The general diffusion of knowledge is a very great thing, no doubt,
and the cultivation of intellectual powers, in every grade of life and
class of society, may probably produce a very excellent result; but
yet, the man who goes about the world with his eyes open--it is
certainly very rare to find such a man, for the great mass of human
beings decidedly keep their eyes shut altogether, or, at best, but
half unclosed--the man who goes about the world with his eyes open
will be inclined, from a great number of very curious facts that he
perceives, to deduce a theory, or, perhaps, if that be too positive a
term, we may say, to build up an hypothesis, very much at variance
with the dream of the French philosophers before the first revolution,
regarding the perfectibility of human nature. He will be inclined to
imagine that the will of God may allot to a certain number of mortals
only a certain portion of genius, and that when a very great share of
this genius is concentrated in a few individuals of the number, the
rest of the multitude remain dull and incapable, while the few produce
the most sublime fruits of human intellect; and, on the contrary,
where the allotted portion of talent is spread over a great surface,
divided amongst many, not only few distinguish themselves from the
rest, but none produce anything equal to the works brought into being
by the two or three more gifted men which we have referred to in the
other case. Thus, in the present age, where all is light, in not one
of the arts do we find such wonderful results as we might anticipate
from the general diffusion of knowledge. It is very true, great
discoveries have been made--that we have had Herschells, La Places,
Faradays--that we have discovered steam-engines, railroads, electric
telegraphs; but, though the assertion may seem bold, the gauge of
original powers in the human mind is to be found more in the arts than
in the sciences. The sciences build upon tradition; they are
cumulative, and all the generations of the past together hold out the
hand to raise up the diligent aspirer to a height above themselves.
Not so the arts; for though the scientific part of each may be
improved, by, the accumulation of knowledge, that part which gives
them their fire and vigour depends upon the genius of each individual
artist; and just in the same proportion as you find a certain degree
of skill very generally diffused, you will find a multitude of poets,
painters, statuaries, and a sad deficiency of excellence amongst them.
Nothing, perhaps, shewed the grandeur and the grasp of ancient art
more strongly than the vigour with which the old painters used the
effect produced upon the human mind by the power of contrast, and the
infinite skill with which they employed that power, so as never to
violate those essential principles of harmony which affect painting
and sculpture fully as much as they affect music and poetry. Where is
the man of the present day who can set red, and yellow, and blue
garments side by side with hues of the most sparkling brightness, and
yet in no degree offend the eye, or produce the least sensation of
harshness upon the mind? So, nevertheless, it is in the paintings of
almost all the finest old masters; and we shall also find, that in
life itself, one of the greatest zests to enjoyment is striking
contrast, provided we can obtain it without any harshness of
transition.
Morley Ernstein sat at breakfast, on the following day, somewhat later
than usual, thinking over all the people and the things he had seen,
and all the words and sounds he had heard, and as, though somewhat
variable in his moods, he was not one of those monsters of philosophy
who come out into the world at the age of one-and-twenty, like Minerva
all armed from the head of Jove, with a sombre and supercilious
disgust for common life and its vanities--as he was, in short, neither
less nor more than an eager, impetuous, though talented and feeling,
young man, it must be confessed, he felt a little of that sort of
giddiness of brain, and hurry of ideas, which follows excitement of
any kind. His reveries, however, were soon broken in upon by the
appearance of his friend Lieberg, who did not take the seat placed for
him, but immediately exclaimed--
"Come, Ernstein, you are on the search for strange things; I have one
all ready for you. I am going to Bow-street, and on what occasion I
will tell you by the way. There you may make a mental breakfast upon
all the rogues and vagabonds that are served up fresh every morning
about eleven, like new shrimps at Worthing."
"I shall be delighted," replied Morley. "I long extremely to see a
good deal more of those gentry; they and their manners have always
formed a subject of wonder and interest for my imagination."
"You may pamper its appetite here to the full," answered Lieberg; "but
come, I shall be late."
