Peg said scornfully: “And we’re supposed to go along with this fairy tale, and protect Jay’s reputation.”
“If you want Sir George to plead for your life, yes.”
Cora said: “We have no choice. Of course we’ll do it.”
“Good.” Gordonson turned to Mack. “I wish your case was so easy.”
Mack protested: “But I didn’t riot!”
“You didn’t go away after the Riot Act was read.”
“For God’s sake—I tried to get everyone to go, but Lennox’s ruffians attacked.”
“Let’s look at this step by step.”
Mack took a deep breath and suppressed his exasperation. “All right.”
“The prosecutor will say simply that the Riot Act was read, and you did not go away, so you are guilty and should be hanged.”
“Yes, but everyone knows there’s more to it than that!”
“There: that’s your defense. You simply say that the prosecutor has told half the story. Can you bring witnesses to say that you pleaded with everyone to disperse?”
“I’m sure I can. Dermot Riley can get any number of coal heavers to testify. But we should ask the Jamissons why the coal was being delivered to that yard, of all places, and at that time of night!”
“Well—”
Mack banged the table impatiently. “The whole riot was prearranged, we have to say that.”
“It would be hard to prove.”
Mack was infuriated by Gordonson’s dismissive attitude. “The riot was caused by a conspiracy—surely you’re not going to leave that out? If the facts don’t come out in court, where will they?”
Peg said: “Will you be at the trial, Mr. Gordonson?”
“Yes—but the judge may not let me speak.”
“For God’s sake, why not?” Mack said indignantly.
“The theory is that if you’re innocent you don’t need legal expertise to prove it. But sometimes judges make exceptions.”
“I hope we get a friendly judge,” Mack said anxiously.
“The judge ought to help the accused. It’s his duty to make sure the defense case is clear to the jury. But don’t rely on it. Place your faith in the plain truth. It’s the only thing that can save you from the hangman.”
24
ON THE DAY OF THE TRIAL THE PRISONERS WERE awakened at five o’clock in the morning.
Dermot Riley arrived a few minutes later with a suit for Mack to borrow: it was the outfit Dermot had got married in, and Mack was touched. He also brought a razor and a sliver of soap. Half an hour later Mack looked respectable and felt ready to face the judge.
With Cora and Peg and fifteen or twenty others he was tied up and marched out of the prison, along Newgate Street, down a side street called Old Bailey and up an alley to the Sessions House.
Caspar Gordonson met him there and explained who was who. The yard in front of the building was already full of people: prosecutors, witnesses, jurors, lawyers, friends and relatives, idle spectators, and probably whores and thieves looking for business. The prisoners were led across the yard and through a gate to the bail dock. It was already half full of defendants, presumably from other prisons: the Fleet Prison, the Bridewell and Ludgate Prison. From there Mack could see the imposing Sessions House. Stone steps led up to its ground floor, which was open on one side except for a row of columns. Inside was the judges’ bench on a high platform. On either side were railed-off spaces for jurors, and balconies for court officers and privileged spectators.
It reminded Mack of a theater—but he was the villain of the piece.
He watched with grim fascination as the court began its long day of trials. The first defendant was a woman accused of stealing fifteen yards of linsey-woolsey—cheap cloth made of a mixture of linen and wool—from a shop. The shopkeeper was the prosecutor, and he valued the cloth at fifteen shillings. The witness, an employee, swore that the woman picked up the bolt of cloth and went to the door then, realizing she was observed, dropped the material and ran away. The woman claimed she had only been looking at the cloth and had never intended to make off with it.
The jurors went into a huddle. They came from the social class known as “the middling sort”: they were small traders, well-to-do craftsmen and shopkeepers. They hated disorder and theft but they mistrusted the government and jealously defended liberty—their own, at least.
They found her guilty but valued the cloth at four Shillings, a lot less than it was worth. Gordonson explained that she could be hanged for stealing goods worth more than five shillings from a shop. The verdict was intended to prevent the judge from sentencing the woman to death.
She was not sentenced immediately, however: the sentences would all be read out at the end of the day.
The whole thing had taken no more than a quarter of an hour. The following cases were dealt with equally rapidly, few taking more than half an hour. Cora and Peg were tried together at about midafternoon. Mack knew that the course of the trial was preordained, but still he crossed his fingers and hoped it would go according to plan.
Jay Jamisson testified that Cora had engaged him in conversation in the street while Peg picked his pockets. He called Sidney Lennox as the witness who had seen what was happening and warned him. Neither Cora nor Peg challenged this version of events.
Their reward was the appearance of Sir George, who testified that they had been helpful in the apprehension of another criminal and asked the judge to sentence them to transportation rather than hanging.
The judge nodded sympathetically, but the sentence would not be pronounced until the end of the day.
Mack’s case was called a few minutes later.
Lizzie could think of nothing but the trial.
She had dinner at three o’clock and, as Jay was at the court all day, her mother came to dine and keep her company.
“You’re looking quite plump, my dear,” Lady Hallim said. “Have you been eating a lot?”
“On the contrary,” Lizzie said. “Sometimes food makes me feel ill. It’s all the excitement of going to Virginia, I suppose. And now this dreadful trial.”
“It’s not your concern,” Lady Hallim said briskly. “Dozens of people are hanged every year for much less dreadful crimes. He can’t be reprieved just because you knew him as a child.”
“How do you know he committed a crime at all?”
“If he did not, he will be found not guilty. I’m sure he is being treated the same as anyone foolish enough to get involved in a riot.”
“But he isn’t,” Lizzie protested. “Jay and Sir George deliberately provoked that riot so that they could arrest Mack and finish the coal heavers’ strike—Jay told me.”
“Then I’m sure they had good reason.”
Tears came to Lizzie’s eyes. “Mother, don’t you think it’s wrong?”
“I’m quite sure it’s none of my business or yours, Lizzie,” she said firmly.
Wanting to hide her distress from her mother, Lizzie ate a spoonful of dessert—apples mashed with sugar—but it made her feel sick and she put down her spoon. “Caspar Gordonson said I could save Mack’s life if I would speak for him in court.”
“Heaven forbid!” Mother was shocked. “That you should go against your own husband in a public courtroom—don’t even speak of it!”
“But it’s a man’s life! Think of his poor sister—how she will grieve when she finds out he has been hanged.”
“My dear, they are miners, they aren’t like us. Life is cheap, they don’t grieve as we do. His sister will just get drunk on gin and go back down the pit.”
“You don’t really believe that, Mother, I know.”
“Perhaps I’m exaggerating. But I’m quite sure it does no good to worry about such things.”