Some time ago, business of an important character carried me to the
beautiful and populous city of ----. I remember to have visited it when I
was a child, in the company of a doating mother, who breathed her last
there; and the place, associated with that circumstance, had ever
afterwards been the gloomiest spot in the county of my birth. A calamity
such as that to which I have alluded leaves no _half_ impressions. It
stamps itself deep, deep in the human heart; and a change, scarcely less
than organic, for good or ill, is wrought there. Agreeably with this
fact, the scene itself of the event becomes at once, to the survivor,
either hallowed and beloved, or hated and avoided. Not that natural
beauty or deformity has any thing to do in the production of such
feelings. They have a mysterious origin, and are, in truth, not to be
accounted for or explained. A father sees the hope and joy of his manhood
deposited amongst the gardens of the soil, and from that moment the
fruitful fields and unobstructed sky are things he cannot gaze upon;
whilst the brother, who has lived in the court or alley of a crowded city
with the sister of his infancy, and has buried her, with his burning
tears, in the dense churchyard of the denser street, clings to the
neighbourhood, close and unhealthy though it be, with a love that renders
it for him the brightest and the dearest nook of earth. He cannot quit
it, and be at peace. Causes that seem alike, are not always so in their
effects. For my own part, for years after the first bitter lesson of my
life became connected with that city, I could not think of it without
pain, or hear its name spoken without suffering a depression of spirits,
as difficult to throw off as are the heavy clouds that follow in the
track, and hide the little light of a December sun. At school, I remember
well how grievously I wept upon the map on which I first saw the word
written, and how completely I expunged the characters from the paper,
forbidding my eyes to glance even to the county from which I had erased
them. Time passes, hardening the heart as it rolls over it, and we afford
to laugh at the strong feelings and extravagant views of our youth. It is
well, perhaps, that we do so; and yet on that subject a word or two of
profitable matter might be offered, which shall be withholden now. For
many years I have battled through the world, an orphan, on my own
account; and it is not surprising that the vehemence of my early days
should have gradually sobered down before the stern realities that have
at every step encountered me. Long before I received the unwelcome
intelligence, that it was literally incumbent upon me to revisit the spot
of my beloved mother's dissolution, the mention of its name had ceased to
evoke any violent emotion, or to affect me as of old. I say _unwelcome_,
because, notwithstanding the stoicism of which I boast, I felt quite
uncomfortable enough to write to my correspondent by the return of post,
urging him to make one more endeavour to complete my business without my
aid, and to spare, if possible, my personal attendance. I gave no reason
for this wish. I did not choose to tell a falsehood, and I had hardly
honesty to acknowledge, even to myself--the truth. I failed, however, in
my application, and with any but a cheerful mind, I quitted London on my
journey. Thirty years before I had travelled to ---- in a stupendous
machine, of which now I recollect only that it seemed to take years out
of my little life in arriving at its destination, and that, on its broad,
substantial rear, it bore the effigy of "_an ancient Briton_." Locomotion
then, like me, was in a state of infancy. On the occasion of my second
visit to the city, I had hardly time to wonder at the velocity with which
I was borne along. Distance was annihilated. The two hundred miles over
which _the ancient Briton_ had wearisomely laboured, were reduced to
twenty, and before I could satisfy myself that our journey was more than
begun, my horseless coach, and fifty more besides, had actually gone over
them. I experienced a nervous palpitation at the heart as I proceeded
from the outskirts of the city, and grew more and more fidgety the nearer
I approached the din and noise of the prosperous seat of business. I
could not account for the feeling, until I detected myself walking as
briskly as I could, with my eyes fixed hard upon the ground, as though
afraid to glance upon a street, a house, an object which could recall the
past, or carry me back to the first dark days of life. Then it was that I
summoned courage, and, with a desperate effort to crush the morbid
sensibility, raised myself to my full height, gazed around me, and awoke,
effectually and for ever, from my dream. The city was not the same. The
well-remembered thoroughfares were gone; their names extinct, and
superseded by others more euphonic; the buildings, which I had carried in
my mind as in a book--the thought of meeting which had given me so much
pain, had been removed--destroyed, and not a brick remained which I could
call a friend, or offer one warm tear, in testimony of old acquaintance.
A noble street, a line of palaces--merchants' palaces--had taken to
itself the room of twenty narrow ways, that, in the good old times, had
met and crossed in close, but questionable, friendship. Bright stone,
that in the sunlight shone brighter than itself, flanked every broad and
stately avenue, denoting wealth and high commercial dignity. Every
venerable association was swept away, and nothing remained of the
long-cherished and always unsightly picture, but the faint shadow in my
own brain--growing fainter now with every moment, and which the
unexpected scene and new excitement were not slow to obliterate
altogether. I breathed more freely as I went my way, and reached my
agent's house at length, lighter of heart than I had been for hours
before. Mr Treherne was a man of business, and a prosperous one too, or
surely he had no right to place before the dozen corpulent gentlemen whom
I met on my arrival--a dinner, towards which the viscera of princes might
have turned without ruffling a fold of their intestinal dignity. I
partook of the feast--that is to say, I sat at the groaning table, and,
like a cautious and dyspeptic man, I eat roast beef--_toujours_ roast
beef, and nothing else--appeased my thirst with grateful claret, and
retired at last to wholesome sleep and quiet dreams. Not so the corpulent
guests. It may be to my dyspeptic habit, which enables me to be virtuous
at a trifling cost, and to nothing loftier, that I am bound to attribute
the feeling with which I invariably sit down to feasting; be this the
fact or not, I confess that a sense of shame, uneasiness, and dislike,
renders an affair of this kind to me the most irksome and unpleasant of
enjoyments. The eagerness of appetite that one can fairly see in the
watery and sensual eyes of men to whom _eating_ has become the aim and
joy of their existence--the absorption of every faculty in the gluttonous
pursuit--the animal indulgence and delight--these are sickening; then the
deliberate and cold-blooded torture of the creatures whose marrowy bones
are _crunched_ by the epicure, without a thought of the suffering that
preceded his intensely pleasurable emotions, and the bare mention of
which, in this narrative, is almost more than sufficient, then, worst of
all, the wilful prodigality and waste--the wickedness of casting to the
dogs the healthy food for which whole families, widows, and beggared
orphans are pining in the neighbouring street--the guilty indifference of
him who finds the wealth for the profusion, and the impudent recklessness
of the underling who abuses it. Such are a few of the causes which concur
in giving to the finest banquet I have seen an aspect not more odious
than humiliating; and here I dwell upon the fact, because the incident
which I shall shortly bring before the reader's eye, served to confirm
the feelings which I entertain on this subject, and presented an
instructive contrast to the splendid entertainment which greeted my
immediate arrival.