Morley Ernstein was speedily equipped and rolling along in Lieberg's
cabriolet towards that street where, in days of yore, a thieves'
coffee-house appeared on one side of the way, nearly opposite to the
place whence so many of them were sent to trial and to death. As a
Bow-street officer once expressed it--"The house had been established
there, that the gentlemen might always be ready when they were
wanted." As they proceeded, Lieberg told him that his pocket had been
picked of a gold snuff-box, coming out of the opera on the preceding
night.
"The thing was done in the most deliberate manner," he said. "I found
myself pressed upon very hard by three strong fellows, and feeling a
sort of waving undulation of my pocket behind, I turned round to look,
and saw a very well-dressed man in the act of abstracting the box,
without any great ceremony or delicacy. With the fullest intentions of
knocking him down, I was prevented from moving in many way by the two
men who pressed me on either side, and who, by a well-devised method
of squeezing their victim, held me as if in a vice. Scarcely could I
turn my head round again, when I found something tugging hard at my
watch; luckily there was a strong guard round my neck, but,
nevertheless, after the conquest of my snuff-box had been fully
effected, the fellow who was before me still gave two hearty pulls,
and when he ceased, had the impudence to say, with a grin--'That's a
good chain, sir--I'd advise you to take care of it.' They then shouted
to each other--'Be off--be off!' and began running up the Haymarket
at full speed. I chased the man who had got the box for some way,
crying--'Stop thief!' A watchman sprang his rattle, and tried to seize
one of the fellows; but, by a dexterous movement, the pickpocket
tripped up the poor Charley's feet, and he, rolling down before me,
stopped one for the moment, and the fellows escaped. I immediately
sent for a Bow-street officer, described my friend who had got the
snuff-box, and this morning was told that he is in custody. A curious
hint, however, was given me by my good friend R----, the officer.
'Which do you want to do, sir--get your snuff-box, or punish the man?
You can't do both, you know.' 'To get my snuff-box,' I replied; 'so if
you can manage that for me, I can contrive not to be quite sure of his
identity, you know.' 'No, no, sir,' said R----, with a wink of his
eye, 'that's no go; you must swear to him positively, otherwise the
fellows will think you've got no hold of him, and they'll keep the
yellow. You be quite sure, and we'll have an alibi ready.' So you see,
Ernstein, I am going to play my part in a pretty farce."
As he spoke the last words, the cabriolet rolled up to the door of the
police-office, in Bow-street, round which were standing numerous
groups of men and women, whose character was anything but doubtful,
and whose appearance was certainly by no means prepossessing, whatever
their practices might be. There might be seen the face pale and
swollen from habitual drunkenness, looking like a moulded lump of
unbaked dough, with an expression which will bear no logical
description, though it was marked and peculiar enough. It was the
expression of stupid cunning, if one may use such a term, and is
seldom to be met with, except in the countenances of those in whom
drunkenness is only an accessory to other vices. There, too, might be
beheld all the terrible marks, with which crime brands upon the
forehead of the guilty the history of their faults and punishment. The
red vermilion lines about the mouth and eyelids; the swelled and
sometimes blackened eyes; the face covered with many a patch and
plaster; the hair rugged and dirty; the dull, downcast look, not of
active but of passive despair, seeing nothing round it, but fixing the
corporeal eyes upon blankness, while looking with its mental eyes into
itself. Oh! who can tell what it must be sometimes for the spirit to
stare into the dark cavern of the heart, with that heavy, straining
gaze, ineffectual, hopeless, finding nothing there--nothing to solace
or to soothe; nothing to elevate or to support; nothing from the past,
nothing for the future; nothing to be derived from memory; nothing to
be bestowed on hope. Nothing!--nothing! All blank darkness, blotted
over with the night of crime!
Through a crowd of such beings standing round the door of the
police-office in Bow-street, Morley and his friend drove up to the
side of the pavement, and jumped out of the cabriolet, while Lieberg's
young groom sprang to the head of the tall, powerful horse, who seemed
as if he could have run away with him like a feather, and held him
firm with both hands, like a small bull-dog pinning an immense bull.
