“The Chief Justice certainly didn’t love us very much, that’s sure; and he wasn’t going to let anybody else love us either.  I felt quite the Christian Martyr when Sir Edward was speaking in defense.  He made it sound as though we were all a lot of Adelphi heroes and ought to be promoted and have medals, but when Lord Russell started in to read the Riot Act at us I began to believe that hanging was too good for me.  I’m sure I never knew I was disturbing the peace of nations; it seems like such a large order for a subaltern.

“But the worst was when they made us stand up before all those people to be sentenced.  I must say I felt shaky about the knees then, not because I was afraid of what was coming, but because it was the first time I had ever been pointed out before people, and made to feel ashamed.  And having those girls there, too, looking at one.  That wasn’t just fair to us.  It made me feel about ten years old, and I remembered how the Head Master used to call me to his desk and say, ‘Blake Senior, two pages of Horace and keep in bounds for a week.’  And then I heard our names and the months, and my name and ‘eight months’ imprisonment,’ and there was a bustle and murmur and the tipstaves cried, ‘Order in the Court,’ and the Judges stood up and shook out their big red skirts as though they were shaking off the contamination of our presence and rustled away, and I sat down, wondering how long eight months was, and wishing they’d given me as much as they gave Jameson.

“They put us in a room together then, and our counsel said how sorry they were, and shook hands, and went off to dinner and left us.  I thought they might have waited with us and been a little late for dinner just that once; but no one waited except a lot of costers outside whom we did not know.  It was eight o’clock and still quite light when we came out, and there was a line of four-wheelers and a hansom ready for us.  I’d been hoping they would take us out by the Strand entrance, just because I’d liked to have seen it again, but they marched us instead through the main quadrangle—­a beastly, gloomy courtyard that echoed, and out, into Carey Street—­such a dirty, gloomy street.  The costers and clerks set up a sort of a cheer when we came out, and one of them cried, ‘God bless you, sir,’ to the doctor, but I was sorry they cheered.  It seemed like kicking against the umpire’s decision.  The Colonel and I got into a hansom together and we trotted off into Chancery Lane and turned into Holborn.  Most of the shops were closed, and the streets looked empty, but there was a lighted clock-face over Mooney’s public house, and the hands stood at a quarter past eight.  I didn’t know where Holloway was, and was hoping they would have to take us through some decent streets to reach it; but we didn’t see a part of the city that meant anything to me, or that I would choose to travel through again.