Lord interposed (with as grave a face as if it had not been true),

saying that he could not sit upon that Bench and suffer those

allusions.

Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher

had next to attend while Mr. Attorney-General turned the whole

suit of clothes Mr. Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out:

showing how Barsad and Cly were even a hundred times better

than he had thought them, and the prisoner a hundred times

worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, turning the suit of clothes,

now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole decidedly

trimming and shaping them into grave-clothes for the prisoner.

And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies

swarmed again.

Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the

court, changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this

excitement. While his learned friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his

papers before him, whispered with those who sat near, and from

time to time glanced anxiously at the jury; while all the spectators

moved more or less, and grouped themselves anew; while even my

Lord himself arose from his seat, and slowly paced up and down

his platform, not unattended by a suspicion in the minds of the

audience that his state was feverish; this one man sat leaning

back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put on just as

it happened to light on his head after its removal, his hands in his

pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all day.

Something especially reckless in his demeanour, not only gave

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

him a disreputable look, but so diminished the strong resemblance

he undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary

earnestness, when they were compared together, had

strengthened), that many of the lookers-on, taking note of him

now, said to one another they would hardly have thought the two

were so alike. Mr. Cruncher made the observation to his next

neighbour, and added, “I’d hold a half a guinea that he don’t get no

law-work to do. Don’t look like the sort of one to get any, do he?”

Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene

than he appeared to take in; for now, when Miss Manette’s head

dropped upon her father’s breast, he was the first to see it, and to

say audibly: “Officer! look to that young lady. Help the gentleman

to take her out. Don’t you see she will fall!”

There was much commiseration for her as she was removed,

and much sympathy with her father. It had evidently been a great

distress to him, to have the days of his imprisonment recalled. He

had shown strong internal agitation when he was questioned, and

that pondering or brooding look which made him old, had been

upon him, like a heavy cloud, ever since. As he passed out, the

jury, who had turned back and paused a moment, spoke, through

their foreman.

They were not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord (perhaps

with George Washington on his mind) showed some surprise that