Along the dirty passage, the wainscoted walls of which, on either
side, about five feet from the ground, were traced with a
long-continued smear of greasy black, from the incessant rubbing of
human shoulders, Lieberg, and his companion, walked on--one or two
very doubtful-looking people giving way before the two swells, as they
internally termed them--into the room where the magistrates were
sitting.
There were several persons already at the bar, and in the place
assigned to the attorneys were various shrewd-looking, keen-faced men,
with eyes full of business, while in one or two instances an
ostentatious blue bag appeared beside them. More than one personage,
however, who seemed merely, an idler, was also amongst the select;
while at the back of the part appropriated to the people, chatting
carelessly over totally different subjects, was a group of friendly
officers and pickpockets, screened from the bench and the bar by a
tolerable thick row of human heads, male and female, through the
interstices between which, a girl of fourteen, who seemed already a
prostitute, and a boy somewhat younger, were striving to get a view of
what was passing at the bar. The court itself possessed an atmosphere
redolent of a peculiarly disagreeable smell of human nature, mixed
with second-hand whiffs of beer, tobacco, and gin, which, to the more
refined noses of the two gentlemen who now entered the court, and
especially to that of Morley Ernstein, which was principally
accustomed to the free air and sweet scents of the country, was
anything but fragrant.
The case before the magistrates was disposed of ere any notice was
taken of Lieberg and his companion; but then, the gentleman who had
relieved him of his snuff-box on the night before, being placed at the
bar, and the rank, station, and appearance, of the two friends being
taken into due consideration by His Worship, they were invited to take
their places on the bench, and the charge was entered into. Lieberg
detailed the whole affair, and swore to the prisoner's identity; a
keen-faced man asked him several questions on behalf of the prisoner,
and the magistrate, after giving the personage at the bar a proper
warning not to say anything more than he liked, interrogated him in
turn.
The man positively declared, that the gentleman must be mistaken,
affirming, with a sly look and half-suppressed grin, that he did not
mean to impeach the truth and honour of such a gentleman as he was,
but that there was a mistake somewhere; for at that very hour, and for
a full hour before and after, he was with a club called the "Rum
Fellows," which met weekly at a certain house that he named. Very
honest men, they were, he said, though they was Rum Fellows, and a
number of respectable tradesmen too. He could prove it, he said, for
there were lots of witnesses. He would call one immediately, whom he
had sent for as soon as he was taken up.
He accordingly called a Mr. Higgins, but for a moment or two Mr.
Higgins did not appear, and there was a murmur ran through the court
in consequence, which no one took pains to keep from the ears of the
bench, of, "where is he? where is he?--where's Bill Jones's alibi?"
and at length the call for Bill Jones's alibi was roared with a
stentorian voice along the passage, and transmitted to the
public-house on the opposite side of the street.
A moment after, in rushed a short, stout, swarthy man, very well
dressed, after the fashion of a respectable tradesman. His coal-black
hair was as smooth as a mirror; his linen was clean, and white; he had
a pair of drab gaiters upon his sturdy legs, a black coat, a Marcellas
waistcoat, and a coloured handkerchief. His eyes were black and large,
his teeth fine and white, and on a fat little finger he wore a fat,
long ring. He was a little out of breath with haste, and, as he
appeared before the magistrates, he wiped from the corners of his
mouth the last vestiges of what the people of that place generally
term "something _short_," which he had taken to keep him fresh
before the court. He bowed low to the sitting magistrates, low to
Lieberg and to Ernstein, and then nodded to the prisoner at the bar,
exclaiming--"Ah, Bill! what's the matter? Surely you did not get drunk
last night after you left us!"
His innocent mind being enlightened, in regard to the charge against
his friend, he swore most positively, that Bill Jones had been with
him and others, at a public-house named the "George," celebrating the
mysteries of a club called the "Rum Fellows," at the very hour when
Colonel Lieberg's snuff-box had been extracted from his pocket. He
swore that the said Bill Jones had been there an hour before and an
hour afterwards; and he did, moreover, what, to the uninitiated, might
seem a dangerous proceeding--that is to say, he entered into minute
particulars as to what Bill Jones said or did on that occasion.