I slept at the house of Mr Treherne, and, on the following morning, was an
early riser. I strolled through the city, and, returning home, found my
active friend seated at his breakfast-table, with a host of papers, and a
packet of newly-arrived letters before him. The dinner was no more like
the breakfast, than was my friend in the midst of his guests like my
friend alone with his papers. His meal consisted of one slice of dry
toast, and one cup of tea, already cold. The face that was all smile and
relaxation of muscle on the preceding evening, was solemn and composed.
You might have ventured to assert that tea and toast were that man's most
stimulating diet, and that the pleasures of the counting-house were the
highest this world could afford him. I, however, had passed the evening
with him, and was better informed. Mr Treherne requested me to ring the
bell. I did so, and his servant speedily appeared with a tray of garnished
dainties, of which I was invited to partake, with many expressions of
kindness uttered by my man-of-business, without a look at me, or a
movement of his mind and eye from the pile of paper with which he was
busy. In the course of half an hour, I had brought my repast to a close,
and Mr Treherne was primed for the conflict of the day. His engagements
did not permit him to give me his assistance in my own matters until the
following morning. He begged me to excuse him until dinner-time--to make
myself perfectly at home--to wile away an hour or so in his library--and,
when I got tired of that, to take what amusement I could amongst the lions
of the town--offering which advice, he quitted me and his house with a
head much more heavily laden, I am sure, than any that ever groaned
beneath the hard and aching knot. Would that the labourer could be taught
to think so!
After having passed an unsatisfactory hour in Mr Treherne's library, in
which the only books which I cared to look at were very wisely locked up,
on account of their rich binding, too beautiful to be touched, I sauntered
once more through the broad streets of the city, and, in my solitary walk,
philosophized upon the busy spirit of trade which pervaded them. It is at
such a time and place that the quiet and observant mind is startled by the
stern and settled appearance of reality and continuance which all things
take. If the world were the abiding-place of man, and life eternity, such
earnestness, such vigour, such intensity of purpose and of action as I saw
stamped upon the harassed brows of men, would be in harmony with such a
scene and destination. HERE such concentration of the glorious energies of
man is mockery, delusion, and robs the human soul of--who shall say how
much? Look at the stream of life pouring through the streets of commerce,
from morn till night, and mark the young and old--yes, the youngest and
the oldest--and discover, if you can, the expression of any thought but
that of traffic and of gain, as if the aim and end of living were summed
up in these. And are they? Yes, if we may trust the evidence of age, of
him who creeps and totters on his way, who has told his threescore years
and ten, and on the threshold of eternity has found the vanity of all
things. Oh, look at him, and learn how hard it is, even at the door of
death, to FEEL the mutability and nothingness of earth! Palsied he is, yet
to the Exchange he daily hies, and his dull eye glistens on the mart--his
ear is greedy for the sounds that come too tardily--his quick and treble
voice is loud amongst the loudest. He is as quick to apprehend, as eager
now to learn, as ravenous for gain, as when he trusted first an untried
world. If life be truly but a shadow, and mortals but the actors in the
vision, is it not marvellous that age, and wisdom, and experience build
and fasten there as on a rock? Such thoughts as these engaged my mind, as
I pursued my way alone, unoccupied, amongst the labouring multitude, and
cast a melancholy hue on things that, to the eye external, looked bright,
beautiful, and enduring. I was arrested in my meditations at length by a
crowd of persons--men, women, and children--who thronged about the
entrance of a spacious, well-built edifice. They were for the most part in
rags, and their looks betrayed them for poor and reckless creatures all.
They presented so singular a feature of the scene, contrasted so
disagreeably with the solid richness and perfect finish of the building,
that I stopped involuntarily, and enquired into the cause of their
attendance. Before I could obtain an answer, a well-dressed and better-fed
official came suddenly to the door, and bawled the name of one poor
wretch, who answered it immediately, stepped from the crowd, and followed
the appellant, as the latter vanished quickly from the door again. A
remark which, at the same moment, escaped another of the group, told me
that I stood before the sessions'-house, and that a man, well known to
most of them, was now upon trial for his life. He was a murderer--and the
questionable-looking gentleman who had been invited to appear in court,
had travelled many miles on foot, to give the criminal the benefit of his
good word. He was the witness for the defence, and came to speak to
_character_! My curiosity was excited, and I was determined to see the end
of the proceeding. It is the custom to pay for every thing in happy
England. I was charged _box-price_ for my admittance, and was provided
with as good a seat as I could wish, amongst the _élite_ of the assembly.
Quick as I had been, I was already too late. There was a bustle and buzz
in the court, that denoted the trial to be at an end. Indeed, it had been
so previously to the appearance of the devoted witness, whose presence had
served only to confirm the evidence, which had been most damnatory and
conclusive. The judge still sat upon the bench, and, having once perceived
him, it was not easy to withdraw my gaze again. "The man is surely
guilty," said I to myself, "who is pronounced so, when that judge has
summed up the evidence against him." I had never in my life beheld so much
benignity and gentleness--so much of truth, ingenuousness, and pure
humanity, stamped on a face before. There was the fascination of the
serpent there; and the longer I looked, the more pleasing became the
countenance, and the longer I wished to protract my observation and
delight. He was a middle-aged man--for a judge, he might be called young.
