They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with
care;
They pursued it
with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a
railway-share;
They
charmed it with smiles and soap.
But the Barrister, weary of
proving in vain
That
the Beaver’s lace-making was wrong,
Fell asleep, and in dreams saw the
creature quite
plain
That his fancy
had dwelt on so long.
He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy
Court,
Where the Snark,
with a glass in its eye,
Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending
a pig
On the charge of
deserting its sty.
The Witnesses proved, without error or
flaw,
That the sty was
deserted when found:
And the Judge kept explaining the state of the
law
In a soft
under-current of sound.
The indictment had never been clearly
expressed,
And it
seemed that the Snark had begun,
And had spoken three hours, before any
one guessed
What the
pig was supposed to have done.
The Jury had each formed a different
view
(Long before the
indictment was read),
And they all spoke at once, so that none of them
knew
One word that the
others had said.
“You must know—” said the Judge: but the Snark
exclaimed “Fudge!
That
statute is obsolete quite!
Let me tell you, my friends, the whole
question depends
On an
ancient manorial right.
“In the matter of Treason the pig would
appear
To have aided,
but scarcely abetted:
While the charge of Insolvency fails, it is
clear,
If you grant the
plea ‘never indebted.’
“The fact of Desertion I will not
dispute;
But its guilt,
as I trust, is removed
(So far as relates to the costs of this
suit)
By the Alibi
which has been proved.
“My poor client’s fate now depends on your
votes.”
Here the
speaker sat down in his place,
And directed the Judge to refer to his
notes
And briefly to
sum up the case.
But the Judge said he never had summed up
before;
So the Snark
undertook it instead,
And summed it so well that it came to far
more
Than the Witnesses
ever had said!
When the verdict was called for, the Jury
declined,
As the word
was so puzzling to spell;
But they ventured to hope that the Snark
wouldn’t
mind
Undertaking that
duty as well.
So the Snark found the verdict, although, as it
owned,
It was spent
with the toils of the day:
When it said the word “GUILTY!” the Jury all
groaned,
And some of
them fainted away.
Then the Snark pronounced sentence, the Judge
being quite
Too nervous
to utter a word:
When it rose to its feet, there was silence like
night,
And the fall of
a pin might be heard.
“Transportation for life” was the sentence it
gave,
“And then
to be fined forty pound.”
The Jury all cheered, though the Judge said
he feared
That the
phrase was not legally sound.
But their wild exultation was
suddenly checked
When
the jailer informed them, with tears,
Such a sentence would have not
the slightest
effect,
As the pig had
been dead for some years.
The Judge left the Court, looking deeply
disgusted:
But the
Snark, though a little aghast,
As the lawyer to whom the defence was
entrusted,
Went
bellowing on to the last.
Thus the Barrister dreamed, while the
bellowing seemed
To
grow every moment more clear:
Till he woke to the knell of a furious
bell,
Which the Bellman
rang close at his ear. |
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