IN THE COURT-HOUSE.
It is proposed by some elevators of the public mind to make us all
philosophers, and to abolish the morbid interest which mankind at
present entertains in the issues of life and death. They hold it
weakness that we should become excited by incident, or enthralled by
mystery, and prophesy a future when intelligence shall reign supreme, to
the extinction of the vulgar passion for sensation. In the mean time,
however, the sympathetic hopes and fears of humanity remain pretty much
as they have been within all living memory; and one of the greatest
treats that can be provided for the popular palate is a criminal trial.
There are many reasons why this should be the case; the courts of law
are free, and a sight that can be seen for nothing is of itself
attractive, since we are, at all events, not losing our time and money
too. Again, the most popular drama, the most popular novel, are those to
which the dénouements can not easily be guessed; and in the court-house
we see drama and novel realized with the verdict of the jury and the
sentence of the judge--a matter of anxious speculation to the very last.
Where theatres and books are rare the passion for such scenes is
proportionally stronger, and perhaps there is no periodical event which
so deeply stirs the agricultural interest--speaking socially, and not
politically--as the advent of the Judges of Assize.
At Cross Key, at all events, there was nothing else talked of for weeks
beforehand; and the case which above all others was canvassed, and
prejudged, and descanted upon over all sorts of boards--from the
mahogany one in the dining-room at Cross Key Park to the deal tripod
which held the pots and pipes at the road-side beer-house--was that of
Richard Yorke, the young gentleman-painter, who had run away with old
John Trevethick of Gethin's hoarded store. The rumor had got abroad that
he had almost run away with his daughter also, and this intensified the
interest immensely. The whole female population, from the high-sheriff's
wife down to the woman who kept the apple-stall in the market-place, was
agog to see this handsome young Lothario, and especially to hear the
evidence of his (clandestinely) betrothed, who was known to have been
subpoenaed for the defense.
There were innumerable biographies of the prisoner to be had for
nothing. He was a noble-man in disguise; he was the illegitimate son of
the prime minister; he was indirectly but immediately connected with
royalty itself; he could speak every European language (except Polish),
and painted landscapes like an angel; he had four thousand a year in
land, only waiting for him to come of age, which carried with it half
the representation of a Whig borough; he had not a penny in the world,
but had hitherto supported himself in luxury by skillful forgeries;
young as he was, he was a married man, and had a wife (three times his
age) alive. All these particulars were insisted upon and denied forty
times a day. The least scraps of trust-worthy intelligence concerning
him were greedily devoured. The turnpike-man who had opened gate to let
him through on the night he came to the jail was cross-examined as to
his appearance and demeanor. The rural policeman of the district (who
had never had a chance of seeing him) was treated to pots of ale, and
suddenly found himself the best of company. The _Castle_ at Gethin was
thronged by local tourists, who, under pretense of being attracted by
the scenery, came to stare at Harry, and, having seen her, returned to
Cross Key with marvelous stories of her charms. As the time drew on the
applications for admittance to the court-house made the life of the
under-sheriff a burden, and caused the hearts of his subordinates (who
got the half-crowns) to sing for joy.
The unhappy Richard was wholly ignorant of all this excitement. When he
pictured the court-house to himself, as he often did, he only beheld a
crowd of indifferent persons, who would pay no more attention to his own
case than to that of Balfour, or any other that might follow or precede
it. He saw himself taken out in custody, and carried in some conveyance,
such as he had arrived in, through the gaping street; but the idea of
that ordeal gave him no uneasiness. Those who saw him would forget him
the next moment, or confuse him with some other in the same wretched
plight. His mind always reverted from such reflections, as comparatively
trivial, to the issue of the trial itself. Indeed, that thought might be
said to be constant, though others intruded on it occasionally without
obscuring it, like light clouds that cross the moon. As to the details
of the scene of which he was about to be so prominent an actor, he knew
nothing; for the warders never opened their lips to him, except
officially, and Mr. Balfour had never happened to come to grief in the
course of his professional practice in that particular locality before.
But the fact was that the jail of Cross Key, though situated in so
out-of-the-way a spot, was a model establishment in its way, and built
upon the very highest principles of architecture, as connected with the
administration of the criminal law. No prisoner was ever taken out of it
for trial at all, but was conducted by an underground passage into the
court-house itself--indeed, into the very heart of it, for a flight of
steps, with a trap-door at the top, led straight into the dock, in which
he made his appearance like a Jack-in-the-box, but much more to his own
astonishment than to that of the spectators.
Imagine the unhappy Richard thus confronted, wholly unexpectedly, with a
thousand eager eyes! They devoured him on the right hand and on the
left, before him and behind him; they looked down upon him from the
galleries above with a hunger that was increased by distance. Even the
barristers in the space between him and the judge turned round to gaze
at him, and the judge himself adjusted his spectacles upon his nose to
regard him with a searching look. Not a sound was to be heard except the
monotonous voice of the clerk reading the indictment; it was plain that
every one of that vast concourse knew him, and needed not that his
neighbor should whisper, "That is he." Was his mother there? thought
Richard, and above all, Was Harry there? He looked round once upon that
peering throng; but he could catch sight of neither. The former, with a
thick veil over her features, was, indeed, watching him from a corner of
the court; but the only face he recognized was that of his attorney,
seated immediately behind a man with a wig, whom he rightly concluded to
be Mr. Sergeant Balais.
