squeeze himself into court.

“What’s on?” he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found

himself next to.

“Nothing yet.”

“What’s coming on?”

“The Treason case.”

“The quartering one, eh?”

“Ah!” returned the man, with a relish; “he’ll be drawn on a

hurdle to be half hanged, and then he’ll be taken down and sliced

before his own face, and then his inside will be taken out and

burnt while he looks on, and then his head will be chopped off,

and he’ll be cut into quarters. That’s the sentence.”

“If he’s found Guilty, you mean to say?” Jerry added, by way of

proviso.

“Oh! they’ll find him guilty,” said the other. “Don’t you be

afraid of that.”

Mr. Cruncher’s attention was here diverted to the door-keeper,

whom he saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his

hand. Mr. Lorry sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not

far from a wigged gentleman, the prisoner’s counsel, who had a

great bundle of papers before him: and nearly opposite another

wigged gentleman with his hands in his pockets, whose whole

attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him then or afterwards,

seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the court. After some

gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin and signing with his hand,

Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, who had stood up to look

for him, and who quietly nodded and sat down again.

“What’s he got to do with the case?” asked the man he had

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

spoken with.

“Blest if I know,” said Jerry.

“What have you got to do with it, then, if a person may

inquire?”

“Blest if I know that either,” said Jerry.

The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and

settling down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the

dock became the central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had

been standing there, went out, and the prisoner was brought in,

and put to the bar.

Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who

looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the

place, rolled at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces

strained round pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; spectators

in back rows stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the

floor of the court, laid their hands on the shoulders of the people

before them, to help themselves, at anybody’s cost, to a view of

him, stood a-tiptoe, got upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to

see every inch of him. Conspicuous among these latter, like an

animated bit of the spiked wall of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at

the prisoner the beery breath of a whet he had taken as he came