Blind Justice Read Free

around me that looked none too friendly, and in the forefront was none other than Mr. Bledsoe, who looked least friendly of all. At me, still on the ground, he brandished his staff, and the thought came to me then that he had used it to trip me up. But why should he do that? As I raised up to protest, he cocked the thing above his head and heaved it down hard upon me.
    And that, reader, is all that I recall of my gulling.
    As I regained consciousness, I was aware, primarily, of a prodigious pain in my head, and secondarily of a great hubbub around me. My eyes opened to a scene the like of which I had never before beheld: It brought fresh into mind the ideas of London roguery and wickedness which I conceived from my reading of The Lives of Convicts and other such pennybooks. There were whores and greasy blackguards assembled together. Had I been dumped into a convocation of drabs and cutpurses, or perhaps transported willy-nilly to Bedlam? The shrill babble and cackle from those about me set me to wonder..
    I sought to raise me up for a better view of this curious assemblage and was thrust down instantly and rudely where I sat. Turning to my captor, I found him to be none other than that Bledsoe, who had involved me as victim of his malevolent charade. Beyond him sat Slade, his partner and conspirator. There was no chance for me to escape these two, for Bledsoe had his big hand wrapped around the back of my neck and with it held me in a tight grip. He bent toward me and, blowing his foul gin breath in my face, said, “There’s a good lad. Cause us no trouble, and you’ll not be knocked about.”
    “But I—”
    “Quiet!” He interrupted me with a brutal squeeze of my neck. “We’ve not long to wait.”
    And indeed it was so. I sat miserably thus a few minutes more, aware at last that what little attention there was from the raucous crowd was focused toward the front of the large room upon two men who sat at graduated elevation, facing out above the rest. The man situated higher was then in earnest confabulation with a man who stood alone before him. Suddenly he broke off his parley and banged down hard with a mallet upon the high table at which he sat. The fellow with whom he had but a moment before been deep in talk was then led away by a burly pair who stepped forth from a side gathering of spectators. The other man, who was sitting below the first at a small desk, then rose and bellowed out: “Bledsoe, Thomas, independent thief-taker. Bring your prisoner forth.”
    With that, I was jerked to my feet and hurried down the aisle, pushed forward at all speed from behind by that same Thomas Bledsoe, until at last I stood before the two men. The lesser of the two, who had summoned us but a moment before, looked upon me gravely and asked my name.
    “Jeremy Proctor, sir.”
    The man with the mallet leaned forward then with great interest in my direction. Perceived thus closely, he offered a rather fearsome visage. His corpulent face was set in a solemn expression. Yet it was not his features I found frightening but rather the fact that his eyes were completely hidden from me. As I gazed up at him, I saw that a band of black silk covered them. The customary tricorn which he wore had obscured this at the distance from which I first saw him. I realized that he was blind. At last he spoke: “How old are you. Proctor?”
    “Just past thirteen, sir.”
    Bledsoe shook me roughly by the scruff of the neck. “You calls him m’lord—and don’t forget it.”
    There came a great outburst of comment and snickering from the throng behind, so that the blind man was forced once again to beat with his mallet upon the table until order was restored. “Let the boy speak as he sees fit,” said he. And then to me: “You are accused of larceny. How say you?”
    “Sir?” Immediately I felt the grip tighten upon my neck. “I mean, m’lord?”
    “Larceny—thieving. How say you? Guilty or not guilty?”
    “Oh …” Suddenly