ng the
other.

"But I am glad it is over, and settled. It was a great bore not
knowing your luck and having the thing hanging over your head every
morning when you woke up. Indeed it it was quite a relief when the
counsel got all through arguing over those proclamations, and the
Chief Justice summed up, but I nearly went to sleep when I found he
was going all over it again to the jury. I didn't understand about
those proclamations myself and I'll lay a fiver the jury didn't
either. The Colonel said he didn't. I couldn't keep my mind on what
Russell was explaining about, and I got to thinking how much old
Justice Hawkins looked like the counsel in 'Alice in Wonderland' when
they tried the knave of spades for stealing the tarts. He has just the
same sort of a beak and the same sort of a wig, and I wondered why he
had his wig powdered and the others didn't. Pollock's wig had a hole
in the top; you could see it when he bent over to take notes. He was
always taking notes. I don't believe he understood about those
proclamations either; he never seemed to listen, anyway.

"The Chief Justice certainly didn't love us very much, that's sure;
and he wasn't going to let anybody else love us either. I felt quite
the Christian Martyr when Sir Edward was speaking in defense. He made
it sound as though we were all a lot of Adelphi heroes and ought to be
promoted and have medals, but when Lord Russell started in to read the
Riot Act at us I began to believe that hanging was too good for me.
I'm sure I never knew I was disturbing the peace of nations; it seems
like such a large order for a subaltern.

"But the worst was when they made us stand up before all those people
to be sentenced. I must say I felt shaky about the knees then, not
because I was afraid of what was coming, but because it was the first
time I had ever been pointed out before people, and made to feel
ashamed. And having those girls there, too, looking at one. That
wasn't just fair to us. It made me feel about ten years old, and I
remembered how the Head Master used to call me to his desk and say,
'Blake Senior, two pages of Horace and keep in bounds for a week.' And
then I heard our names and the months, and my name and 'eight months'
imprisonment,' and there was a bustle and murmur and the tipstaves
cried, 'Order in the Court,' and the Judges stood up and shook out
their big red skirts as though they were shaking off the contamination
of our presence and rustled aw