As Berry and I Were Saying

by Dornford Yates

  “How could you,” said Jill, “how could you have thrown away the card?”

  “My sweet,” said I, “by throwing away the card, I cut off my way of escape. I had to do it then.”

  “I’m damned if I’d have done it,” said Berry.

  “I think you would. It forced me up to the jump which I had to take. I couldn’t run out then.”

  “It makes me feel weak,” said Daphne.

  “When you’re desperate,” said I, “it’s wonderful what you can do.”

  “I am beginning,” said Berry, “to understand how Richard William Chandos does what he does.”

  “That’s right,” said I. “Chandos is sometimes desperate. He’s got to do the thing: and, because he’s got to, he does it.

  “And now let’s go back to the Judge.

  “Sir Arthur Moseley Channell was a fine lawyer and an ideal Queen’s Bench Judge. He was, without exception, the most unassuming man I ever knew. He had no idea at all that Nature had accorded him a dignity such as very few possess and none can acquire. He was kindly, gentle and wise: but he was very firm. He did his distinguished duty as well as it has ever been done. He was tall and handsome, with thick, snow-white hair and a pleasing voice. I never saw him without his eye-glass. When he put on his spectacles, he put them on over the monocle.

  “When that day we adjourned for luncheon, I met the second judge. This was Lord Coleridge. (Two Judges always go the Western Circuit. They usually take it in turns to deal with the civil stuff and the jail delivery.) Coleridge was a son of the famous Lord Chief Justice, from whom his title came. He was a very nice man, though not as good a lawyer, or, indeed, as good as Judge as was Channell. He, too, had his Marshal, of whom I took precedence, for mine was the senior Judge.

  “I remember that we were late that day, for, after Channell had risen, there was an application in Chambers, that is to say, his decision upon a preliminary point of some civil action was sought by counsel in his private room. Coleridge had gone long ago, and the coach returned for Channell. When at last he was ready to go, I warned the servants and stood by, to walk behind him as far as the coach.

  “As we came to the Castle’s doorway, Channell turned.

  “‘And what about you?’ he said.

  “‘I’ll get back all right, Judge.’

  “‘Have you got a cab? It’s simply pouring with rain.’

  “‘I’ll send for one, thank you, Judge.’

  “‘You may find no one to send. Nearly everyone’s gone. You will come in the coach.’

  “Considering his aversion to taking the Marshal in the coach, I found his gesture handsome.

  “As I followed him out of the doorway, the fanfare of trumpets was blown. I entered the coach behind him and took my seat by his side. The footmen, gorgeously clad, shut the door behind me and folded the steps: then they swung themselves on to the tail-board, and the coach moved off. The body, of course, was slung, and the movement was not unpleasant. We lurched and swayed through the streets, with the police clearing the way and people stopping and staring and some taking off their hats. At last we swung under an archway and into the Inner Close of Winchester Cathedral.

  “The Judges’ Lodging was a fine old house, with a forecourt. I have described this house in And Berry Came Too. There a late tea was served, and I had to pour out. After that, the Judge withdrew. I was thankful to do the same.

  “To my relief, the valet had collected my luggage and unpacked my things. He later returned to the Castle to fetch my coat and hat. He must have been sick of mopping up that day. I was able to bathe and change, to my great relief.

  “For that week at Winchester, life was agreeable, indeed. That night the weather cleared up, and for the rest of our stay we had cloudless summer days. The Judges had their own servants, and we were well cared for and fed. After tea, we always went for a walk. At meals, I took the head of the table: except that one morning, at breakfast, I filled up the tea-pot with hot milk, instead of hot water, I think I got through all right. After dinner, Coleridge and I used to stroll out into the old grave-yard, to look for curious epitaphs. Channell never smoked, but bade me smoke when I pleased. Coleridge used to smoke one pipe after breakfast and another after dinner. A clay pipe. I used to wonder why he was never sick.