His form was manly--his head massive--his forehead glorious and
intellectual. His features were finely formed; but it was not these that
seized my admiration, and, if I dare so express myself, my actual love,
with the first brief glance. The EXPRESSION of the face, which I have
already attempted faintly to describe, was its charm. Such an utter, such
a refreshing absence of all earthiness--such purity and calmness of
soul--such mental sweetness as it bespoke! When I first directed my eye
to him, it seemed as if his thoughts were abstracted from the
comparatively noisy scene over which he presided--busy it might be, in
reviewing the charge which he had delivered to the jury, and upon the
credit of which the miserable culprit had been doomed to die. I do not
exaggerate when I assert, that at this moment--during this short
reverie--his face, which I had never seen before, seemed, by a miracle,
as familiar to me as my own--a fact which I afterwards explained, by
discovering the closest resemblance between it and a painting of our
Saviour, one of the finest works of art, the production of the greatest
genius of his time, and a portrait which is imprinted on my memory and
heart by its beauty, and by repeated and repeated examination. The
touching expressiveness of the countenance would not have accorded with
the stern office of the judge, had not its softness been relieved by a
bold outline of feature, and exalted by the massy formation of the head
itself. These were sufficient to command respect--_that_ made its way
quickly to the heart. An opportunity was soon afforded me to obtain some
information in respect of him. I was not surprised to hear that his name
and blood were closely connected with those of a brilliant poet and
philosopher, and that his own genius and attainments were of the highest
character. I was hardly prepared to find that his knowledge as a lawyer
was profound, and that he was esteemed erudite amongst the most learned
of his order. My attention was called reluctantly from the judge to the
second case of the day, which now came for adjudication. The court was
hushed as a ruffian and monster walked sullenly into the dock, charged
with the perpetration of the most horrible offences. I turned
instinctively from the prisoner to the judge again. The latter sat with
his attention fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by
his hand. Nothing could be finer than the sight. Oh! I would have given
much for the ability to convey to paper a lasting copy of that
countenance--a memorial for my life, to cling to in my hours of weakness
and despondency, and to take strength and consolation from the spectacle
of that intelligence, that meekness and chastity of soul, thus allied and
linked to our humanity.
It was instructive to look alternately at the criminal and at him who
must award his punishment. There they were, both men--both the children
of a universal Father--both sons of immortality. Yet one so unlike his
species, so deeply sunken in his state, so hideous and hateful as to be
disowned by man, and ranked with fiercest brutes; the other, as far
removed, by excellence, from the majority of mankind, and as near the
angels and their ineffable joy as the dull earth will let him. Say what
we will, the gifts of Heaven are inscrutable as mysterious, and education
gives no clue to them. The business of the hour went on, and my attention
was soon wholly taken up in the development of the gigantic guilt of the
wretched culprit before me. I could not have conceived of such atrocity
as I heard brought home to him, and to which, miserable man! he listened,
now with a smile, now with perfect unconcern, as crime after crime was
exhibited and proved. His history was a fearful one even from his
boyhood; but of many offences of which he was publicly known to be
guilty, one of the latest and most shocking was selected, and on this he
was arraigned. It appeared that for the last few years he had cohabited
with a female of the most disreputable character. The issue of this
connexion was a weakly child, who, at the age of two years, was removed
from her dissolute parents through the kindness of a benevolent lady in
the neighbourhood, and placed in the care of humble but honest villagers
at some distance from them. The child improved in health and, it is
unnecessary to add, in morals. No enquiry or application was made for her
by the pair until she had entered her fifth year, and then suddenly the
prisoner demanded her instant restoration. The charitable lady was
alarmed for the safety of her _protegée_, and, with a liberal price,
bought off the father's natural desire. He duly gave a receipt for the
sum thus paid him, and engaged to see the child no more. The next morning
he stole the girl from the labourer's cottage. He was seen loitering
about the hut before day-break, and the shrieks of the victim were heard
plainly at a considerable distance from the spot where he had first
seized her. Constables were dispatched to his den. It was shut up, and,
being forced open, was found deserted, and stripped of every thing. He
was hunted over the county, but not discovered. He had retired to haunts
which baffled the detective skill of the most experienced and alert. This
is the first act of the tragedy. It will be necessary to stain these
pages by a description of the last. The child became more and more
unhappy under the roof of her persecutors, as they soon proved themselves
to be. She was taught to beg and to steal, and was taken into the
highways by her mother, who watched near her, whilst, with streaming
eyes, the unhappy creature now lied for alms, now pilfered from the
village. Constant tramping, ill treatment, and the wear and tear of
spirit which the new mode of existence effected, soon reduced the child
to its former state of ill health and helplessness. She pined, and with
her sickness came want and hunger to the hut. The father, affecting to
disbelieve, and not listening to the sad creature's complaint, still
dismissed her abroad, and when she could not walk, compelled the mother
to carry her to the public road, and there to leave her in her agony, the
more effectually to secure the sympathy of passengers. Even this
opportunity was not long afforded him. The child grew weaker, and was at
length unable to move. He plied her with menaces and oaths, and, last of
all, deliberately threatened to murder her, if she did not rise and
procure bread for all of them. She had, alas! no longer power to comply
with his request, and--merciful Heaven!--the fiend, in a moment of
unbridled passion, made good his fearful promise. With one blow of a
