“In one of these Courts.”
“Who be the judge?” whispered Bumpkin.
At this moment there was a loud shout of “Silence!” and although Mr. Bumpkin was making no noise whatever, a gentleman approached him, looking very angry, and enquired if Mr. Bumpkin desired to be committed for contempt of Court.
Mr. Bumpkin thought the most prudent answer was silence; so he remained speechless, looking the gentleman
full in the face; while the gentleman looked him full in the face for at least a minute and a half, as if he were wondering whether he should take him off to prison there and then, or give him another chance, as the judge sometimes does a prisoner when he sentences him to two years imprisonment with hard labour.
Now the gentleman was a very amiable man of about forty, with large brown mutton-chop whiskers, and a very well trained moustache; good-looking and, I should think, with some humour, that is for a person connected with the Courts. He was something about the Court, but in what capacity he held up his official head, I am unable to say. He was evidently regarded with great respect by the crowd of visitors. It was some time before he took his gaze off Mr. Bumpkin; even when he had taken his eyes off, he seemed looking at him as if he feared that the moment he went away Bumpkin would do it again.
And then methought I heard someone whisper near me: “His lordship is going to give judgment in the case of Starling v. Nightingale,” and all at once there was a great peace. I lost sight of Bumpkin, I lost sight of the gentleman, I lost sight of the crowd; an indefinable sensation of delight overpowered my senses. Where was I? I had but a moment before been in a Court of Justice, with crowds of gaping idlers; with prosaic-looking gentlemen in horsehair wigs; with gentlemen in a pew with papers before them ready to take down the proceedings. Now it seemed as if I must be far away in the distant country, where all was calm and heavenly peace.
Surely I must be among the water-lilies! What a lullaby sound as of rippling waters and of distant music
in the evening air; of the eddying and swirl of the mingling currents; of the chime of bells on the evening breeze; of the zephyrs through fir-tops; of woodland whispers; of the cadence of the cathedral organ; of the soft sweet melody of the maiden’s laugh; of her gentlest accents in her sweetest mood; of—but similitudes fail me. In this delicious retreat, which may be compared to the Garden of Eden before the tempter entered, are the choicest flowers of rhetoric. I hear a voice as from the far-off past, and I wonder will that be the voice which will utter the “last syllable of recorded time?”
Then methought the scene changed, and I heard the question—