“Justice! Oh, the pride of the man’s heart, and the folly! Who ever talks of justice to a woman? My dear captain, talk of mercy, or cruelty, if you will; we ladies delight in being called cruel, you know, and sometimes are even pleased to be merciful—but to be just, is the last thing we think of: so now for your trial; public or private, Captain Walsingham?”
“Public! as I am innocent.”
“Oyes, oyes! all manner of men,” cried Mr. Beaumont.
“The Spanish cause coming on!” cried Mr. Palmer: “let me hear it; and let me have a good seat that I may hear—a seat near the judge.”
“Oh, you shall be judge, Mr. Palmer,” said Amelia; “and here is the best seat for our good judge.”
“And you will remember,” said Mr. Beaumont, “that it is the duty of a good judge to lean towards the prisoner.”
“To lean! No, to sit bolt upright, as I will if I can,” said old Mr. Palmer, entering into the pleasantry of the young people as readily as if he had been the youngest man in the company. As he looked round, his good countenance beamed with benevolent pleasure.
“Now, sir captain, be pleased to inform the court what you have done, or mean to do, with a certain Spanish nun, whom, as it is confidently asserted in a letter from one of your own men, you carried off from her nunnery, and did bring, or cause to be brought, with you to England.”
“My lord judge, will you do me the favour, or the justice, to order that the letter alluded to may be read in court?”
This was ordered, and done accordingly.