hatchet--alas! it needed not a hard one--_he destroyed her_. I caught the
judge's eye as this announcement was made. It quivered, and his
countenance was pale. I wished to see the monster _too_, but my heart
failed me, and my blood boiled with indignation, and I could not turn to
him. The short account which I have given here does bare justice to the
evidence which came thick and full against the prisoner, leaving upon the
minds of none the remotest doubt of his fearful criminality. The mother,
and a beggar who had passed the night in the hut when the murder was
perpetrated, were the principal witnesses against the infanticide, and
their depositions could not be shaken. I waited with anxiety and great
irritability for the sentence which should remove the prisoner from the
bar. The earth seemed polluted as long as he breathed upon it; he could
not be too quickly withdrawn, and hidden for ever in the grave. The case
for the prosecution being closed, a young barrister arose, and there was
a perfect stillness in the court. My curiosity to know what this
gentleman could possibly urge on behalf of his client was extreme. To me
"the probation bore no hinge, nor loop to ban a doubt on." But the
smoothfaced counsellor, whose modesty had no reference to his years,
seemed in no way burdened by the weight of his responsibility, nor to
view his position as one of difficulty and risk. He stood, cool and
erect, in the silence of the assembly, and with a self-satisfied _smile_
he proceeded to address the judge. Yes, he laughed, and he had heard that
heart-breaking recital; and the life of the man for whom he pleaded was
hardly worth a pin's fee. The words of the poet rushed involuntarily to
my mind. "Heaven!" I mentally exclaimed, "_Has this fellow no feeling of
his business--he sings at grave-making_!" He made no allusion to the
evidence which had been adduced, but he spoke of INFORMALITY. I trembled
with alarm and anger. I had often heard and read of justice defeated
by such a trick of trade; but I prayed that such dishonour and public
shame might not await her now. Informality! Surely we had heard of the
cold-blooded cruelty, the slow and exquisite torture, the final
deathblow; there was no informality in these; the man had not denied his
guilt, his defender did not seek to palliate it. Away with the juggle, it
cannot avail you here! But in spite of my feverish security, the shrewd
lawyer--well might he smile and chuckle at his skill--proceeded calmly to
assert the prisoner's right to his immediate _discharge! There was a flaw
in the declaration, and the indictment was invalid_. And thus he proved
it. The man was charged with murdering his child--described as his, and
bearing his own name. Now, the deceased was illegitimate, and should have
borne its mother's name. He appealed to his lordship on the bench, and
demanded for his client the benefit which law allowed him. You might have
heard the faintest whisper in the court, so suspended and so kept back
was every drop of human breath, whilst every eye was fixed upon the
judge. The latter spoke. "_The exception was conclusive; the prisoner
must be discharged_." I could not conceive it possible. What were truth,
equity, morality--Nothing? And was murder _innocence_, if a quibble made
it so? The jailer approached the monster, and whispered into his ear that
he was now at liberty. He held down his head stupidly to receive the
words, and he drew it back again, incredulous and astounded. Oh, what a
secret he had learned for future government and conduct! What a friend
and abettor, in his fight against mankind, had he found in the law of his
land! I was maddened when I saw him depart from the well-secured bar in
which he had been placed for trial. There he had looked the thing he
was--a tiger caught, and fastened in his den. Could it do less than chill
the blood, and make the heart grow sick and faint, to see the bolts drawn
back--the monster loosed again, and turned unchained, untamed, fiercer
than ever, into life again? Legislators, be merciful to humanity, and
cease to embolden and incite these beasts of prey! Melancholy as the
above recital is, it is to be considered rather as an episode in this
narration, than as the proper subject of it. Had my morning's adventure
finished with this disgraceful acquittal, the reader would not have been
troubled with the perusal of these pages. My vexation would have been
confined to my own breast, and I should have nourished my discontent in
silence. The scene which immediately followed the dismissal of the
murderer, is that to which I have chiefly to beg attention. It led to an
acquaintance, for which I was unprepared--enabled me to do an act of
charity, for which I shall ever thank God who gave me the power--and
disclosed a character and a history to which the intelligent and
kind-hearted may well afford the tribute of their sympathy. It was by way
of contrast and relief, I presume, that the authorities had contrived
that the next trial should hardly call upon the time and trouble of the
court. It was a case, in fact, which ought to have been months before
summarily disposed of by the committing magistrate, and one of those too
frequently visited with undue severity, whilst offences of a deeper dye
escape unpunished, or, worse still, are washed away in _gold_. A poor man
had stolen from a baker's shop a loaf of bread. _The clerk of the
arraigns_, as I believe he is called, involved this simple charge in many
words, and took much time to state it but when he had finished his
oration, I could discover nothing more or less than the bare fact. A few
minutes before the appearance of the delinquent, I remarked a great
bustle in the neighbourhood of the young barrister already spoken of. A
stout fresh-coloured man had taken a seat behind him with two thinner
men, his companions, and they were all in earnest conversation. The stout
man was the prosecutor--his companions were his witnesses--and the
youthful counsellor was, on this occasion, retained _against_ the
prisoner. I must confess that, for the moment, I had a fiendish delight
in finding the legal gentleman in his present position. "It well becomes
the man," thought I, "through whose instrumentality that monster has been
set free, to fall with all his weight of eloquence and legal subtlety
upon this poor criminal." If he smiled before, he was in earnest now. He
frowned, and closed his lips with much solemnity, and every look bespoke
the importance of the interests committed to his charge.--A beggar!--and
to steal a loaf of bread! Ay, ay! society must be protected--our houses
and our homes must be defended. Anarchy must be strangled in its birth.
