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Page 56
"I am going to keep a diary while I am in prison, that is, if they
will let me. I never kept one before because I hadn't the time; when I
was home on leave there was too much going on to bother about it, and
when I was up country I always came back after a day's riding so tired
that I was too sleepy to write anything. And now that I have the time,
I won't have anything to write about. I fancy that more things
happened to me to-day than are likely to happen again for the next
eight months, so I will make this day take up as much room in the
diary as it can. I am writing this on the back of the paper the Warder
uses for his official reports, while he is hunting up cells to put us
in. We came down on him rather unexpectedly and he is nervous.
"Of course, I had prepared myself for this after a fashion, but now I
see that somehow I never really did think I would be in here, and all
my friends outside, and everything going on just the same as though I
wasn't alive somewhere. It's like telling yourself that your horse
can't possibly pull off a race, so that you won't mind so much if he
doesn't, but you always feel just as bad when he comes in a loser. A
man can't fool himself into thinking one way when he is hoping 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 away, and I sat down, wondering how long
eight months was, and wishing they'd given me as much as they gave
Jameson.
"They put us in a room together then, and our counsel said how sorry
they were, and shook hands, and went off to dinner and left us. I
thought they might have waited with us and been a little late for
dinner just that once; but no one waited except a lot of costers
outside whom we did not know. It was eight o'clock and still quite
light when we came out, and there was a line of four-wheelers and a
hansom ready for us. I'd been hoping they would take us out by the
Strand entrance, just because I'd liked to have seen it again, but
they marched us instead through the main quadrangle--a beastly, gloomy
courtyard that echoed, and out, into Carey Street--such a dirty,
gloomy street. The costers and clerks set up a sort of a cheer when we
came out, and one of them cried, 'God bless you, sir,' to the doctor,
but I was sorry they cheered. It seemed like kicking against the
umpire's decision. The Colonel and I got into a hansom together and we
trotted off into Chancery Lane and turned into Holborn. Most of the
shops were closed, and the streets looked empty, but there was a
lighted clock-face over Mooney's public house, and the hands stood at
a quarter past eight. I didn't know where Holloway was, and was hoping
they would have to take us through some decent streets to reach it;
but we didn't see a part of the city that meant anything to me, or
that I would choose to travel through again.
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