"My dear Gurney, you may easily imagine what my feelings were. Only conceive the idea of having been turned into a double-bedded room in the dark with a dead woman! It was lucky that the horses were pronounced ready, and that Major Barmingfield, whose residence at Ripley mine hostess had so truly announced, made his appearance just at the moment that the undertaker had enlightened me on the subject. I felt a mingled sensation of horror at the event, of joy at my escape from the place where it occurred, and of repentance for my misconduct towards my landlady, who had so good-naturedly strained a point for my accommodation, which nearly overset me; and I have not a notion what I should have done, had it not been that the coldness of the weather afforded me an excuse for drinking off a glass of brandy, and the lateness of the hour forced me to mount my nag and begin my canter to Wrigglesworth forthwith."
A VISIT TO THE OLD BAILEY.
As I entered the Court, a case of some importance had terminated, and the judge just concluded his summing up, when the clerk of the arraigns put the customary question to the jury, "How say ye, gentlemen—is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?" Upon which the jurymen laid their heads together, and I heard something in a whisper from their foreman, who immediately pronounced the agreeable verdict, "Not guilty." The prisoner bowed gracefully—he was a pickpocket—and retired.
The prompt decision of the jury convinced me that it must have been a clear case; and I rejoiced at the departure of the now exonerated sufferer.
"That's a reg'lar rascal," said the sheriff to me in a whisper; "never was such a case heard on, to be sure—seventeen watches, thirty-two pocket handkerchiefs, four pair of spectacles, and five snuff-boxes, all found upon his person!"
"Yet," said I, "the evidence could not have been very strong against him—the jury acquitted him after a minute's consultation."
"Evidence, Mr. Gurney!" said the sheriff, "how little do you know of the Old Bailey!—why, if these London juries were to wait to consider evidence, we never should get through the business—the way we do here is to make a zig-zag of it."
I did not exactly comprehend the term as it was now applied, although Daly had often used it in my society with reference to a pin and a card universally employed at the interesting game of rouge et noir; and I therefore made no scruple of expressing my ignorance.
"Don't you understand, sir?" said the sheriff—"why, the next prisoner will be found guilty—the last was acquitted—the one after the next will be acquitted too—it comes alternate like—save half, convict half—that's what we call a zig-zag; and taking the haggregate, it comes to the same pint, and I think justice is done as fair here as in any court in Christendom."