There was a sudden silence, following upon the question, "How say you,
Richard Yorke, are you guilty of this felony, or not guilty?" The
turnkey by the prisoner's side muttered harshly behind his hand, "They
have called on you to plead."
"Not guilty," answered Richard, in a loud, firm voice, and fixing his
eyes upon the judge.
A murmur of satisfaction ran softly through the court-house. His
hesitation had alarmed the curious folks; they were afraid that he might
have pleaded "Guilty," and robbed them of their treat. Not a few of
them, and perhaps all the women, were also pleased upon his own account.
He was so young and handsome that they could not choose but wish him
well, and out of his peril.
Then Mr. Smoothbore rose, and was some time about it. He was six feet
four inches high, and it seemed as though you would never see the last
of him. ("Oh, Jerryusalem, upon wheels!" was the remark that Mr. Robert
Balfour muttered to himself when some hours afterward _he_ found himself
confronted by the same gigantic counsel, instructed specially by the
crown to prosecute so notorious a marauder.) The twelve men in the box
opposite at once became all ear. Some leaned forward, as though to
anticipate by the millionth of a second the silvery accents of Mr.
Smoothbore; others leaned back with head aside, as though to concentrate
their intelligence upon them; and the foreman held his head with both
his hands, as though that portion of his person was not wholly under
control, but might make some erratic twist, and thereby lose him some
pregnant sentence. These honest men did not know Mr. Smoothbore, and
thought (for the first five minutes) that they could sit and listen to
him forever; before they had done with him they began to think that they
should have to do it.
Far be it from us to emulate the prolixity with which the learned
counsel set forth his case; it must be conceded that he did not hang
over it; his words ran as smoothly as oil, and with perfect
distinctness, and if any body missed his meaning, it was not for want of
its being sufficiently expressed. To a listener of average ability,
however, he became insupportable by repetition, which is, unhappily, not
exclusively "the vice of the pulpit." We will take care to avoid his
error. It will be sufficient to say that when he had finished Richard
stood accused not only of having stolen two thousand pounds from John
Trevethick, but of having compassed that crime under circumstances of
peculiar baseness. He had taken advantage of his superior education,
manners, and appearance, to impose himself upon the honest Cornishman as
the legitimate son of his landlord, and secured within that humble home
a footing of familiarity, only the better to compass a scheme of
villainy, which must have occurred to him at a very early period of
their acquaintance. Indeed, Mr. Smoothbore hinted that the prisoner's
profession of landscape-painting was a mere pretense and pretext, and
that it was more than probable that, having heard by some means of
Trevethick's hoard, he had come down to Gethin with the express
intention of becoming possessed of it, which his accidental discovery of
the secret of the letter padlock enabled him to do. In short, by artful
innuendo at this or that part of the story, Richard was painted as a
common thief, whose possession of such faculties as dexterity and
_finesse_ only made him a more dangerous enemy of society. There had
been rumors, Mr. Smoothbore admitted, of certain romantic circumstances
connected with the case, but he was instructed to say that they were
wholly baseless, and that the matter which the jury would have to decide
upon was simply an impudent and audacious robbery, committed in a manner
that he might stigmatize as being quite exceptionally void of
extenuation.
The speech for the prosecution immensely disappointed the general
public, already half-convinced, in spite of themselves, by Mr.
Smoothbore's impassioned clearness and straightforward simplicity, while
it pleased the jury, who were glad to hear that the matter in hand was,
after all, an ordinary one, which would necessitate no deprivation of
victuals, nor absence of fire and candle. The witnesses for the
prosecution appeared, as usual, in an order in inverse ratio to the
interest and importance of their respective testimonies--the clerk of
the Miners' Bank into whose hands the notes had been paid, policemen,
Mr. Dodge, and others, who only repeated what we already know. Even the
appearance of Solomon Coe was marked by nothing especial, save to the
eyes of the accused. In the triumphant bearing of this witness, and in
the malignant glance which he had shot toward him ere he began his tale,
Richard read that the charge against him was to be pushed to the bitter
end. It was in this man's power, more than in any other's (save one), to
extenuate or to set down in malice; and there was no doubt in his
rival's mind (though his rancor took so blunt a form that it might well
have been mistaken by others for outspoken candor) which of the two
courses Solomon had chosen. He showed neither scruple nor hesitation;
every word was distinct and decisive, and on one occasion (though the
repetition of it was forbidden by the judge) even accompanied by a blow
with his sledge-hammer fist in the way of corroboration. It seemed that
the story he had to tell was, after all, a very plain one.
