The Quality of Mercy Read Online Free Page B

hearings, one civil, the second criminal. It had aroused considerable interest in legal circles, and the London newspapers had all contained accounts of it, embellished by a good deal of gossip. Kemp’s career had become public property in the course of the last two weeks, described in detail: the obscure beginnings in Liverpool, son of a bankrupt cotton merchant; the marrying into money in the person of Sir Hugo Jarrold’s daughter, an unhappy match by all accounts. Then the fortune made in sugar, the partnership in his father-in-law’s bank—he was head of the bank now, the old man never appeared in public, it was thought that his mind had gone. Kemp had returned from Florida to news of his wife’s death.
    “I swore I would see them all hanged,” Kemp said. “The loss of ship and cargo ruined my father. And now one of them walks free, as if he had done no more than raid a chicken house.”
    “Well, he could be hanged for that, as the times go,” Pike said. He remained silent for some moments, regarding the man opposite him. The bitterness of these last words had brought Kemp forward in his chair. He had raised his hands in speaking, causing pale ripples of reflection on the polished ebony surface of the desk at which he was sitting. He had a habit of occasional rapid gesture unusual among English people, at odds with that slight stiffness of bearing. The darkness of his eyes and hair and the olive tint of his complexion, these too were unusual. He was dressed with sober elegance in clothes that were fashionable but not ostentatiously so: a solitaire in the cravat, coat of dark blue velvet, cut away at the front to show a white silk waistcoat, unembroidered, buttoned in the new style, all the way down to the hem; he wore no wig and no powder on the hair, which was tied behindwith a single ribbon. It was the dress of a man who gave a great deal of thought to the figure he made.
    “They will hang, be assured of it,” the lawyer said. “They killed the captain, but that was in the course of a scuffle, confused in its nature—it might be difficult to establish responsibility. No, it is the sailing off with the cargo of negroes that will be viewed more seriously, as constituting piracy, an aggravated form of theft, an outrage against property. There is no country in Europe where a man or woman or child, especially of the poorer classes, is more likely to be hanged for offenses against property than this great country of ours. According to Blackstone’s
Commentaries
, that are presently being published, there are in this year of grace 1767 no fewer than one hundred and sixty capital statutes, an increase of a hundred since the beginning of the century. And they are growing day by day. Murder, rape, maliciously cutting hop binds, destroying the heads of fishponds, waging war against the king in his realm—all are equally likely to get you standing room on the cart to Tyburn. In theory, at least. Whether juries will convict on a lesser charge is another matter, of course.”
    “It is their duty to convict if that is the law,” Kemp said. He was largely in favor of severe punishments, and had not liked the other’s lightness of tone. Belonging as Pike did to a trade that could only profit from this proliferation of capital offenses, such levity seemed like ingratitude. “It deters people from committing felonies,” he said. “It nurtures respect for our institutions, which I believe are the envy of the world.”
    Pike had sensed this disapproval, understood it, felt a certain contempt for it. Not much humor there, not much play of mind. He himself had plenty of both—too much, some of his colleagues thought. “We need to make jokes about the law, sir,” he said. “It belongs to the profession. Like the doctors, you know. Who better fitted than they to make jokes about sickness?”
    He paused on this with a certain sense of constraint, recalling only now that Kemp’s cousin, a man named Matthew Paris, hadbeen