Such thoughts as these I read upon the brow of youthful wisdom. Ever and
anon, a good point in the case struck forcibly the lusty prosecutor, who
communicated it forthwith to his adviser. _He_ listened most attentively,
and shook his head, as who should say "Leave that to me--we have him on
the hip." The witnesses grew busy in comparing notes, and nothing now was
wanting but the great offender--the fly who must be crushed upon the
wheel--and he appeared. Reader, you have seen many such. You have not
lived in the crowded thoroughfares of an overgrown city, where every
grade of poverty and wealth, of vice and virtue, meet the eye, mingling
as they pass along--where splendid royalty is carried quicker than the
clouds adown the road which palsied hunger scarce can cross for lack of
strength--where lovely forms, and faces pure as angels' in their innocent
expression, are met and tainted on the path by unwomanly immodesty and
bare licentiousness--amongst such common sights you have not dwelt, and
not observed some face pale and wasted from disease, and want, and
sorrow, not one, but all, and all uniting to assail the weakly citadel of
flesh, and to reduce it to the earth from which it sprung. Such a
countenance was here--forlorn--emaciated--careworn--every vestige of
human joy long since removed from it, and every indication of real misery
too deeply marked to admit a thought of simulation or pretence. The eye
of the man was vacant. He obeyed the turnkey listlessly, when that
functionary, with a patronizing air, directed him to the situation in the
dock in which he was required to stand, and did not raise his head to
look around him. A sadder picture of the subdued, crushed heart, had
never been. Punishment! alack, what punishment could be inflicted now on
him, who, in the school of suffering, had grown insensible to torture?
Notwithstanding his rags, and the prejudice arising from his degraded
condition, there was something in his look and movements which struck me,
and secured my pity. He was very ill, and had not been placed many
minutes before the judge, when he tottered and grew faint. The turnkey
assisted the poor fellow to a chair, and placed in his hands, with a
rough but natural kindness, which I shall not easily forget, a bunch of
sweet-smelling marjoram. The acknowledgement which the miserable creature
attempted to make for the seasonable aid, convinced me that he was
something better than he seemed. A shy and half-formed bow--the impulse
of a heart and mind once cultivated, though covered now with weeds and
noxious growths--redeemed him from the common herd of thieves. In the
calendar his age was stated to be thirty-five. Double it, and that face
will warrant you in your belief. Desirous as I was to know the
circumstances which had led the man to the commission of his offence, it
was not without intense satisfaction that I heard him, at the
commencement of the proceedings, in his thin tremulous voice, plead
_guilty_ to the charge. There was such rage painted on the broad face of
the prosecutor, such disappointment written in the thinner visage of the
counsellor, such indignation and astonishment in those of the witnesses,
that you might have supposed those gentlemen were interested only in the
establishment of the prisoner's innocence, and were anxious only for his
acquittal. For their sakes was gratified at what I hoped would prove the
abrupt conclusion of the case. The prisoner had spoken; his head again
hung down despondingly--his eyes, gazing at nothing, were fixed upon the
ground; the turnkey whispered to him that it was time to retire--he was
about to obey, when the judge's voice was heard, and it detained him.
"Is the prisoner known?" enquired his lordship.
The counsellor rose _instanter_.
"Oh, very well, my lud--an old hand, my lud--one of the pests of his
parish."
"Is this his first offence?"
The barrister poked his ear close to the mouth of the prosecutor before he
answered.
"By no means, my lud--he has been frequently convicted."
"For the like offence?" enquired the Judge.
Again the ear and mouth were in juxtaposition.
"We believe so, my lud--we believe so," replied the smart barrister; "but
we cannot speak positively."
The culprit raised his leaden eye, and turned his sad look towards the
judge, his best friend there.
"For BEGGARY, my lord," he uttered, almost solemnly.
"Does any body know you, prisoner?" asked my lord. "Can any one speak to
your previous character?"
The deserted one looked around the court languidly enough, and shook his
head, but, at the same instant there was a rustling amongst the crowd of
auditors, and a general movement, such as follows the breaking up of a
compact mass of men when one is striving to pass through it.
"Si-_lence_!" exclaimed a sonorous voice, belonging to a punchy body, a
tall wand, and a black bombasin gown; and immediately afterwards, "a
friend of the prisoner's, my lord. Get into that box--speak loud--look at
his lordship. Si-_lence_!"
The individual who caused this little excitement, and who now ascended the
witness's tribune, was a labouring man. He held a paper cap in his hand,
and wore a jacket of flannel. The prisoner glanced at him without seeming
to recognize his friend, whilst the eyes of the young lawyer actually
glistened at the opportunity which had come at last for the display of his
skill.
"What are you, my man?" said the judge in a tone of kindness.
"A journeyman carpenter, please your worship."
"You must say _my lord_--say _my lord_," interposed the bombasin gown.
"Speak out. Si-_lence_!"
"Where do you live?"
"Friar's Place--please you, my lord." The bombasin smiled pitifully at the
ignorance of the witness, and said no more.
"Do you know the prisoner at the bar?"
"About ten weeks ago--please you, my lord, I was hired by the landlord--"
"Answer his lordship, sir," exclaimed the counsel for the prosecution in a
tone of thunder. "Never mind the landlord. Do you know the prisoner?"
"Why, I was a saying, please you, my lord, about ten weeks ago I was hired
by the landlord--"
"Answer directly, sir," continued the animated barrister--"or take the
consequences. Do you know the prisoner?"
"Let him tell his story his own way, Mr Nailhim," interposed his lordship
blandly. "We shall sooner get to the end of it."
Mr Nailhim bowed to the opinion of the court, and sat down.
"Now, my man," said his lordship, "as quickly as you can, tell me whatever
you know of the prisoner."
"About ten weeks ago--please you, my lord," began the journey-man _de
novo_, "I was hired by the landlord of them houses as is sitiwated where
Mr Warton lives--" (The bombasin looked at the witness with profound
contempt, and well he might! The idea of calling a prisoner at the bar
_Mr_--stupendous ignorance!) "and I see'd him day arter day, and nobody
was put to it as bad as he was. He has got a wife and three children, and
I know he worked as hard as he could whilst he was able; but when he got
ill he couldn't, and he was druv to it. I have often taken a loaf of bread
to him, and all I wish is, he had stolen one of mine behind my back
instead of the baker's. I shouldn't have come agin him, poor fellow! and I
am sure he wouldn't have done it if his young uns hadn't been starving. I
never see'd him before that time, but I could take my affidavy he's an
industrious and honest man, and as sober, please you, my lord, as a
judge."
