o hold out there is not
one who has given us any reason to believe that he is innocent of
the foul crime laid to his charge. The gentlemen of the long robe are
therefore unanimously of opinion that the jury may at once be required
to pronounce a single verdict upon the whole of the prisoners.'

'Which is--?' asked Jeffreys, glancing round at the foreman--

'Guilty, your Lordship,' said he, with a grin, while his brother jurymen
nodded their heads and laughed to one another.

'Of course, of course! guilty as Judas Iscariot!' cried the Judge,
looking down with exultant eyes at the throng of peasants and burghers
before him. 'Move them a little forwards, ushers, that I may see them
to more advantage. Oh, ye cunning ones! Are ye not taken? Are ye not
compassed around? Where now can ye fly? Do ye not see hell opening
at your feet? Eh? Are ye not afraid? Oh, short, short shall be your
shrift!' The very devil seemed to be in the man, for as he spoke he
writhed with unholy laughter, and drummed his hand upon the red cushion
in front of him. I glanced round at my companions, but their faces were
all as though they had been chiselled out of marble. If he had hoped to
see a moist eye or a quivering lip, the satisfaction was denied him.

'Had I my way,' said he, 'there is not one of ye but should swing for
it. Aye, and if I had my way, some of those whose stomachs are too nice
for this work, and who profess to serve the King with their lips while
they intercede for his worst enemies, should themselves have cause to
remember Taunton assizes. Oh, most ungrateful rebels! Have ye not
heard how your most soft-hearted and compassionate monarch, the best of
men--put it down in the record, clerk--on the intercession of that great
and charitable statesman, Lord Sunderland--mark it down, clerk--hath
had pity on ye? Hath it not melted ye? Hath it not made ye loathe
yourselves? I declare, when I think of it'--here, with a sudden catching
of the breath, he burst out a-sobbing, the tears running down his
cheeks--'when I think of it, the Christian forbearance, the ineffable
mercy, it doth bring forcibly to my mind that great Judge before whom
all of us--even I--shall one day have to render an account. Shall I
repeat it, clerk, or have you it down?'

'I have it down, your Lordship.'

'Then write "sobs" in the margin. 'Tis well that the King should
know our opinion on such matters. Know, then, you most traitorous and
unnatural rebels, that th