_A corpse missing. The trial. The verdict. The effect of it. A fearful
night scene at Nabbfield._
In order that the charge brought against Doctor Rowel, of having been
guilty of the murder of Lawyer Skinwell, might if possible be clearly
substantiated, Mr. Lupton had not omitted any means at all likely to
conduce towards that end; not the least important of which was the
disinterment of the deceased's coffin from its grave, in the churchyard
of Bramleigh, where it had been laid. This curious operation was
undertaken with as much quietness as such an unusual piece of business
can reasonably be supposed to have been performed; and a careful
examination would, doubtless, have taken place in the porch of the
church, had it not been soon discovered, to everybody's amazement, on
opening the grave, that somebody had been there before, and the
corpse was gone. This fact was no sooner ascertained than speculations
innumerable, and of every variety, started into existence with the
suddenness of a batch of summer flies; and strange stories were
published, which had never so much as been dreamed of before, by the
very parties who now gave instant birth to them, of dim lights having
been seen, or supposed to have been seen, in the churchyard after dark;
of something like the sound of a spade having been once heard there
in the dead of night,--though, when heard, or what favoured mortal had
heard it, could not precisely be made out:--as well as of suspicious
looking strangers having, at one time, been observed staring over the
yard wall, as though marking in the mind's eye some spot which was
destined to become the scene of future dark and mysterious operations.
All these things however ended, as such things usually do, exactly where
they began. The vulgar, that is, nine hundred and ninety-nine at least,
out of every thousand, swallowed them with “intense interest;” while the
place itself, in which Mr. Skinwell's remains had once been deposited,
and from which they had also been thus unaccountably abstracted, became
as a standing wonder throughout the parish, and was daily visited and
marvelled at by bewildered and curious bipeds of both sexes. Certain
parties who had had the misfortune to fall under Mr. Skinwell's hands
during his lifetime, went so far as to insinuate that a lawyer's corpse
was a very tempting bit to the old gentleman himself, and a likely
thing--nothing more so--to have been carried off by him; but this
insinuation was commonly thought at once so palpably libellous, that
though many heard, few took the trouble to repeat it. Hence, like many
other productions of a different description, but presumed by their
authors to be equally able, it died a natural death very shortly after
it was born. The mystery, however, attending this circumstance was
certainly never positively cleared up; although on the examination
of Doctor Rowel's establishment at Nabbfield, some time afterwards,
a rather curious circumstance occurred, which gave strong ground for
suspicion, that as that gentleman had been considerably cut up by
the lawyer when alive, he had seized his opportunity to return the
compliment, and cut him up, in another fashion, after his departure. But
this incident will better appear in another place.
Every other description of evidence which Mr. Lupton could possibly
procure was obtained and arranged for the Doctor's anticipated trial;
although the failure of that which might have been added by the
abovenamed investigation, could it have taken place, was regretted by
all parties desirous of bringing the supposed culprit to justice, as
unfortunate in the extreme.
While the Doctor soliloquized in a cell of the castle at York, whither
he had been removed between the time of which we are now speaking and
that at which we last parted with him, information was conveyed to him
by his brother, of the rescue of James Woodruff, by Colin and his party,
and the subsequent event of old Jerry Clink's death. His brother-in-law
being thus free, Doctor Rowel gave up everything as lost; and during
some time after the receipt of the news, he remained sunk in a state
of hopelessness and stupor as deserved as it was deplorable. Regarding
himself as now abandoned altogether by that fortune which during so many
years had permitted his infamous practices and designs, he so far lost
all spirit as to sink into one of the most abject creatures that ever
breathed the breath of life. Painfully fearful of the end which seemed
to be awaiting him, his sole anxiety was to contrive means for averting
the threatened fate, and of prolonging that life which few, save
himself, valued at more than a rope's end. Under these circumstances,
and dreading the course which Mr. Woodruff himself might see fitting
to adopt, the doctor caused a formal communication to be made to that
injured individual, through the agency of Mr. Lupton, in which he bound
himself not only to restore the estate of Charnwood, which had been so
long withheld from him, but also to make every restitution in his power
to grant, for the injuries he had sustained; injuries indeed for which
in reality no compensation could atone, but which he yet trusted might
possibly be regarded with some feeling of forgiveness and mercy, when
his awful situation in other respects came to be considered.
