Читать книгу Son of a Hundred Kings - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 21

A stairway had faced them as they entered the building, and they proceeded now to climb it, taking great care in doing so, for it was easily the steepest stair ever designed by an architect faced with lack of space. At the head of it was an open door leading into a high room which made Ludar think of a church because it had long narrow windows and an elevated chair, which looked not unlike a pulpit, on the south wall behind a railing of yellow wood. The resemblance did not go farther, for the place had no suggestion of the peace and stillness of a church; and the atmosphere, in spite of a round ventilator in the center of the ceiling, was as heavy as in the booking room below.

There was an old man sitting on the elevated chair, directly under a large crown on the wall. The old man was leaning his elbows on the yellow desk. He looked very tired and his eyes were closed.

To the left of the magistrate’s chair was a small square space closed in by a solid wooden partition, and in this stood a skinny little individual with a sly face and a strip of court plaster on his nose. An officer was reciting the details of the prisoner’s misdoing, which had taken the form of a brutal beating of the woman who stood to him in the relationship of common-law wife. When the sordid story was completed it became clear that the hunched figure on the bench had not been sleeping. The eyes opened at once.

“It is an indictment of our civilization, surely,” the magistrate began in a low voice, “that a man who has spent his whole life in the service of the community must sit with aching bones on a hard chair on a holiday, which is a day of rest for everyone else, and listen to the revolting details of the wickedness of nasty little specimens of the human race!”

William Christian and the boy were in the front row of seats reserved for the public. The former had watched Ludar closely at first. As soon as the magistrate began to speak, however, he became so intent that he paid no attention to his charge. It was not until he heard the boy’s feet touch the floor that he looked down again. He was just in time to reach out a restraining hand as Ludar began a stealthy exit.

“What’s the matter, young fellow?” he asked in a whisper.

Ludar struggled to get away. “Please, sir,” he pleaded frantically, “let me go!”

“But you can’t go yet. Some men are going to talk to us in a few minutes. It won’t be long now.”

The boy continued to struggle. “Please, sir, I’m afraid of that old man.”

William reached down and lifted the boy back into the seat beside him. He lowered his head and whispered, “You mustn’t be afraid of Mr. Jenkinson, because he’s really a very kind old man.”

Ludar was keeping his head down, as though he did not dare risk another glance at the stern figure above him. “He doesn’t look kind, sir. He looks like the giants who eat little boys.”

The head of the magistrate turned in their direction. “Must I remind spectators, who are here only at the discretion of the court,” he demanded, “that I do all the talking in this room and that I am not to be interrupted?”

He proceeded then to demonstrate how well qualified he was to do the talking. He excoriated the prisoner and depicted the crime of wife-beating as one of the most heinous on the calendar. While doing so he often paused in the delivery of his well-rounded sentences to utter asides in a low tone. They were not intended for ears other than his own, but long practice of the habit had made him careless and now all his interpolated remarks could be heard. Christian covered his mouth with his hand to conceal his smiles, and Sloppy Bates sniggered aloud several times as the peppery old magistrate interlarded the delivery of sentence with such fragments of unofficial opinion as “Sneaking, crawling rat!” “Lecherous ghoul!” and “Pindling little Bill Sikes!”

For five full minutes the magistrate kept his eyes on the pad in front of him while he indulged in a verbal lashing which cut like the cat-o’-nine-tails. Then he raised his glance to the prisoner.

“I sentence you, Abel Padner, to three months at hard labor in the county prison.”

“Well,” whispered Christian to the reporter, who sat on his other side, “Mr. Jenkinson certainly was going it.”

“He’s always going it,” answered Bates. He glared up at the bench. “The other day he was going it at me. Said he didn’t want reporters in his court who were drunk.” The reddish-topped head of the newspaperman gave an angry snap. “And I couldn’t say a word back. I was drunk.... I know something about that croaking old raven that would cause trouble for him if I let it out. He’s going blind. From where he sits he can’t see the witnesses or the prisoners in the dock. Parsons has to whisper things to him. If the public knew about it he might get bumped off the bench.”

The police officer led the prisoner out of the wooden box and toward a stairway beside it which descended to the cells below. Abel Padner, however, was not yet content to leave court. He drew back and, looking up at the judge, indulged in a bow.

“Thanks for all your kindness, Judge, Your Honor,” he said in a thin, high voice. “You’ll never need to beat your wife, Judge, Your Honor. All you will have to do is talk to her like you talk to helpless prisoners. She’ll suffer more than if you gave her a good flick in the face with your fist.”

The magistrate turned in his chair and stared down at the man. Then he smiled and bowed back.

“Was it not enough, Abel Padner,” he said, “that I sat for an hour and listened to the recital of your bestial conduct while the white-hot pincers of rheumatism racked my frame? No, seemingly it was not enough. You have had the effrontery”—You cowardly muckworm!—“to display insolence in this court of the sovereign people and to express contempt of the appointed instrument of the King’s justice.

“There was a time,” went on the indignant voice, “when I would have given you the punishment you deserve, a round dozen lashes as well as a term of detention. But there were people who thought this too brutal”—The weaklings, the soft puddings, the driveling psalm singers!—“and so it became necessary for me to bow to their will. But what has just happened in this court cannot be passed over, and I shall revive in a certain form the sound punishment in which I still believe. It is the further sentence of this court that on a day to be determined by your jailers, you, Abel Padner, shall be led out to the courtyard of the county prison. The woman you have so cruelly assaulted shall be present, if she so desires, and she shall be allowed to apply five lashes to your bare back, if again she so desires, with a whip provided by the authorities for the purpose.”

Fear had driven all insolence from the prisoner. “Judge, Your Honor!” he cried. “You’re not in earnest. You can’t be. This is a joke, Judge, Your Honor. You don’t know the woman or you wouldn’t do this. She’ll use the whip, Judge. She’ll lace it to me so hard she may kill me!”

The eyes of the old magistrate shone with the purest pleasure. “I am glad to hear it. I repeat the words of the great poet who wrote John Gilpin, ‘May I be there to see.’ ”

When the protesting prisoner had been forced to descend the stairs the magistrate straightened his bent back and asked the court clerk, who sat at a flat-topped table beneath him, “Well, Parsons, is there anything to delay further a very weary and very sick man?”

“There’s the matter of this boy, Your Honor. The chief will be up in a moment to explain.”

Ludar grasped the arm beside him. He whispered: “I’m afraid, sir. What will they do to me?”