In the second year of my connection with the Northern Circuit, when even
_junior_ briefs were much less numerous than acceptable, I was agreeably
surprised, as I sat musing on the evening of my arrival in the ancient
city of York upon the capricious mode in which those powerful personages
the attorneys distributed their valuable favors, by the entrance of one
of the most eminent of the race practising in that part of the country,
and the forthwith tender of a bulky brief in the Crown Court, on which,
as my glance instinctively fell on the interesting figures, I perceived
that the large fee, in criminal cases, of fifty guineas was marked. The
local newspapers, from which I had occasionally seen extracts, had been
for some time busy with the case; and I knew it therefore to be,
relatively to the condition in life of the principal person implicated,
an important one. Rumor had assigned the conduct of the defence to an
eminent leader on the circuit--since, one of our ablest judges; and on
looking more closely at the brief, I perceived that that gentleman's name
had been crossed out, and mine substituted. The fee also--a much less
agreeable alteration--had been, I saw, considerably reduced; in
accordance, doubtless, with the attorney's appreciation of the difference
of value between a silk and a stuff gown.
"You are not, sir, I believe, retained for the prosecution in the crown
against Everett?" said Mr. Sharpe in his brief, business manner.
"I am not, Mr. Sharpe."
"In that case, I beg to tender you the leading-brief for the defence. It
was intended, as you perceive, to place it in the hands of our great
_nisi prius_ leader, but he will be so completely occupied in that court,
that he has been compelled to decline it. He mentioned you; and from what
I have myself seen of you in several cases, I have no doubt my
unfortunate client will have ample justice done him. Mr. Kingston will be
with you."
I thanked Mr. Sharpe for his compliment, and accepted his brief. As the
commission would be opened on the following morning, I at once applied
myself to a perusal of the bulky paper, aided as I read by the verbal
explanations and commentaries of Mr. Sharpe. Our conference lasted
several hours; and it was arranged that another should be held early the
next morning at Mr. Sharpe's office, at which Mr. Kingston would assist.
Dark, intricate, compassed with fearful mystery, was the case so suddenly
submitted to my guidance; and the few faint gleams of light derived from
the attorney's research, prescience, and sagacity, served but to render
dimly visible a still profounder and blacker abyss of crime than that
disclosed by the evidence for the crown. Young as I then was in the
profession, no marvel that I felt oppressed by the weight of the
responsibility cast upon me; or that, when wearied with thinking, and
dizzy with profitless conjecture, I threw myself into bed, perplexing
images and shapes of guilt and terror pursued me through my troubled
sleep! Happily the next day was not that of trial; for I awoke with a
throbbing pulse and burning brain, and should have been but poorly
prepared for a struggle involving the issues of life and death. Extremely
sensitive, as, under the circumstances, I must necessarily have been, to
the arduous nature of the grave duties so unexpectedly devolved upon me;
the following _résumé_ of the chief incidents of the case, as confided to
me by Mr. Sharpe, will, I think, fully account to the reader for the
nervous irritability under which I for the moment, labored:--
Mr. Frederick Everett, the prisoner about to be arraigned before a jury
of his countrymen for the frightful crime of murder, had, with his
father, Captain Anthony Everett, resided for several years past at
Woodlands Manor-House, the seat of Mrs. Eleanor Fitzhugh, a rich, elderly
maiden lady, aunt to the first, and sister by marriage to the last-named
gentleman. A generous, pious, high-minded person Mrs. Fitzhugh was
represented to have been, but extremely sensitive withal on the score of
"family." The Fitzhughs of Yorkshire, she was wont to boast, "came in
with the Conqueror;" and any branch of the glorious tree then firmly
planted in the soil of England that degraded itself by an alliance with
wealth, beauty, or worth, dwelling without the pale of her narrow
prejudices, was inexorably cut off from her affections, and, as far as
she was able, from her memory. One--the principal of these offenders--had
been Mary Fitzhugh, her young, fair, gentle, and only sister. In utter
disdain and slight of the dignity of ancestry, she had chosen to unite
herself to a gentleman of the name of Mordaunt, who, though possessed of
great talents, an unspotted name, and, for his age, high rank in the
civil service of the East India Company, had--inexpiable misfortune--a
trader for his grandfather! This crime against her "house" Mrs. Eleanor
Fitzhugh resolved never to forgive; and she steadily returned, unopened,
the frequent letters addressed to her by her sister, who pined in her
distant Indian home for a renewal of the old sisterly love which had
watched over and gladdened her life from infancy to womanhood. A long
silence--a silence of many years--succeeded; broken at last by the sad
announcement that the unforgiven one had long since found an early grave
in a foreign land. The letter which brought the intelligence bore the
London post-mark, and was written by Captain Everett; to whom, it was
stated, Mrs. Eleanor Fitzhugh's sister, early widowed, had been united in
second nuptials, and by whom she had borne a son, Frederick Everett, now
nearly twenty years of age. The long-pent-up affection of Mrs. Fitzhugh
for her once idolized sister burst forth at this announcement of her
death with uncontrollable violence; and, as some atonement for her past
sinful obduracy, she immediately invited the husband and son of her
long-lost Mary to Woodlands Manor-House, to be henceforth, she said, she
hoped their home. Soon after their arrival, Mrs. Fitzhugh made a
will--the family property was entirely at her disposal--revoking a former
one, which bequeathed the whole of the real and personal property to a
distant relative whom she had never seen, and by which all was devised to
her nephew, who was immediately proclaimed sole heir to the Fitzhugh
estates, yielding a yearly rental of at least £12,000. Nay, so thoroughly
was she softened towards the memory of her deceased sister, that the
will--of which, as I have stated, no secret was made--provided, in the
event of Frederick dying childless, that the property should pass to his
father, Mary Fitzhugh's second husband.
No two persons could be more unlike than were the father and
son--mentally, morally, physically. Frederick Everett was a fair-haired,
blue-eyed young man, of amiable, caressing manners, gentle disposition,
and ardent, poetic temperament. His father, on the contrary, was a
dark-featured, cold, haughty, repulsive man, ever apparently wrapped up
in selfish and moody reveries. Between him and his son there appeared to
exist but little of cordial intercourse, although the highly-sensitive
and religious tone of mind of Frederick Everett caused him to treat his
parent with unvarying deference and respect.
