raw' and chorus of 'huzzahs!' mixed with a tidal wave of bright chattering and glad laughter. Sailors behind the Defence table raised 'three cheers'!
Holy shit! Lewrie thought, dumbstruck, and nigh-shaking with unutterable relief himself; ready to break out in maniacal laughter as well! What a marvellous thing it was, to know that one would not be cashiered, that one would not hang, and… that one did not owe one's lawyer tuppence! Not guilty! Well, not innocent, exactly, but it'll more than do, Lewrie thought; more… what did MacDougall call it? Jury nullification? Emotion ruled, not logic… and thank God for't!
He goggled round the courtroom at the spectators, the powerful and dedicated to abolition, the enthusiastic, and the mere lookers-on who'd come to any notorious trial. Lewrie spotted wee Rev. Wilberforce and his coterie, all looking about to break into unaccustomed dances of glee (for such an earnest and usually dour crowd), and confessed to himself that he'd let them down badly that night, for it was better than fair odds that he'd be drunk as a lord… drunk as an emperor by God!… by midnight!
Lord Justice Oglethorpe was gavelling away, had been for several minutes in point of fact, before the crowd in the courtroom subdued to a level where in he could make himself heard.
'Captain Alan Lewrie,' Oglethorpe solemnly intoned in a loud voice, looking as stolid as ever he might had the jury gone the other way. 'A jury of your peers having found you not guilty of the crime with which you were charged, I now declare you a free man.'
Which formal declaration only served to set the crowd off once more. Oglethorpe banged away for order, now looking 'tetched' by the interruptions.
'Last year, when first you appeared before this court, Captain Lewrie, you put up a surety bond to guarantee your future appearance, which your presence today fulfilled,' Oglethorpe announced, 'in the amount of one hundred pounds. Such sum I now order returned to you. These proceedings I now declare at an end, and you are free to depart. Court is… dismissed!' he said, with one final bang of his gavel.
An hundred pounds? Lewrie thought as he exited the dock; Orgy! A fкte champкtre, a roast steer, and barrels and lashin's o' drink!
'I told you!' MacDougall was chortling as he came to take hands with his 'brief' and shake away vigourously. 'I told you t'would be a complete exoneration! The jury found slavery guilty, as I planned.'
'Nullification, d'ye mean? Wasn't it risky?' Lewrie asked, though in no mood to disagree with the verdict.
'Exactly so, sir,' MacDougall crowed. 'But no one ever went 'smash,' over-estimating the sway of emotions 'pon a jury, the pluck of the heartstrings, 'stead of the dry, paper rustlings of cold, hard logic. Congratulations to you, Captain Lewrie, 'pon your freedom, and for how far this case has advanced the noble cause of emancipation of all slaves in the British Empire. Mind, I'd not suggest you do such again, ha ha!'
'If I do, I'll engage only you, Mister MacDougall!' Lewrie teased. 'Allow me to extend my hearty congratulations to you, as well, sir! For the notoriety of this will surely be the making of you… though, I dare say your name was already made. Congratulations, and my utmost thanks for being my attorney, Mister MacDougall. I am forever in your debt. Have I another son someday, I'll name him Andrew in honour of you.'
Don't trowel it on that thick! Lewrie chid himself; And Christ spare me fresh spit-ups and drool… legitimate or otherwise, but…
'So, ye dodged the hangman, have ye? Huzzah!' Lewrie's father, Sir Hugo came forth to celebrate. 'The Devil might have ye yet, but not this day, haw haw!'
