How The Big-Wigs Doubted
It's what I call an awful shame.' Mr. Holt and parson Bromley were
standing together on the causeway at Folking, and the former was
speaking. The subject under discussion was, of course, the continued
detention of John Caldigate in the county prison.
'I cannot at all understand it,' said Mr. Bromley.
'There's no understanding nothing about it, sir. Every man, woman, and
child in the county knows as there wasn't no other marriage, and yet
they won't let 'un out. It's sheer spite, because he wouldn't vote for
their man last 'lection.'
'I hardly think that, Mr. Holt.'
'I'm as sure of it as I stands here,' said Mr. Holt, slapping his thigh.
'What else 'd they keep 'un in for? It's just like their ways.'
Mr. Holt was one of a rare class, being a liberal farmer,--a Liberal,
that is, in politics; as was also Mr. Bromley, a Liberal among
parsons,--_rava avis._ The Caldigates had always been Liberal, and Mr.
Holt had been brought up to agree with his landlord. He was now beyond
measure acerbated, because John Caldigate had not been as yet declared
innocent on evidence which was altogether conclusive to himself. The
Conservatives were now in power, and nothing seemed so natural to Mr.
Holt as that the Home Secretary should keep his landlord in jail because
the Caldigates were Liberals. Mr. Bromley could not quite agree to this,
but he also was of opinion that a great injustice was being done. He was
in the habit of seeing the young wife almost daily, and knew the havoc
which hope turned into despair was making with her. Another week had
now gone by since the old squire had been up in town, and nothing yet
had been heard from the Secretary of State. All the world knew that
Crinkett and Euphemia Smith were in custody, and still no tidings
came,--yet the husband, convicted on the evidence of these perjurers,
was detained in prison!
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, and Hester's heart was very sick
within her. 'Why do they not tell me something?' she said when her
father-in-law vainly endeavoured to comfort her. Why not, indeed? He
could only say hard things of the whole system under which the
perpetration of so great a cruelty was possible, and reiterate his
opinion that, in spite of that system, they must, before long, let his
son go free.
The delay in truth was not at the Home Office. Judge Bramber could not
as yet quite make up his mind. It is hoped that the reader has made up
his, but the reader knows somewhat more than the judge knew. Crinkett
had confessed nothing,--though a rumour had got abroad that he intended
to plead guilty. Euphemia Smith was constant in her assertion to all
those who came near her, that she had positively been married to the man
at Ahalala. Adamson and Anna Young were ready now to swear that all
which they had sworn before was false; but it was known to the police
that they had quarrelled bitterly as to the division of the spoil ever
since the money had been paid to the ring-leaders. It was known that
Anna Young had succeeded in getting nothing from the other woman, and
that the man had unwillingly accepted his small share, fearing that
otherwise he might get nothing. They were not trustworthy witnesses, and
it was very doubtful whether the other two could be convicted on their
evidence. The judge, as he turned it all over in his mind, was by no
means sure that the verdict was a mistaken verdict. It was at any rate a
verdict. It was a decision constitutionally arrived at from a jury. This
sending back of the matter to him hardly was constitutional.
It was abhorrent to his nature,--not that a guilty man should escape,
which he knew to be an affair occurring every day,--but that a guilty
man, who had been found to be guilty, should creep back through the
meshes of the law. He knew how many chances were given by the practice
of British courts to an offender on his trial, and he was quite in
favour of those chances. He would be urgent in telling a jury to give
the prisoner the benefit of a doubt. But when the transgressor, with all
those loopholes stopped, stood before him convicted, then he felt a
delight in the tightness of the grip with which he held the wretch, and
would tell himself that the world in which he lived was not as yet all
astray, in that a guilty man could still be made to endure the proper
reward of his guilt.
It was with him as when a hunter has hunted a fox after the approved
laws of venery. There have been a dozen ways of killing the animal of
which he has scorned to avail himself. He has been careful to let him
break from his covert, regarding all who would stop him as enemies to
himself. It has been a point of honour with him that the animal should
suffer no undue impediment. Any ill-treatment shown to the favoured one
in his course, is an injury done to the hunter himself. Let no man head
the fox, let no man strive to drive him back upon the hounds. Let all be
done by hunting law,--in accordance with those laws which give so many
chances of escape. But when the hounds have run into their quarry, not
all the eloquence of all the gods should serve to save that doomed one's
life.
So it was with Judge Bramber and a convicted prisoner. He would give the
man the full benefit of every quibble of the law till he was convicted.
