Mr. Jenkins, the Queen Street stationer, was among them, and his first words, after the door was closed on them, were:
‘Well, I don’t know what you think, sir, but I couldn’t make out whether he was for her or against her.’
The person addressed was the foreman, a rich building contractor from a large seaport at the end of the county. He was a man of judicial mind, a model foreman, and wisely abstained from committing himself at this early stage. He turned round and asked his next neighbour, who happened to be the farmer from near Porthstone, whose remarks to Mr. Jenkins were given in the fourth chapter:
‘How did it strike you, sir?’
‘I thought he was against her,’ was the answer. ‘Didn’t you hear him say, “The prisoner must suffer by that line of defence”? And then he didn’t say nothing about reasonable doubts.’
‘No; but the young barrister did—the one that prosecuted,’ observed a tall, thin man, a tailor by trade.
‘He’s got nothing to do with it,’ said the farmer. ‘I thought him a fool all along. I know his whole family, and they’re all alike.’
‘What a terrible speech Mr. Tressamer made!’ ventured a fifth juryman, a short, stumpy watchmaker from Porthstone itself. ‘I believe he’s her lover.’
‘What!’ cried the foreman, losing his calm demeanour in the presence of this interesting revelation. ‘How d’ye know that?’