The poetic temperament of Frederick Everett brought him at last, as
poetic temperaments are apt to do, into trouble. Youth, beauty,
innocence, and grace, united in the person of Lucy Carrington--the only
child of Mr. Stephen Carrington, a respectable retired merchant of
moderate means, residing within a few miles of Woodlands
Manor-House--crossed his path; and spite of his shield of many
quarterings, he was vanquished in an instant, and almost without
resistance. The at least tacit consent and approval of Mr. Carrington and
his fair daughter secured, Mr. Everett, junior--hasty, headstrong lover
that he was--immediately disclosed his matrimonial projects to his father
and aunt. Captain Everett received the announcement with a sarcastic
smile, coldly remarking, that if Mrs. Fitzhugh was satisfied, he had no
objection to offer. But, alas! no sooner did her nephew, with much
periphrastic eloquence, in part his passion for the daughter of a _mere_
merchant to his aunt, than a vehement torrent of indignant rebuke broke
from her lips. She would die rather than consent to so degrading a
_mésalliance_; and should he persist in yielding to such gross
infatuation, she would not only disinherit, but banish him her house, and
cast him forth a beggar on the world. Language like this, one can easily
understand, provoked language from the indignant young man which in less
heated moments he would have disdained to utter; and the aunt and nephew
parted in fierce anger, and after mutual denunciation of each other--he
as a disobedient ingrate, she as an imperious, ungenerous tyrant. The
quarrel was with some difficulty patched up by Captain Everett; and with
the exception of the change which took place in the disappointed lover's
demeanor--from light-hearted gaiety to gloom and sullenness--things,
after a few days, went on pretty nearly as before.
The sudden rupture of the hopes Mrs. Eleanor Fitzhugh had reposed in her
nephew as the restorer of the glories of her ancient "house," tarnished
by Mary Fitzhugh's marriage, affected dangerously, it soon appeared, that
lady's already failing health. A fortnight after the quarrel with her
nephew, she became alarmingly ill. Unusual and baffling symptoms showed
themselves; and after suffering during eight days from alternate acute
pain, and heavy, unconquerable drowsiness, she expired in her nephew's
arms. This sudden and fatal illness of his relative appeared to reawaken
all Frederick Everett's tenderness and affection for her. He was
incessant in his close attendance in the sick-chamber, permitting no one
else to administer to his aunt either aliment or medicine. On this latter
point, indeed, he insisted, with strange fierceness, taking the medicine
with his own hand from the man who brought it; and after administering
the prescribed quantity, carefully locking up the remainder in a cabinet
in his bed-room.
On the morning of the day that Mrs. Fitzhugh died, her ordinary medical
attendant, Mr. Smith, terrified and perplexed by the urgency of the
symptoms exhibited by his patient, called in the aid of a
locally-eminent physician, Dr. Archer, or Archford--the name is not very
distinctly written in my memoranda of these occurrences; but we will
call him Archer--who at once changed the treatment till then pursued,
and ordered powerful emetics to be administered, without, however, as
we have seen, producing any saving or sensible effect. The grief of
Frederick Everett, when all hope was over, was unbounded. He threw
himself, in a paroxysm of remorse or frenzy, upon the bed, accusing
himself of having murdered her, with other strange and incoherent
expressions, upon which an intimation soon afterwards made by Dr. Archer
threw startling light. That gentleman, conjointly with Mr. Smith,
requested an immediate interview with Captain Everett, and Mr. Hardyman,
the deceased lady's land-steward and solicitor, who happened to be in
the house at the time. The request was of course complied with, and Dr.
Archer at once bluntly stated that, in his opinion, _poison_ had been
administered to the deceased lady, though of what precise kind he was
somewhat at a loss to conjecture--opium essentially, he thought, though
certainly not in any of its ordinary preparations--one of the alkaloids
probably which chemical science had recently discovered. Be this as it
may, a _post-mortem_ examination of the body would clear up all doubts,
and should take place as speedily as possible. Captain Everett at once
acceded to Dr. Archer's proposal, at the same time observing that he was
quite sure the result would entirely disprove that gentleman's
assumption. Mr. Hardyman also fully concurred in the necessity of a
rigid investigation; and the _post-mortem_ examination should, it was
arranged, take place early on the following morning.
"I have another and very painful duty to perform," continued Dr. Archer,
addressing Captain Everett. "I find that your son, Mr. Frederick Everett,
alone administered medicine and aliment to Mrs. Fitzhugh during her
illness. Strange, possibly wholly frenzied expressions, but which sounded
vastly like cries of remorse, irrepressible by a person unused to crime,
escaped him in my hearing just after the close of the final scene;
and--But perhaps, Captain Everett, you had better retire: this is
scarcely a subject"--
"Go on, sir," said the captain, over whose countenance a strange
expression--to use Dr. Archer's own words--had _flashed_; "go on: I am
better now."
"We all know," resumed Dr. Archer, "how greatly Mr. Frederick Everett
gains in wealth by his aunt's death; and that her decease, moreover, will
enable him to conclude the marriage to which she was so determinedly
opposed. I think, therefore, that, under all the circumstances, we shall
be fully justified in placing the young gentleman under such--I will not
say custody, but _surveillance_ as will prevent him either from leaving
the house, should he imagine himself suspected, or of destroying any
evidence which may possibly exist of his guilt, if indeed he be guilty."
"I entirely agree with you, Dr. Archer," exclaimed Mr. Hardyman, who had
listened with much excitement to the doctor's narrative; "and will, upon
my own responsibility, take the necessary steps for effecting the object
you have in view."
"Gentlemen," said Captain Everett, rising from his chair, "you will of
course do your duty; but I can take no part, nor offer any counsel, in
such a case; I must leave you to your own devices." He then left the
apartment.
He had been gone but a few minutes, when Frederick Everett, still in a
state of terrible excitement, entered the room, strode fiercely up to Dr.
Archer, and demanded how he dared propose, as the butler had just
informed him he had done, a dissection of his aunt's body.
"I will not permit it," continued the agitated young man: "I am master
here, and I say it shall not be done. What new horror would you
evoke? Is it not enough that one of the kindest, best of God's
creatures, has perished, but _another_ sacrifice must--What do I say?
Enough that I will not permit it. I have seen similar cases-very
similar cases in--in India!"
The gentleman so strangely addressed had exchanged significant glances
during the delivery of this incoherent speech; and, quite confirmed in
their previous impression, Mr. Hardyman, as their spokesman, interrupted
the speaker, to inform him that _he_ was the suspected assassin of his
aunt! The accusing sentences had hardly passed the solicitor's lips, when
the furious young man sprang towards him with the bound of a tiger, and
at one blow prostrated him on the floor. He was immediately seized by the
two medical gentlemen, and help having been summoned, he was with much
difficulty secured, and placed in strict confinement, to await the result
of the next day's inquiry.
The examination of the body disclosed the terrible fact, that the
deceased lady had perished by _acetate of morphine_; thus verifying the
sagacious guess of Dr. Archer. A minute search was immediately made
throughout Mr. Frederick Everett's apartments, and behind one of the
drawers of a cabinet in his bedroom--at the back of the shelf or
partition upon which the drawer rested, and of course completely hidden
by the drawer itself when in its place--was found a flat tin flask,
fluted on the outside, and closed with a screw stopper: it was loosely
enveloped in a sheet of brown paper, directed "--Everett, Esq., Woodlands
Manor-House, Yorkshire;" and upon close examination, a small quantity of
white powder, which proved to be _acetate of morphine_, was found in the
flask. Suspicion of young Everett's guilt now became conviction; and, as
if to confirm beyond all doubt the soundness of the chain of
circumstantial evidence in which he was immeshed, the butler, John
Darby, an aged and trusty servant of the late Mrs. Fitzhugh, made on the
next day the following deposition before the magistrates:--
"He had taken in, two days before his late mistress was seized with her
fatal illness, a small brown paper parcel which had been brought by coach
from London, and for which 2s. 10d carriage was charged and paid. The
paper found in Mr. Frederick Everett's cabinet was, he could positively
swear, from the date and figures marked on it, and the handwriting, the
paper wrapper of that parcel. He had given it to young Mr. Everett, who
happened to be in the library at the time. About five minutes afterwards,
he had occasion to return to the library, to inform him that some
fishing-tackle he had ordered was sent home. The door was ajar; and Mr.
