I question if he be yet out of danger. The
gentleman is a kind of puritanical Quixote, and has persistently refused to
swear an information against Fareham, whereby I doubt the case will fall
through, or his lordship get off with a fine of a thousand or two. We have
no longer the blessing of a Star Chamber, to supply state needs out of
sinners' pockets, and mitigate general taxation; but his Majesty's Judges
have a capacious stomach for fines, and his Majesty has no objection to see
his subjects' misdemeanours transmuted into coin."
And now the business of the day began, the panelled enclosure being by
this time crowded almost to suffocation; and Lord Fareham was brought into
court.
He was plainly dressed in a dark grey suit, and looked ten years older
than when Lady Sarah had last seen him on his wife's visiting day, an
uninterested member of that modish assembly. His eyes were deeper sunken
under the strongly marked brows. The threads of iron-grey in his thick
black hair were more conspicuous. He carried his head higher than he had
been accustomed to carry it, and the broad shoulders were no longer bent in
the Stafford stoop. The spectators could see that he had braced himself for
the ordeal, and would go through the day's work like a man of iron.
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