Stop—stop—am I to say to the judges what I would say to the jury, if I had leave?
Pre—cisely! but—but—a word in your ear—so as to be heard by the jury.—Tut—tut—
The head-prosecutor jumped up at these words, and with a great show of zeal prayed the judges to put a stop to the consultation, a part of which was of a character—of a character—that is to say, of a character—
Burroughs would have interrupted him, but he was hindered by his crafty law-adviser, who told him to let the worthy gentleman cut his own throat in his own way, now he was in the humor for it.
Burroughs obeyed, and after his adversary had run himself out of breath, arose in reply, and with a gravity and a moderation that weighed prodigiously with the court, called upon the chief-judge to put a stop to such gladiatorial controversy—
What would you have us do? said the judge.
I would have you do nothing more than your duty—
Here the coadjutor of Burroughs, after making a sign to him to face the jury, slid away on tip-toe.
—I would have you rebuke this temper. Ye are the judges of a great people. I would have you act, and I would have you teach others to act, as if you and they were playing together, in every such case—not for your own lives—that were too much to ask of mortal man; but for another’s life. I would have you and your officers behave here as if the game that you play were what you all know it to be, a game of life and death—a trial, not of attorney with attorney, nor of judge with judge, in the warfare of skill, or wit, or trick, or stratagem, for fee or character—but a trial whereby the life here, and the life hereafter it may be, of a fellow-creature is in issue. Yea—more—I would have you teach the king’s Attorney-General, the prosecutor himself, that representative though he be of majesty, it would be more dignified and more worthy of majesty, if he could contrive to keep his temper, when he is defeated or thwarted in his attack on human life. We may deserve death all of us, but we deserve not mockery; and whether we deserve death or not, I hope we deserve, under our gracious Lord and Master, to be put to death according to law—
That’ll do!—that’ll do!—whispered the lawyer, who had returned with his huge folios—that’ll do my boy! looking up over his spectacles and turning a leaf—that’ll do! give it to ’em as hot as they can sup it—I shall be ready for you in a crack—push on, push on—what a capital figure you’d make at the bar—don’t stop—don’t stop.