Phineas Finn, who was very sore and unhappy at this time, and who consequently was much in love with purity and anxious for severity, felt himself personally aggrieved by the acquittal. It was almost tantamount to a verdict against himself. And then he knew so well that bribery had been committed, and was so confident that such a one as Mr. Browborough could have been returned to Parliament by none other than corrupt means! In his present mood he would have been almost glad to see Mr. Browborough at the treadmill, and would have thought six months' solitary confinement quite inadequate to the offence. "I never read anything in my life that disgusted me so much," he said to his friend, Mr. Monk.
"I can't go along with you there."
"If any man ever was guilty of bribery, he was guilty!"
"I don't doubt it for a moment."
"And yet Grogram did not try to get a verdict."
"Had he tried ever so much he would have failed. In a matter such as that,—political and not social in its nature,—a jury is sure to be guided by what it has, perhaps unconsciously, learned to be the feeling of the country. No disgrace is attached to their verdict, and yet everybody knows that Mr. Browborough had bribed, and all those who have looked into it know, too, that the evidence was conclusive."
"Then are the jury all perjured," said Phineas.
"I have nothing to say to that. No stain of perjury clings to them. They are better received in Durham to-day than they would have been had they found Mr. Browborough guilty. In business, as in private life, they will be held to be as trustworthy as before;—and they will be, for aught that we know, quite trustworthy. There are still circumstances in which a man, though on his oath, may be untrue with no more stain of falsehood than falls upon him when he denies himself at his front door though he happen to be at home."
"What must we think of such a condition of things, Mr. Monk?"
"That it's capable of improvement. I do not know that we can think anything else. As for Sir Gregory Grogram and Baron Boultby and the jury, it would be waste of power to execrate them. In political matters it is very hard for a man in office to be purer than his neighbours,—and, when he is so, he becomes troublesome. I have found that out before to-day."