The Pickwick Papers
this was caused by the entrance of the judge.
Mr. Justice Stareleigh (who sat in the absence of the Chief Justice,
occasioned by indisposition) was a most particularly short man, and so
fat, that he seemed all face and waistcoat. He rolled in, upon two
little turned legs, and having bobbed gravely to the Bar, who bobbed
gravely to him, put his little legs underneath his table, and his little
three-cornered hat upon it; and when Mr. Justice Stareleigh had done
this, all you could see of him was two queer little eyes, one broad pink
face, and somewhere about half of a big and very comical-looking wig.
The judge had no sooner taken his seat, than the officer on the floor of
the court called out ‘Silence!’ in a commanding tone, upon which another
officer in the gallery cried ‘Silence!’ in an angry manner, whereupon
three or four more ushers shouted ‘Silence!’ in a voice of indignant
remonstrance. This being done, a gentleman in black, who sat below the
judge, proceeded to call over the names of the jury; and after a great
deal of bawling, it was discovered that only ten special jurymen were
present. Upon this, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz prayed a _tales_; the gentleman
in black then proceeded to press into the special jury, two of the
common jurymen; and a greengrocer and a chemist were caught directly.
‘Answer to your names, gentlemen, that you may be sworn,’ said the
gentleman in black. ‘Richard Upwitch.’
‘Here,’ said the greengrocer.
‘Thomas Groffin.’
‘Here,’ said the chemist.
‘Take the book, gentlemen. You shall well and truly try--’
‘I beg this court’s pardon,’ said the chemist, who was a tall, thin,
yellow-visaged man, ‘but I hope this court will excuse my attendance.’
‘On what grounds, Sir?’ said Mr. Justice Stareleigh.
‘I have no assistant, my Lord,’ said the chemist.
‘I can’t help that, Sir,’ replied Mr. Justice Stareleigh. ‘You should
hire one.’
‘I can’t afford it, my Lord,’ rejoined the chemist.
‘Then you ought to be able to afford it, Sir,’ said the judge,
reddening; for Mr. Justice Stareleigh’s temper bordered on the
irritable, and brooked not contradiction.
‘I know I _ought _to do, if I got on as well as I deserved; but I don’t,
my Lord,’ answered the chemist.
‘Swear the gentleman,’ said the judge peremptorily.
The officer had got no further than the ‘You shall well and truly try,’
when he was again interrupted by the chemist.
‘I am to be sworn, my Lord, am I?’ said the chemist.
‘Certainly, sir,’ replied the testy little judge.
‘Very well, my Lord,’ replied the chemist, in a resigned manner. ‘Then
there’ll be murder before this trial’s over; that’s all. Swear me, if
you please, Sir;’ and sworn the chemist was, before the judge could find
words to utter.
‘I merely wanted to observe, my Lord,’ said the chemist, taking his seat
with great deliberation, ‘that I’ve left nobody but an errand-boy in my
shop. He is a very nice boy, my Lord, but he is not acquainted with
drugs; and I know that the prevailing impression on his mind is, that
Epsom salts means oxalic acid; and syrup of senna, laudanum. That’s all,
my Lord.’ With this, the tall chemist composed himself into a
comfortable attitude, and, assuming a pleasant expression of
countenance, appeared to have prepared himself for the worst.
Mr. Pickwick was regarding the chemist with feelings of the deepest
horror, when a slight sensation was perceptible in the body of the
court; and immediately afterwards Mrs. Bardell, supported by Mrs.
Cluppins, was led in, and placed, in a drooping state, at the other end
of the seat on which Mr. Pickwick sat. An extra-sized umbrella was then
handed in by Mr. Dodson, and a pair of pattens by Mr. Fogg, each of whom
had prepared a most sympathising and melancholy face for the occasion.
Mrs. Sanders then appeared, leading in Master Bardell. At sight of her
child, Mrs. Bardell started; suddenly recollecting herself, she kissed
him in a frantic manner; then relapsing into a state of hysterical
imbecility, the good lady requested to be informed where she was. In
reply to this, Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders turned their heads away
and wept, while Messrs. Dodson and Fogg entreated the plaintiff to
compose herself. Serjeant Buzfuz rubbed his eyes very hard with a large
white handkerchief, and gave an appealing look towards the jury, while
the judge was visibly affected, and several of the beholders tried to
cough down their emotion.
‘Very good notion that indeed,’ whispered Perker to Mr. Pickwick.
‘Capital fellows those Dodson and Fogg; excellent ideas of effect, my
dear Sir, excellent.’
As Perker spoke, Mrs. Bardell began to recover by slow degrees, while
Mrs. Cluppins, after a careful survey of Master Bardell’s buttons and
the button-holes to which they severally belonged, placed him on the
floor of the court in front of his mother--a commanding position in
which he could not fail to awaken the full commiseration and sympathy of
both judge and jury. This was not done without considerable opposition,
and many tears, on the part of the young gentleman himself, who had
certain inward misgivings that the placing him within the full glare of
the judge’s eye was only a formal prelude to his being immediately
ordered away for instant execution, or for transportation beyond the
seas, during the whole term of his natural life, at the very least.
‘Bardell and Pickwick,’ cried the gentleman in black, calling on the
case, which stood first on the list.
‘I am for the plaintiff, my Lord,’ said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz.
‘Who is with you, Brother Buzfuz?’ said the judge. Mr. Skimpin bowed, to
intimate that he was.