“Unworthy,” remarked Mr. Woodruff, when this statement was made to
him,--“undeserving and unworthy as that man is, whom I cannot ever again
name as a relation, or scarcely consider even in the common light of an
ordinary human being,--and hideous even to remember as are the tortures
of mind and body I have undergone through conduct on his part which
might well be considered as little less than infernal,--yet I do not
feel disposed to gratify any feeling of revenge, by demanding the
infliction of that extreme punishment which doubtless the laws would
allow. I have suffered, but those sufferings are past; they cannot be
alleviated in the least by the sufferings of another. If he even died
upon a scaffold, what consolation would that bring to me? To know that
he pined in prison as I have done, and wore away interminable
days, nights, and years, in exquisite pain,--would not give me any
satisfaction. I know too well what that sorrow is, ever to wish it
endured by even the most worthless and criminal wretch alive. No; all
I wish that man to do is, to be left to the reflection that all his
stratagems have, at length, failed; that the evil labours of so many
years have produced him only a harvest of wretchedness. I would leave
his own past actions to be the rack on which--if he have any spark of
humanity left within him--his spirit must eventually be broken. For the
rest,--the great and fearful trial of the future,--that lies between
Heaven and him;--and a frightful contemplation it must prove!”
Although every person who heard these sentiments from Mr. Woodruff's
mouth, could not but feel deeply the charity and worthiness of that
good and injured man, yet the general sentiment appeared to be that
in leaning towards the guilty Doctor, and overlooking the irreparable
injuries he had himself sustained, he forgot justice in his anxiety for
mercy, and allowed that degree of criminality to escape to which
the common opinion of mankind at large would apportion punishment of
considerable severity.
Nevertheless, Mr. Woodruff remained uninfluenced by those and many
similar remarks; and notwithstanding even the persuasions and advice
of Mr. Lupton himself, persisted in his determination to abide by the
opinions he had already expressed, and leave his cruel brother-in-law
without other punishment than that which might possibly be awarded to
him on his forthcoming trial; or such as his own conscience, and now
everlastingly blighted prospects, would in all probability render
inevitable.
Nor, in pursuing this charitable and moderate line of conduct was Mr.
Woodruff, as the event proved, at all mistaken; since a calamity more
fearful in its nature than any infliction of the criminal laws
could possibly have been--more terrible to contemplate than even an
ignominious death itself, subsequently befel the Doctor, and rendered
him to the last hour of his life an object at once of pity, detestation,
and fear. It seemed, indeed, that in this terrible visitation,
Providence had specially intended to exhibit such an instance of that
retributive justice which crime, though it escape the laws of man, not
unfrequently entails upon itself from the violated laws of nature, as
should not only punish the guilty individual himself, but stand as a
solemn and striking warning to all who might become acquainted with
his story, that though sin and evil may seem to bask securely in the
sunshine for awhile, their time of darkness and pain must come, as
surely as midnight followeth the noon.
While the period fixed for his trial was drawing on, the constabulary
of the district made themselves uncommonly active in ferreting out every
scrap of evidence, as well as much that amounted to no evidence at all,
in the hope of fixing the guilt beyond all doubt upon the shoulders of
a man to whom everybody secretly believed it to belong, although
many expressed their fears that the fact could never be sufficiently
established to warrant a jury in pronouncing the doctor's doom.
The whole circumstances preceding and attendant on the case were of such
an unusual nature, and had now become in their leading particulars so
well known, that when the day of trial at length actually arrived, the
most extraordinary interest was evinced by the public to get admitted
into the court, or obtain even the most passing glimpse of the prisoner.
Many persons came from distant parts of the country in order to be
present during this extraordinary investigation; and the yards and
precincts of the castle were crowded during the whole time it lasted by
a multitude of anxious and patient people, whose curiosity kept them in
an inexhaustible state of discussional fermentation from daylight till
many hours after dark on each day of the trial. At the same time the
village of Bramleigh exhibited such a scene of bustle and stir as had no
parallel “within the memory,” as the newspapers stated, “of the oldest
inhabitant of the place.” The village pot-house was literally besieged;
the price of ale was temporarily raised, or, what amounts to exactly the
same thing, the quality of it was materially lowered, while it was sold
for the same money; almost every flitch of bacon in the parish seemed
placed in imminent jeopardy of being sacrificed; the butcher declared he
never did so much business in his life before; and happy were all those
fortunate cottagers whose hens behaved handsome enough to lay an egg
every day, without missing Sundays.
All this hubbub and tumult arose in consequence of the great influx of
visitors to inspect, as far as the walls would allow them, the Doctor's
establishment at Nabbfield; to see the house where Mr. Skinwell had
died, and the churchyard wherein his remains had been deposited. Nor did
it in any material degree become lessened for several weeks after.