At this last piece of irreverence, the man with the staff stood perfectly
still, lost as it seemed, in wonder at the hardihood of him who could so
speak.
"Have you any thing more to say?" asked his lordship.
The carpenter hesitated for a second or two, and then acknowledged that he
had not; and, such being the case, it seemed hardly necessary for Mr
Nailhim to prolong his examination. But that gentleman thought otherwise.
He rose, adjusted his gown, and looked not only _at_ the witness, but
through and through him.
"Now, young man," said he, "what is your name?"
"John Mallett, sir," replied the carpenter.
"John Mallett. Very well. Now, John Mallett, who advised you to come here
to-day? Take care what you are about, John Mallett."
The carpenter, without a moment's hesitation, answered that his "old woman
had advised him; and very good advice it was, he thought."
"Never mind your thoughts, sir. You don't come here to think. Where do you
live?"
The witness answered.
"You have not lived long there, I believe?"
"Not quite a fortnight, sir."
"You left your last lodging in a hurry too, I think, John Mallett?"
"Rather so, sir," answered Innocence itself, little dreaming of effects
and consequences.
"A little trouble, eh, John Mallett?"
"Mighty deal your lordship, ah, ah, ah!" replied the witness quite
jocosely, and beginning to enjoy the sport.
"Don't laugh here, sir, but can you tell us what you were doing, sir, last
Christmas four years?"
Of course he could not--and Mr Nailhim knew it, or he never would have put
the question; and the unlucky witness grew so confused in his attempt to
find the matter out, and, in his guesses, so confounded one Christmas with
another, that first he blushed, and then he spoke, and then he checked
himself, and spoke again, just contradicting what he said before, and
looked at length as like a guilty man as any in the jail. Lest the effect
upon the court might still be incomplete, the wily Nailhim, in the height
of Mallett's trouble, threw, furtively and knowingly, a glance towards the
jury, and smiled upon them so familiarly, that any lingering doubt must
instantly have given way. They agreed unanimously with Nailhim. A greater
scoundrel never lived than this John Mallett. The counsellor perceived his
victory, and spoke.
"Go down, sir, instantly," said he, "and take care how you show your face
up there again. I have nothing more to say, my lud."
And down John Mallett went, his friend and he much worse for his
intentions.
"And now this mighty case is closed!" thought I. "What will they do to
such a wretch!" I was disappointed. The good judge was determined not to
forsake the man, and he once more addressed him.
"Prisoner," said he, "what induced you to commit this act?"
The prisoner again turned his desponding eye upwards, and answered, as
before--
"Beggary, my lord."
"What are you?"
"Nothing, my lord--any thing."
"Have you no trade?"
"No, my lord."
"What do your wife and children do?"
"They are helpless, my lord, and they starve with me."
"Does no one know you in your neighbourhood?"
"No one, my lord. I am a stranger there. _We are all low people there_, my
lord."
There was something so truly humble and plaintive in the tone with which
these words were spoken, and the eyes of the afflicted man filled so
suddenly with tears as he uttered them, that I became affected in a manner
which I now find it difficult to describe. My blood seemed to chill, and
my heart to rush into my throat. I am ashamed to say that my own eyes were
as moist as the prisoner's. I resolved from that moment to become his
friend, and to enquire into his circumstances and character, as soon as
the present proceedings were at an end.
"How long has the prisoner been confined already?"
"Something like three months, my lud," answered the barrister cavalierly
as if months were minutes.
"It is punishment enough," said the judge--"let him be discharged now.
Prisoner, you are discharged--you must endeavour to get employment. If you
are ill, apply to your parish; there is no excuse for stealing--none
whatever. You are at liberty now."
The information did not seem to carry much delight to the heart of him
whom it was intended to benefit. He rose from his chair, bowed to his
lordship, and then followed the turnkey, in whose expression of
countenance and attentions there was certainly a marked alteration since
the wind had set in favourably from the bench. The man departed. Moved by
a natural impulse, I likewise quitted the court the instant afterwards,
enquired of one of the officials the way of egress for discharged
prisoners, and betook myself there without delay. What my object was I
cannot now, as I could not then, define. I certainly did not intend to
accost the poor fellow, or to commit myself in any way with him, for the
present, at all events. Yet there I was, and I could not move from the
spot, however useless or absurd my presence there might be. It was a small
low door, with broad nails beaten into it, through which the liberated
passed, as they stepped from gloom and despair, into freedom and the
unshackled light of heaven. I was not then in a mood to trust myself to
the consideration of the various and mingled feelings with which men from
time to time, and after months of hopelessness and pain, must have bounded
from that barrier, into the joy of liberty and life. My feelings had
become in some way mastered by what I had seen, and all about my heart was
disturbance and unseemly effeminacy. There was only one individual,
besides myself, walking in the narrow court-yard, which, but for our
footsteps, would have been as silent as a grave. This was a woman--a
beggar--carrying, as usual, a child, that drew less sustenance than sorrow
from the mother's breast. She was in rags, but she looked clean, and she
might once have been beautiful; but settled trouble and privation had
pressed upon her hollow eye--had feasted on her bloomy skin. I could not
tell her age. With a glance I saw that she was old in suffering. And what
was her business here? For whom did _she_ wait? Was it for the father of
that child?--and was she so satisfied of her partner's innocence, and the
justice of mankind, that here she lingered to receive him, assured of
meeting him again? What was his crime?--his character?--her history? I
would have given much to know, indeed, I was about to question her, when I
was startled and detained by the drawing of a bolt--the opening of the
door--and the appearance of the very man whom I had come to see. He did
not perceive me. He perceived nothing but the mother and the child--_his_
wife and _his_ child. She ran to him, and sobbed on his bosom. He said
nothing. He was calm--composed; but he took the child gently from her
arms, carried the little thing himself to give her ease, and walked on.