‘I appear for the defendant, my Lord,’ said Mr. Serjeant Snubbin.
‘Anybody with you, Brother Snubbin?’ inquired the court.
‘Mr. Phunky, my Lord,’ replied Serjeant Snubbin.
‘Serjeant Buzfuz and Mr. Skimpin for the plaintiff,’ said the judge,
writing down the names in his note-book, and reading as he wrote; ‘for
the defendant, Serjeant Snubbin and Mr. Monkey.’
‘Beg your Lordship’s pardon, Phunky.’
‘Oh, very good,’ said the judge; ‘I never had the pleasure of hearing
the gentleman’s name before.’ Here Mr. Phunky bowed and smiled, and the
judge bowed and smiled too, and then Mr. Phunky, blushing into the very
whites of his eyes, tried to look as if he didn’t know that everybody
was gazing at him, a thing which no man ever succeeded in doing yet, or
in all reasonable probability, ever will.
‘Go on,’ said the judge.
The ushers again called silence, and Mr. Skimpin proceeded to ‘open the
case’; and the case appeared to have very little inside it when he had
opened it, for he kept such particulars as he knew, completely to
himself, and sat down, after a lapse of three minutes, leaving the jury
in precisely the same advanced stage of wisdom as they were in before.
Serjeant Buzfuz then rose with all the majesty and dignity which the
grave nature of the proceedings demanded, and having whispered to
Dodson, and conferred briefly with Fogg, pulled his gown over his
shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the jury.
Serjeant Buzfuz began by saying, that never, in the whole course of his
professional experience--never, from the very first moment of his
applying himself to the study and practice of the law--had he approached
a case with feelings of such deep emotion, or with such a heavy sense of
the responsibility imposed upon him--a responsibility, he would say,
which he could never have supported, were he not buoyed up and sustained
by a conviction so strong, that it amounted to positive certainty that
the cause of truth and justice, or, in other words, the cause of his
much-injured and most oppressed client, must prevail with the high-
minded and intelligent dozen of men whom he now saw in that box before
him.
Counsel usually begin in this way, because it puts the jury on the very
best terms with themselves, and makes them think what sharp fellows they
must be. A visible effect was produced immediately, several jurymen
beginning to take voluminous notes with the utmost eagerness.
‘You have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen,’ continued Serjeant
Buzfuz, well knowing that, from the learned friend alluded to, the
gentlemen of the jury had heard just nothing at all--‘you have heard
from my learned friend, gentlemen, that this is an action for a breach
of promise of marriage, in which the damages are laid at £1,500. But you
have not heard from my learned friend, inasmuch as it did not come
within my learned friend’s province to tell you, what are the facts and
circumstances of the case. Those facts and circumstances, gentlemen, you
shall hear detailed by me, and proved by the unimpeachable female whom I
will place in that box before you.’
Here, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, with a tremendous emphasis on the word ‘box,’
smote his table with a mighty sound, and glanced at Dodson and Fogg, who
nodded admiration of the Serjeant, and indignant defiance of the
defendant.
‘The plaintiff, gentlemen,’ continued Serjeant Buzfuz, in a soft and
melancholy voice, ‘the plaintiff is a widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow.
The late Mr. Bardell, after enjoying, for many years, the esteem and
confidence of his sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal
revenues, glided almost imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere
for that repose and peace which a custom-house can never afford.’
At this pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been
knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar, the
learned serjeant’s voice faltered, and he proceeded, with emotion--
‘Some time before his death, he had stamped his likeness upon a little
boy. With this little boy, the only pledge of her departed exciseman,
Mrs. Bardell shrank from the world, and courted the retirement and
tranquillity of Goswell Street; and here she placed in her front parlour
window a written placard, bearing this inscription--“Apartments
furnished for a single gentleman. Inquire within.”’ Here Serjeant Buzfuz
paused, while several gentlemen of the jury took a note of the document.
‘There is no date to that, is there?’ inquired a juror.
‘There is no date, gentlemen,’ replied Serjeant Buzfuz; ‘but I am
instructed to say that it was put in the plaintiff’s parlour window just
this time three years. I entreat the attention of the jury to the
wording of this document--“Apartments furnished for a single gentleman”!
Mrs. Bardell’s opinions of the opposite sex, gentlemen, were derived
from a long contemplation of the inestimable qualities of her lost
husband. She had no fear, she had no distrust, she had no suspicion; all
was confidence and reliance. “Mr. Bardell,” said the widow--“Mr. Bardell
was a man of honour, Mr. Bardell was a man of his word, Mr. Bardell was
no deceiver, Mr. Bardell was once a single gentleman himself; to single
gentlemen I look for protection, for assistance, for comfort, and for
consolation; in single gentlemen I shall perpetually see something to
remind me of what Mr. Bardell was when he first won my young and untried
affections; to a single gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let.”
Actuated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among the best impulses
of our imperfect nature, gentlemen), the lonely and desolate widow dried
her tears, furnished her first floor, caught her innocent boy to her
maternal bosom, and put the bill up in her parlour window. Did it remain
there long? No. The serpent was on the watch, the train was laid, the
mine was preparing, the sapper and miner was at work. Before the bill
had been in the parlour window three days--three days, gentlemen--a
being, erect upon two legs, and bearing all the outward semblance of a
man, and not of a monster, knocked at the door of Mrs. Bardell’s house.