Frederick did not at first perceive his entrance, as he was standing with
his back to the door. The paper parcel he, the butler, had just before
delivered was lying open on the table, and Mr. Everett held in one hand a
flat tin flask--the witness had no doubt the same found in the
cabinet--and in the other a note, which he was reading. He, the witness,
coughed, to attract Mr. Everett's attention, who hurriedly turned round,
clapped down the flask and the note, shuffling them under the paper
wrapper, as if to conceal them, and then, in a very confused manner, and
his face as red as flame, asked witness what he wanted there? Witness
thought this behavior very strange at the time; but the incident soon
passed from his mind, and he had thought no more of it till the finding
of the paper and flask as described by the other witnesses."
Mr. Frederick Everett, who had manifested the strangest impassability, a
calmness as of despair, throughout the inquiry, which perplexed and
disheartened Mr. Sharpe, whose services had been retained by Captain
Everett, allowed even this mischievous evidence to pass without a word of
comment or explanation; and he was, as a matter of course, fully
committed for the wilful murder of his relative. The chain of
circumstantial evidence, motive included, was, it was felt, complete--not
a link was wanting.
These were the chief incidents disclosed to me by Mr. Sharpe during our
long and painful consultation. Of the precise nature of the terrible
suspicions which haunted and disturbed me, I shall only in this place say
that neither Mr. Sharpe, nor, consequently, myself, would in all
probability have guessed or glanced at them, but for the persistent
assertions of Miss Carrington, that her lover was madly sacrificing
himself from some chimerical motive of honor or duty.
"You do not know, Mr. Sharpe, as I do," she would frequently exclaim with
tearful vehemence, "the generous, child-like simplicity, the chivalric
enthusiasm, of his character, his utter abnegation of self, and readiness
on all occasions to sacrifice his own ease, his own wishes, to forward
the happiness of others; and, above all, his fantastic notions of
honor--duty, if you will--which would, I feel assured, prompt him to
incur any peril, death itself, to shield from danger any one who had
claims upon him either of blood or of affection. You know to whom my
suspicions point; and how dreadful to think that one so young, so brave,
so pious, and so true, should be sacrificed for such a monster as I
believe that man to be!"
To all these passionate expostulations the attorney could only reply
that vague suspicions were not judicial proofs; and that if Mr.
Frederick Everett would persist in his obstinate reserve, a fatal result
was inevitable. But Mr. Sharpe readily consented to gratify the wishes
of Mr. Carrington and his daughter on one point: he returned the money,
not a very large sum, which Captain Everett had sent him, and agreed
that Mr. Carrington should supply the funds necessary for the defence of
the prisoner.
Our consultation the next day at Mr. Sharpe's was a sad and hopeless one.
Nowhere did a gleam of cheerful light break in. The case was
overwhelmingly complete against the prisoner. The vague suspicions we
entertained pointed to a crime so monstrous, so incredible, that we felt
it could not be so much as hinted at upon such, legally considered,
slight grounds. The prisoner was said to be an eloquent speaker, and I
undertook to draw up the outline of a defence, impugning, with all the
dialectic skill I was master of, the conclusiveness of the evidence for
the crown. To this, and a host of testimony to character which we
proposed to call, rested our faint hopes of "a good deliverance!"
Business was over, and we were taking a glass of wine with Mr. Sharpe,
when his chief clerk entered to say that Sergeant Edwards, an old
soldier--who had spoken to them some time before relative to a large
claim which he asserted he had against Captain Everett, arising out of a
legacy bequeathed to him in India, and the best mode of assuring its
payment by an annuity, as proposed by the captain--had now called to say
that the terms were at last finally arranged, and that he wished to know
when Mr. Sharpe would be at leisure to draw up the bond. "He need not
fear for his money!" exclaimed Sharpe tartly, "the captain will, I fear,
be rich enough before another week has passed over our heads. Tell him to
call to-morrow evening; I will see him after I return from court." A few
minutes afterwards, I and Mr. Kingston took our leave.
The Crown Court was thronged to suffocation on the following morning,
and the excitement of the auditory appeared to be of the intensest kind.
Miss Carrington, closely veiled, sat beside her father on one of the
side-benches. A true bill against the prisoner had been found on the
previous afternoon; and the trial, it had been arranged, to suit the
convenience of counsel, should be first proceeded with. The court was
presided over by Mr. Justice Grose; and Mr. Gurney--afterwards Mr. Baron
Gurney--with another gentleman appeared for the prosecution. As soon as
the judge had taken his seat, the prisoner was ordered to be brought in,
and a hush of expectation pervaded the assembly. In a few minutes he made
his appearance in the dock. His aspect--calm, mournful, and full of
patient resignation--spoke strongly to the feelings of the audience, and
a low murmur of sympathy ran through the court. He bowed respectfully to
the bench, and then his sad, proud eye wandered round the auditory, till
it rested on the form of Lucy Carrington, who, overcome by sudden
emotion, had hidden her weeping face in her father's bosom. Strong
feeling, which he with difficulty mastered, shook his frame, and blanched
to a still deeper pallor his fine intellectual countenance. He slowly
withdrew his gaze from the agitating spectacle, and his troubled glance
meeting that of Mr. Sharpe, seemed to ask why proceedings, which _could_
only have one termination, were delayed. He had not long to wait. The
jury were sworn, and Mr. Gurney rose to address them for the crown.
Clear, terse, logical, powerful without the slightest pretence to what is
called eloquence, his speech produced a tremendous impression upon all
who heard it; and few persons mentally withheld their assent to his
assertion, as he concluded what was evidently a painful task, "that
should he produce evidence substantiating the statement he had made, the
man who could then refuse to believe in the prisoner's guilt, would
equally refuse credence to actions witnessed by his own bodily eyes."
The different witnesses were then called, and testified to the various
facts I have before related. Vainly did Mr. Kingston and I exert
ourselves to invalidate the irresistible proofs of guilt so
dispassionately detailed. "It is useless," whispered Mr. Sharpe, as I sat
down after the cross-examination of the aged butler. "You have done all
that could be done; but he is a doomed man, spite of his innocence, of
which I feel, every moment that I look at him, the more and more
convinced. God help us; we are poor, fallible creatures, with all our
scientific machinery for getting at truth!"