"Well, then, Mr. Higgins," said the magistrate, "if such be the case,
there must be, doubtless, others of your club who can swear to the
same facts as yourself; if the prisoner thinks fit, he can call
another witness."
The prisoner was prepared upon this point also, and he accordingly
called a Mr. Farebrother. While Mr. Farebrother was being sought for,
Mr. Higgins thought fit to enlighten the court upon his profession,
saying, he did not see why his word should be disbelieved, as he was a
respectable tradesman.
"Yes, Mr. Higgins," said the magistrate, "I know you; you are a
pawnbroker. You may go down."
Mr. Farebrother presented an appearance the most opposite that it is
possible to imagine to that of his club-fellow, Mr. Higgins. He was a
small, thin, narrow-made man; with a coat of good quality, but
originally constructed for a much more considerable person than
himself. Indeed, he seemed to have a strong desire to be at room in
his clothes, for the slate-coloured trowsers with which his nether man
was ornamented, lapped vaguely over his shoes behind; which, if the
stockings were in harmony with those shoes, might be, upon the whole,
advantageous to him. His look was humble and sanctimonious, and,
either from tenderness of heart or of eyes, he had a weeping look
about him, which those who knew him believed to increase greatly under
reiterated tumblers of brandy and water. We need not enter largely
into the testimony which he gave; suffice it to say, he corroborated,
in every point, the testimony of Mr. Higgins, and the story of Bill
Jones.
The magistrate, as a matter of form, asked him some shrewd, sensible
questions, premising them, however, by saying, in a low voice, to
Colonel Lieberg, "You wont convict him; the thing is too well got up."
Mr. Farebrother resisted manfully every attempt to wring the truth
from him; he had more than once been under the hands of Mister
afterwards Baron Garrow, and, consequently, there was not an art by
which a witness can be made to forget or betray himself, that he was
not thoroughly acquainted with, and ready to resist. Having terminated
his examination, the magistrate turned to the accuser, with a silent
smile, as if asking--"What am I to do next?"
"I certainly thought I was sure of the identity," said Lieberg, "and,
accordingly, swore to the fact; but, after what we have heard, I
suppose the matter must be given up."
The magistrate accordingly dismissed the charge; but Bill Jones, who
stood upon character, seemed resolved to have the last word: "I hope,
your worship," he observed, "that I quit this bar with honour."
"Pooh! nonsense!" said the magistrate. "Go along;" and the worthy
gentleman slunk out of court, like a dog, under the influence of fear.
Lieberg and Ernstein took leave, and departed also, followed, a step
behind, by R----, the officer, who had been standing near the prisoner
during the whole time.
"I beg your pardon, Colonel," he said, as soon as they got into the
passage, "but I sha'n't be able to come up to you, to-day, so here's
your box;" and he pulled out of his pocket, and presented to Lieberg,
the splendid box, of which he had been robbed the night before. "The
men will expect you to stand something, sir," he said; "but I'll do
what's right, and let you know what it comes to to-morrow."
"Do, do!" replied Lieberg. "But, harkye, R----, here's a young friend
of mine who wishes to become acquainted with what is going on in all
stations in society. Could you not give him a little insight into the
lives of such gentry as we have just seen?"
"Lord bless you!--yes, sir," cried R----; "I will introduce him to
them all, if he likes; but, you know, sir, there's a proverb about
touching pitch."
"If there's any danger in it," said Lieberg, "of course he had better
not."
"Oh, no danger in life, sir!" replied R----; "as I will manage for
him; but he had better mind his watch, and his purse, and all that; or
leave them at home. The gentleman, I take it, wants a lark; and if
that's the case, he can have it; but it may cost him something,
perhaps."
"It is not exactly a 'lark,' as you term it," replied Morley, in a
more serious and sedate tone than the officer had expected from his
years; "as my friend has told you, I want to see something of the mode
of life of these people, as well as others."