  “Channell was a staunch Conservative, and Coleridge a fierce Liberal. Party feeling was running very high at the time, and their consideration of their respective newspapers always made breakfast rather a strained meal. Channell would grunt and mutter over The Times, and Coleridge snort and blow over The Daily News. One day, I remember, Coleridge invited a violently Liberal peer to lunch in the Judges’ room. Channell was greatly offended and never opened his mouth. Justice compels me to say that the peer in question looked a first-class crook.

  “No doubt everyone has read Barrie’s My Lady Nicotine. In that, the man who was accustomed to smoke ‘The Arcadia Mixture’ could smoke no other and would go all lengths to beg, borrow or steal it. I was rather the same about Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade. On the first morning at breakfast, some ordinary marmalade was served, but Coleridge had a pot of Oxford Marmalade all to himself. After some hesitation, I asked if I might have some of his. He laughed. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Help yourself. I know what it means.’

  “Here, perhaps, I may interpose a memory told me by a distinguished officer of one of the Highland Regiments. He was a grandson of the famous Liddell, Dean of Christchurch and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. His grandmother did her own shopping and did it remarkably well. One morning she entered Cooper’s shop in ‘The High’, which I can remember well. It was as fine a grocer’s as ever I saw. ‘Mr Cooper,’ she said, ‘I don’t like the marmalade you’re selling. Here is a receipt of my mother’s. Please make some of that.’ Cooper did as she said – and made his fortune as well. For that was the receipt of the famous Oxford Marmalade.

  “Every morning at a quarter to ten the coach would arrive, with the High Sheriff in his state dress and the Judges’ Chaplain, wearing his cassock and hood. The Under-Sheriff followed them down in his car. The Marshals received them in a withdrawing-room. Then the Judges appeared, and a procession was formed. The Judges, High Sheriff and Chaplain entered the coach: the Marshals and the Under-Sheriff entered the latter’s car: the car, of course, beat the coach, so that we were ready and waiting before the coach hove in view.

  “If the proceedings were dull, Channell would send me off for an hour or so, with instructions to visit some place of note, to make some purchases for him, or do as I pleased. He was very considerate, and I was always sorry that there was so little I could do for him.

  “Though he never knew it, he used to cause me considerable anxiety during our walks. He enjoyed strolling in the lanes and byways, and, once we had reached these, he seemed to assume that such thoroughfares were reserved for pedestrians. He would stray all over the road, as though he were rambling in some park, and nothing that I could do would make him keep to the side – to say nothing of the path. Fortunately the traffic was slight, and there were next to no cars; but many a time I had to make surreptitious signals to some approaching driver, and hope for the best. I think it speaks volumes for the Judge’s appearance and bearing that the drivers always slowed down and gave him place and were never once rude about it. None of them can ever have known who he was.

  “After dinner one evening I was walking with Coleridge in the Close, when he caught me by the arm.

  “‘Pleydell,’ he said, ‘if you were a Judge, would you ever sentence a man to be flogged?’

  “‘For some crimes – frequently, Judge.’

  “‘Would you?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Would you? I never would. I feel pain too much myself.’

  “One of the many old customs at Winchester College is that, so often as His Majesty’s Judges visit the City, the Head of the school shall write them a letter in Latin, requesting them to ask the Headmaster to give the school a holiday in honour of their visit. It is the Senior Marshal’s dut
y to reply in Latin to the letter, granting this request. Good enough once, my Latin was not up to the mark. Channell, himself a fine scholar, laughed my dilemma to scorn. Coleridge’s Marshal knew rather less than I did. Finally, Coleridge came to my help. But he insisted on composing the reply in dog-latin. This shook me rather, and I often wonder what the Head of the school thought of the reply which, of course, I had to sign. I received a letter of thanks in the best ‘Tully’. ‘Ulpian’ had served my need.

  “One afternoon the Judge was trying a most flagrant case of larceny. The accused had pleaded not guilty, but they were not represented and made no attempt to defend themselves. Although invited to do so, neither would enter the box. Channell summed up very shortly.

  “‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you can have much doubt about this case. The case for the Crown seems to be very clear. And it stands quite uncontradicted. If there is a case for the defence, none of us knows what it is. Consider your verdict.’