The case for the crown was over, and the prisoner was told that now was
the time for him to address the jury in answer to the charge preferred
against him. He bowed courteously to the intimation, and drawing a paper
from his pocket, spoke, after a few preliminary words of course, nearly
as follows:--
"I hold in my hand a very acute and eloquent address prepared for me by
one of the able and zealous gentlemen who appears to-day as my counsel,
and which, but for the iniquitous law which prohibits the advocate of a
presumed felon, but possibly quite innocent person, from addressing the
jury, upon whose verdict his client's fate depends, would no doubt have
formed the subject-matter of an appeal to you not to yield credence to
the apparently irrefragable testimony arrayed against me. The substance
of this defence you must have gathered from the tenor of the
cross-examinations; but so little effect did it produce, I saw, in that
form, however ably done, and so satisfied am I that though it were
rendered with an angel's eloquence, it would prove utterly impotent to
shake the strong conclusions of my guilt, which you, short-sighted,
fallible mortals--short-sighted and fallible _because_ mortal!--I mean no
disrespect--must have drawn from the body of evidence you have heard,
that I will not weary you or myself by reading it. I will only observe
that it points especially to the _over_-roof, so to speak, arrayed
against me--to the folly of supposing that an intentional murderer would
ostentatiously persist in administering the fatal potion to the victim
with his own hands, carefully excluding all others from a chance of
incurring suspicion. There are other points, but this is by far the most
powerful one; and as I cannot believe _that_ will induce you to return a
verdict rescuing me from what the foolish world, judging from
appearances, will call a shameful death, but which I, knowing my own
heart, feel to be sanctified by the highest motives which can influence
man--it would be merely waste of time to repeat them. From the first
moment, gentlemen, that this accusation was preferred against me, I felt
that I had done with this world; and, young as I am, but for one beloved
being whose presence lighted up and irradiated this else cold and barren
earth, I should, with little reluctance, have accepted this gift of an
apparently severe, but perhaps merciful fate. This life, gentlemen," he
continued after a short pause, "it has been well said, is but a battle
and a march. I have been struck down early in the combat; but of what
moment is that, if it be found by Him who witnesses the world-unnoticed
deeds of _all_ his soldiers, that I have earned the victor's crown? Let
it be your consolation, gentlemen, if hereafter you should discover that
you have sent me to an undeserved death, that you at least will not have
hurried a soul spotted with the awful crime of murder before its Maker.
And oh," he exclaimed in conclusion, with solemn earnestness, "may _all_
who have the guilt of blood upon them hasten, whilst life is still
granted them, to cleanse themselves by repentance of that foul sin, so
that not only the sacrifice of one poor life, but that most holy and
tremendous one offered in the world's consummate hour, may not for them
have been made in vain! My lord and gentlemen, I have no more to say. You
will doubtless do your duty: I _have_ done mine."
I was about, a few minutes after the conclusion of this strange and
unexpected address, to call our witnesses to character, when, to the
surprise of the whole court, and the consternation of the prisoner, Miss
Carrington started up, threw aside her veil, and addressing the judge,
demanded to be heard.
Queenly, graceful, and of touching loveliness did she look in her
vehemence of sorrow--radiant as sunlight in her days of joy she must have
been--as she stood up, affection-prompted, regardless of self, of the
world, to make one last effort to save her affianced husband.
"What would you say, young lady?" said Mr. Justice Grose, kindly. "If you
have anything to testify in favor of the prisoner, you had better
communicate with his counsel."
"Not that--not that," she hurriedly replied, as if fearful that her
strength would fail before she had enunciated her purpose. "Put, my lord,
put Frederick--the prisoner, I mean--on his oath. Bid him declare, as he
shall answer at the bar of Almighty God, who is the murderer for whom he
is about to madly sacrifice himself, and you will then find"--
"Your request is an absurd one," interrupted the judge with some
asperity. "I have no power to question a prisoner."
"Then," shrieked the unfortunate lady, sinking back fainting and helpless
in her father's arms, "he is lost--lost!"
She was immediately carried out of court; and as soon as the sensation
caused by so extraordinary and painful an incident had subsided, the
trial proceeded. A cloud of witnesses to character were called; the judge
summed up; the jury deliberated for a few minutes; and a verdict of
"guilty" was returned. Sentence to die on the day after the next
followed, and all was over!
Yes; all was, we deemed, over; but happily a decree, reversing that of
Mr. Justice Grose, had gone forth in Heaven. I was sitting at home about
an hour after the court had closed, painfully musing on the events of
the day, when the door of the apartment suddenly flew open, and in
rushed Mr. Sharpe in a state of great excitement, accompanied by
Sergeant Edwards, whom the reader will remember had called the previous
day at that gentleman's house. In a few minutes I was in possession of
the following important information, elicited by Mr. Sharpe from the
half-willing, half-reluctant sergeant, whom he had found waiting for him
at his office:--
In the first place, Captain Everett was _not_ the father of the prisoner!
The young man was the son of Mary Fitzhugh by her _first_ marriage; and
his name, consequently, was Mordaunt, not Everett. His mother had
survived her second marriage barely six months. Everett, calculating
doubtless upon the great pecuniary advantages which would be likely to
result to himself as the reputed father of the heir to a splendid English
estate, should the quarrel with Mrs. Eleanor Fitzhugh--as he nothing
doubted--be ultimately made up, had brought his deceased wife's infant
son up as his own. This was the secret of Edwards and his wife; and to
purchase their silence, Captain Everett had agreed to give the bond for
an annuity which Mr. Sharpe was to draw up. The story of the legacy was a
mere pretence. When Edwards was in Yorkshire before, Everett pacified
him for the time with a sum of money, and a promise to do more for him as
soon as his reputed son came into the property. He then hurried the
_cidevant_ sergeant back to London; and at the last interview he had
with him, gave him a note addressed to a person living in one of the
streets--I forget which--leading out of the Haymarket, together with a
five-pound note, which he was to pay the person to whom the letter was
addressed for some very rare and valuable powder, which the captain
wanted for scientific purposes, and which Edwards was to forward by coach
to Woodlands Manor-House. Edwards obeyed his instructions, and delivered
the message to the queer bushy-bearded foreigner to whom it was
addressed, who told him that, if he brought him the sum of money
mentioned in the note on the following day, he should have the article
required. He also bade him bring a well-stoppered bottle to put it in. As
the bottle was to be sent by coach, Edwards purchased a tin flask, as
affording a better security against breakage; and having obtained the
powder, packed it nicely up, and told his niece, who was staying with him
at the time, to direct it, as he was in a hurry to go out, to Squire
Everett, Woodlands Manor-House, Yorkshire, and then take it to the
booking-office. He thought, of course, though he said _Squire_ in a
jocular way, that she would have directed it _Captain_ Everett, as she
knew him well; but it seemed she had not. Edwards had returned to
Yorkshire only two days since, to get his annuity settled, and
fortunately was present in court at the trial of Frederick Mordaunt,
_alias_ Everett, and at once recognized the tin flask as the one he had
purchased and forwarded to Woodlands, where it must in due course have
arrived on the day stated by the butler. Terrified and bewildered at the
consequences of what he had done, or helped to do, Edwards hastened to
Mr. Sharpe, who, by dint of exhortations, threats, and promises,
judiciously blended, induced him to make a clean breast of it.
As much astounded as elated by this unlooked-for information, it was some
minutes before I could sufficiently concentrate my thoughts upon the
proper course to be pursued. I was not, however, long in deciding.