"Oh! you are a flosofer, sir--are you?" said R----, "or, perhaps, a
flantrofist! Well, sir, there's no reason why you shouldn't. It may
cost a pound in lush, or what not; but as for your being safe, make
your mind at ease about that; they know me too well to meddle with
you. I wouldn't introduce you to any of that sort of fellows. Why, you
know, sir, there are only two kind of people that set about regularly
committing a murder. First of all, there's the fellow that knows he is
well nigh up to the mark; he gets not to care what he does, and takes
his chance of one thing or another. Those are the old, bad hands, that
have been at every kind of thing for many a long year, and having got
down low, are not able to keep upon the quiet lay, but must make some
grand stroke to set them up altogether, or send them to the drop. Then
there are others, sir, that do it unaccountably--men that haven't been
half so bad as some others, who seem to take it into their head all of
a sudden; those are the fellows that give us the greatest trouble, for
we are not up to them; and sometimes we may be a week or ten days
before we find out who has done it. But I wont put you in the way of
anything that is dangerous. The best thing I can do for you, is, to
make you acquainted with Master Higgins, there; you'll find him a very
gentlemanly sort of man, and as he lost, I suppose, a matter of three
or four pounds upon this snuff-box, it is but right to be civil to
him. I could take you over there, sir, where they have gone to talk of
the affair; but I think you had better let me bring him to you
to-night, and then you can settle the matter together."
This plan was accordingly agreed upon; Morley gave his address to the
officer, and as soon as it was dark R---- entered the young
gentleman's sitting-room, in Berkeley-square.
"Oh, you are alone, sir, are you?" said he.
"Yes," replied Ernstein. "Have you not brought your friend with you?"
"Oh, yes," replied R---; "but I have left him behind, there, in the
passage, talking with your servant, sir; for I thought you might have
somebody with you, and might not like to have him seen."
Morley smiled at the officer's estimates of respectability; but he
merely replied, "Is he so well known, then?"
"Oh, yes, sir; he is well known enough," said R----; "especially
amongst us. However, as a hood for what he was coming about, he
brought something to offer you for sale, as if he were a regular
tradesman."
"Which, I suppose, he expects me to buy," said Morley, "as the price
of his favour and protection."
"Oh, no, sir," answered R----; "you need not buy anything, unless you
like. He is always sure to get his market--it is the price that he
takes the things at which he makes by."
"Well! bring him in, then," said Morley; "and we will talk about the
matter afterwards."
Mr. Higgins was speedily introduced, and, as he entered, gave a rapid,
but very marking, glance round the whole room. It is probable, that
there was not a table, chair, or piece of china, down to the coffee
cup and saucer with which Morley was engaged when he entered, that he
would not have known again, had it been brought to pawn at his shop.
Mr. Higgins made a low bow to the inhabitant of the apartment, after
he had remarked upon the other things which it contained, and, seeing
that Morley was making as keen an investigation of his person as he
himself ever had made of any object for sale or pledge offered to him
by the children of vice and misery with whom he had generally to deal,
he thought fit to begin the conversation first, and cut short a
scrutiny of which he was not fond.
"Mr. R---- has done me the honour, sir," he began, in very tolerable
language, "of bringing me here, because, he said you wished to see
some little things in my way;" and having uttered this very equivocal
sentence, he held his tongue, and left Morley to take it up in what
sense he chose.
Morley was amused, but he replied in such a manner as still to leave
the task of explanation to the other.
"I am very much obliged to Mr. R----," he said. "Pray, what have you
got to shew me?"
The man grinned, to find that the young gentleman could deal in
equivoques, as well as himself. Ere he answered, he gave an approving
wink of the eye to the Officer, which might have been translated,
perhaps--"He is not a fool, after all, though he is gentleman."
However, he would not be brought to the point; and putting his hand in
his pocket, he produced a small shagreen case, which he opened, and
laid on the table before Morley Ernstein; displaying to the wondering
eyes of the young baronet, a pair of very beautiful diamond ear-rings.
