Henry Northcote

by J. C. Snaith

“Now the answer that tribunal vouchsafed to me was this: ‘Consider what your pastors and masters would do were they placed in your case. Consider what would be the attitude of those great minds that still burn like candles in the night of the time, whose radiance has warmed your veins, whose immortality has enriched your own personal nature. Consider what would be the conduct of those representative spirits of whom you proud Englishmen of the twentieth century are the heirs.’

“And then a strange thing happened. No sooner had this answer been written on the tablets of my brain, than this gaslit room grew dimmer than it already was, and there seemed to arise a kind of commotion among you gentlemen of the jury. And when at last I found the courage to lift my eyes outwards from my thoughts, and they looked towards you, I saw with a thrill of surprise, as if by the agency of magic, that each one of your faces had been blotted out. Each was shrouded in an intense darkness. But while I continued to gaze upon the place that had contained you, almost with a feeling of horror, a shadowy haze seemed to play over it, and a number of strange faces peopled the gloom. They were more than twelve in number; they were more than twenty; they were more than a hundred. For the most part they were those of men old and austere. Each face seemed to be that of a person of infinite power and dominion, of one accustomed to walk alone. Each was marked by a kind of superhuman composure, as though having spent its youth in every phase of stress, it had emerged at last upon the summits of the mountains, where the air is rarefied, and where it is possible to hold a personal intercourse with Truth. Some of the faces were grave, some a little sinister, but the eyes of each had a forward, upward look which conferred an expression upon them of entrancing beauty.

“Stealthily, rapidly, but with a superhuman composure these noble shadows ranged themselves in the jury-box, in the room of you gentlemen who had vacated it. And when I had overcome my stupefaction sufficiently to look upon these new jurors more closely, I was struck with amazement at the curious familiarity of those faces of theirs. They were those of persons that I had seemed to have known all my life.

“There and then a shiver of recognition crept through my veins. I knew them; I revered them, I had spent many hours in their company. The first face I had recognized was that of an old man, urbane and ironical, a citizen of the world; it was the face of Plato. Beside him was a man, older, less urbane, more ironical; it was the face of Socrates. Thinkers, warriors, saints, and innovators began to teem before my gaze. There was St. Augustine and St. Francis of Assisi, Shakespeare and Goethe, Leonardo and Dante, Washington and Cromwell, Kant and Spinoza, Isaac Newton, Giordano Bruno, Voltaire. I thought I discerned the faces of at least two women among this assembly; one was that of Joan of Arc, the other that of Mary the Magdalene. There appeared to be hosts of others of all times and countries which sprang into being as I gazed, but though I recognized them then, I cannot pause to enumerate them now. For this gathering was strangely representative, and the living were not excluded—I saw a great Russian, a great Englishman, and a great Frenchman of our own day—but I must resist the temptation to give the names of all I beheld.

“No sooner had the scope and representativeness of this gathering declared itself and it had ranged itself miraculously within a little room, than a kind of commotion overspread it. They seemed to be discussing some difficult point among themselves. However, this action of theirs had no time to engage my anxiety, for I understood immediately that they were seeking a foreman to their jury. Now you would suppose that among a concourse of all who had attained an immortal preëminence in mental and moral activity, to choose a leader from amongst them would be impossible. But this was not so. Their discussion was over almost before it began. They had no difficulty whatever in nominating one among their number to speak for them all.

“It was with an indescribable curiosity that I observed a slight, strangely garbed figure emerge from their midst. And when he came to assume his place at the head of his immortal companions, which you, sir, are occupying now, I was devoured by an overpowering eagerness to look upon his face. And by this time so immensely powerful had been the impact of this jury upon my imagination, that it had obtained an actual existence and proceeded in sober verity to conduct the business of the court. And I was sensible that the painful curiosity with which I awaited the foreman’s revelation of his identity was shared by all who were present. All were craning with parted lips to look upon his face. And when at last he lifted his head, and his pale and luminous features shone out of the gloom and overspread this assembly, a kind of half-stifled sob of surprise, a sort of shudder of recognition, passed over the crowded court. The face was that of the man called Jesus of Nazareth.

“To myself, however, the recognition brought an immediate and profound sense of joy. All my doubts, my terrors, my perplexities, were no more. They passed as completely as though they had never been. The business of the court proceeded, but I was inaccessible to its bearing upon my task. My every thought was merged in the personality of the foreman of the jury. The precise, calm, and harmonious legal diction of my learned friends lost all its meaning and coherence, and even the demeanor of the good and upright judge, who is making trial of this cause, became one with the glamour which environed the figure in the jury-box.

“That august jury seemed to sit and listen to all that passed. By an extreme courtesy which they were able to impose on their finely disciplined natures, they gave heed to the ceremonial that was enacted for their benefit. It is true that there were moments when they were unable to conceal the smile of soft irony which veiled their lips; but from the beginning to the end their patience and urbanity remained inviolate. The foreman, however, muttering continually inaudible words to himself, with fingers twitching, and the hectic pulse beating in his thin and fevered cheek, never took his eyes from the rail in front of him. And when at last the time came for the jury to consider their verdict, they were able to return it instantly, without leaving the box, as you would expect such a tribunal to do.

“I can scarcely hope to picture to your minds the scene that was presented when the foreman, so frail and thin and yet so full of compassion, rose humbly in his place. ‘Are you agreed upon your verdict, gentlemen?’ said the Clerk of Arraigns. ‘We are,’ said the voice of the divine mystic of the Galilean hills; yet I can convey to you the sound of it no better than could those poor fishermen who heard it nineteen centuries ago. ‘What is your verdict, gentlemen?’ said the Clerk of Arraigns, whose own voice sounded so ludicrously trite in comparison with that of the foreman, that it seemed to have no place in human nature. ‘I understand,’ said the foreman of the jury, ‘according to your laws the penalty is death.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said the Clerk of Arraigns, with a quiet dignity, ‘the penalty according to the law is death.’ ‘The jury return a verdict of Not Guilty,’ replied the foreman instantly, stooping to write with his finger on the rail in front of him, as though he had heard him not.”

At this point Mr. Weekes rose excitedly.