Leaving Mr. Sharpe to draw up an affidavit of the facts disclosed, I
hastened off to the jail, in order to obtain a thorough elucidation of
all the mysteries.
The revulsion of feeling in the prisoner's mind when he learned that the
man for whom he had so recklessly sacrificed himself was not only _not_
his father, but a cold-blooded villain, who, according to the testimony
of Sergeant Edwards, had embittered, perhaps shortened, his mother's last
hours, was immediate and excessive. "I should have taken Lucy's advice!"
he bitterly exclaimed, as he strode to and fro in his cell; "have told
the truth at all hazards, and have left the rest to God." His explanation
of the incidents that had so puzzled us all, was as simple as
satisfactory. He had always, from his earliest days, stood much in awe of
his father, who in the, to young Mordaunt, sacred character of parent,
exercised an irresistible control over him; and when the butler entered
the library, he believed for an instant it was his father who had
surprised him in the act of reading his correspondence; an act which,
however unintentional, would, he knew, excite Captain Everett's fiercest
wrath. Hence arose the dismay and confusion which the butler had
described. He re-sealed the parcel, and placed it in his reputed father's
dressing-room; and thought little more of the matter, till, on entering
his aunt's bedroom on the first evening of her illness, he beheld Everett
pour a small portion of white powder from the tin flask into the bottle
containing his aunt's medicine. The terrible truth at once flashed upon
him. A fierce altercation immediately ensued in the father's
dressing-room, whither Frederick followed him. Everett persisted that the
powder was a celebrated Eastern medicament, which would save, if anything
could, his aunt's life. The young man was not of course deceived by this
shallow falsehood, and from that moment administered the medicine to the
patient with his own hands, and kept the bottles which contained it
locked up in his cabinet. "On the very morning of my aunt's death, I
surprised him shutting and locking one of my cabinet drawers. So
dumbfounded was I with horror and dismay at the sight, that he left the
room by a side-door without observing me. You have now the key to my
conduct. I loathed to look upon the murderer; but I would have died a
thousand deaths rather than attempt to save my own life by the sacrifice
of a father's--how guilty soever he might be."
Furnished with this explanation, and the affidavit of Edwards, I waited
upon the judge, and obtained not only a respite for the prisoner, but a
warrant for the arrest of Captain Everett.
It was a busy evening. Edwards was despatched to London in the friendly
custody of an intelligent officer, to secure the person of the
foreign-looking vender of subtle poisons; and Mr. Sharpe, with two
constables, set off in a postchaise for Woodlands Manor-House. It was
late when they arrived there, and the servants informed them that Captain
Everett had already retired. They of course insisted upon seeing him; and
he presently appeared, wrapped in a dressing-gown, and haughtily demanded
their business with him at such an hour. The answer smote him as with a
thunderbolt, and he staggered backwards, till arrested by the wall of the
apartment, and then sank feebly, nervelessly, into a chair. Eagerly,
after a pause, he questioned the intruders upon the nature of the
evidence against him. Mr. Sharpe briefly replied that Edwards was in
custody, and had revealed everything.
"Is it indeed so?" rejoined Everett, seeming to derive resolution and
fortitude from the very extremity of despair. "Then the game is
unquestionably lost. It was, however, boldly and skilfully played, and I
am not a man to whimper over a fatal turn of the dice. In a few minutes,
gentlemen," he added, "I shall have changed my dress, and be ready to
accompany you."
"We cannot lose sight of you for an instant," replied Mr. Sharpe. "One of
the officers must accompany you."
"Be it so: I shall not detain either him or you long."
Captain Everett, followed by the officer, passed into his dressing-room.
He pulled off his gown; and pointing to a coat suspended on a peg at the
further extremity of the apartment, requested the constable to reach it
for him. The man hastened to comply with his wish. Swiftly, Everett
opened a dressing-case which stood on a table near him: the officer
heard the sharp clicking of a pistol-lock, and turned swiftly round. Too
late! A loud report rang through the house; the room was filled with
smoke; and the wretched assassin and suicide lay extended on the floor a
mangled corpse!
It would be useless minutely to recapitulate, the final winding-up of
this eventful drama. Suffice it to record, that Mr. Frederick Mordaunt
was, after a slight delay, restored to freedom and a splendid position in
society. After the lapse of a decent interval, he espoused Lucy
Carrington. Their eldest son represents in this present parliament one of
the English boroughs, and is by no means an undistinguished member of the
Commons House.
"THE ACCOMMODATION BILL."
Such of the incidents of the following narrative as did not fall within
my own personal observation, were communicated to me by the late Mr.
Ralph Symonds, and the dying confessions of James Hornby, one of the
persons killed by the falling in of the iron roof of the Brunswick
Theatre. A conversation the other day with a son of Mr. Symonds, who has
been long settled in London, recalled the entire chain of circumstances
to my memory with all the vivid distinctness of a first impression.
One evening towards the close of the year 1806, the Leeds coach brought
Mr. James Hornby to the village of Pool, on the Wharf, in the West-Riding
of Yorkshire. A small but respectable house on the confines of the place
had been prepared for his reception, and a few minutes after his descent
from the top of the coach, the pale, withered-looking man disappeared
within it. Except for occasional trips to Otley, a small market-town
distant about three miles from Pool, he rarely afterwards emerged from
its seclusion. It was not _Time_, we shall presently see--he was indeed
but four-and-forty years of age--that had bowed his figure, thinned his
whitening hair, and banished from his countenance all signs of healthy,
cheerful life. This, too, appeared to be the opinion of the gossips of
the village, who, congregated, as usual, to witness the arrival and
departure of the coach, indulged, thought Mr. Symonds, who was an inside
passenger proceeding on to Otley, in remarkably free-and-easy
commentaries upon the past, present, and future of the new-comer.
"I mind him well," quavered an old white-haired man. "It's just
three-and-twenty years ago last Michaelmas. I remember it because of the
hard frost two years before, that young Jim Hornby left Otley to go to
Lunnon: just the place, I'm told, to give the finishing polish to such a
miscreant as he seemed likely to be. He was just out of his time to old
Hornby, his uncle, the grocer."
"He that's left him such heaps of money?"
"Ay, boy, the very same, though he wouldn't have given him or any one
else a cheese-paring whilst he lived. This one is a true chip of the
old block, I'll warrant. You noticed that he rode outside, bitter cold
as it is?".
"Surely, Gaffer Hicks. But do ye mind what it was he went off in such a
skurry for? Tom Harris was saying last night at the Horse-Shoe, it was
something concerning a horse-race or a young woman; he warn't quite
sensible which."
"I can't say," rejoined the more ancient oracle, "that I quite mind all
the ups and downs of it. Henry Burton horse-whipped him on the Doncaster
race-course, _that_ I know; but whether it was about Cinderella that had,
they said, been tampered with the night before the race, or Miss
Elizabeth Grainsford, whom Burton married a few weeks afterwards, I
can't, as Tom Harris says, quite clearly remember."
