what is technically called a bill of advocation, suspension, and
liberation--the meaning of which is simply that Hare tried another chance
for freedom by applying to the highest tribunal. The Lord Justice-Clerk,
who saw at once that the question was so far new, and of the first
importance, not only in its merits, but viewed in relation to the state of
the public mind, wished to have it judged of by all the Lords, and he
therefore called upon the public prosecutor to answer the request of Hare.
The Lord Advocate, who, no doubt, felt himself placed in a delicate
position, but still determined to stand by the law and the dignity of the
Crown, accordingly presented his answer; and long pleadings, called
informations, having been lodged, the case came to be tried before the
Court on the 2d February. The celebrated Jeffrey appeared for Mrs Wilson,
and Duncan M'Neill for Hare. It was maintained on the part of Hare, said
Mr Jeffrey, that the public prosecutor was entitled to make a compact, to
which compact their Lordships were bound to give effect; that their
Lordships had no discretion, but that it rested entirely with the Lord
Advocate to enter into such compact, and to extend immunity to any number
of cases, without the control of the judge; in short, that the Lord
Advocate possessed the uncontrolled power of exercising the royal
prerogative. And this he might do, not merely in respect of the particular
crime as to which a _socius criminis_ was to be used as a witness, but
might, if he chose, extend it to all other crimes of which he might have
been guilty. Whenever the Lord Advocate stipulated an immunity, it seemed
to be maintained, on the other side, that a sufferer by housebreaking,
fire-raising, and other crimes, was to be deprived of his right, as a
private party, to prosecute the guilty perpetrator of the wrong, and that
the Lord Advocate had a power to enter into a compact by which he could
grant immunity for offences, past or future, known or unknown. Such a
prerogative would be to invest the public prosecutor with a power of
pardon which only belonged to the Crown, and this, too, without a tittle
of authority, amounting to an assumption of the authority of Parliament;
and so forth. But all the eloquence of Jeffrey would not do. The judges
had, long before this day of judgment, been down in the deep wells of
authority, and, as one of the enraged people said, came up drunk with
law, and kicked sober justice out of court. Certainly, if such a profane
expression could be used, these learned men might have been in that state,
for seldom had they appeared so surcharged with authorities. They seem to
have rummaged every corner of the Advocates' Library and the
Register-Office to find out the origin of the law of king's evidence, and
to have hunted out every decision bearing upon the case, so that, it would
seem, Hare should be rendered as famous for settling a great and hitherto
doubtful point of law, as Burke was destined to be for putting an end to a
science. After all, the judges who decided for Hare were found to be
right; and, indeed, any one looking at the subject, could not fail to see
that, as the Lord Advocate represented the king, and the king, as the
great public protector of his subjects and prosecutor of their wrongs,
represented his people, and Mrs Janet Wilson and her daughter among the
rest, the immunity promised by his lordship to Hare really included an
immunity implied as given by Mrs Wilson and her daughter.
While the case was going on, and Hare anxious to get out, he founded his
hope on an extraordinary delusion, which could have occurred to nobody but
himself. He understood well enough the meaning of the long word
assythment, and asked his agent, with one of his leers, what was the value
of Daft Jamie. The price given by the doctors, he said, was too much,
because, if he had been offered alive to any one, he would not have been
bought at any price, so that his mother had no claim, and the judges were
just trifling away both their time and their brains about a thing of no
value. Incredible as this may seem,--and doubtless many reports passed
that were not true,--it is not unlike the man; for it never was asserted,
by those who had access to him, that he had the slightest notion of having
done anything that was wrong. He was, indeed, one of those men, not so
uncommon as the optimists may think, or so impossible as the Christian
philosophers maintain, whose consciences are entirely turned round about,
and who, when they come to think seriously, find the worm gnawing on the
wrong side. Their pain is for any good they may have been tempted to do,
their relief for any evil they have been fortunate enough to perpetrate,
so true is it that nature is jealous of man's having it in his power to
say that any proposition is absolutely true, and without an exception. But
such phenomena, which, after all, are so uncommon as to deserve the name
of monstrosities, need not flutter the faith of such men as Chalmers, who
found upon the universality of the law of conscience as proving the
goodness, if not also the existence, of God. It is only a matter of
curiosity that, while such advocates recognise and explain alone the
exceptional cases, where there is simply a _want_ of the faculty, they do
not seem to think that there can occur, or ever could have occurred, a
case where its decrees are absolutely reversed. But, after all, we have to
keep in view that the whole conditions, even of Hare's nature, were not
exhausted. For aught we know, if he had been condemned to die, Providence
would have vindicated her rule even as to him, and the faculty been
observed to right itself. Hare was, at any rate, declared at liberty.