When John Trevethick, who was the last witness examined for the
prosecution, strode into the box, this feeling was intensified. His
giant frame and massive features seemed, somehow, to associate
themselves with a plain story; and his evidence was as much in
consonance with his counsel's speech as evidence could be with pleading.
But when he had quite done with his unvarnished tale, and when Mr.
Smoothbore had given him a parting nod in sign that _he_ had done with
him, Sergeant Balais rose, for the first time, with an uplifted finger,
as though, but for that signal of delay, the honest landlord would have
fled incontinently, and hanged himself, like another Judas.
"You have a daughter, I believe, Mr. Trevethick?" and the Sergeant
looked at the jury, with elevated eyebrows, as though he would have
said, "If we can get even that admission out of this hoary miscreant, we
may consider ourselves fortunate."
And indeed John Trevethick did hesitate for one instant ere he replied.
He had not even looked at the prisoner before, but at that question he
gave an involuntary glance toward him, and met Richard's answering look.
When two men are fighting, each with his hands upon the throat of the
other, not for dear life, but for the longed-for death of his foe, it is
possible that in their faces some such inextinguishable lurid fire of
hatred may be seen burning as then flashed from witness-box to dock,
from dock to witness-box; but scarcely under any other circumstances
could such a look of deadly malice be exchanged between man and man. It
passed, however, in an instant, like the electric fire, and was gone,
leaving no trace behind it.
"I _have_ a daughter," replied Trevethick; and as he spoke his face,
though somewhat pale, became as blank and hard and meaningless as a wall
of stone.
"This man is about to perjure himself," thought the experienced Mr.
Balais; and he looked around him with the air of one who was convinced
of the fact.
"The prisoner at the bar was, I believe, your daughter's lover, was he
not?"
"Not that I knew of."
"Not that you know of?" repeated Mr. Balais. "Will you venture to repeat
that?"
"The witness said _knew_," interposed the judge, demurely, and ordered a
sky-light to be closed, the draught from which inconvenienced him. Every
body looked at the officer of the court who pulled the string and shut
the sky-light, as though it had been the most ingenious contrivance
known to man. Not that it was a relief to them to do so, but from that
inexplicable motive which prompts us all to observe trivial
circumstances with which we have nothing whatever to do, on any occasion
of engrossing interest. Even Richard regarded this little process of
ventilation with considerable concern, and wondered whether the judge
would feel himself better after it.
"Oh, you didn't know of this attachment between the prisoner and your
daughter at the time it was going on under your roof, but you knew of it
afterward, did you? You read of it in the papers, I suppose, eh?"
"I heard of it, after the robbery was discovered, from my daughter
herself."
"And, upon your oath, you did not know of it before then?"
"I did not."
"Nor suspect it even, perhaps?"
"Nor even suspect it."
Mr. Balais smiled, shrugged his shoulders. His principles of oratory
were Demosthenean; his motto was "Action, action, action." His. friends
on circuit called him the Balais of action. He had had some experience
of the depravity of human nature, said the shrug, but this beat every
thing, and would be really amusing but for its atrocious infamy. Good
Heavens!
"Then you never had any conversation with the prisoner with reference
to your daughter at all?"
"Never."
Mr. Balais bent down and interchanged a word or two with Mr. Weasel
behind him.
"Now be so good as to give me your best attention, Mr. Trevethick, for
upon my next question more may depend than you may be aware of. If you
have any regard for your own interests you will answer it truly; for as
sure as--"
"Is this necessary, Brother Balais?" interrupted the judge, scratching
his forehead with his forefinger, and looking up at the sky-light, as
though that matter was not satisfactorily settled even yet.
"My lud, I am instructed that nothing less than a conspiracy has been
entered into against my unfortunate client."
The judge nodded slightly, shivered considerably, and made a mental note
to complain of that infernal draught before he should dismiss the grand
jury.
"I ask you, Mr. Trevethick," continued the counsel, solemnly, "whether
or not, in a conversation which you held with the prisoner upon a
certain day last month, you mentioned two thousand pounds as the sum you
must needs see in his possession before you could listen to any
proposition of his with respect to your daughter's hand?"
"I did not."
"You never spoke of that particular sum to him at all?"
"Never at all."
It was Mr. Balais who looked up at the sky-light this time--as though he
expected a thunder-bolt.
"The notes, of which we have heard so much, as being hoarded in this
ingenious box of yours--and that you are a very ingenious man, Mr.
Trevethick, there is no doubt--this box, I say, was kept in a certain
cupboard, was it not?"
"It was."
"And now, please to look at the jury when you answer me this question:
Where was this particular cupboard situated, Mr. Trevethick?"
Into the landlord's impassive face there stole for the first time a look
of disquiet, and his harsh, monotonous voice grew tremulous as he
replied, "The cupboard was in my daughter's bedroom."
"That will do, Mr. Trevethick, _for the present_," observed Mr. Balais,
with emphasis; "though I shall probably have the opportunity of seeing
you another time"--and he glanced significantly toward the dock--"_in
another place_."