He would be severe on witnesses, harsh to the police, apparently a very
friend to the man standing at the bar,--till the time came for him to
array the evidence before the jury. Then he was inexorable; and when the
verdict had been once pronounced, the prisoner was but as a fox about to
be thrown to the hounds.
And now there was a demand that this particular fox should be put back
into his covert! The Secretary of State could put him back, if he
thought fit. But in these matters there was so often a touch of
cowardice. Why did not the Secretary do it without asking him? There had
arisen no question of law. There was no question as to the propriety of
the verdict as found upon the evidence given at the trial. The doubt
which had arisen since had come from further evidence, of which the
Secretary was as well able to judge as he. No doubt the case was
difficult. There had been gross misdoing on both sides. But if Caldigate
had not married the woman, why had he paid those twenty thousands? Why
had he written those words on the envelope? There was doubt enough now,
but the time for giving the prisoner the benefit of the doubt was gone.
The fox had been fairly hunted, and Judge Bramber thought that he had
better die.
But he hesitated;--and while he was hesitating there came to him a
little reminder, a most gentle hint, in the shape of a note from the
Secretary of State's private secretary. The old squire's visit to the
office had not seemed to himself to be satisfactory, but he had made a
friend for himself in Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown looked into the matter, and
was of opinion that it would be well to pardon the young man. Even
though there had been some jumping over a broomstick at Ahalala, why
should things not be made comfortable here at home? What harm would a
pardon do to any one?--whereas there were so many whom it would make
happy. So he asked the Secretary whether that wasn't a hard case of
young Caldigate. The Secretary whispered that it was in Bramber's hands,
upon which Mr. Brown observed that, if so, it was certainly hard. But
the conversation was not altogether thrown away, for on that afternoon
the private secretary wrote his note.
Judge Bramber when he received the note immediately burned it,--and this
he did with considerable energy of action. If they would send him such
cases as that, what right had they to remind him of his duty? He was not
going to allow any private secretary or any Secretary of State, to hurry
him! There was no life or death in this matter. Of what importance was
it that so manifest an evil-doer as this young Caldigate should remain
in prison a day or two more,--a man who had attempted to bribe four
witnesses by twenty thousand pounds? It was an additional evil that such
a one should have such a sum for such a purpose. But still he felt that
there was a duty thrown upon him; and he sat down with all the papers
before him, determined to make up his mind before he rose from his
chair.
He did make up his mind, but did so at last by referring back the
responsibility to the Secretary of State. 'The question is one
altogether of evidence,' he said, 'and not of law. Any clear-headed man
is as able to reach a true decision as I am. It is such a question as
should be left to a jury,--and would justify a trial on appeal if that
were practicable. It would be well that the case should stand over till
Thomas Crinkett and Euphemia Smith shall have been tried for perjury,
which, as I understand, will take place at the next winter assizes. If
the Secretary of State thinks that the delay would be too long, I would
humbly suggest that he should take her Majesty's pleasure in accordance
with his own opinion as to the evidence.'
When that document was read at the Home Office by the few who were
privileged to read it, they knew that Judge Bramber had been in a very
ill humour. But there was no help for that. The judge had been asked for
advice and had refused to give it; or had advised,--if his remark on
that subject was to be taken for advice,--that the consideration of the
matter should be postponed for another three months. The case, if there
was any case in favour of the prisoner, was not one for pardon but for
such redress as might now be given for a most gross injustice. The man
had been put to a very great expense, and had been already in prison for
ten or eleven weeks, and his further detention would be held to have
been very cruel if it should appear at last that the verdict had been
wrong. The public press was already using strong language on the
subject, and the Secretary of State was not indifferent to the public
press. Judge Bramber thoroughly despised the press,--though he would
have been very angry if his 'Times' had not been ready for him at
breakfast every morning. And two or three questions had already been
asked in the House of Commons. The Secretary of State, with that
habitual strategy, without which any Secretary of State must be held to
be unfit for the position which he holds, contrived to answer the
questions so as to show that, while the gentlemen who asked them were
the most indiscreet of individuals, he was the most discreet of
Secretaries. And he did this, though he was strongly of opinion that
Judge Bramber's delay was unjustifiable. But what would be thought of a
Secretary of State who would impute blame in the House of Commons to one
of the judges of the land before public opinion had expressed itself so
strongly on the matter as to make such expression indispensable? He did
not think that he was in the least untrue in throwing blame back upon
the questioners, and in implying that on the side of the Crown there had
been no undue delay, though, at the moment, he was inwardly provoked at
the dilatoriness of the judge.