The Hunt Out.
We take up the end of the thread of our last chapter, and say, that as the
potential developments of a man's heart cannot be exhausted except by
death, we cannot pronounce, until that issue arrives, of God's purpose
with him. We have known many men who, by a redundancy of the oil of
self-satisfaction, have kept the lamp of jovial humour, or light
recklessness, or flippant egotism, burning for a long period of years, and
indulging all the while in the boast of an indomitable persistiveness.
There are many such, but we suspect they are generally mere actors; and we
are the more satisfied of the hollowness of their pretensions when we
learn the account of them from those who have access to their privacy, and
are apt to verify the saying that, as no man is a hero to his valet, so no
jolly fellow, _pococurante_, or devil-darer is always such to his wife,
children, servants, or friends. Even were it so, we would still say that
the conditions have not been exhausted by some calamity which _may_ come,
or by death, who _must_ come; and as there are worse evils than even
death, the power of holding out is only an inverse mode of expressing the
power of what is held out against. These remarks occur to us as we are now
to follow the fortunes of the remaining three of the quaternity.
Hare was still Hare up to the hour of his freedom, and that freedom, for
which he had sacrificed the life of the man whom he had taught the trade
of murder, was to be the test to try his obduracy, and prove the ruin of
that persistency in evil which had mocked the ghosts of a score of
murdered beings. He was let loose only to flee, and to flee under the only
terror he felt--the uplifted hands of an avenging people. At a little past
eight on the Thursday night, after the decision of the High Court of
Justiciary, he was relieved from his cell in the Calton Hill Jail. It was
a night of bitter frost, just such a one as Vejove would select for
sending a Cain-marked murderer out upon the world. After being muffled up
in an old camlet cloak, he walked, in company with the head turnkey, as
far as the Post-office in Waterloo Bridge without meeting with the
slightest molestation. At this point his companion called a coach, and
conveyed him to Newington, where the two waited till the mail came up. The
guard's edition of the story varies thus far, that he took up an unknown
passenger in Nicolson Street, where he was ordered to blow the horn. But
the difference is immaterial, and might easily arise from Hare's state of
mind. Be this as it may, he got safely seated on the top of the coach
without challenge and without suspicion. In the way-bill he figured as a
Mr Black--not an inappropriate name--and the tall man who came to see him
off, exclaimed, when the guard cried, "All's right," "Good-bye, Mr Black,
and I wish you well home."[20] At Noble-house, the second stage on the
Edinburgh road, twenty minutes were allowed for supper; and when the
inside passengers alighted and went into the inn, Hare was infatuated
enough to follow their example. At first he sat down near the door, behind
their backs, with his hat on, and his cloak closely muffled about him. But
this backwardness was ascribed to his modesty, and one of the passengers,
by way of encouraging him, asked if he was not perishing with cold. Hare
replied in the affirmative, and then, moving forward, took off his hat,
and commenced toasting his paws at the fire--a piece of indiscretion which
can only be accounted for by his characteristic recklessness, not yet
cured; and little, indeed, was he aware that Mr Sandford, advocate, one of
the counsel employed against him in the prosecution at the instance of
Daft Jamie's relations was then standing almost at his elbow. A single
glance served all the purpose of the fullest recognition, and, as Hare
naively enough remarked, "He shook his head at me," somewhat after the
fashion, we suppose, of the ghost in Macbeth.
