Blind Justice Read Free Page A

realizing the magnitude of my predicament, I hesitated a moment, which I immediately feared might be taken as indecision on my part. And so I then nearly shouted my plea: “Not guilty!”
    The blind man’s stern face then softened into a smile of amusement. “Very good,” said he. “Clerk, enter that Jeremy Proctor pleads not guilty to the charge.” Then, with a sigh: “And now, Bledsoe, tell your tale.”
    A tale it was—and a tale of lies. According to his perjured testimony, Bledsoe merely happened to be strolling along Shoreditch when, of a sudden, he heard a great hue and cry of stop-thief and immediately noted a figure—“this lad here”—running at top speed out of Chick Lane with a man in pursuit. He then had no choice— or so said he—but to apprehend the malefactor by whatever means was available. He tripped him with his staff and then, when the lad made to resist and continue his flight, smote him sharply, knocking him senseless, and brought him direct here to Bow Street.
    “You stand by that?”
    “I do, m’lord.”
    Though all that was in me cried out against what I had heard, I had the good sense to hold my peace. I waited, hopeful that this blind man would see through it all. He then called out loudly, “Are there any witnesses?”
    “There is one, m’lord,” Bledsoe piped up. “And the very one he stole from, William Slade by name.”
    “Let him speak.”
    The man who had sent me from the Cock and Bull on that bootless mission now came forward and bore false witness against me. He alleged that he had just stepped forth from that establishment, purse in hand, when he was suddenly set upon “by this young rogue,” who wrenched the purse from his grasp and started away at great speed. He set out in pursuit, crying after him as he went, and turned onto Shoreditch just in time to see the young thief tripped up “by this heroic gentleman here”—Bledsoe—who recovered the purse and invited his company to the Bow Street Court in order to prosecute the miscreant before that paragon of the judiciary, Sir John Fielding.
    That last bit clearly annoyed the blind man, whom I now knew to be Sir John. He scowled, sniffed, and said, “Spare us, please.”
    “But, m’lord, I only—”
    “You say the purse was recovered?”
    “It was, and ain’t I glad, for it contained a goodly sum.”
    “Hand it over to the clerk.”
    Slade looked dubiously at Bledsoe, who answered with a sharp nod. Reluctantly, he did as he was bade. The clerk immediately set about ransacking its contents.
    “And now, Master Proctor,” said Sir John, “you have heard the testimony offered against you. What can you say in your own behalf?”
    “Only the truth, sir,” said I. And I then gave a simple and direct account of the events already described to you, my reader, only in somewhat abbreviated form.
    When I finished. Sir John seemed well pleased by my recital. He nodded, said nothing for a moment, then leaned forward as though to see me better. “You are well spoken, boy, though not from these parts. Am I correct?”
    “Yes, sir—m’lord.”
    ” ‘Sir’ is an acceptable form of address. Where are you from then?”
    “I was born in Lichfield.” I wished to make no mention of the town I had left.
    “Lichfield? Close, close, but I would have put you somewhat nearer to us. Penkridge, say, or Stoke Poges?”
    I was amazed. Could he fix me so precisely by my manner of speech? Yet fix me he had, and I saw nothing for it but to admit my dissimulation. Hanging my head, I said, “I was the last years in Stoke Poges.”
    “Ah-hah!” he crowed loudly in delight, “done it again, have I not? There’s not a man in London can place a body by his speech as I can!” He roared out a great booming laugh of triumph. But he calmed suddenly and grew serious again. “Mark you,” said he, speaking in the direction of the clerk yet to the court at large, “the boy told no falsehood. I asked him where he was from, and he