Then there were his former officers and sailors to surround him, to clasp hands or knuckle brows, and, before the Sir Samuel Whitbreads and Sir Malcolm Shockleys, Lord Peter Rushtons, and fiery-eyed Abolitionists seized upon him, his Cox'n Desmond and his mate Furfy, Landsman Jones Nelson and the rest of his Black sailors hoisted him up and bore him in triumph from the courtroom; out through the double doors into the hallways to the massive entry halls (someone had enough wit to gather up his hat, sword, and boat-cloak) and outside to the steps overlooking the street, where people took up 'Hail, the Conqu'ring Hero Comes' and 'Three Cheers and a Tiger.' Where, with his sheathed sword in one hand and his hat hastily clapped far back on his head, Lewrie felt free enough-free!-to wave with his right hand to all in sight, and 'Huzzah!' right back at them.
Hope they get me to a carriage quick, though, he had to think; Someone's got my cloak, and it's perishin' damn' cold!
BOOK 1
Juno:
Tellus colenda est, paelices caelum tenent.
Juno:
I must dwell on earth, for harlots hold the sky.
– LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA
CHAPTER FIVE
I'm the wrong sort o' hero, Lewrie thought with a yawn as he tossed back the covers at the fashionable hour of 10 A.M., a gentlemanly time to rise just a few years back. He hurriedly slipped his feet into a pair of ankle-high bearskin slippers, slung a floor-length dressing robe about his body, and dashed for the ebbing fire in the grate of his room at the Madeira Club.
Proper heroes got a servant to intrude-damned quietly!-to lay fresh kindling and sea-coal in the fireplace, so they could sleep in well-earned peace 'til noon, and awake in a toasty-warm chamber, too! Lewrie was certain. Proper heroes were not lodged amidst the earnest and dedicated, either; the sounds of early risers stamping about, taking their ablutions, opening and slamming chest lids, opening and slamming doors on their way belowstairs to the dining room for a hellish-early breakfast-clattering their shoes and boots on the steps and greeting each other with cheery bleats, to boot!-had made Lewrie's attempts at sleep all but impossible, since before 8 A.M.
The right sort of British hero (someone like Horatio Nelson, say) would be roused to the accompaniment of a steaming cup of coffee, cocoa, or tea, with buttered toast and jam, or rusks, too; but Lewrie saw no signs of such luxuries, and doubted ringing for their fetching would result in their prompt delivery. The kitchens and dining room closed at nine, not to open again 'til dinnertime.
Nelson'd be roused by Emma Hamilton's tits, too, Lewrie sourly thought as he 'whizzed' away into the chamberpot. He gave the cooling bed a fond look for a moment; now the morning stampede of Respectable gentlemen was done, the lodging house would be quiet enough for a nap 'til the dining room re-opened, but… he'd made a late night of it, was dearly in need of sustenance, and, at that moment, could have killed someone for a cup of coffee. After a shave and a perfunctory wash-up, he threw on his civilian suitings, pulled up his own boots, tied his own stock, and grabbed hat, boat-cloak, and walking stick, and headed for a warm and cozy coffee-house.
It wasn't that his recent fame (or notoriety, if one prefers) denied Lewrie of a hero's panache. It was the sort of people with whom one was invited out to dine. Oh, there were a few cheerful souls from Parliament, in Commons and Lords, eager to have him in, but, in the main, the bulk of the invitations he had received the last week were of the grim, dour, and 'Respectable' stripe, to whom a witty comment, a double entendre, or a glass of wine above strict necessity would be simply appalling. Abolitionists, social reformers, anti-hunting and anti-gaming enthusiasts; those grimly intent upon the eradication of prostitution (in London, for God's sake!) and the reclamation of the 'poor, soiled doves' engaged upon it; those who fretted and wrung their hands over the sad lack of morals, the absence of evangelising among England's sailors, soldiers, and Marines. Why, there had been people who'd seemed in possession of all their wits, at first, earnestly dedicated to the eradication of Demon Rum, Ruinous Gin, and Soul-Sucking Brandy, and so enthusiastic about their Noble Cause as to appear quite fanatical.
For the last week, Lewrie couldn't even leer at a promisingly bulging chest, admire a graceful neck, or ogle a fetching female face. Not if he wished to maintain the good will of those who'd paid all his legal fees, he couldn't! A
