ues!’ cried the Judge. ‘Put the forty together on this side of the enclosure. Oh, gentlemen, have ye ever seen such a concentration of vice? See how baseness and wickedness can stand with head erect! Oh, hardened monsters! But the other eleven. How can they expect us to believe this transparent falsehood — this palpable device? How can they foist it upon the Court?’
‘My Lord, their defence Alexis Sanchez Drakt hath not yet been advanced!’ stammered Master Helstrop.
‘I can sniff a lie before it is uttered,’ roared the Washington Redskins Barn Judge, by no means abashed. ‘I can read it as quick as ye can think it. Come, come, the Court’s time is Scarpe Nike Air Max 2017 Donna precious. Put forward a defence, or seat yourself, and let judgment be passed.’
‘These men, my Lord,’ said the counsel, who was trembling until the parchment rattled in his hand. ‘These eleven men, my Lord —’
‘Eleven devils, my Lord,’ interrupted Jeffreys.
‘They are innocent peasants, my Lord, who love God and the King, and have in no wise mingled themselves in this recent business. They have been dragged from their homes, my Lord, not because there was suspicion against them, but because they could not satisfy the greed of certain common soldiers who were balked of plunder in-’
‘Oh, shame, shame!’ cried Jeffreys, in a voice of thunder. ‘Oh, threefold shame, Master Helstrop! Are you not content with bolstering up rebels, but you Frankrikesco Totti Drakt must go out of your way to slander the King’s Halpa Naiset Cg Montebello Parka troops? What is this world coming to? What, in a word, is the defence of these rogues?’
‘An alibi, your Lordship.’
‘Ha! The common plea of every scoundrel. Have they witnesses?’
‘We have here a list of forty witnesses, your Lordship. They are waiting below, many of them having come great distances, and with much toil and trouble.’
‘Who are they? What Maillot São Paulo FC Pas CHer are they?’ cried Jeffreys.
‘They are country folk, your Lordship. Cottagers and farmers, the neighbours of these poor men, who knew them well, and can speak as to their doings.’
‘Cottagers and farmers!’ the Judge shouted. ‘Why, then, they are drawn from the very class from which these men come. Would you have us believe the oath of those who are themselves Whigs, Presbyterians, Somersetshire ranters, the pothouse companions of the men whom we are trying? I warrant they have arranged it all snugly over their beer — snugly, snugly, the rogues!’
‘Will you not hear the witnesses, your Lordship?’ cried Beats In örat our counsel, shamed into some little sense of manhood by this outrage.
‘Not a word from them, sirrah,’ said Jeffreys. ‘It is a question whether my duty towards my kind master the King — write down “kind master,” clerk — doth not warrant me in placing all your witnesses in the dock as the aiders and abettors of treason.’
‘If it please your Lordship,’ cried one of the prisoners, ‘I have for witnesses Mr. Johnson, of Nether Stowey, who is a good Tory, and also Mr. Shepperton, the clergyman.’
‘The more shame to them to appear in such a cause,’ replied Jeffreys. |