She at his side, weeping ever; but he silent, and not suffering himself to
speak, save when a word of tenderness could lull the hungry child, who
cried for what the mother might not yield her. Still without a specific
object, I followed the pair, and passed with them into the most ancient
and least reputable quarter of the city. They trudged from street to
street, through squalid courts and lanes, until I questioned the propriety
of proceeding, and the likelihood of my ever getting home again. At
length, however, they stopped. It was a close, narrow, densely peopled
lane in which they halted. The road was thick with mud and filth; the
pavement and the doorways of the houses were filled with ill-clad sickly
children, the houses themselves looked forbidding and unclean. The
bread-stealer and his wife were recognised by half a dozen coarse women,
who, half intoxicated, thronged the entrance to the house opposite to
that in which they lodged, and a significant laugh and nod of the head
were the greetings with which they received the released one back again.
There was little heart or sympathy in the movement, and the wretched
couple understood it so. The woman had dried her tears--both held down
their heads--even there--for shame, and both crawled into the hole in
which, for their children's sake, they _lived_, and were content to find
their home. Now, then, it was time to retrace my steps. It was, but I
could not move from the spot--that is, not retreat from it, as yet. There
was something to do. My conscience cried aloud to me, and, thank God, was
clamorous till I grew human and obedient. I entered the house. A child
was sitting at the foot of the stairs, her face and arms begrimed--her
black hair hanging to her back foul with disease and dirt. She was about
nine years old; but evil knowledge, cunning duplicity, and the rest, were
glaring in her precocious face. She clasped her knees with her extended
hands, and swinging backwards and forwards, sang, in a loud and impudent
voice, the burden of an obscene song. I asked this creature if a man
named Warton dwelt there. She ceased her song, and commenced
whistling--then stared me full in the face and burst into loud laughter.
"What will you give if I tell you?" said she, with a bold grin. "Will you
stand a glass of gin?"
I shuddered. At the same moment I heard a loud coughing, and the voice of
the man himself overhead. I ascended the stairs, and, as I did so, the
girl began her song again, as if she had suffered no interruption. I
gathered from a crone whom I encountered at the top of the first flight of
steps, that the person of whom I was in quest lived with his family in the
back room of the highest floor; and thither, with unfailing courage, I
proceeded. I arrived at the door, knocked at it briskly without a moment's
hesitation, and recognized the deep and now well-known tones of Warton in
the voice desiring men to enter. The room was very small, and had no
article of furniture except a table and two chairs. Some straw was strewn
in a corner of the room, and two children were lying asleep upon it, their
only covering being a few patches of worn-out carpet. Another layer was in
the opposite corner, similarly provided with clothing. This was the
parents' bed. I was too confused, and too anxious to avoid giving offence,
to make a closer observation. The man and his wife were sitting together
when I entered. The former had still the infant in his arms, and he rose
to receive me with an air of good breeding and politeness, that staggered
me from the contrast it afforded with his miserable condition--his
frightful poverty.
"I have to ask your pardon," said I, "for this intrusion, but your name is
Warton, I believe?"
"It is, sir," he replied--and the eyes of the wife glistened again, as she
gathered hope and comfort from my unexpected visit. She trembled as she
looked at me, and the tears gushed forth again.
("These are not bad people, I will swear it," I said to myself, as I
marked her, and I took confidence from the conviction, and went on.)
"I have come to you," said I, "straight from the sessions'-house, where,
by accident, I was present during your short trial. I wish to be of a
little service to you. I am not a rich man, and my means do not enable me
to do as much as I would desire; but I can relieve your immediate want,
and perhaps do something more for you hereafter, if I find you are
deserving of assistance."
"You are very kind, sir," answered the man, "and I am very grateful to
you. We are strangers to you, sir, but I trust these (pointing to his wife
and children) _may_ deserve your bounty. For myself--"
"Hush, dear!" said his wife, with a gentleness and accent that confounded
me. _Low_ people! why, with full stomachs, decent clothing, and a few
pounds, they might with every propriety have been ushered at once into a
drawing-room.
"Poor Warton is very ill, sir," continued the wife, "and much suffering
has robbed him of his peace of mind. I am sure, sir, we shall be truly
grateful for your help. We need it, sir, Heaven knows, and he is not
undeserving--no, let them say what they will."
I believed it in my heart, but I would not say so without less partial
evidence.
"Well," I continued, "we will talk of this by and by. I am determined to
make a strict enquiry, for your own sakes as well as my own. But you are
starving now, it seems, and I sha'n't enquire whether you deserve a loaf
of bread. Here," said I, giving, them a sovereign, "get something to eat,
for God's sake, and put a little colour, if you can, into those little
faces when they wake again."
The man started suddenly from his chair, and walked quickly to the window.
His wife followed him, alarmed, and took the infant from his arms, whilst
he himself pressed his hand to his heart, as though he would prevent its
bursting. His face grew deathly pale. The female watched him earnestly,
and the hitherto silent and morose man, convulsed by excess of feeling,
quivered in every limb, whilst he said with difficulty--
"Anna, I shall die--I am suffocated--air--air--my heart beats like a
hammer."
I threw the window open, and the man drooped on the sill, and wept
fearfully.
"What does this mean?" I asked, speaking in a low tone to the wife.
"Your sudden kindness, sir. He is not able to bear it. He is proof against
cruelty and persecution--he has grown reckless to them, but constant
illness has made him so weak, that any thing unusual quite overcomes him."
"Well, there, take the money, and get some food as quickly as you can. I
will not wait to distress him now. I will call again to-morrow; he will be
quieter then, and we'll see what can be done for you. Those children must
be cold. Have you no blankets?"
"None, sir. We have nothing in the world. What, you see here, even to the
straw, belongs, to the landlord of the house, who has been charitable
enough to give us shelter."
"Well, never mind--don't despond--don't give way--keep the poor fellow's
sprits up. Here's another crown. Let him have a glass of wine, it will
strengthen him; and do you take a glass too. I shall see you again
to-morrow. There, good-by."