On the horn being blown, he contrived, after the manner of the Greek
slayer, who was always ahead of the three Furies, to be first at the coach
door, and finding an empty seat inside, he actually occupied it. "Take
that fellow out," cried the indignant counsel, and out accordingly he was
taken, and transferred to the top, whereupon Mr Sandford, eager, perhaps,
to justify what had the appearance of cruelty on so bitter a night,
revealed to his fellow-travellers what, perhaps, he ought not to have
done. A secret is like gas, it spreads without burning, and at Beattock,
the guard as well as the driver, knew all. They were only obliged to
conceal it because there was no one to tell it to; but on the arrival of
the coach at Dumfries, the servants who attended to take the inside
passengers' luggage, got the hint, and the news flew like a fire-flaught.
Meanwhile, Hare had slunk into the coach-office of the King's Arms. People
were seen hurrying thither from every direction, crying, "Hare's in the
King's Arms!" By eight o'clock, a large crowd had collected, and by ten it
was perfectly overwhelming. You might have walked over the heads of a mass
of people in the High Street and Buccleuch Street, amounting to 8000,
reminding us of a great fair, when the country empties itself into the
town. Their object they did not tell, nor was it necessary, except in so
far as having known that he was for Port-Patrick, they proposed to do the
great man honour _in their own way_. If Hare had got among these people,
he would assuredly have been sacrificed, for the dissatisfaction at his
release was not confined to the metropolis. Meantime, the man, considering
himself safe inside, and having from the first been surrounded by a knot
of coachmen and guards, who handed him part of their ale, he clattered
away, drinking absurd toasts, such as "Bad luck to bad fortune," and not
denying his identity: "No use for that now;" but all questions about his
crimes he evaded; "he had said enough before;" "he had done his duty in
Edinburgh." Yet we suspect that the light talk was the effect of the ale,
for, to a gentleman who visited him, with a view to know something of his
early history, he complained that he had no money, and when a guinea was
handed to him, "he burst into tears." Yes, the time had come, or was
approaching, when the hitherto maintained conditions of insensibility were
to be broken, not for penitence, not even for remorse, but for regret, if
not despair.
When this visitor retired, the people forced the door, and in an instant
Hare was squeezed into a corner, reminding one of a hunted fox when,
getting into a _cul de sac_, he turns round, shews his teeth, and vainly
attempts to keep the jowlers at bay. In the absence of the police, his
situation was far from being free from peril. The torrent of imprecations
was fearful, and "Burke him!" came so savagely from so many throats, that
he seemed on the very eve of being laid hold of and torn asunder. It is
reported that one old woman was not only wonderfully emphatic and
ferocious in her gestures, but strove to get forward to strike "the
villain" with the end of her umbrella. And lucky it was that she did not
get in the front, for mischief, like fire, needs only a beginning, and if
one individual had lifted a hand, his fate would have been sealed. When
the police arrived, the room was cleared, and Hare conveyed to a safer
place till the Galway mail should start. With a view to this the inn-yard
was closed with difficulty, the horses put too, and the coach brought out.
But the mob, with rather more eyes than the old watcher, had previously
taken their plans, as if by instinct, and their aspect appeared so
threatening that it was impossible to drive the mail along the High Street
with the "fearful man" either inside or out. The coach accordingly started
perfectly empty, two passengers having been sent forward a few miles in a
gig. The crowd opened and recoiled--the tremendous rush, the appalling
waves on waves of people, heaving to and fro; and now the coach is again
surrounded, amidst yells the doors opened, the interior exposed, even the
boot examined. The people were still more exasperated because their plan
was defeated--no other than to stop the mail at the middle of the bridge,
and precipitate Hare from the parapet down into the river. Failing in
this, they had determined to waylay the coach at Cassylands toll-bar, and
there execute their purpose in another way, and as a preparation they had
forcibly barricaded the gates. The crowd now rolled back in one continuous
wave; and when the fact became known that he was still in the room of the
inn, he was again broken in upon, forced to sit and stand in all positions
and postures, turned round and back again, so that cool, insensate, and
apathetic as he was, he was now stimulated into terror. Amidst all this
the imprecations were repeated, and another woman, after having exhausted
her ingenuity in words, seized him by the collar, and tugged so manfully
that he was nearly strangled. At one moment the voice of a sturdy ostler
got ascendancy over the noise:--"Whaur are ye gaun, man? or whaur can ye
gang to? Hell's ower gude for ye. The very deevils, for fear o' mischief,
wadna daur to let ye in; and as for heaven, that's entirely oot o' the
question." Others, who wanted to drive matters to extremity, pretended to
take his part, and urged him on. The old spirit came again, and he called
out, "to come on, and give him fair play;" but this was a spurt, for
despair was extending over him her dark wings, and so crucified was he,
that he started, took his bundle, determined to "let the mob tak their
will o' him"--a resolution in which he was checked by a medical man.