"Old Hornby had a heavy grip of Burton's farm for a long time before he
died, they were saying yesterday at Otley. The sheepskins will now no
doubt be in the nephew's strong box."
"True, lad; and let's hope Master Burton will be regular with his
payments; for if not, there's Jail and Ruin for him written in capital
letters on yon fellow's cast-iron phiz, I can see."
The random hits of these Pool gossips, which were here interrupted by
the departure of the coach, were not very wide of the mark. James Hornby,
it was quite true, had been publicly horsewhipped twenty-three years
before by Henry Burton on the Doncaster race-course, ostensibly on
account of the sudden withdrawal of a horse that should have started, a
transaction with which young Hornby was in some measure mixed up; but
especially and really for having dared, upon the strength of presumptive
heirship to his uncle's wealth, to advance pretensions to the fair hand
of Elizabeth Gainsford, the eldest daughter of Mr. Robert Gainsford,
surgeon, of Otley--pretensions indirectly favored, it was said, by the
father, but contemptuously repudiated by the lady. Be this as it may,
three weeks after the races, Elizabeth Gainsford became Mrs. Burton, and
James Hornby hurried off to London, grudgingly furnished for the journey
by his uncle. He obtained a situation as shopman in one of the large
grocer establishments of the metropolis; and twenty-three years
afterwards, the attorney's letter, informing him that he had succeeded to
all his deceased uncle's property, found him in the same place, and in
the same capacity.
A perfect yell of delight broke from the lips of the taciturn man as his
glance devoured the welcome intelligence. "At last!" he shouted with
maniacal glee; and fiercely crumpling the letter in his hand, as if he
held a living foe in his grasp, whilst a flash of fiendish passion broke
from the deep caverns of his sunken eyes--"at last I have thee on the
hip! Ah, mine enemy!--it is the dead--the dead alone that never return
to hurl back on the head of the wrong-doer the shame, the misery, the
ruin he inflicted in his hour of triumph!" The violence of passions
suddenly unreined after years of jealous curb and watchfulness for a
moment overcame him, and he reeled as if fainting, into a chair. The
fierce, stern nature of the man soon mastered the unwonted excitement,
and in a few minutes he was cold, silent, impassable as ever. The letter
which he despatched the same evening gave calm, business orders as to
his uncle's funeral, and other pressing matters upon which the attorney
had demanded instructions, and concluded by intimating that he should be
in Yorkshire before many days elapsed. He arrived, as we have seen, and
took up his abode at one of the houses bequeathed to him in Pool, which
happened to be unlet.
Yes, for more than twenty bitter years James Hornby had savagely brooded
over the shame and wrong inflicted on him before the mocking eyes of a
brutal crowd by Henry Burton. Ever as the day's routine business closed,
and he retired to the dull solitude of his chamber, the last mind-picture
which faded on his waking sense was the scene on the crowded race-course,
with all its exasperating accessories--the merciless exultation of the
triumphant adversary--the jibes and laughter of his companions--the
hootings of the mob--to be again repeated with fantastic exaggeration in
the dreams which troubled and perplexed his broken sleep. No wonder that
the demons of Revenge and Hate, by whom he was thus goaded, should have
withered by their poisonous breath the healthful life which God had
given--have blasted with premature old age a body rocker with curses to
unblessed repose! It seemed, by his after-confessions, that he had really
loved Elizabeth Gainsford with all the energy of his violent, moody
nature, and that her image, fresh, lustrous, radiant, as in the dawn of
life, unceasingly haunted his imagination with visions of tenderness and
beauty, lost to him, as he believed, through the wiles, the calumnies,
and violence of his detested, successful rival.
The matronly person who, a few days after the Christmas following
Hornby's arrival at Pool, was conversing with her husband in the parlor
of Grange farmhouse, scarcely realized the air-drawn image which dwelt in
the memory of the unforgiving, unforgetting man. Mrs. Burton was at this
time a comely dame, whose _embonpoint_ contour, however indicative of
florid health and serenity of temper, exhibited little of the airy
elegance and grace said to have distinguished the girlhood of Elizabeth
Gainsford. Her soft brown eyes were gentle and kind as ever, but the
brilliant lights of youth no longer sparkled in their quiet depths, and
time had not only "thinned her flowing hair"--necessitating caps--but had
brushed the roses from her cheeks, and swept away, with his searing hand,
the pale lilies from the furtive coverts whence they had glanced in
tremulous beauty, in life's sweet prime; yet for all that, and a great
deal more, Mrs. Burton, I have no manner of doubt, looked charmingly in
the bright fire-blaze which gleamed in chequered light and shade upon the
walls, pictures, curtains of the room, and the green leaves and scarlet
berries of the Christmas holly with which it was profusely decorated.
Three of her children--the eldest, Elizabeth, a resuscitation of her own
youth--were by her side, and opposite sat her husband, whose frank,
hearty countenance seemed to sparkle with careless mirth.
"Hornby will be here presently, Elizabeth," said he. "What a
disappointment awaits the rascally curmudgeon! His uncle was a prince
compared to him."
"Disappointment, Henry! to receive four hundred pounds he did not
expect?"
"Ay, truly, dame. Lawyer Symonds' son Frank, a fine, good-hearted young
fellow as ever stepped in shoe-leather--Lizzy, girl, if that candle
were nearer your face it would light without a match"--
"Nonsense, father!"
"Very likely. Frank Symonds, I was saying, believes, and so does his
father, that Hornby would rejoice at an opportunity of returning with
interest the smart score I marked upon his back three-and-twenty
years ago"
"It was a thoughtless, cruel act, Henry," rejoined his wife, "and the
less said of it the better. I hope the fright we have had will induce you
to practice a better economy than heretofore; so that, instead of
allowing two years' interest to accumulate upon us, we may gradually
reduce the mortgage."
"That we will, dear, depend upon it. We shall be pushed a little at
first: Kirkshaw, who lent me the two hundred and fifty, can only spare it
for a month; but no doubt the bank will do a bill for part of it by that
time. But sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Here is the money
for Hornby at all events: and here at last comes the shrivelled atomy; I
hear his horse. Fanny, light the candles."
If Mrs. Burton had consciously or unconsciously entertained the
self-flattering notion that the still unwedded bachelor who had
unsuccessfully wooed her nearly a quarter of a century before, still
retained a feeling of regretful tenderness for her, she must have been
grievously surprised by the cold, unrecognizing glance which Hornby
threw on her as he entered, and curtly replied to her civil greeting.
_That_ was not the image stamped upon his heart and brain! But when her
eldest daughter approached the lights to place paper and pens upon the
table, the flashing glance and white quivering lip of the grave visitor
revealed the tempest of emotion which for an instant shook him. He
quickly suppressed all outward manifestation of feeling, and in a dry,
business tone, demanded if Mr. Burton was ready to pay the interest of
the mortgage.
"Yes, thank God," replied Burton, "I am: here is the money in notes of
the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. Count them!"
Hornby bent down over the notes, shading his face with his hand, as if
more accurately to examine them, and the glance of baffled rage which
swept across his features was not observed.