  “The jury consulted. They did not leave the box. Presently the foreman stood up.

  “‘Not guilty,’ he said.

  “The Judge stared at the jury.

  “Then he addressed the prisoners.

  “‘You are discharged.’

  “He returned to the jury.

  “‘Upon my word, gentlemen,’ he said,’ I don’t know where your senses have gone. You’ll never have before you a clearer case.’ He addressed the Clerk of Assize. ‘Empanel another jury, and keep these jurymen here until the end of the Assize.’

  “This was done, and another prisoner was put up.

  “His case was the reverse of the last. Larceny again, but the evidence offered by the Crown was painfully thin. To put it at its highest, it was a matter of slight suspicion. The accused defended himself with vigour and went into the box. It was clear to me that some mistake had been made.

  “The Judge told the jury so and indicated that there was, to his mind, only one thing to be done. ‘Consider your verdict.’

  “The jury consulted. Then the foreman stood up.

  “‘Guilty,’ he said.

  “Channell stared at him, as though unable to believe his ears. The whole Court was staring at him: and the prisoner was red in the face.

  “The Judge addressed the prisoner.

  “‘I’m afraid it’s my fault,’ he said, ‘for not making it plain enough to these gentlemen that a verdict of ‘Not Guilty’ was the only one they could return. Never mind. You will appeal against the verdict, and I myself will see that your appeal is properly lodged. The Court of Criminal Appeal will quash your conviction. Meanwhile you will be at liberty, for I shall grant you bail on your own recognizances.’

  “The prisoner thanked him and was released.

  “The Judge returned to the jury, now looking very uneasy at what they had done.

  “‘Really, gentlemen, I don’t know what Hampshire juries are coming to. They don’t seem to have any sense at all.’ He addressed the Clerk of Assize. ‘Empanel another jury, and keep these jurymen here until the end of the Assize.’

  “This was done.

  “I think we were all anxious about the next verdict, but fortunately it was a reasonable one.

  “In another case, three men were charged together with an attempt, if I remember, to steal a cutter. Whilst the jury was considering its verdict, the Judge turned to me.

  “‘I think they’ll find them guilty,’ he said. ‘If you were me, what would you give these men?’

  “I was taken by surprise.

  “‘I don’t think,’ I said, ‘I’d give them very much. I mean, after all, they failed. Twelve months, perhaps.’

  “‘What I think would be best,’ said Channell, ‘would be so to sentence them that they all come out at different times. If they come out at the same time, they’ll very likely conspire together again to commit another folly. But, if they don’t, they may never meet again. It’ll mean giving two of them rather less than they deserve, but that can’t be helped.’

  “The jury finding them guilty, he sentenced them as he had said. I have little doubt that his wisdom was justified.

  “One evening Coleridge was troubled about a point of law on which he had to give a ruling the following day. He laid it before Channell, after dinner, and asked his help. The latter listened carefully, and then very quietly unloosed the Gordian knot. Coleridge put his hand on his shoulder and looked at his Marshal and me. ‘There’s a good, kind brother,’ he said. Channell was greatly embarrassed, and didn’t know where to look.

  “Coleridge finished his list on Thursday and left for his Devonshire home. Channell did not finish till Friday, and on Saturday we left for Bristol, where I was to surrender my post.

  “We travelled in a special saloon, which was attached to and detached from various trains in our journey across country. It was a glorious day, and I sighed for the old days when Judges rode on horseback from town to town. Day was the last Judge to do this, some seventy years ago.

  “In the course of this journey to Bristol, we alighted at some junction or other, to stretch our legs. We walked up and down the platform, passing a book-stall each time, for about a quarter of an hour. The Judge was very silent and seemed preoccupied. At last, as we were passing, he turned and went up to the bookstall and bought a copy of John Bull. He obviously didn’t like doing it, for he thrust it into his pocket and out of sight. As we resumed our stroll – ‘You should,’ I said, ‘have told me, Judge. And I would have got it for you.’ ‘Well, I did think of that,’ he said gently. ‘And then I thought perhaps you wouldn’t like to be seen buying it, either.’

