“We know a bit about them politics down here,” he continued, in a monotonous sing-song. “You see Disraeli he lived down Hughenden way. They made him Lord Beaconsfield, and he’s buried over yon. We was very proud of him, we was.”
I began to think there was a blunder somewhere, and said: “But Hodgson is Gladstone’s man, you know.”
“All right, I understand, I understand,” he said, rather testily. “I told you we know all about them things here. When Disraeli was alive, why, him and Gladstone lived like brothers, didn’t they? And I say now one’s dead, vote for t’other.”
It seemed useless to disturb the comfortable and convenient myth that the old gentleman had built round the only two names in the political world he
had ever heard of. We were at the top of the hill, and our ways parted. I once more assured him that Hodgson was Gladstone’s man, and bade him farewell.
And I call to mind a very different excursion from these political ones, for I little thought when I went down in early life to the assizes at Norwich that I should ever have the honour of presiding in the wonderful old court there. It is certainly one of the least convenient for its purpose of any that I have ever seen. There are the most mysterious collection of pens and pulpits in its interior, which from the crow’s nest in which the judge sits seem to have been designed specially to prevent anyone getting from one to the other when it is necessary to do so. It took twenty-five minutes to get a jury collected, seated in the right pen and duly sworn. To my Manchester mind this was a long pause in my day’s work, but there is more time to the hour in Norfolk than in most places, and once you get there, there really is no hurry. The witness-box in that court is of very peculiar design. It is built like a sentry box. The witness enters it from behind; a special verger or usher shuts him in, and he stays there until released. I watched a quaint comedy or rather farce in which a jovial horse-dealer of very ample proportions played the leading part. With great difficulty he was got into the witness-box and the door closed by a clever wrist movement of the usher. It is true some of him overlapped the bar in front, but the rest of him was actually in the box and the
door closed. All would have gone well if counsel for the defence had not made him laugh—when he must have expanded, and click! bang! the door flew open, and we had to wait until the irate usher slowly awakened, strolled down the corridor, and got him pressed in again and shut the door. This went on two or three times, to the great discontent of the usher, who at last set his back to the door and kept the fat horse-dealer in by sheer force. What would have happened if the back door of the box had been left open I do not know, but I think it might have hurt the usher’s feelings to suggest it, so I kept silence.
I was sitting there for my brother, Judge Addison, K.C., who had recently been appointed, and was ill and had asked me to sit for him, which as I had a holiday I was very ready to do. It was my first experience of travelling to little country towns, and in those days, when there were no motors and the railways were very slow and inconvenient, it was anything but a pleasant task. I remember in the County Club, which gave me a kindly hospitality, a genial, well-built, jolly squire, who knew what my job was, asked me how the working class of the North compared with the men I met in the courts round Norfolk. I made answer to the effect that the Northerners were quicker and sharper, perhaps, but, then, the Norfolk people had a quaint mother wit. “But,” I added, “either of them can tell you what isn’t true occasionally.”
“Oh,” he cried, “liars! Of course, they’re liars!
That’s nothing. They are all Radicals and Dissenters about here!”