Public opinion was expressing itself very strongly in the press. 'The
Daily Tell-Tale' had a beautifully sensational article, written by their
very best artist. The whole picture was drawn with a cunning hand. The
young wife in her lonely house down in Cambridge which the artist not
inaptly called The Moated Grange! The noble, innocent, high-souled
husband, eating his heart out within the bars of a county prison, and
with very little else to eat! The indignant father, driven almost to
madness by the wrongs done to his son and heir! Had the son not been an
heir this point would have been much less touching. And then the old
evidence was dissected, and the new evidence against the new culprits
explained. In regard to the new culprits, the writer was very loud in
expressing his purpose to say not a word against persons who were still
to be tried;--but immediately upon that he went on and said a great many
words against them. Assuming all that was said about them to be true, he
asked whether the country would for a moment endure the idea that a man
in Mr. Caldigate's position should be kept in prison on the evidence of
such miscreants. When he came to Bagwax and the postmarks, he explained
the whole matter with almost more than accuracy. He showed that the
impression could not possibly have been made till after the date it
conveyed. He fell into some little error as to the fabrication of the
postage-stamp in the colony, not having quite seized Bagwax's great
point. But it was a most telling article. And the writer, as he turned
it off at his club, and sent it down to the office of the paper, was
ready to bet a five-pound note that Caldigate would be out before a week
was over. The Secretary of State saw the article, and acknowledged its
power. And then even the 'Slipper' turned round and cautiously expressed
an opinion that the time had come for mercy.
There could be no doubt that public opinion was running very high in
Caldigate's favour, and that the case had become thoroughly popular.
People were again beginning to give dinner-parties in London, and at
every party the matter was discussed. It was a peculiarly interesting
case because the man had thrown away so large a sum of money! People
like to have a nut to crack which is 'uncrackable,'--a Gordian knot
to undo which cannot even be cut. Nobody could understand the twenty
thousand pounds. Would any man pay such a sum with the object of buying
off false witnesses,--and do it in such a manner that all the facts
must be brought to light when he was tried? It was said here and there
that he had paid the money because he owed it;--but then it had been
shown so clearly that he had not owed any one a penny! Nevertheless the
men were all certain that he was not guilty, and the ladies thought
that whether he were guilty or not did not matter much. He certainly
ought to be released from prison.
But yet the Secretary doubted. In that unspoken but heartfelt accusation
of cowardice which the judge had made against the great officer of State
there had been some truth. How would it be if it should be made to
appear at the approaching trial that the two reprobates, who had turned
Queen's evidence against their associates, were to break down altogether
in their assertions? It might possibly then become quite apparent that
Caldigate had married the woman, and had committed bigamy, when he would
already have been pardoned for the last three months! The pardon in that
case would not do away with the verdict,--and the pardoned man would be
a convicted bigamist. What, then, would be the condition of his wife and
child? If subsequent question should arise as to the boy's legitimacy,
as might so probably be the case, in what light would he appear, he who
had taken upon himself, on his own responsibility, to extort from her
Majesty a pardon in opposition to a righteous and just verdict,--in
opposition to the judge who had tried the case? He had been angry with
Judge Bramber for not deciding, and was now frightened at the necessity
of deciding himself.
In this emergency he sent for the gentleman who had managed the
prosecution on the part of the Crown, and asked him to read up the case
again, 'I never was convinced of the prisoner's guilt,' said the
barrister.
'No!'
'It was one of those cases in which we cannot be convinced. The
strongest point against him was the payment of the money. It is possible
that he paid it from a Quixotic feeling of honour.'
'To false witnesses, and that before the trial!' said the Secretary.
'And there may have been a hope that, in spite of what he said himself
as to their staying, they would take themselves off when they had got
the money. In that way he may have persuaded himself that, as an honest
man, he ought to make the payment. Then as to the witnesses, there can
be little doubt that they were willing to lie. Even if their main story
were true, they were lying as to details.'
'Then you would advise a pardon?'
'I think so,' said the barrister, who was not responsible for his
advice.
'Without waiting for the other trial?'
'If the perjury be then proved,--or even so nearly proved as to satisfy
the outside world,--the man's detention will be thought to have been a
hardship.' The Secretary of State thanked the barrister and let him go.
He then went down to the House, and amidst the turmoil of a strong party
conflict at last made up his mind. It was unjust that such
responsibility should be thrown upon any one person. There ought to be
some Court of Appeal for such cases. He was sure of that now. But at
last he made up his mind. Early on the next morning the Queen should be
advised to allow John Caldigate to go free.