It soon appeared that I was out in my calculations. I gather from your second edition that this morning “the early birds did not catch the worm,” though they did receive the next best thing, the shock of a surprise.
“Peace has escaped” was the cry. I had made up my mind to the disappointment of my expectations, and supposed I should hear in an hour or two that the mangled body of Peace had been picked up on the line, or that the prisoner, maimed and battered, had been found and sent to hospital.
However, I betook myself to the Court to try what was to be heard and seen. We sometimes hear how hard it is to get together magistrates enough to do the business. There was no such difficulty this morning. I should think some of these excellent gentlemen were there to perform a work of supererogation and score an attendance that might count in the scale of merit.
And they were in capital time too. For a quarter of an hour several of them, with sundry non-magisterial friends, were on the bench.
A few moments before the stroke of ten entered Mr. Welby, the able, mild, and unpretending stipendiary. On his left was Mr. Overend, Q.C., whose genial and ruddy countenance seems to defy the power of years; and on the right was Mr. T. W. Rodgers, with a patriarchal aspect. The audience was curious and excited.
The Mayor did not put in an appearance, but a fair majority of aldermen and councillors were present, and had established themselves in the best places they could get before the doors were opened to the common public.
Mr. H. E. Watson talked last week of “the governing families of the town,” but these were, I suppose, the governing men, and as they serve the public assiduously it was meet that they should have a sort of priority. A few minutes after ten enters Mr. Pollard, Treasury solicitor, bland and cheerful, and bowing to the Bench, takes his seat.
A little later appears the prisoner’s solicitor, Mr. W. E. Clegg, with no marks of fussiness or anxiety, such as would make a client nervous, but with the self-contained look, assuring those who were interested that all the resources of an active, acute, and trained legal mind were at their service.
Everybody looked and listened. There was the prisoner’s dock empty. It contained several chairs, with a pitcher of water and a glass.
The whisper went round that the prison surgeon was in attendance on Peace, and the speculation was—Is he in condition to be brought up? Or, if not, will Mr. Pollard offer the prisoner’s advocate the opportunity to cross-examine Mrs. Dyson in his client’s absence?