The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1: Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave; among the moors...Sala, George Augustus
General
The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1: Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave; among the moors...
Sala, George Augustus
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction
It was still somewhat of a Relief to me to come into the Dock, and look
upon State and Rich Clothes (in which I have always taken a
Gentleman-like pleasure), in the stead of all the dirt and squalor which
for so long had been my surrounding. There were the Judges all ranged, a
Terrible show, in their brave Scarlet Robes and Fur Tippets, with great
monstrous Wigs, and the King's Arms behind them under a Canopy, done in
Carver's work, gilt. They frowned on us dreadfully when we came trooping
into the Dock, bringing all manner of Deadly pestilential Fumes with us
from the Gaol yonder, and which not all the rue, rosemary, and marjoram
strewn on the Dock-ledge, nor the hot vinegar sprinkled about the Court,
could mitigate. The middle Judge, who was old, and had a split lip and a
fang protruding from it, shook his head at me, and put on such an Awful
face, that for a moment my scared thoughts went back to the Clergyman at
St. George's, Hanover Square, that was wont to be so angry with me in
his Sermons. Ah, how different was the lamentable Hole in the which I
now found myself cheek by jowl with Felons and Caravats, to the great
red-baize Pew in which I had sat so often a Little Gentleman! He to the
right of the middle Judge was a very sleepy gentleman, and scarcely ever
woke up during the proceedings, save once towards one of the clock,
when he turned to his Lordship (whom I had at once set down as Mr.
Justice Blackcap, and was in truth that Dread Functionary), saying,
"Brother, is it dinner-time?" But his Lordship to the left, who had an
old white face like a sheep, and his wig all awry, was of a more
placable demeanour, and looked at me, poor luckless Outcast, with some
interest. I saw him turn his head and whisper to the gentleman they told
me was the High Sheriff, and who sat on the Bench alongside the Judges,
very fine, in a robe and gold chain, and with a great sheathed sword
behind him, resting on a silver goblet. Then the High Sheriff took to
reading over the Calendar, and shrugged his shoulders, whereupon I
indulged in some Hope. Then he leans over to Mr. Clerk of the Arraigns,
pointing me out, and seemingly asking him some question about me; but
that gentleman hands him up a couple of parchments, and my quick Ear
(for the Court was but small) caught the words, "There are two
Indictments against him, Sir John." Whereupon they looked at me no more,
save with a Stern and Sorrowful Gravity; and the Hope I had nourished
for a moment departed from me. Yet then, as afterwards, and as now, I
found (although then too babyish to reason about it), that, bad as we
say the World is, it is difficult to come upon Three Men together in it
but that one is Good and Merciful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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