"They are quite right," he said, rising from his chair; "and here is
your receipt."
"Very Good! And now, Hornby, let us have a glass of wine together for the
sake of old times. Well, well; you need not look so fierce about it. Let
bygones be bygones, I say. Oh, if you _will_ go--go in God's name!
Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
"Baffled--foiled!" muttered Hornby as he rode homeward. "Where could he
get the money? Borrowed it, doubtless, but of whom? Well,
patience--patience! I shall grip thee yet, Henry Burton!" And the
possessed man turned round in his saddle, and shook his clenched hand in
the direction of the house he had quitted. He then steadily pursued his
way, and soon regained his hermitage.
The month for which Burton had borrowed the two hundred and fifty pounds
passed rapidly--as months always do to borrowers--and expedient after
expedient for raising the money was tried in vain. This money must be
repaid, Kirkshaw had emphatically told him, on the day stipulated. Burton
applied to the bank at Leeds, with which he usually did business, to
discount an acceptance, guaranteed by one or two persons whose names he
mentioned. The answer was the usual civil refusal to accept the proffered
security for repayment--"the bank was just then full of discounts."
Burton ventured, as a last resource, to call on Hornby with a request
that, as the rapid advance in the market-value of land consequent on the
high war-prices obtained for its produce, had greatly increased the worth
of Grange Farm, he would add the required sum to the already-existing
mortgage. He was met by a prompt refusal. Mr. Hornby intended to
foreclose as speedily as possible the mortgages he already held, and
invest his capital in more profitable securities. "Well, then--would he
lend the amount at any interest he chose?"
"The usury laws," replied Hornby, with his usual saturnine sneer, "would
prevent my acceptance of your obliging offer, even if I had the present
means, which I have not. My spare cash happens just now to be temporarily
locked up."
Burton, half-crazed with anxiety, went the following day to the Leeds
bank with the proffer of a fresh name agreed to be lent him by its
owner. Useless! "They did not know the party." The applicant mused a
few moments, and then said, "Would you discount the note of Mr. James
Hornby of Pool?"
"Certainly; with a great deal of pleasure." Burton hurried away; had his
horse instantly saddled, and gallopped off to Pool. Hornby was at home.
"You hinted the other day," said Burton, "that if you had not been short
of present means you might have obliged me with the loan I required"
"Did I?"
"At least I so understood you. I am of course not ignorant, Mr. Hornby,
that there is no good blood between us two; but I also know that you are
fond of money, and that you are fully aware that I am quite safe for a
few hundred pounds. I am come, therefore, to offer you ten pounds _bonus_
for your acceptance at one month for two hundred and fifty pounds."
"What?" exclaimed Hornby with strange vehemence. "What"
Burton repeated his offer, and Hornby turned away towards the window
without speaking.
When he again faced Burton, his countenance wore its usual color; but
the expression of his eyes, the applicant afterwards remembered, was
wild and exulting.
"Have you a bill stamp?"
"Yes."
"Then draw the bill at once, and I will accept it."
Burton did not require to be twice told. The bill was quickly drawn;
Hornby took it to another table at the further end of the apartment,
slowly wrote his name across it, folded, and returned it to Burton, who
tendered the ten pounds he had offered, and a written acknowledgment that
the bill had been drawn and accepted for his (Burton's) accommodation.
"I don't want your money, Henry Burton," said Hornby, putting back the
note and the memorandum. "I am not afraid of losing by this transaction.
You do not know me yet."
"A queer stick," thought Burton, as he gained the street; "but Old Nick
is seldom so black as he's painted! He was a plaguy while, I thought,
signing his name; but I wish I could sign mine to such good purpose."
Burton laid the accepted bill, face downwards, on the bank counter, took
a pen, indorsed, and passed it to the managing clerk. The gray-headed man
glanced sharply at the signature, and then at Burton, "Why, surely this
is not Mr. Hornby's signature? It does not at all resemble it!"
"Not his signature!" exclaimed Burton; "what do you mean by that?"
"Reynolds, look here," continued the clerk, addressing another of the
bank _employés_. Reynolds looked, and his immediate glance of surprise
and horror at Burton revealed the impression he had formed.
"Please to step this way, Mr. Burton, to a private apartment," said
the manager.
"No--no, I won't," stammered the unfortunate man, over whose mind a
dreadful suspicion had glanced with the suddenness of lightning. "I will
go back to Hornby;" and he made a desperate but vain effort to snatch the
fatal instrument. Then, pale and staggering with a confused terror and
bewilderment, he attempted to rush into the street. He was stopped, with
the help of the bystanders, by one of the clerks, who had jumped over the
counter for the purpose.
The messenger despatched by the bankers to Hornby returned with an answer
that the alleged acceptance was a forgery. It was stated on the part of
Mr. Hornby that Mr. Burton had indeed requested him to lend two hundred
and fifty pounds, but he had refused. The frantic asseverations of poor
Burton were of course disregarded, and he was conveyed to jail. An
examination took place the next day before the magistrates, and the
result was, that the prisoner was fully committed on the then capital
charge for trial at the ensuing assize.
It were useless, as painful, to dwell upon the consternation and agony
which fell upon the dwellers at Grange Farm when the terrible news
reached them. A confident belief in the perfect innocence of the
prisoner, participated by most persons who knew his character and that of
Hornby, and that it would be triumphantly vindicated on the day of trial,
which rapidly approached, alone enabled them to bear up against the blow,
and to await with trembling hope the verdict of a jury.
It was at this crisis of the drama that I became an actor in it. I was
retained for the defence by my long-known and esteemed friend Symonds,
whose zeal for his client, stimulated by strong personal friendship, knew
no bounds. The acceptance, he informed me, so little resembled Hornby's
handwriting, that if Burton had unfolded the bill when given back to him
by the villain, he could hardly have failed to suspect the nature of the
diabolical snare set for his life.
In those days, and until Mr., now Sir, Robert Peel's amendment of the
criminal law and practice of this country, the acceptor of a bill of
exchange, on the principle that he was _interested_ in denying the
genuineness of the signature, could not, according to the English law of
evidence, be called, on the part of the prosecution, to prove the
forgery; and of course, after what had taken place, we did not propose to
call Hornby for the defence. The evidence for the crown consisted,
therefore, on the day of trial, of the testimony of persons acquainted
with Hornby's signature, that the acceptance across the inculpated bill
was not in his handwriting. Burton's behavior at the bank, in endeavoring
to repossess himself of the bill by violence, was of course detailed, and
told heavily against him.
All the time this testimony was being given, Hornby sat on one of the
front seats of the crowded court, exulting in the visible accomplishment
of his Satanic device. We could see but little of his face, which,
supported on his elbow, was partially concealed by a handkerchief he held
in his hand; but I, who narrowly observed him, could occasionally discern
flashes from under his pent brows--revealments of the fierce struggle
which raged within.
The moment at last arrived for the prisoner, whose eyes had been for some
time fixed on Hornby, to speak or read his defence, and a breathless
silence pervaded the court.
Burton started at the summons, like a man unexpectedly recalled to a
sense of an imperious, but for the moment forgotten, duty.
