There was a pause.
But we have forgotten Simon Jennings--what was he about? did that
"cynosure of neighbouring eyes" appear alarmed at his position, anxious
at his fate, or even attentive to what was going on? No: he not only
appeared, but was, the most unconcerned individual in the whole court:
he even tried to elude utter vacancy of thought by amusing himself with
external things about him: and, on Wordsworth's principle of inducing
sleep by counting
"A flock of sheep, that leisurely pass by,
One after one,"
he was trying to reckon, for pleasant peace of mind's sake, how many
folks were looking at him. Only see--he is turning his white stareful
face in every direction, and his lips are going a thousand and
forty-one, a thousand and forty-two, a thousand and forty-three; he will
not hurry it over, by leaving out the "thousand:" alas! this holiday of
idiotic occupation is all the respite now his soul can know.
And the judge broke that awful silence, saying,
"Prisoner at the bar, you are convicted on your own confession, as well
as upon other evidence, of crimes too horrible to speak of.
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