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 hath not yet been advanced!’ stammered Master Helstrop.
‘I can sniff a lie before it is uttered,’ roared the Judge, by no means abashed. ‘I can read it as quick as ye can think it. Come, come, the Court’s time is precious. Put forward a defence, or seat yourself, and let judgment be passed.’
‘These men, my Lord,’ said the counsel, who was trembling until Ivan Rakitic Pelipaita 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 Sadio Mane Pelipaita 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 must go out of your way to slander the King’s troops? What is this world coming to? What, in a word, is Michael Carrick Pelipaita 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 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 Poland Dresi 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 Chile Pelipaita men whom we are trying? I warrant they have arranged it all snugly Air Jordan Flight Luxe over their beer — snugly, snugly, the rogues!’
‘Will you not hear the witnesses, your Lordship?’ cried our counsel, shamed into some little sense of Egypt Dresi manhood by this outrage.
‘Not a word Sweden Drakt Barn from them, sirrah,’ said Jeffreys. ‘It is a question whether my duty towards Isco Pelipaita my kind master the King — write down “kind master,” clerk — doth not warrant me in placing Tottenham Hotspur Pelipaita 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 Daniel Bessa Pelipaita Nether Stowey, who is a good Tory, and also Mr. Alexander Isak Pelipaita Shepperton, the clergyman.’
‘The more shame to them to appear in such a cause,’ replied Jeffreys.links:
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