The response was a loud but confused roar of voices from the Junior Bar, out of which the only clear sound that penetrated to the unfortunate man’s brain was the word ‘guilty.’
‘He says he’s guilty!’ he remarked to his clerk, in what he intended for an aside, but which was perfectly audible over the whole building.
At this point the judge, becoming impatient, leant over and tapped the clerk of arraigns on the shoulder. He turned round.
‘He pleads guilty, my lord,’ he said, thinking that the judge wished for information.
‘No, he doesn’t, Mr. Hughes. He said “Not guilty,”’ answered the judge.
Mr. Hughes was nearly beside himself by this time. Leaning forward in the direction of the prisoner, he shouted fiercely:
‘What do you say? Are you guilty or not?’
‘No,’ came in tones loud enough for him to hear at last.
‘Then why can’t you speak distinctly? The names you are about to hear called are those of the jurors who are to try you if you have any objection to them or any of them you shall make it as they come to the book to be sworn and before they are sworn and you shall be heard. John Henry Mugglewrath, stand up.’
And, leaving this overwhelming communication to gradually make itself clear to the prisoner’s mind, the clerk of arraigns went on swearing in the jury as hard as he could go, with the assistance of the judge’s clerk (who recited the oath) and his own clerk (who handed the Testament, as it is called, though really containing only the works of the four Evangelists). It need scarcely be observed that the jurors never came to the book at all. The book came to them.