Henry Northcote

by J. C. Snaith

Already he seemed to know all that was salient in the character of each individual who composed it. As he rejoiced in the masterful strength in which he was now cloaked so valiantly, he felt it had only to abide with him throughout the afternoon, and a signal victory would crown his efforts. And it would abide with him throughout that period, because all the power of his nature, which when aroused to action he felt to be without a limit, was pledged to this contingency. In this overmastering flush of virility in which he walked now, he stood revealed to himself as a Titan. Bestriding the crowded pavements he seemed to be in a world of pygmies. What was there in the life around him that could stem this vital force? No longer did he doubt that it was in him to dominate the judge, the jury, and the prosecution. They were none of his clay; their mould was not the mighty one nature had used for his fashioning.

With an extraordinary boldness and elasticity in his steps he walked back into the court. How dear, how precious, had the fetid and hideous room become to him already! It is a ruthless joy that consumes the orator, when, clad in his strength, he stands up in that forum which previously his failures have caused him to dread, but which the lust of triumph has rendered indispensable to his being. This day would be written in its memorials. It would mark the first of a succession of achievements within its precincts, achievements which would cause his name to be handed down in its archives forever. Who among the listless occupants of the surrounding benches foresaw that they were on the threshold of another miracle that was about to happen in the world? Who among them foresaw that a demigod was about to rise in their midst?

Those venal, high-living men, whose flesh was overlaid in luxury, how could they hope to understand the miracle that was about to occur? How could the poor drab, cowering in the dock, whose life so ironically had become the pretext for the first announcement of his genius, how could she hope to understand that a new force was about to take its walk in the world? How dismal, coarse, and sordid everything seemed! Not a glimpse of light, beauty, or hope was anywhere to be discerned in the whole of that crowded and suffocating room. The darkness and horror which oppress us so much in the streets of a great city, all the festering sores, all the blunt evils which discolor human nature and conspire against its dignity, seemed to have congregated here. The most cruel fact of human existence, the knowledge of man’s innate imperfection, appeared to be concentrated, to be rendered visible in this inferno in which every aperture was kept so close.

As soon as the judge returned into court, Mr. Weekes rose to address the jury. Northcote sought sternly to curb his own impatience while the trite voice of the counsel for the prosecution marshalled the array of facts. They were so damning that they hardly called for comment. None could dispute the tale that they told; and the Crown had no wish to waste the time of the court by laboring the obvious. Reposing an implicit confidence in the triumph of a virgin reason, that one imperishable gift of nature to mankind, Mr. Weekes was yet able to exhibit a profound sorrow for the terrible predicament of the accused, and the awful alternative with which twelve of her countrymen were confronted. But painful as was their duty, and painful as was his, it was imposed upon them by the law. Mr. Weekes resumed his seat in the midst of a deep and respectful silence, which indicated how crucial the situation was to all, after having spoken for three-quarters of an hour.

The uninspired but adequate words of his opponent had galled Northcote at first, so overpowering was his desire to rise at once and deliver that utterance with which his whole being was impregnated. But as perforce he waited and his ears were fed by the formal phrases of his adversary, his nervous energy seemed to concentrate under the effort of repression. And when at last a curious hush informed him that his hour had arrived, which at a time less momentous would have unnerved him altogether, and he rose to his feet, to such an extent was he surcharged with emotion that at first he could not begin.

Every eye in the crowded building was strained upon him almost painfully, as he stood with locked lips looking at an old woman in a bright red shawl in the public gallery. He was as pale as a ghost, his cheeks were so cadaverous that in the murky light of the gaslit winter afternoon they presented the appearance of bones divested of their flesh. But there was a profound faith among the majority of the slow-breathing multitude. Since the morning the name of the advocate had come to be bruited among them; and in spite of his silence, which was grinding against their tense nerves, there was that in his bearing which excluded all sense of foreboding from their minds.

A full minute passed in complete silence while the advocate stood staring at the old woman in the red shawl. At last his lips were unsealed, slowly and reluctantly; the first words that proceeded from them were of a quietude which pinned every thought. All listened with a painful intensity without knowing why.

“My lord, gentlemen of the jury: It is with feelings of awe that I address you. This is the first occasion on which my inexperience has been summoned to bear the yoke of a great task; and here on its threshold I confess to you without shame that I should faint under its burden, had I not the knowledge that I hold a mandate to plead the cause of not the least of God’s creatures.

“You must have heard with admiration the words which have fallen from the lips of the learned gentleman who has pleaded the cause of the Crown. Impregnable in his learning, ripe in his judgment, he has made it impossible for the tyro who stands before you to imitate his force and his integrity. Indeed, I do not know how this tyro would derive the courage to follow him at all were it not that a special sanction had been given to him by the grievous circumstances of this case. It is because its nature is so terrible that he who has to share its onus is able to forget his youth, his weakness, his absence of credentials.

“We are proud, we citizens of London, that we are born of the first race of mankind, in the most fortunate hour of its history. It is our boast that we are the inheritors of a freedom that was never seen before on the earth; a freedom not only of conduct and intercourse, but more rarely, more preciously, a freedom of opinion, a freedom of ideas. And we prize this birthright of ours not merely because our fathers purchased it for us with their blood, but also because its possession is of inestimable worth in the progress of human nature. And in the very centre of this pride of ours, which is intellectual in its source, there arises, as the bulwark of our homage, the more than sacred edifice which has crystallized the national life. I refer to the constitution of England.