It is not my purpose to give the details of this singular trial, or
to follow through all its various ramifications that mass of strong
circumstantial evidence which the industry of the lower members of the
executive had accumulated. This is already sufficiently made known to
the reader in the scenes through which he has passed with me during the
earlier portions of this history. Neither is it needful to state more on
the other side, than that a most elaborate and able defence was made
by an eminent counsel retained on the part of the prisoner;--a defence
which in many respects had the effect of turning the heads of the jury
of Yorkshiremen exactly the contrary way to that wherein they had viewed
the case before.
At length his lordship summed up in an address to the sagacious body
last mentioned, which occupied more than three hours in the delivery;
after which the jury retired to cogitate upon the matter during a
space of several hours longer. The first result of this was, its being
signified to the court that they could not agree to a verdict. Farther
deliberation was insisted on; and after about four hours more study and
riddling of the matter, unanimity in opinion was obtained. They returned
into court a few minutes before midnight, and before a breathless
audience pronounced a verdict of _Not Guilty._ No sooner was it uttered,
than the prisoner himself dropped insensible in the dock. The people in
the court murmured. The words Not Guilty were instantaneously repeated
on the stairs, and again outside, like magic. They ran with the rapidity
of lightning down a wire, firing nearly every bosom present with
indignation. The multitude almost yelled for the murderer's blood. But
the verdict had gone forth, and a jury of his countrymen had pronounced
him innocent. They cried for him to be brought forth and set at liberty
amongst them; while some more desperately threatened to wait till he
came out, to sentence him over again, and execute him on the spot. The
time of night, the darkness that reigned above and around, the fearful
passions of the mob now aroused in some instances almost to frenzy
by communication and collision, all combined to render the scene that
almost immediately ensued, one never to be forgotten by those who
witnessed it.
Under all the circumstances of the case, it will not, for an instant, be
supposed that Dr. Rowel was set at liberty that night. For his own sake
there was but one course to pursue, and that was, to detain him within
the precincts of the castle, in order to ensure his safety, and on the
morrow to convey him privately away at an hour too early for the
public to be made aware of his departure. Afterwards the crowd outside,
evincing no disposition to disperse, was driven away by the aid of the
police. Some of them, however, disappointed in this, assembled again,
almost as though by common consent, at some little distance outside the
walls of the city, and nigh a convent of nuns, which stands by the side
of the Leeds road. The cry here soon became “For Nabbfield!” The spirit
of destruction had arisen amongst them, and the fierce threat of fire
had succeeded that of blood.
In the dead of night, under a black heaven that prevented almost
anything being seen, a dense press of men moved rapidly but stealthily
off along road, field, or farm, over river, fence, or garden, in a
direction that offered the straightest line between York and Nabbfield.
Scarcely a word was said, or an audible breath drawn, during this
fearful march; though many were the heavy, pointed stakes drawn from
the hedges in their path, many the rails and branches torn down, and
converted silently into clubs, as they proceeded. The dire determination
of mischief, mistaken for justice, which existed in more than a hundred
breasts, seemed gathered into one fierce, dark power, hurrying headlong
and irresistibly to its work of desolation, if not of death.
Their outset had not been observed from the city; and none, save,
perhaps, some late and solitary farm servant, peeping fearfully from her
lighted window when the dog barked, and the tramp and crash were heard
as they passed below, knew of them on their road; and even then a few
minutes' wonder who they were, and what they were going to do, followed
perhaps by a dream of farms on fire, or poaching conflicts in the woods,
was all that ensued. But nobody followed them. Like a meteor that falls
unseen when the world is asleep, that little band was only known to have
been by the trail of destruction, the dint in the earth it left behind
it. Once only in its course was it distinctly recognised. In the very
heart, as it were, of deep and peaceful sleep, the Hall of Kiddal was
startled by a great and prolonged shout beneath its walls--a huzza
three times repeated from above a hundred tongues, in which the names
of Woodruff, Lupton, and Colin were distinctly heard; and in the next
moment all was again as still as though spirits had given birth to those
sounds, and then fled upon the next blast that whistled by.
In comparatively a brief time afterwards, the walls of Nabbfield were
scaled; the gardens were trampled down, the trees uprooted, and the
ponds in them drained dry. All this was done in silence: the place still
slept in imagined security. But next came the thundering at doors, the
tearing down of shutters, the smashing of glass, and, amidst all this,
the shrieks and cries of the now-aroused inhabitants, though scarcely
sensible from fear, astonishment, and drowsiness. The battle had begun,
and the invading party had entered the premises.