  “Herbert, now quite recovered, was at Bristol to meet us, but, though I had meant to return to Town the next day, the Judge was good enough to insist on my staying the week-end, as his guest. I was very sorry to leave him. Though I fear I had many shortcomings, no one could have been kinder than he was to me. He told me to come and see him whenever I liked, and several times I went to his room at the Law Courts, and sat at his feet. I always count it an honour to have been his Marshal. He was a great man.”

  “A charming job,” said Berry. “The fat of the land, and wisdom while you wait.”

  “That’s very true.”

  “Coleridge wasn’t so good?”

  “No. He was sound, you know. But he was undistinguished. And he was a delicate man. And highly sensitive – not a good thing in a Judge.”

  “A Judge should be tough?”

  “A Queen’s Bench Judge should be tough. When he is passing sentence, a Judge has to choose between considering the convict and considering the community. I’ve seen a great deal of crime, and I am more than satisfied that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it is the community that should be considered. Men convicted on indictment seldom, if ever, respond to leniency. But if the Judge weighs it out, they won’t do it again. That is the value of a sentence – to convince the convict – and other potential convicts – that crime is not worth while. If you don’t convince him, he’ll do it again. All this wash about sending a man to the devil is so much trash. At least, it was in my time. Things may, of course, have changed; though I very much doubt if they have. The scandal of my day was shop-lifting at Selfridge’s. I think I’m right in saying that shop-lifting cost Selfridge’s six or seven thousand a year. And we couldn’t stamp it out, because of one man. I’ve mentioned him before – Wallace, Chairman of Newington Sessions. The Magistrates at Marylebone Police Court nearly went out of their minds. If they gave a shoplifter more than, I think, two months, the shop-lifter could appeal. The appeal was heard by Wallace – who always let them off. And a sentence of only two months made shoplifting well worth while. I’ve seen a woman in the dock at Marylebone, with three previous convictions for shop-lifting, caught this time with more than forty pounds of stuff on her person – including a bottle of whiskey in her stocking. If that woman had been given two years hard labour, she’d never have shop-lifted again.”

  “You wrote about it
once.”

  “I brought it into a tale – the first tale in Period Stuff. In that case, a mistake was made – a most easy thing to do. But a very serious thing. Selfridge’s had more than one action brought against them, as a result of mistakes. You may remember that I emphasized the uneasiness of the manager, the moment he realized that there might have been a mistake.

  “Shop-lifting, of course, is mean. It’s a very mean crime. Wilful murder is usually brutal – the crime committed by a brute. Forgery is dangerous; but the forger takes such a risk that I wouldn’t call it mean. But I once had to do with a case which shook your faith in human nature more rudely than did any other I came across.

  “A timber-yard, owned by two brothers, was a steadily paying concern. I can’t remember their name, but I’ll call them Brown. The brothers were young and efficient and worked very hard: but the big noise was George, the foreman – a splendid man. He had served their father before them, and even their grandfather, and what he didn’t know about timber and timber-yards was not worth talking about. Wise in their generation, before they took any action, they always sought his advice. After all, he had been the foreman before they were born. Though he was over seventy, he might very well have passed for fifty-five. He was a deeply religious man and could be seen on Sunday evenings, preaching at street-corners, with the tears running down his cheeks.

  “As I have said, the yard was a paying concern. Masters and men worked hard and harmoniously. The place was of good report. There was only one fly in the ointment – a fly of which no one was aware, except the two brothers and George. For years there had been a leakage, and, do what they would, they could not stop the hole. They could not stop it, because they could not find it. By some means or other, timber which had not been paid for, went out of that yard. It was taken away somehow – stolen and never traced. And no mean quantity, either. The loss to Brown and Brown was between two hundred and fifty and three hundred pounds a year.

  “Over and over again, unknown to anyone else, the brothers and George had been closeted with an Inspector of Scotland Yard. Trap after trap had been set. But every measure taken was a failure. The leakage went on.