreman, but perhaps I know a bit of law as well as the rest of you, and I say that the law is this, that before a jury can tell the court anything it's got to agree upon what it's going to tell. And what I mean by that is this, that before any one of us--I don't care if it's the foreman, or who it is!--can tell the court that we disagree we've got to agree to disagree--and I don't agree!"

Mr. Moss put a question to the foreman.

"Is that really the case?"

The foreman smiled a wintry smile--and temporised.

"I shouldn't positively like to say."

"But I do say positively. You can ask the magistrates, if you like, and see if I'm not right. Why, if you go into court now and say that we disagree I shall say we don't! I shall say that if we only have a little more time we shall agree yet; all we want's a chance of talking it over."

The foreman, pressing his fingers together, addressed Mr. Longsett with an air that was acid.

"Then, according to you, if one member of a jury chooses to make himself objectionable his colleagues are at his mercy?"

Jacob rose from his seat in such a flame of pa.s.sion that it almost seemed he was going to hurl his bottle at the foreman's head.

"Don't you call me objectionable, Mr. Grice! I won't have it! I'm no more objectionable than you are! I've got as much right to an opinion as you, and because my opinion don't happen to be the same as yours you've no right to call me names. If we all start calling each other names a nice state of things that'll be. A pretty notion of a foreman's duties you seem to have!"

Mr. Grice, who was not pugilistic, turned a trifle pale; he did not seem happy. Captain Rudd, tilting his chair backwards, and thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, looked up at the ceiling.

"This is the sort of thing which brings the jury system into contempt."

"What's that, Captain Rudd?" Mr. Longsett, who was still upon his feet, chose his words with much deliberation, emphasising them with shakings of his fist. "You mean you're the sort, I suppose? You're quite right, you are. You've been in the army, you see, and you think we're soldiers, to come to heel whenever you tell us, and that's where you're mistaken, Captain Rudd. We're free Englishmen, and we don't choose to have you come the officer over us--and that's how you make the thing contemptible by trying."

There was silence. His colleagues seemed to be arriving at the conclusion that Jacob was a difficult man to differ with.

"It strikes me," said Mr. Timmins, when the silence was becoming painful, "that if the law is really such that we've got to stop here till our good Jacob takes it into his generous head to let us go, you and I, Mr. Hisgard, might have that little game of crib I was speaking of; it may help us forget where we are, and that we're not going to have any dinner till it's past supper time."

"Just you wait a minute. Perhaps," replied Mr. Hisgard, "I may be allowed to say a word." No one appeared to have any objection. "What I wish to remark is this. With all deference, I think Mr. Slater spoke as a practical man. I don't see that there's much difference between saying guilty and at the same time asking the magistrate to award no punishment, and, as Mr. Slater puts it, bringing it in not guilty right away."

Mr. Timmins, who had been shuffling a pack of cards, replaced them on the table.

"All right. Let's have it that way and make an end of it. Suppose we all say not guilty and caution him not to do it again--what's the odds?"

"So far as I'm concerned," observed Tom Elliott, "I'm willing to bring him in not guilty. It's my belief he's been led into it all along, and I know perhaps as much about it as anyone. There's a good deal about the affair what's been kept quiet by both sides. Perhaps I might have said a word for one."

Mr. Moss interrogated the foreman with uplifted eyebrows.

"Do you think it does make any difference?"

The foreman shrugged his shoulders. He was still. Captain Rudd spoke for him.

"It makes the difference between right and wrong--that's all."

Mr. Plummer leaned his elbows on the table; his spectacled countenance wore its most benevolent smile.

"Hearken to me, dear sir. We are all Christian men----"

"Not necessarily at this moment; at this moment we are jurymen--only jurymen."

Mr. Plummer sighed, as if in sorrow. He turned to the others, as if desiring their forgiveness for the captain.

"This gentleman--I trust he will pardon me for saying so--puts a curb upon his natural generosity. His is what we may, perhaps, term the military mind--precise, and, if we may say so, just a little--the merest atom--hard. For my part I think, Mr. Foreman, we might, as Christian men, conscientiously return a negative finding, intimating at the same time that, owing to the prisoner's tender years, we are not unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt."

The captain dissented.

"What sort of mind do you call yours, sir? Were we to return such a verdict, we should make of ourselves the laughing-stock of England."

The foreman shook his head.

"I hardly think England will interest itself in our proceedings to that extent. Similar verdicts in similar cases are, I imagine, more common than you may suppose. I am not advocating such a course, but I believe it would be logically possible for us to inform the magistrates that, while some of us entertain strong opinions on the subject of the prisoner's guilt, being desirous to arrive at a state of agreement, and also bearing in mind the youth of the accused, we are willing to acquiesce in a verdict of acquittal."

"I agree to that," cried Mr. Longsett. "That's fair enough. Now, is it all settled?"

"I'm not."

The speaker was the captain. All eyes were turned on him.

The foreman spoke.

"Don't you think, captain, you--might swallow a gnat?"

"I don't wish to set myself up as a superior person, but, under the circ.u.mstances, I'm afraid I can't."

"Quite so. Now we know where we are." Mr. Longsett composed himself in his chair; planting his hands against his sides he stuck out his elbows; he screwed up his mouth. "It just shows you how one man can play skittles with eleven others."

The captain was silently contemptuous.

"I really doubt if it matters." It was Mr. Moss who said it; he whispered an addition into the captain's ear: "If the young scamp isn't hung to-day he'll be hung to-morrow."

The captain ignored the whisper; his reply was uttered with sufficient clearness.

"Perhaps, sir, your sense of duty is not a high one."

The eleven eyed each other, and the table, and vacancy; a spirit of depression seemed to be settling down upon them all. Old Parkes, with elongated visage, addressed a melancholy inquiry to no one in particular. "What's us sitting here for?"

Jacob responded--"That's what I should like to know, George. Perhaps it's because a gentleman's made up his mind to ruin a poor young lad for life."

The captain took up the gauntlet.

"I presume it is useless for me to point out to you that your statement is as incorrect as it is unjustified. I have heard a good deal about the absurdities of the jury system. I may tell you, sir, that you have presented me with an object-lesson which will last me the rest of my life. It occurs to me as just possible that the sooner the system is reformed the better."

"Ah! I daresay it would. Then gentlemen like you would be able to grind poor lads under your feet whenever it suited you. Oh, dear, no!

You think yourself somebody, don't you, captain?"

Captain Rudd looked as if he would if he could; in his eyes there gleamed something very like a foreshadowing of a.s.sault and battery.

The foreman made a little movement with his hands, which, possibly, was intended to be a counsel of peace. Anyhow, the captain allowed the last word to be Jacob's. Mr. Tyler, his handkerchief still pressed to his ear, appealed to the captain in a tone of voice which was almost tearful.