Scattered up and down the house might now have been seen numbers of
exasperated and desperate men, with their faces blackened, and otherwise
disguised, so as to render recognition next almost to impossible. Their
first object seemed to be the seizure and security of the people who
had the establishment in charge and keeping; and as this task, since the
imprisonment of the Doctor, had devolved almost entirely upon his own
wife, the strong man Robson, with their usual assistants, and a few
additional ones, the force that had thus suddenly appeared against them
found little or no difficulty in effecting their object. Robson himself
had started up on hearing the noise produced by the first assault, and
made his way, half-dressed, into one of the lower rooms, where he soon
encountered half-a-dozen of the men already described. Thinking the
disturbance had arisen in consequence of some of the patients having
broken from their cells, he began to call upon them, in his usual
manner, to submit to their keeper, whom, he doubted not, they would
instantly recognise; but he was soon convinced of his mistake when he
found himself inextricably seized by many arms at once, and, at the same
moment, informed, by those who held him, that if he were not quiet,
both in limb and tongue, they should knock him in the head without any
further ceremony. They also told him they had come to destroy for ever
that execrable establishment, and to set all the people confined there
free; for it seemed to be the general opinion amongst them, that in
the cases of all those unfortunate persons, as well as in that of Mr.
Woodruff, injustice and robbery must necessarily have been committed,
and not a single lunatic was really to be found upon the premises.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Rowel, the Doctor's wife, had contrived to escape out of
her room, and take refuge in a small outhouse, not far off; where, along
with two of her maids, she remained shivering with cold and terror until
all was over.
Many others of the assistants and dependants of the establishment having
been secured, a portion of the mob proceeded to pile up the furniture,
pictures, &c., in the middle of the rooms, or to carry it out upon the
lawn in front of the house, and set it on fire; while others, having
now armed themselves with pokers, hammers, and other more effective
weapons,--flew to the various departments of the house, and, by main
force, broke open the cells and let out all such of the inmates as chose
to avail themselves of the privilege. Some of these escaped altogether
into the woods, and during several days after rambled wildly over the
surrounding country, until caught and again placed under confinement.
Others were conveyed to one of the stables, and securely fastened in,
under the compulsory care of Robson; while a few, it was believed, whose
maladies rendered them either incapable of knowing what was going on, or
made them persist in remaining in those melancholy places, which had now
become all the world to them, were burnt to death in the flames, which
subsequently reached from the blazing furniture to the building, and
before an hour had elapsed from the commencement of this extraordinary
attack, enveloped the whole in one sheet of fire.
I have before spoken of that shout of triumph which was heard at Kiddal
Hall, when this party of mistaken marauders passed by. It had the effect
not only of arousing Squire Lupton and all his household from sleep, but
also of inducing that gentleman to arise and endeavour to discover, from
his window, the men who had caused it. Nothing could be seen; but he
remained a long time to watch, and at length was startled by a red light
dimly appearing amongst the hills and woods in the direction of the
establishment at Nabbfield. By and by, as it rose higher and higher,
within the space of a very few minutes, he felt convinced that some
accident or other had happened, and feared lest, possibly, if that
house had taken fire, many unhappy lives would be sacrificed during the
conflagration. With a degree of rapidity, then, almost inconceivable,
a considerable force was mustered by him, and hurried off with an old
engine, in the direction of the place in question. But so rapidly had
the whole scheme been carried into execution, that, by the time of their
arrival, all hope of saving any part of the building was gone, and not
one single soul, of the many who had done the deed, remained to tell
the tale. With an unity of purpose, and a determination to finish their
object, equally as well (if well it can be called) as they had begun ft,
the little army of incendiaries had departed without leaving any trace
whereby their route could be pointed out and effectually discovered.
Pursuers were soon afterwards despatched in all directions, by the order
of Mr. Lupton, but not a single person was apprehended. And although,
eventually, a reward of five hundred pounds and a free pardon to
any person not actually guilty of the offence, was offered by the
Government, in hopes of discovering and bringing the offenders to
justice, such was the feeling of every individual concerned, however
remotely, in the transaction, that no clue was ever obtained at
all likely to lead to their conviction. It was also remarked, as a
circumstance particularly worthy of note, that, as far as could be
discovered, no attempt at robbery had been made, as the plate and other
similar valuables, which the multitude had found, were thrown into the
fire along with every other more combustible and less costly article.