The innkeeper, Mr Fraser, in the meantime, apprehensive for the safety of
his premises, was anxious to eject his dangerous customer. The entire town
was, in short, so completely convulsed that it was impossible to tell
what would happen next, and, after deliberation, the magistrates, who had
a very onerous duty to perform, hit upon an expedient for getting quit of
him, which, though successfully executed, had ten chances to one against
it. Betwixt two and three, a chaise and pair were brought to the door of
the King's Arms, a trunk buckled on, and a great fuss made; and while
these means were employed as a decoy-duck, another chaise was got ready
almost at the bottom of the back entry, and completely excluded from the
view of the mob. The next step was to clear the room, and, after this, to
get Hare to clamber, or, rather, jump out of the window of his prison, and
crouch, cat-like, along the wall facing the stables. The task was well
executed: the moment he got to the bottom and sprang into the chaise, the
doors were closed and the whip cracked. Never before did a chaise rattle
so furiously along the streets of Dumfries. To pass Mr Rankin's and round
the corner of Richardson's brewery occupied only moments; but here the
turn was taken so sharply that the chaise ran for a time on two side
wheels. Had it upset, Hare was doomed; but the driver recovered the
position of the coach, and away again at even a more rapid rate. The mob
by this time had become suspicious of a manoeuvre, and, as the driver had
a considerable round to make, they rushed in a twinkling and in prodigious
masses to intercept him at the middle of the sands. A rush down Bank
Street like the letting out of waters, and from the opposite side of the
river, numbers, suspecting the cause, hurried with such fury over the old
bridge that the driver seemed destined to be outflanked and surrounded;
nor could he have avoided this had it not been for the mettle of his
horses and the willing arm that urged them on. Once again his charge is
saved from instant death.
Even yet the flight was far from being accomplished. At every instant, he
was intercepted and threatened, and, though he cowered down, stones
threatened him on every side. Some stood still from inability to run, but
others immediately supplied their places, filling up with almost the speed
of thought the wake of the careering coach. An impression now prevailed
that the driver meant to gallop out the Galloway road, and a rush was made
to the western angle of the new bridge--a mistake which operated as a
diversion in favour of the driver--nor were the few moments gained
misemployed. The sharp corner of Dr Wood's laboratory was cleared almost
at a single bound, and as he had now a broad street before him, nothing
could exceed the fury with which he drove up to the jail door. Mr Hunter
had previously received his cue, and, though a strong chain was placed
behind the door, an opening was left to admit the fugitive. A spring over
the gulf, and Hare is again safe.
His escape enraged the mob still more. As the numbers increased, they
laid regular siege to the place of safety, preventing all ingress or
egress. From four to eight, all was clamour and execration, and at
nightfall, for reasons of their own, they smashed and extinguished the
neighbouring lamps. A ponderous piece of iron was used as a battering-ram,
aided by heavy stones, the rebound of which was so incessant and
long-continued, that every fear was entertained they would succeed in
forcing the jail. It was next proposed to apply tar barrels and peats for
the purpose of forcing the door. By this time the magistrates were
thoroughly roused. The militia staff and police had done their best
without avail, and it was not till one hundred special constables were
sworn in and marched to the spot, with batons, that the peace of the city
was restored. Still the streets were in commotion, and it was afterwards
ascertained that the mob still retained the intention of forcing the
prison; but as the night waxed, their resolution waned, and at one o'clock
on Saturday morning not an individual was seen in Buccleuch Street. As the
opportunity was too good to be lost, Hare was roused from his bed, where
he had so long shivered, and ordered to prepare. While putting on his
clothes, he trembled violently, yet inquired eagerly for his cloak and
bundle; but as these articles were not at hand, he was told he must go
without them. As the whole population of Galloway were in arms, and as the
mail had been surrounded and searched at Crocketford toll-bar, and
probably at every other stage betwixt Dumfries and Port-Patrick, it would
have been madness to send him across the bridge, and he was recommended to
take another route. At three o'clock he was seen by a boy passing Dedbeck,
and must have been beyond the border by the break of day. The driver of
the mail reported that he saw him at a quarter-past five sitting on a heap
of stones within two miles of Carlisle. It seems he had been again
recognised, and told that the people of Carlisle were prepared to kill
him; and although he appeared completely done up, he turned by the
Newcastle road, and doubtless made his bed in the open fields. Little more
was ever heard of Hare. If the Almighty, as Mr M'Diarmid added, when He
appeared specially in the affairs of the world, left Cain to wander
hopeless on the face of the earth, why should not Hare have been subjected
to the same species of punishment? and, without wishing to refine too far,
we may say, as the Roman said long ago, "Everything must bow to the
majesty of the law; and that, from the weightiest circumstance down to the
smallest, there is a medium course--a middle path--beyond which no
rectitude and no safety to mortals can exist."