Morley gazed at them for a moment or two, in no small surprise.
"They are very handsome, indeed," he said, at length--"they are very
handsome, indeed, as far as I am any judge of such things; but, pray,
what do you intend me to do with these?"
"To buy them, sir," replied the man, quite coolly.
"I hope not to wear them, too," said Morley, "for that I shall
scarcely consent to."
"O no, sir!" answered Mr. Higgins, laughing; "but such gentlemen as
you, are always wanting diamond ear-rings. Why, there isn't one of all
those ladies that you want to make a present to, who would not say
they are as handsome a pair as ever were seen. I will let you have
them a great bargain, too. Why, Lord ----'s young lady sold me a pair,
the other day, for twice the money, which he had given her only two
days before."
"A pleasant comment on such sort of connexions," thought Morley
Ernstein; but he answered, aloud--"There is one objection to my taking
these, even if I did want them, my good friend--namely, that I do not
exactly know where they may come from."
The man paused, and stared in his face for a moment.
"Ha, now I take you, sir--now I take you!" he cried, at length. "But I
can assure you, you are mistaken; they are not exactly mine. I am
disposing of them for another party; but I think if you knew what an
act of charity you are doing in buying them, you would give the full
money willingly enough, and perhaps something into the bargain."
"Indeed!" said Morley, with his curiosity somewhat excited; "pray, who
do they belong to?"
"Oh, as nice a young lady, sir, as ever lived!" replied the man. "Her
father was a clergyman, and her mother a lady of good fortune, and
amongst the tip-top of the world; but there was a law-suit about the
mother's fortune, to whom these ear-rings belonged, I have heard, and
that ruined her husband, and broke her heart. She died first, and the
parson not long after; and they left this daughter and a boy, who is a
wild one, with about a couple of hundred between them, and some
nic-nacs. Well, the boy soon got through his money, and his sister's
too; and from time to time he came to me, with a lot of things to
sell: His sister, he let out the other day, had kept him and herself
too by teaching; but now she hasn't had much to do for some time,
because she fell ill in the winter, and so lost her pupils. They are
well nigh starving, the boy tells me, and in the end she is driven to
sell her mother's ear-rings. She only asks forty pounds for them,
sir--I think they are worth a hundred."
The story had every appearance of truth about it to the mind of Morley
Ernstein. Such things were very likely to happen; and the man told it,
too, like a true story. After asking why Mr. Higgins did not buy the
diamonds himself, and receiving the satisfactory answer, that he had
bought just such a pair before from Lord ----'s young lady, and could
not afford to buy two, as well as having received truth-like replies
to one or two other questions, Morley made up his mind somewhat
precipitately to do three things: to purchase the ear-rings, to find
out the brother, and to see if, through him, he could not do something
for the sister.
"Pray, where does this young man live?" he said, after having
concluded the purchase; "do you think he will have any objection to
speak with me about his affairs?"
"Oh, not he, sir!" cried the man; "the young scamp don't mind talking
about them to the whole world. He's no shame left! He lives at No. 3,
Dover-street, New-road, and his sister too. A prettier girl I never
saw, in all the course of my life, for I went there one day."
Morley put down the address; and having dismissed this subject, and
arranged to make an expedition with the worthy Mr. Higgins, into some
of the most reputable resorts of rogues and vagabonds, on the
succeeding night, he suffered him and R---- to depart, waiting with
some impatience for the following morning, when he proposed to put his
Quixotic purpose, regarding the sellers of the diamond earrings, into
execution.
When the Officer and Higgins were on the pavement of Berkeley-square,
the former whistled three bars of an air as popular in its day as the
elegant tune of Jim Crow has been within our own recollection. These
bars were whistled with emphasis, which ought in all grammars to be
considered as an additional part of speech, adding more significance
to a sentence than either noun or verb. Higgins seemed to understand
perfectly well what he meant, and said, in a tone of reply--
"He wants to see life, Master R----. We'll shew it him, wont we? His
old servant told me that he was a tender-hearted young gentleman, and
did a world of good in his own parish!"