“He said as how that the chapel hadn’t succeeded as he thought it would have done—that he’d been disappinted—and that me and Cheesewright must have patience.”
“And when you told him that you and Mr. Cheesewright would not wait any longer—what did he say?”
“He said we was a generation of wipers.”
“And when you put him into prison?”
“He sent for me, and said I mustn’t hope to be paid in this world; but as I’d laid up for myself a treasure in heaven, he expected me to let him out of quod for nothink.”
There was a general titter in which bench and bar joined; and the only demure countenances present were those of the creditor who was done, and Mr. Sheepshanks who had done him. In fact this pious gentleman was so overcome by the unpleasantness of his position, that he compared himself, in the religious anguish of his spirit, to the man who went down to Jericho and fell amongst thieves.
Silence being again restored, two other opposing creditors were examined in their turn; and their evidence went to prove that Mr. Joshua Sheepshanks had obtained from them a quantity of goods under such very questionable pretences, that he might think himself exceedingly fortunate in having been sent to the King’s Bench instead of to Newgate.
The opposition having arrived at this stage, Mr. Bulliwell proceeded to address the Court in a long and furious speech based upon the testimony that had been given against the Insolvent. The agreeable appellations of “sanctimonious hypocrite,” “double-faced ranter,” “unprincipled trader in pious duplicities,” and such like terms, were freely applied to Mr. Joshua Sheepshanks in the course of this oration. The learned gentleman dwelt bitterly—but not one atom more severely than the subject deserved—upon the rascally scoundrelism which is practised by those persons who are denominated “saints;” and he concluded a rather eloquent speech by praying the Court to express its sense of the Insolvent’s criminality by remanding him for as long a period as the Act of Parliament would allow.
When called upon for any thing he might have to say in his defence, Mr. Sheepshanks applied a white handkerchief to his eyes; and, after shaking his head solemnly for several moments, he revealed his lugubrious countenance once more—purposely elongating it until he fancied he had tortured himself into as impressive a pitch of misery as one could wish to behold. He then began a tedious and doleful dissertation upon the “vanity of earthly things”—marvelled that his opposing creditors should “prefer the filthy lucre to the welfare of their immortal souls”—declared that when he first went amongst them he found them “lamentably benighted,” but that he had “at one time brought them to a state of grace”—complained that they had treated him as if he had been “a vessel of wrath,” whereas he flattered himself that he was in “a most savoury state of godliness”—hinted rather significantly that he looked upon his present predicament as a “glorious martyrdom in the good cause”—and wound up with an earnest prayer to the Commissioners that they would not be “moved by the men of Belial against him,” but that even as “heaven tempered the wind to the shorn lamb,” they would modify their judgment according to his lamentable condition.
To this speech, delivered in the most approved nasal twang of the dissenting pulpit, and with many doleful moans and frightful contortions, Commissioner Sneesby listened with exemplary patience: so, indeed, did his learned brother-judge—but in this latter case it was with the eyes shut. The moment, however, the harangue was brought to an end, the eyes alluded to opened slowly and gazed rather vacantly around: but with judicial keenness, they speedily comprehended the exact stage of the proceedings; and the possessor of the sleepy optics forthwith began to consult with his coadjutor in solemn whispers. Their conversation ran somewhat in the ensuing manner:—