He beamed on Archie, but no smile could be elicited.
“And now,” proceeded the Judge, “for ‘Archibald on Capital Punishment.’ This is a very plausible academic opinion; of course I do not and I cannot hold it; but that’s not to say that many able and excellent persons have not done so in the past. Possibly, in the past also, I may have a little dipped myself in the same heresy. My third client, or possibly my fourth, was the means of a return in my opinions. I never saw the man I more believed in; I would have put my hand in the fire, I would have gone to the cross for him; and when it came to trial he was gradually pictured before me, by undeniable probation, in the light of so gross, so cold-blooded, and so black-hearted a villain, that I had a mind to have cast my brief upon the table. I was then boiling against the man with even a more tropical temperature than I had been boiling for him. But I said to myself: ‘No, you have taken up his case; and because you have changed your mind it must not be suffered to let drop. All that rich tide of eloquence that you prepared last night with so much enthusiasm is out of place, and yet you must not desert him, you must say something.’ So I said something, and I got him off. It made my reputation. But an experience of that kind is formative. A man must not bring his passions to the bar—or to the bench,” he added.
The story had slightly rekindled Archie’s interest. “I could never deny,” he began—“I mean I can conceive that some men would be better dead. But who are we to know all the springs of God’s unfortunate creatures? Who are we to trust ourselves where it seems that God Himself must think twice before He treads, and to do it with delight? Yes, with delight. Tigris ut aspera.”
“Perhaps not a pleasant spectacle,” said Glenalmond. “And yet, do you know, I think somehow a great one.”
“I’ve had a long talk with him to-night,” said Archie.
“I was supposing so,” said Glenalmond.
“And he struck me—I cannot deny that he struck me as something very big,” pursued the son. “Yes, he is big. He never spoke about himself; only about me. I suppose I admired him. The dreadful part—”
“Suppose we did not talk about that,” interrupted Glenalmond. “You know it very well, it cannot in any way help that you should brood upon it, and I sometimes wonder whether you and I—who are a pair of sentimentalists—are quite good judges of plain men.”
“How do you mean?” asked Archie.
“Fair judges, mean,” replied Glenalmond. “Can we be just to them? Do we not ask too much? There was a word of yours just now that impressed me a little when you asked me who we were to know all the springs of God’s unfortunate creatures. You applied that, as I understood, to capital cases only. But does it—I ask myself—does it not apply all through? Is it any less difficult to judge of a good man or of a half-good man, than of the worst criminal at the bar? And may not each have relevant excuses?”