"Oh! Come, sir--after what the judge said! Come, sir! What do you say, Mr. Foreman?"Gentleman Fox--as who should say 'This is excellent value, but Idon't wish to press it on you!'--answered:
"We are only concerned with the facts. Did he or did he not try to shorten his life?""Of course he did--said so himself," Mr. Bosengate heard the wire-haired man snap out, and from the following murmur of assent he alone abstained. Guilty! Well--yes! There was no way out of admitting that, but his feelings revolted against handing "that poor little beggar" over to the tender mercy of his country's law. His whole soul rose in arms against agreeing with that ill-bred little cur, and the rest of this job-lot. He had an impulse to get up and walk out, saying: "Settle it your own way. Good morning.""It seems, sir," Gentleman Fox was saying, "that we're all agreed to guilty, except yourself. If you will allow me, I don't see how you can go behind what the prisoner himself admitted."Thus brought up to the very guns, Mr. Bosengate, red in the face, thrust his hands deep into the side pockets of his tunic, and, staring straight before him, said:
"Very well; on condition we recommend him to mercy.""What do you say, gentlemen; shall we recommend him to mercy?""'Ear, 'ear!" burst from the commercial traveller, and from the chemist came the murmur:
"No harm in that."
"Well, I think there is. They shoot deserters at the front, and we let this fellow off. I'd hang the cur."Mr. Bosengate stared at that little wire-haired brute. "Haven't you any feeling for others?" he wanted to say. "Can't you see that this poor devil suffers tortures?" But the sheer impossibility of doing this before ten other men brought a slight sweat out on his face and hands; and in agitation he smote the table a blow with his fist. The effect was instantaneous. Everybody looked at the wire-haired man, as if saying: "Yes, you've gone a bit too far there!" The "little brute" stood it for a moment, then muttered surlily:
"Well, commend 'im to mercy if you like; I don't care.""That's right; they never pay any attention to it," said the grey-haired man, winking heartily. And Mr. Bosengate filed back with the others into court.
But when from the jury box his eyes fell once more on the hare-eyed figure in the dock, he had his worst moment yet. Why should this poor wretch suffer so--for no fault, no fault; while he, and these others, and that snapping counsel, and the Caesar-like judge up there, went off to their women and their homes, blithe as bees, and probably never thought of him again? And suddenly he was conscious of the judge's voice:
"You will go back to your regiment, and endeavour to serve your country with better spirit. You may thank the jury that you are not sent to prison, and your good fortune that you were not at the front when you tried to commit this cowardly act. You are lucky to be alive."A policeman pulled the little soldier by the arm; his drab figure with eyes fixed and lustreless, passed down and away. From his very soul Mr. Bosengate wanted to lean out and say: "Cheer up, cheer up!
I understand."
It was nearly ten o'clock that evening before he reached home, motoring back from the route march. His physical tiredness was abated, for he had partaken of a snack and a whisky and soda at the hotel; but mentally he was in a curious mood. His body felt appeased, his spirit hungry. Tonight he had a yearning, not for his wife's kisses, but for her understanding. He wanted to go to her and say: "I've learnt a lot to-day-found out things I never thought of.
Life's a wonderful thing, Kate, a thing one can't live all to oneself; a thing one shares with everybody, so that when another suffers, one suffers too. It's come to me that what one has doesn't matter a bit--it's what one does, and how one sympathises with other people. It came to me in the most extraordinary vivid way, when Iwas on that jury, watching that poor little rat of a soldier in his trap; it's the first time I've ever felt--the--the spirit of Christ, you know. It's a wonderful thing, Kate--wonderful! We haven't been close--really close, you and I, so that we each understand what the other is feeling. It's all in that, you know; understanding--sympathy--it's priceless. When I saw that poor little devil taken down and sent back to his regiment to begin his sorrows all over again--wanting his wife, thinking and thinking of her just as you know I would be thinking and wanting you, I felt what an awful outside sort of life we lead, never telling each other what we really think and feel, never being really close. I daresay that little chap and his wife keep nothing from each other--live each other's lives.
That's what we ought to do. Let's get to feeling that what really matters is--understanding and loving, and not only just saying it as we all do, those fellows on the jury, and even that poor devil of a judge--what an awful life judging one's fellow-creatures When I left that poor little Tommy this morning, and ever since, I've longed to get back here quietly to you and tell you about it, and make a beginning. There's something wonderful in this, and I want you to feel it as I do, because you mean such a lot to me."This was what he wanted to say to his wife, not touching, or kissing her, just looking into her eyes, watching them soften and glow as they surely must, catching the infection of his new ardour. And he felt unsteady, fearfully unsteady with the desire to say it all as it should be said: swiftly, quietly, with the truth and fervour of his feeling.