As for Mrs Hare, she was liberated as soon after the trial as safety would
permit; but almost immediately upon her release, a crowd collected round
her. It was a cold, snowy day. She was pelted with snow-balls and stones,
and had some commiseration not been felt for the child she carried, she
would, in all probability, have fallen a victim to the violence of the
mob. Rescued by the police, she was conveyed to the Police-office, where
she found shelter and protection. She afterwards escaped, and wandered
about the country, not knowing whither to betake herself. At length she
turned up in Glasgow, in the hope of getting a steamer for Ireland. For
this purpose she was obliged to wait, and at night she ventured out to the
Broomielaw to get information. Next morning she repeated her venture, and
in Clyde Street was recognised by a woman, who cried out, "Hare's
wife--Burke her!" and threw a large stone at her. The signal was enough. A
crowd soon gathered, and pursuing her into the Calton offered her every
indignity, nor can it be known how far they would have proceeded if she
had not been taken from their hands by the police. It was described as
truly pitiful to see her stretched on the guard bed of the cell, with her
child clasped to her breast, weeping bitterly, and imploring the officers
not to allow her to be made a show of. She was entirely ignorant of the
fate of Hare, with whom she said she would never live again. All she
wanted was to get to Ireland, and end her miserable life in some retired
part of the country with penitence. She afterwards left Glasgow in the
Fingal, and nothing more was ever heard of Mrs Hare.[21]
Some traces were also got of Helen M'Dougal.[22] Upon her release from the
lock-up house, she had the audacity or folly to repair to her old haunts
in the West Port, and even to appear in the street. She was recognised in
an instant, and at once surrounded by a mob threatening to seize her, but
fortunately the proximity of the district office insured protection, and
with difficulty she was lodged. Yet this was only the sign for an uproar.
The mob increased to an alarming size for the slender force, and the
officers were obliged to resort to an expedient to prevent an assault. A
ladder was placed at a back window, by which it was pretended that she had
got down, and the mob having dispersed, probably to pursue her, she was
conveyed, under an escort, to the head-office. Again venturing out, she
was repeatedly exposed to similar dangers, till, finding it impossible to
put out her head in Edinburgh, she left secretly for Redding in
Stirlingshire. She afterwards left that village, no doubt to be a
wanderer, like the others, and with as little hope of rest to her feet as
of peace to her soul.
The Final Cause.
There are one or two considerations connected with the history we have
given which, though having something of a philosophical look, are yet
sufficiently practical to be appreciated by the ordinary observer of human
nature and the ways of God with His creatures. It is doubtful if, from the
beginning, the actors in this drama were ever sufficiently understood; if
it is not more true to say, that the people, eager to conserve the
prestige of man's dignity, have been inclined, after the manner of
purists, to set off exceptions to the general laws of human nature as the
foil of some heaven-born exemption from crime. They have uniformly mixed
contempt with their hatred of these strange men. They have not thought
them entitled to be objects of consideration, far less study. They have
represented them as something so far below their kind, that their deeds
can no more enter as elements into a lesson than those of maniacs, or of
the lower animals, who are exempted from the laws of responsibility, and
so they have shewn an inclination to cast them out of the wide province
of history; or, if they would allow them to remain within the precincts of
annals, they would consign them to the grotesque page of _monstra
horrenda_.