(See page 248.)
the last man I should go to for a decision upon a strictly legal question.
We put him in possession of the story of our business with Bokes. He smoked over it a pipe of the very strongest tobacco I should think procurable anywhere. Somehow, he did not appear to enjoy the narrative so highly as we had expected; on the contrary, he grew very solemn over it.
“Perhaps you’re not aware of it,” he said, at last, in an awful voice, dividing his words so that they might fall like distinct and individual blows upon us. “Perhaps you are none of you aware of it; but you’ve all been guilty of an offence—I should say clearly indictable at common law. You, Lupthorpe, of fraud and covin.”
“Oh Lor!” cried Lup, in an agony, “what’s covin?” But Budder did not heed him. He went on as though he had been a chief justice, with the black cap on, condemning a batch of convicts to extreme penalties.
“You other two have been guilty of conspiracy, or perhaps misprision of felony or you may be charged with vagrancy and disorderly conduct. I was reading up the subject only last night, but I hardly know upon which I should go against you.’ He certainly dwindled here from the chief justice into the articled clerk again—and then he communed with himself, contemplating the ceiling. “No. I don’t think it’s crimen læsæ majestatis,” he went on; “the punishment might be transportation for two years, or perhaps penal servitude; or if the thing came before the sessions, perhaps imprisonment and hard labour for one year, with whipping, except in the case of females.” (What was crimen læsæ majestatis? Did Budder really know? or was he only seeking to impress us?)
“Oh please, sir, let us off: we’ll never do it again—please, sir!” cried Crickson, with what I must really denounce as ill-timed humour.
“This is awful,” cried Lupthorpe, his face quite white; “fancy being dragged along the streets by policemen—the crowd hurraing—then before a magistrate—”
“The scene would paint very well,” said Crickson, meditatively. He was an artist always—even if he was to be regarded as a felon.
“Fancy its being put into the papers, and their getting hold of it down at the Rectory. I do think it would kill my poor old governor. Hard labour for one year! Oh Lor! with whipping—”
“Except in the case of females,” interpolated Budder.