And, fool and woman that I was, on I went, and stood for some minutes,
ashamed of myself, in the passage below, because, forsooth, I had been
talking and exciting myself until my eyes had filled uncomfortably with
water.
It was impossible for me to go to sleep again until I had purchased
blankets for these people, and so I resolved at once to get them. I was
leaving the house for that purpose, when a porter with a bundle entered
it.
"Whom do you want, my man?" said I.
"One Warton, sir", said he.
"Top of the house," said I again--"back room--to the right. What have you
got there?"
"Some sheets and blankets, sir."
"From whom?"
"My master sir, here's his card."
It was the card of an upholsterer living within a short distance of where
I stood. I directed the porter again, and forthwith sallied to the man of
furniture. Here I learnt that I had been forestalled by an individual as
zealous in the cause of poor Warton as myself. I was glad of this, for I
knew very well, in doing any little piece of duty, how apt our dirty
vanity is to puff us up, and to make us assume so much more than we have
any title to; and it is nothing short of relief to be able to extinguish
this said vanity in the broad light of other men's benevolence. The
upholsterer, however, could not inform me who this generous man was, or
how he had been made aware of Warton's indigence. It appears that he had
called only a few minutes before I arrived, and had requested that the
articles which he purchased should be sent, without a moment's delay, to
the address which he gave. He waited in the shop until the porter quitted
it, and then departed, having, at the request of the upholsterer, who was
curious for the name of his customer, described himself in the day-book as
Mr Jones. "He was not a gentleman," said the man of business, "certainly
not, and he didn't look like a tradesman. I should say," he added, "that
he was a gentleman's butler, for he was mighty consequential, ordered
every body about, and wanted me to take off discount."
My mind being made easy in respect of the blankets, I had nothing to do
but to return, as diligently as I could, to the house of my friend, Mr
Treherne. I reached his dwelling in time to prepare for dinner, at which
repast, as on the previous evening, I encountered a few select friends and
opulent business men. These were a different set. Before joining them,
Treherne had given me to understand that they were all very wealthy, and
very liberal in their politics, and before quitting them I heartily
believed him. There was a great deal of talk during dinner, and, as the
newspapers say, after the cloth was removed, on the aspect of affairs in
general. The corn-laws were discussed, the condition of the Irish was
lamented, the landed gentry were abused, the Church was threatened, the
Tories were alluded to as the enemies of mankind and the locusts of the
earth; whilst the people, the poor, the labouring classes, the masses, and
whatever was comprised within these terms, had their warmest sympathy and
approbation. My habits are somewhat retired, and I mix now little with
men. I can conscientiously affirm, that I never in my life heard finer
sentiments or deeper philanthropy than I did on this occasion from the
guests of my friend, and with what pleasure I need not say, when it
suddenly occurred to me to call upon them for a subscription on behalf of
the starving family whom I had met that day.
"You must take care, my dear sir," said a gentleman, before I had half
finished my story, (he might be called the leader of the opposition from
the precedence which he took in the company in opposing all existing
institutions,)--"You must, indeed; you are a stranger here. You must not
believe all you hear. These fellows will trump up any tale. I know them of
old. Don't you be taken in. Take my word--it's a man's own fault if he
comes to want. Depend upon it."
"So it is--so it is; that's very true," responded half-a-dozen gentlemen
with large bellies, sipping claret as they spoke.
"I do not think, gentlemen," I answered, "that I am imposed upon in this
case."
"Ah, ah!" said many Liberals at once, shaking their heads in pity at my
simplicity.
"At all events," I added, "you'll not refuse a little aid."
"Certainly, I shall," replied the leader; "it's a rule, sir. I wouldn't
break through it. I act entirely upon principle! I can't encourage robbery
and vagrancy. It's Quixotic."
"Quite so--quite so!" murmured the bellies.
"Besides, there's the Union; we are paying for that. Why don't these
people go in? Why, they tell me they may live in luxury there!"
"He has a wife and three children--it's hard to separate, perhaps--"
"Pooh, pooh, sir!"
"Pooh, pooh!" echoed the bellies.
"And, I'll tell you what, sir," said the gentleman emphatically in
conclusion, "if you want to do good to society, you mustn't begin at the
fag end of it; leave the thieves to the jailers, and the poor to the
guardians. Repeal the corn-laws--give us free trade--universal
suffrage--and religious liberty; that's what we want. I don't ask you to
put a tax upon tallow--why do you want to put a tax upon corn? I don't
ask you to pay my minister--why do you want me to pay your parson? I
don't ask you--"
"Oh! don't let us hear all that over again, there's a good fellow," said
Treherne, imploringly. "Curse politics. Who is for whist? The tables are
ready."
The company rose to a man at the mention of whist, and took their places
at the tables. I did not plead again for poor Warton; but his wretched
apartment came often before my eyes in the glitter of the wax-lit room in
which I stood, surrounded by profusion. His unhappy but faithful wife--his
sleeping children--his own affecting expression of gratitude, occupied my
mind, and soothed it. What a blessed thing it is to minister to the
necessities of others! How happy I felt in the knowledge that they would
sleep peacefully and well that night! I had been for some time musing in a
corner of the room, when I was roused by the loud voice of the Liberal.
"Well, I tell you what, Treherne, I'll bet you five to one on the game."
"Done!" said Treherne.
"Crowns?" added the Liberal.
"Just as you like--go on--your play."
In a few minutes the game was settled. The Liberal lost his crowns, and
Treherne took them. Madmen both! Half of that sum would have given a
month's bread to the beggars. Did it enrich or serve the wealthy winner?
No. What was it these men craved? They could part with their money freely
when they chose. Was it excitement? And is none to be derived from
appeasing the hunger, and securing the heartfelt prayers of the naked and
the poor? I withdrew from the noisy party, and retired to my room,
determined to investigate the affairs of my new acquaintances at an early
hour in the morning, and effectually to help them if I could.