"James Hornby!" he suddenly cried with a voice which rang through the
assembly like a trumpet, "stand up, and if you can face an innocent
man"--
Hornby, surprised out of his self-possession, mechanically obeyed the
strange order, sprang involuntarily to his feet, let fall the
handkerchief that had partially concealed his features, and nervously
confronted the prisoner.
"Look at me, I say," continued Burton with increasing excitement; "and as
you hope to escape the terrors of the last judgment, answer truly: did
you not, with your own hand, and in my presence, sign that bill?"--
"This cannot be permitted," interrupted the judge.
"If you do not speak," proceeded the prisoner, heedless of the
intimation from the bench; "or if you deny the truth, my life, as sure
as there is a God in heaven, will be required at your hands. If, in
consequence of your devilish plotting, these men consign me to a felon's
grave, I shall not be cold in it when you will be calling upon the
mountains to fall and cover you from the vengeance of the Judge of
heaven and earth! Speak, man--save me: save your own soul from mortal
peril whilst there is yet time for mercy and repentance!"
Hornby's expression of surprise and confusion had gradually changed
during this appeal to its usual character of dogged impassibility. He
turned calmly and appealingly towards the bench.
"You need not answer these wild adjurations, Mr. Hornby," said the judge,
as soon as he could make himself heard.
A smile curled the fellow's lip as he bowed deferentially to his
lordship, and he sat down without uttering a syllable.
"May the Lord, then, have mercy on my soul!" exclaimed the prisoner
solemnly. Then glancing at the bench and jury-box, he added, "And you, my
lord and gentlemen, work your will with my body as quickly as you may: I
am a lost man!"
The calling of witnesses to character, the opening of the judge's charge,
pointing from its first sentence to a conviction, elicited no further
manifestation of feeling from the prisoner: he was as calm as despair.
The judge had been speaking for perhaps ten minutes, when a bustle was
heard at the hall, as if persons were striving to force their way into
the body of the court in spite of the resistance of the officers.
"Who is that disturbing the court?" demanded the judge angrily.
"For the love of Heaven let me pass!" we heard uttered in passionate
tones by a female voice. "I must and will see the judge!"
"Who can this be?" T inquired, addressing Mr. Symonds.
"I cannot conceive," he replied; "surely not Mrs. Burton?"
I had kept my eye, as I spoke, upon Hornby, and noticed that he exhibited
extraordinary emotion at the sound of the voice, to whomsoever it
belonged, and was now endeavoring to force his way through the crowded
and anxious auditory.
"My lord," said I, "I have to request on the part of the prisoner that
the person desirous of admittance may be heard."
"What has she to say? Or if a material witness, why have you not called
her at the proper time?" replied his lordship with some irritation.
"My lord, I do not even now know her name; but in a case involving the
life of the prisoner, it is imperative that no chance be neglected"--
"Let the woman pass into the witness-box," interrupted the judge.
The order brought before our eyes a pale, stunted woman, of about fifty
years of age, whose excited and by no means unintellectual features, and
hurried, earnest manner, seemed to betoken great and unusual feeling.
"As I'm alive, Hornby's deformed housekeeper!" whispered Symonds. "This
poor devil's knot will be unraveled yet."
The woman, whose countenance and demeanor, as she gave her evidence,
exhibited a serious, almost solemn intelligence, deposed to the
following effect:--
"Her name was Mary McGrath, and she was the daughter of Irish parents,
but born and brought up in England. She had been Mr. Hornby's
housekeeper, and remembered well the 4th of February last, when Mr.
Burton, the prisoner, called at the house. Witness was dusting in an
apartment close to her master's business-room, from which it was only
separated by a thin wooden partition. The door was partly open, and she
could see as well as hear what was going on without being seen herself.
She heard the conversation between the prisoner and her master; heard
Mr. Hornby agree to sign the paper--bill she ought to say--for two
hundred and fifty pounds; saw him do it, and then deliver it folded up
to Mr. Burton."
A shout of execration burst from the auditory as these words were
uttered, and every eye was turned to the spot where Hornby had been
seated. He had disappeared during the previous confusion.
"Silence!" exclaimed the judge sternly. "Why, woman," he added, "have you
never spoken of this before?"
"Because, my lord," replied the witness with downcast looks, and in a
low, broken voice--"because I am a sinful, wicked creature. When my
master, the day after Mr. Burton had been taken up, discovered that I
knew his secret, he bribed me with money and great promises of more to
silence. I had been nearly all my life, gentlemen, poor and miserable,
almost an outcast, and the temptation was too strong for me. He
mistrusted me, however--for my mind, he saw, was sore troubled--and he
sent me off to London yesterday, to be out of the way till all was over.
The coach stopped at Leeds, and, as it was heavy upon me, I thought,
especially as it was the blessed Easter-time, that I would step to the
chapel. His holy name be praised that I did! The scales seemed to fall
from my eyes, and I saw clearer than I had before the terrible wickedness
I was committing. I told all to the priest, and he has brought me here to
make what amends I can for the sin and cruelty of which I have been
guilty. There--there is all that is left of the wages of crime," she
added, throwing a purse of money on the floor of the court; and then
bursting into a flood of tears, she exclaimed with passionate
earnestness, "for which may the Almighty of his infinite mercy pardon and
absolve me!"
"Amen!" responded the deep husky voice of the prisoner, snatched back, as
it were, from the very verge of the grave to liberty and life. "Amen,
with all my soul!"
The counsel for the crown, cross-examined the witness, but his efforts
only brought out her evidence in, if possible, a still clearer and more
trustworthy light. Not a thought of doubt was entertained by any person
in the court, and the jury, with the alacrity of men relieved of a
grievous burthen, and without troubling the judge to resume his
interrupted charge, returned a verdict of acquittal.
The return of Burton to his home figured as an ovation in the Pool and
Otley annals. The greetings which met him on all sides were boisterous
and hearty, as English greetings usually are; and it was with some
difficulty the rustic constabulary could muster a sufficient force to
save Hornby's domicile from sack and destruction. All the windows were,
however, smashed, and that the mob felt was something at all events.
Burton profited by the painful ordeal to which he had, primarily through
his own thoughtlessness, been exposed, and came in a few years to be
regarded as one of the most prosperous yeomen-farmers of Yorkshire. Mr.
Frank Symonds' union with Elizabeth Burton was in due time solemnized;
Mr. Wilberforce, the then popular member for the West Riding, I remember
hearing, stood sponsor to their eldest born; and Mary McGrath passed the
remainder of her life in the service of the family her testimony had
saved from disgrace and ruin.
Mr. James Hornby disappeared from Yorkshire immediately after the trial,
and, except through his business agents, was not again heard of till the
catastrophe at the Brunswick Theatre, where he perished. He died
penitent, after expressing to Mr. Frank Symonds, for whom he had sent,
his deep sorrow for the evil deed he had planned, and, but for a
merciful interposition, would have accomplished. As a proof of the
sincerity of his repentance, he bequeathed the bulk of his property to
Mrs. Symonds, the daughter of the man he had pursued with such savage
and relentless hate!