“The idea!” puffed my lord chancellor, getting into his gown. “Such a clamor about the prison! Would they intimidate us with their uproar. Mr. Magistrate, go sweep them through the gutters to their kennels!”
“My lord, I hae no broom big enow.”
The clerk presented a petition, signed by many of the better consciences of the town, praying a reprieve for the condemned pirates. The council turned the matter about with grave, genteel speech.
“What a file of names! They seem to urge that Reynolds should have had opportunity of exculpation. Well, we discharged Reynolds, did we not?”
“In view of the verdict, my lords, I am inclined to think—well, that he might have been exculpated.”
“And I.”
“And I.”
“The indictment was good, my Lord Chancellor, of course—did we not so hold. But the fact of death—ordinarily, of course, it should be shown. Ordinarily, I say. The other rule is a little dangerous, is it not? The corpus delicti—it is a sound doctrine—usually.”
“Oh, ordinarily—certainly. Macer, close the window—the noise from the prison yard is getting intolerable.”
“My lords, my lords, they’re under our windows! Oh, my lords, such a press, and ilk has a stick or a stane ’n’s fist.