有声名著之双城记Book2 Chapter02

　　 有声名著之双城记

        CHAPTER II A Sight

       `YOU know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?' said one of the oldest of clerksto Jerry the messenger.

`Ye-es, sir,' returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. `I do knowthe Bailey.'

`Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry.'

`I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much better,'

said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment in question,`than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey.'

`Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in.'

`Into the court, sir?'

`Into the court.'

Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and tointerchange the inquiry 1, `What do you think of this?'

`Am I to wait in the court, sir?' he asked, as the result of thatconference.

`I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to Mr. Lorry,and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry's attention, andshow him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, to remain thereuntil he wants you.'

`Is that all, sir?'

`That's all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him youare there.'

As the ancient clerk deliberately 2 folded and superscribed the note, Mr.

Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the blotting-paperstage, remarked:

`I suppose they'll be trying Forgeries 3 this morning?'

`Treason!'

`That's quartering,' said Jerry. `Barbarous!'

`It is the law,' remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprisedspectacles upon him. `It is the law.

`It `shard in the law to spile a man, I think. It `shard enough to killhim, but it's wery hard to spile him, sir.'

`Not at all,' returned the ancient clerk. `Speak well of the law. Take careof your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take care ofitself. I give you that advice.'

`It's the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,' said Jerry. `Ileave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is.'

`Well, well,' said the old clerk; `we all have our various ways of gaininga livelihood 4. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry ways. Hereis the letter. Go along.'

Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internaldeference than he made an outward show of, `You are a lean old one, too,'

made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of [`is destination, and wenthis way.

They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had notobtained one infamous 5 notoriety that has since attached to it. But, the gaolwas a vile 7 place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy werepractised, and where dire 8 diseases were bred, that came into court with theprisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my Lord ChiefJustice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It had more than oncehappened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced his own doom 9 ascertainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him. For the rest, the OldBailey was famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard, from which pale travellersset out continually, in carts and coaches, on a violent passage into theother world: traversing some two miles and a half of public street and road,and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirableto be good use in the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory 10, a wiseold institution, that inflicted 11 a punishment of which no one could foreseethe extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, veryhumanising and softening 12 to behold 13 in action; also, for extensivetransactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom,systematically leading to the most frightful 14 mercenary crimes that could becommitted under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was achoice illustration of the precept 15, that `Whatever is is right;' an aphorismthat would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesomeconsequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong.