I NEVER in my life passed so gloomy a Christmas as that of 1812. We
killed a goose as usual, and there was the usual seasoned pudding and
plum pudding, and Faith and Mary made a bit of a show with the holly and
the mistletoe. But it was no use. We couldn't brighten up our hearts nor
take our thoughts from the Special Commission which was to sit at York
in the fore-end of January to try the Luds. Even our neighbours felt we
could be in no mood for rejoicing, and neither the Church singers nor
the Powle Moor lot came near us, and as for wishing each other a merry
Christmas the farce would have been too ghastly.
It was arranged that my father, Mr. Webster and I should go to York for
the trial, and at the last moment Faith pleaded for leave to accompany
us. I wanted Mary to go too, but she was very decided in her refusal.
She wasn't going to leave her aunt alone these long wintry nights, she
said, tho' I don't think that was the real reason, for was there not
Martha? I wonder if women ever give the real reasons for their actions.
Why should Faith make a point of going, I asked myself, and Mary demand
to be left at home. On the first point Mary herself enlightened me,
being more ready to speak of Faith's actions than her own.
"It's plain enough why she wants to show George a kindness now," said
Mary.
"Aye?"
"Can't ta see her heart's reproaching itself? She were more nor hauf i'
love wi' George, an' no doubt thowt she could never fancy another."
"Well?"
"An' if there's one thing more nor another a woman sets store by, it's
her own constancy."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, and indeed. And now Faith feels herself slipping, an' she's going
to try to make it up to George for a treachery he'll never know of by
sitting through the trial. It's noan so much to please him as to satisfy
hersen."
Anyhow it was my father and Faith and Mr. Webster and myself that the
Cornwallis took up at ten of the clock one morning in January at the
sign of the Rose and Crown in Huddersfield. We might have joined it in
Slaithwaite on its way through the village from Manchester, but we
wanted to have as little talk and stir as possible. Mr. Blackburn's
clerk had got us decent lodgings near the Castle with a widow woman who
made a living by letting her rooms to witnesses attending the Assizes,
and whose whole talk was of the counsellors she had heard plead. She was
pleased to express her satisfaction when she learned we had secured Mr.
Brougham to defend George.
"Is he so clever a lawyer then?" asked Mr. Webster as we rested in the
parlour after our long, cold, tedious journey, and warmed ourselves as
well as we could before a fire on which it seemed to me the coals were
put on with the sugar tongs.
"Well," said Mrs. Cooke, for that was the garrulous old lady's name, "Of
course he is a clever lawyer, tho' they do say not so far learned nor so
deep as some we've known in York in my time, but it isn't that will help
you in a case like this."
"I do not take you, madam," observed Mr. Webster.
"You see Mr. Brougham has a great name in the city with the Whigs, and
if yo' can get a sprinkling of them gentry on the jury it will go a
great way in the poor young man's favour."
"All we ask is an upright and an intelligent jury," said Mr. Webster.
"That's all very well for you, sir, that's safe and sound by a good fire
and a clean soft bed before you. But from what I've read, sir, that
young friend of yours will do better with a jury that will lean a bit;
and trust Mr. Brougham for making the most of his chances with the
jury."
"Will he be allowed to speak to them?" I asked.
"Dear me, no," said the lady, proud to air her knowledge of the law.
"And a mercy it is it is so, for if such a counsellor as Mr. Brougham
could talk to the jury for a prisoner, half the rogues now hanged would
be walking the county. But there's ways an' means sides talking, a
shrug, a question to a witness, a meaning look at the gentlemen in the
box, and above all a quarrel with my lord."
"What! quarrel with the judge?" exclaimed my father. "Surely that would
be fatal."
"Not a bit of it," explained our landlady. "It's the safest card of all
to play. You see the judge is sure to be against the prisoner."
"Nay, my good lady, surely nay," remonstrated Mr. Webster. "Ye shall do
not unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of
the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness
shalt thou judge thy neighbour."
"Ah! that's in the Bible, I take it," said Mrs. Cooke; "but the Bible's
one thing and York Assizes is another, and so you'll find, unless I'm
very much mistaken. The Government will take care to send judges that
mean hanging, and that's so well known that it sets the back of the jury
up a bit, particler if a touch of politics can be dragged into the case.
That's Mr. Brougham's chance, and if he can make the jury think the
judge is pressing things too hard against your man, I won't say but he
may have a chance. But it isn't much to cling to after all, poor lad."
The night before the trial, which was fixed for Wednesday the sixth of
January, Mr. Blackburn was to see George in the Castle cell. By much
insistence he prevailed on the Governor to permit Mr. Webster to
accompany him, a great favour, and one, we understood, little to the
liking of the prison chaplain. When the little man returned to our mean
lodgings, he was pale and downcast and sat for a long time silent,
bending over the sullen fire.
"God preserve me from such a scene again," at length he said. "To think
that one whose face I have seen upturned to mine in my own chapel should
now be prisoned in yonder noisome cell. Oh! my friends, 'surely the ways
of transgressor are hard.'"
"If it were not to distress yo' too much we should like to hear all from
the beginning," said my father.
"Well, when we got to the gate of the gaol," said Mr. Webster, "Mr.
Blackburn rang the bell. A jailor opened it after such unlocking and
unbarring as you never heard."
'To see a prisoner,' said Mr. Blackburn.
'An attorney, sir? Your name?'
'Mr. Blackburn, of Huddersfield. For George Mellor and others to be
tried to-morrow.'
'And your friend?'
'Mr. Webster, a good minister of the gospel.'
'He cannot enter, sir, unless by special order of the governor.'
'It is here.'
'Then enter and follow me. Write your name and address in this book.'
"He was a big, burly man, and treated Mr. Blackburn with great respect;
but he looked hard at me from under his bushy eyebrows, till I bethought
me to slip a crown piece into his hand, when he became more civil. He
had a bunch of great keys by his side, and they jingled as he walked. We
followed him across a courtyard, where there was more unlocking of gates
and doors, and at length we were in a stone-flagged corridor with
whitewashed walls, and on either side of these the cells. There was a
little spy-hole in the door of every cell, through which, I judged, the
warders might watch the wretches chained within. Before one door the
warder stopped."
'This is your man, sir,' he said, and selecting a key turned the lock
and threw open the door. 'I'll stand outside, sir.'
"Mr. Blackburn nodded and entered the cell, I at his heels, much daunted
by the cold and the gloom. It was a little while ere my eyes got used to
the darkness, but as we entered I heard the clank of irons, and was
aware of some form in the gloom rising in the corner from under the
grated window. It was George; but oh! how altered! he was gaunt and
thin, and his eyes that I have known so bright and lit by the joy of
life, were dull and fixed in sick despair. I forgot the crime of which
he stands charged and saw only a brother, nay, a son, suffering in
mortal agony, and all my heart bled for him."
"Poor George! Poor Matty," murmured my father, passing the back of his
hand over his face, and Faith's eyes were fixed with pained intentness
on the preacher's face, her lips pale and parted as she held her breath
and waited on his every word.
"'Mr. Webster!' he cried, for he could see better than I, being used
doubtless to the little light. 'Mr. Webster, oh! this is good of you!'
and he seemed to take no heed of Mr. Blackburn, and as well as he could
for the irons that cribbed his arms, he stretched out his hands to me,
oh! so wildly and so lovingly, and I took both his hands in mine and
must have done tho' I had seen the deed with my own eyes. And George
bowed his head, and tears fell upon our clasped hands that were not
wholly his nor wholly mine, and I drew down his head and kissed him on
the brow."
"The good Lord bless yo'," sobbed Faith.
"And Mr. Blackburn stood a little way off fumbling with his papers and
taking snuff very rapidly and in great quantities."
'Have yo' seen mi mother lately?' asked George; 'does she bear up? Is
she here in York?' "His first thoughts were of her, poor lad."
"Yo' munnot forget to tell her that, Faith," said my father, and Faith
nodded, and I know she did not forget, and it comforted my Aunt Matty in
the after days.
"I told him only you and Ben were here," continued Mr. Webster. "'Not
Mary?' he asked, and I told him no. 'Better not, happen better not,' he
said at last; but he seemed disappointed that Mary should not be here, I
know not why."
"Did he ask for me?" said Faith, very softly.
"Nay," said Mr. Webster. "He did not ask for thee; but I told him yo'
wer' here and would not be denied."
"And what said he?"
'Faith! Faith Booth? Ah! poor John's sister. 'Oo'd over a tender heart,
an' I loved her brother next to Ben.'
"Yes, he loved my brother," said Faith, "but not as John loved him." And
after that she was very silent; only once I heard her murmur to herself,
"Yes, he loved mi brother."
"Well then," said Mr. Webster, "for a while Lawyer Blackburn talked with
George in a low voice so's the warder at the door might not hear what
passed, and I tried to compose my thoughts, so that I might, if time and
opportunity favoured, say some word that he might take to his heart to
solace him withal. And when Mr. Blackburn began to tie up his papers and
bid him bear himself like a man, on the morrow, and hope for the best, I
asked George it he would pray with me. He did not refuse; but sat upon a
little block that served for his seat, and I fell upon my knees and the
lights streamed upon my face from between the bars. Mr. Blackburn turned
his back and affected to busy himself with his bag, and the warder
jingled his keys, impatient to be gone. And then I prayed the good God
and Father to send peace and comfort to our dear brother, that. He might
be pleased that this great sorrow should pass and this black cloud be
lifted; but throwing all upon the mercy and compassion of the Heart that
feels for all, for all, even for the outcast and the sinful. For the
love of that Heart passeth the love of man and of woman, else woe and
still woe, aye even for the chosen ones of Israel."
And Mr. Webster's voice broke into a sob, and he bowed his head upon his
breast and would say no more, and more we did not seek to know.
In the evening I strolled into the city, walking round that great
Cathedral of the North, and marvelled at the piety that had raised so
splendid a temple to the glory of God. Then my steps turned towards the
Castle, and I gazed from afar at the gloomy keep, and wondered behind
which of the barred windows so high and narrow, lay my helpless cousin,
tossing, I doubted not, upon a sleepless pallet, his mind wracked with
thoughts of the morrow and his pillow, perchance, haunted by the image
of him whose blood, I could not but think, was upon his rash and impious
hand. I wandered by the narrow streets that approach the Castle, streets
abandoned to squalor and to vice, my feet turned ever toward that
monster dungeon, drawn by I know not what silent fascination. But as I
walked as in a dream, I was brought to a stand by a gruff voice:
"Halt or I fire!"
And peering into the dark, scarce lightened by the oil-lamps that swayed
in the streets, I saw that a company of soldiers was drawn across the
street, and a sergeant in command held his musket at my breast.
"Have you business at the Castle and a pass?" he asked, and on my
answering him nay he bid me begone. I turned sadly away, and when by
chance I tried another street that led Castle-wards my fate was the
same. So I turned my back upon the gloomy fortress and wended my way
back to our lodgings. The city was filled with troops, and every avenue
to the Castle strongly guarded; for a rescue was feared. Had they known
the Luds as well as I they might have spared their pains.
The morning of the trial came, dark and threatening, with snow that
wrapped the city as in a winding sheet, which befitted well a day so
pregnant with all ill. We were at the Castle gates betimes, and yet the
entrance to the Court was besieged with those like ourselves furnished
with a permit to view the trial. My inches stood me in good stead, and
by dint of good play with my elbows, I made way through the crowd for
those that companied me. It seemed to me that all the ways that led to
the Court were held by troops, and men stood to their arms on the very
steps and to the great doors of the Hall of Justice. Faith hung
trembling upon my arm, but craned her neck nevertheless to see the
gallant show when the judges drew up, clad in crimson robes, with the
sheriff and his chaplain by their sides, the heralds blaring their
trumpets and the soldiers grounding their arms to make the pavement
ring.
We made our way into the little Court and gazed upon the arms of England
fixed high above the judgment seat, and when we saw the wigged gentlemen
below the Bench rise to their feet we rose too, and when they bowed we
bowed too, but the judges, tho' they bent their heads to the gentlemen
of the long robe, took scant enough notice of our reverences, which
methinks was neither in keeping with the civility that man owes to man
nor yet in accord with our constitution: for if the judges draw their
dignity from the Crown, whence, I ask, does the Crown derive its title
and its lustre? But alas! the people of this country, even yet, are
little conscious of their own strength and of what is due to the commons
even from their princes and governors.
"Which is Mr. Brougham?" I asked my father, who I knew had heard him
speak at a great meeting of the Whig voters.
"Him that Mr. Blackburn's speaking to," answered my father, and I
followed his eyes to the attorney's well and saw a little man, sallow
and clean shaven, with a long lean face, something like a monkey's with
its skin turned, to parchment.
"What him?" I whispered in amaze.
"Aye, that's him sure enough."
"What! the great Brougham, our Brougham?"
"Yes, yes," said my father testily. "He's not much to look at; but yo'
should hear him talk."
But soon there was a hush in Court. The prisoners were being brought
into the dock, and the Cryer was calling his quaint "Oyez."
George Mellor, William Thorpe and William Smith stood there, heavily
ironed and guarded by armed warders, confronting the judges and the
jury, arraigned for that they did feloniously, wilfully, and of their
malice aforethought kill and murder William Horsfall, against the peace
of our lord the king, his crown and dignity. The jurors were sworn, the
challenges allowed, the indictment read by the Clerk of Arraigns, and
the prisoners given in charge to the jury, the clerk gabbling the words
as I have heard a curate in a hurry read the lessons in Church. "How say
you, George Mellor--guilty or not guilty," and George with a voice that
did not falter and a look upon judges and the jury that did not flinch,
cried "Not Guilty." I had eyes and ears only for him, neither then nor
to the end. Thorpe and Smith might not have been there, for me. I kept
my eyes fixed on him throughout, nor missed one single movement of his
nervous fingers that clutched the rails of the dock, nor one glance of
his eye. Nay, even now, right through the years, I can see the curl of
his lips when Benjamin Walker with craven look and uncertain step, his
eyes shifting, his voice whining, stumbled into the witness-box. All
through, I had eyes, I say, only for George. When Mr. Park, the counsel
for the Crown, addressed the jury, I scarce listened; I watched only
George's face, and judged rather what was said by the play of his pale
features than by ought I gathered from the long speech to the jury. And
right through that weary trial, that lasted from nine o'clock of the
morning till near the same hour of the night, never was there a moment
that George bore himself save as those who loved him would have him. He
almost looked at times as tho' he did not hear what passed around him,
his eyes being fixed, not upon the judge but beyond him, with a far away
gaze as tho' scenes were acting in a theatre none but he could see, and
which concerned him more than what passed around. Once when his eyes
ranged the faces that thronged the Court, and he saw our little group, a
look of recognition passed upon his face, and he smiled faintly, with
quivering lips; but presently turned away his head and glanced our way
no more. Only when Ben Walker stood in the box did he rouse himself to
the full, and he looked the slinking wretch straight in the face with
curling lip: and Walker blanched and tottered and half raised his hand
as tho' to ward off a blow. My God! rather would I raise my naked face
to meet ten thousand blows from an iron hand than meet such a look as
George cast upon that perjured miscreant. A low hiss went through the
Court, a sibilation of hatred and contempt; and even the counsellor that
examined the man did not conceal his loathing. We looked for Mr.
Brougham to cross-examine Walker, but that was done by Mr. Hullock,
whether that Mr. Hullock was the senior counsel and took this part as of
right, or that, as some had it afterwards, Mr. Brougham knew from the
first that the case was hopeless and did not care to be prominent, where
defeat was certain. Tho' this surely must be of malice. But it mattered
not: the end was certain even before Mr. Justice le Blanc summed up, and
in a few words, not without their truth even we felt, brushed away the
flimsy edifice of an alibi that had cost Soldier Jack so much scheming
and ferreting out of witnesses. "Even supposing the witnesses to come
under no improper bias or influence in what they are saying, they are
speaking," commented the judge, "of a transaction which not only took
place a long time ago, but was not imputed to the prisoners at the bar
till a considerable time after it had taken place, and nothing happened
immediately after the transaction to lead persons who have spoken as to
the prisoners' movements at the time of the murder, particularly to
watch, so as to be accurate in the hour or time on that particular
evening, when they saw these persons at a particular place, and we know
how apt persons are to be mistaken, even when care is taken, in point of
time."
That was all we got from judge or counsel for our money, my Aunt Matty's
hundred pounds, and many a good guinea to that which my father paid Mr.
Blackburn, and I question whether it was worth the brass. But I would
not have had George undefended for all that, even if it were all to do
over again; for to have him spoken for was the only way now left us to
show our care for him.
I never saw sentence of death passed but that once, and it will do me
my life-time. "That you, the three prisoners at the bar, be taken from
hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence, on Friday
next, to the place of execution; that you be there severally hanged by
the neck until you are dead; and your bodies afterwards delivered to the
surgeons to be dissected and anatomized, according to the directions of
the statute. And may God have mercy on your souls."
"Amen!" said many a hushed and awe struck voice, and I heard a moan and
a hasty cry from Mr. Webster. A piercing shriek rent the stillness, and
Faith fell fainting into my arms.
But one day intervened between the trial of Mellor, Thorpe and Smith and
their execution. Mr. Webster was allowed to see the three condemned men
the night before the Friday on which they were to make their piteous
end. He shrank from that last interview in the cells with the
sensitiveness of a woman; but he had a great soul in a little body and
nerved himself to the painful ordeal. He told us something of what
passed. Thorpe was stolid as ever, and simply asked to be let alone, and
not pestered with questions. George declared that he would rather be in
the situation he was then placed, dreadful as it was, than have, to
answer for the crime of his accuser; and that he would not change
situations with him, even for his liberty and two thousand pounds.
"Well said," cried my father, when Mr. Webster, with many a sigh,
brought his tale to an end: "well said, there spoke our George. There
spoke the lad we used to be proud on, and he's in the right on it, and
so folk will say for all time to come."
"I urged him to forgive his enemies and to leave this sinful world in
charity with all mankind."
"An' what said he to that?"
"He said he'd nought to forgive to anybody but Ben Walker."
"Well, and him?"
"I urged him to forgive even Walker. 'Vengeance is mine: I will repay,
saith the Lord.'"
"Well, did he?"
"Nay, I found him obdurate on this point, though I pressed him hard. He
reiterated that before he forgave Walker he'd like to give him something
to forgive too. I could not but tell him he was entering the presence of
his Maker in a most unchristian frame of mind."
"Are yo' clear, Mr. Webster," asked my father, "that religion calls on
George to forgive Ben Walker?"
"There can be no question of it," was the answer. "Do we not pray
'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against
us?'"
My father shook his head pensively. "It may be Scripture, parson, but it
isn't Yorkshire. Hast ta never heard that a Yorkshireman can carry a
stone in his pocket for seven years, then turn it and after another
seven years let throw and hit his mark?"
"It is an evil, an unforgiving, an unchristian frame of mind," quoth the
parson.
"That's as may be," replied my father, doggedly. "But what's born in the
bone will out in the flesh. For my part I'st uphowd George, an' if he'd
said he forgave that spawn o' the devil I should ha' thowt he met be a
saint, but he wer' a liar an' a hypocrite for all that. It's agen natur,
Mr. Webster, it's agen natur."
Mr. Webster hastened to change the subject. "George sent a message for
yo', Ben. He knows how it is between you and Mary and he wishes you all
happiness, and asks you to forget and forgive the hasty words he spoke
when last you parted. He said you would know what he meant."
"God bless him, sir, I had forgiven them long ago."
"And if it will not go too hard against the grain he wants you to be at
the execution and to stand where his eye can fall upon you. He says he
should like his last thoughts to be of Holme and the dear ones there. He
seems strangely wrapped up in the old spot even to the exclusion of his
own mother."
"Aye," said my father. "George never got over Matty marryin' again. If
'oo'd never wed that John Wood but made a home for her own flesh an'
blood this met never ha' happened. But what is to be will be, an' that's
good Scripture anyway."
"Foreseen and foreordained even from the beginning," assented Mr.
Webster.
Now this request of George was to me of all things most painful. It was
common enough in those days for people to witness public executions; and
public executions were common enough in all conscience. But I had ever a
horror of such ghastly exhibitions. Nay I liked not even the
cock-fighting and bull-baiting that were as much our ordinary pastimes
in my youth as cricket has come to be the sport of my grand-children.
People called me Miss Nancy and mawkish and molly-coddle; but none the
less, neither for such sports, if sports they must be called, nor for
prize fighting, had I any stomach. But if it could give any help to
George to know one was in that vast crowd whose heart bled for him and
whose prayers went heavenwards with his soul, I could not but do his
will.
And so it befell that Mr. Webster and myself were in the crowd of many
thousands that stood before the scaffold. Two troops of cavalry were
drawn up in front of the drop. We might be a hundred yards away, and
when George, heavily ironed, was led to the verge of the platform to
make his last dying speech and confession, there was a great silence on
the multitude. Even a party of the gentry, as I suppose they called
themselves, that had secured the upper window of a house looking on to
the scaffold, and that were drinking and jesting and exchanging coarse
ribaldry with the light o' loves in the mob, ceased their unseemly
revelries and lent ear to what might be said. But George spoke little.
His eye fell on me and on Mr. Webster, whom I lifted from his feet so
that George might know that the little parson at Powle was faithful to
the last, and hoping that even at the eleventh hour repentance might
touch the stubborn and rebellious heart. And who knows but it did, for
the last words on earth that George spoke were said with his eyes fixed
on Mr. Webster's face, and they were spoken belike to him alone of that
great and swaying crowd: "Some of my enemies may be here. If there be, I
freely forgive them," and then, after a pause and with an emphasis which
we alone perchance of all that concourse understood, "I forgive all the
world and hope all the world will forgive me."
"The Lord above be praised!" exclaimed Mr. Webster, as these words fell
on his ears, and as the cap was fixed and the noose adjusted, he raised
his voice in the well-known hymn, and strange tho' it may seem, yet none
the less is it true, thousands of voices took up the words:
"Behold the Saviour of mankind
Nailed to the shameful tree!
How vast the love that Him inclined
To bleed and die for me!
Hark how He groans! while nature shakes,
And earth's strong pillars bend:
The temple's veil in sunder breaks;
The solid marbles bend.
'Tis done! the precious ransom's paid--
'Receive my soul,' He cries;
See where He bows His sacred head!
He bows His head, and dies!
But soon He'll break death's envious chain,
And in full glory shine:
o Lamb of God! was ever pain,
Was ever love like Thine!"
There was a haze before my sight. I did not see the bolt withdrawn; only
as through a mist see the quivering, swaying form. A long drawn sigh,
that ended in a sob like one deep breath from a thousand hearts,
proclaimed the end, and Mr. Webster and I made our way from that tragic
scene.