Addressing her by name, I said, "Don't pay any attention to what I am going to read. No harm will be done to you. I am sure you did not know in your great trouble and sorrow what you were doing, and I will take care to represent your case so that nothing will harm you in the way of punishment."
I then mumbled over the words of the sentence of death, taking care that the poor woman did not hear them—much, no doubt, to the chagrin of the High Sheriff and to the lowering of his high office and dignity. Nothing so enhances a Sheriff's dignity as the gallows.
[There was a great deal of unlooked-for appreciation of his merits, and from quarters where, had he been a hard Judge, one could never have expected it.
There was even the observation of the costermonger leaning over his barrow near the Assize Court when one morning Sir Henry was going in with little Jack.
"Gorblime, Jemmy! see 'im? The ole bloke's been poachin' agin. See what he's got?"
It was a brace of pheasants, and not going into court with his gun, but only his dog, it was taken for granted he had been out all night on an unlawful expedition.
Some one once asked Sir Henry what was the most wonderful verdict he ever obtained.
He answered: "It depends upon circumstances. Do you mean as to value?"
"And amount."
"Well, then," he said, "half a farthing."