THE END OF THE CONSPIRACY
The trial of our four friends for conspiracy took place in the middle of
January. For my own part, I had to relate in open Court the whole
history with which you are already acquainted: the clause in my father's
will giving me a chance of obtaining a large fortune if I should survive
my cousin: the attempts made by Mr. Probus to persuade me to sell the
chance of succession: the trumping up of a debt which never existed: my
imprisonment in a debtors' Prison: my release by Jenny's assistance: the
renewed attempts of Mr. Probus to gain my submission: his threats: and
the truth about the alleged robbery. I also stated that two of the
defendants had been imprisoned in the King's Bench at the same time as
myself and that they were at that time close companions.
The Counsel for the defence cross-examined me rigorously but with no
effect. My story was plain and simple. It was, in a word, so much to the
interest of Mr. Probus to get me to renounce my chance that he stuck at
nothing in order to effect this purpose--or my death.
I sat down and looked about me. Heavens! with what a different mind from
that with which I stood in the dock now occupied by my enemies. I should
have been more than human had I not felt a great satisfaction at the
sight of these four men standing in a row. Let me call it gratitude, not
satisfaction. The spectacle of the chief offender, the contriver of the
villainy, Mr. Probus, was indeed enough to move one's heart to terror,
if not to pity. The wretched man had lost, with the whole of his money,
the whole of his wits. The money was his God, his Religion, his Heaven:
he had lost the harvest of a life: he was old: he would get no more
clients: he would save no more money. He would probably have to make a
living, as others of his kind have done, by advising and acting as an
attorney for the rabble of St. Giles's and Clerkenwell. He stood with
rounded shoulders and bowed head: he clutched at the iron spikes before
him: he pulled the sprigs of rue to pieces: he appeared to pay no
attention at all to the evidence.
Mr. Merridew, on the other hand, showed in his bearing the greatest
possible terror and anxiety: he gasped when his Counsel seemed to make a
point in his favour: he shivered and shook when his part in the plot was
exposed. He who had given evidence in so many hanging cases unconcerned,
now stood in the dock himself. He was made to feel--what he had never
before considered--the natural horror of the prisoner and the dreadful
terror of the sentence.
The case might have been strengthened by the evidence of the landlady of
the Black Jack. She, worthy soul, was out of the way, and no one
inquired after her. Nor was her daughter Doll present on the occasion.
But there was evidence enough. The gaolers and masters of the country
prisons proved the real character of the two witnesses who called
themselves respectively a clergyman and a country gentleman. Ramage, the
clerk, proved, as before, that Probus brought Merridew to the Counting
House. Jack, the country lad, proved the consultations at the Black Jack
between Probus, Merridew, and the two others. These two, indeed, behaved
with some manliness. They had given up all hope of an acquittal and
could only hope that the sentence would be comparatively light. They
therefore made a creditable appearance of undaunted courage, a thing
which is as popular in their profession as in any other.
I do not suppose their crime was capital. Otherwise the Judge would most
certainly have sent them all to the gallows.
'Many,' he said at the end, 'are justly executed for offences mild
indeed, in comparison with the detestable crime of which you stand
convicted.'
When the case was completed and all the evidence heard, the Judge asked
the prisoners, one after the other, what they had to say in their own
defence.
'Ezekiel Probus, you have now to lay before the Court whatever you have
to urge in your own defence.'
Mr. Probus, still with hanging head, appeared not to hear. The warder
touched him on the shoulder and whispered. He held up his head for a
moment: looked round the court, and murmured:
'No--no--it is all gone.'
Nothing more could be got from him.
'John Merridew, you have now the opportunity of stating your own case.'
He began in a trembling voice. He said that he had been long a sheriff's
officer: that he had incurred great odium by his zeal in the arrest of
criminals: that it was not true that he had concocted any plot either
with Mr. Probus or with the other prisoners: that he was a man of
consideration whose evidence had frequently been received with respect
in that very court: that it was not true, further, as had been stated by
the Prosecution, that he had ever encouraged thieves or advised them to
become highwaymen: that, if he went to such places as the Black Jack, it
was to arrest villains in the cause of Justice: that he deposed at the
last trial, what he saw or thought he saw--namely a scuffle: he might
have been in too great a hurry to conclude that the late prisoner
Halliday was the assaulting party: the night was dark: he only knew the
two witnesses as two rogues whom he intended to bring to justice on a
dozen capital charges for each, as soon as he was out of Newgate: and
that he was a person--this he earnestly begged the Court to
consider--without whom the criminal Courts would be empty and Justice
would be rendered impossible. With more to the same effect, and all
with such servile cringings and entreaties for special consideration as
did him, I am convinced, more harm than good.
When it came to the Doctor's turn, he boldly declared that if the
verdict of the Jury went against him--'And gentlemen,' he said, 'I must
own that the evidence has certainly placed me in a strange, and
unexpected and most painful position'--he would bring over the
Archbishop of Dublin: the Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral: and the
Provost of Trinity College: besides noblemen of the Irish Peerage and
many of his old parishioners in order to prove that he was what he
pretended to be. 'The assurance, gentlemen, that I shall be thus
supported, enables me to bear up even against your possible view of the
case and his Lordship's possible opinion. To a Divine of unblemished
life it is, I confess, inexpressibly painful to be confused with forgers
and highwaymen.'
Lastly, the gallant Captain spoke of himself. 'This,' he said with a
front of brass, 'is a case of most unfortunate resemblance. It appears
that I bear some likeness to a certain notorious robber and highwayman
called, it is said, the Captain.' Here the whole Court burst into
laughter, so unabashed was the villain when he pronounced these words.
He looked round him with affected wonder. 'The event of this trial,
however,' he went on, 'matters but little because in two or three weeks
I can bring to town the Mayor and Alderman, the Town Clerk, the Rector
of the Church and the Master of the Grammar School of my native town to
testify that I am what I have declared myself to be. This being so,
gentlemen, you may proceed, if you please, to do your duty.'
The Judge then summed up. He went through the whole case, adopting the
views of the Counsel for the Prosecution. He said that the evidence
before him was practically unshaken. It showed that these men, who had
pretended to know nothing of each other were in fact banded and allied
together--in short he gave the whole weight of his opinion against the
prisoners. Indeed, I cannot think what else he would do seeing the
nature of the evidence. So he left the jury to find their verdict.
They found it, without leaving the box. It was a verdict of 'Guilty'
against all four prisoners. I looked to see the Judge assume the black
cap. To my surprise, he did not. He began by commenting in the
strongest terms on the diabolical wickedness of the conspiracy. He said
that he could find no difference as to the respective guilt of one or
the other. The prisoner Probus, a member of a learned profession, was
the contriver or designer of the deed: perhaps he might be thought the
worst. Indeed, his was a depth of infamy to which it was difficult to
find a rival or an equal. He would be punished worse than the rest
because he would infallibly lose by his disgrace his profession and his
practice. The infamy of the prisoner Merridew, when one considered the
hold that he had over a large number of criminals and rogues, was very
close to that of the prisoner Probus. He had apparently forced the other
two into carrying out the plot, on threat of informing against them. In
short, he pronounced the sentence of the court; namely, that the
prisoners should stand in pillory for an hour and then be imprisoned for
the space of four years.
On hearing the sentence Mr. Merridew shrieked aloud. 'My Lord!' he
cried. 'My Lord! Have mercy! They will murder me!'
They led him off crying that he was a murdered man. The Doctor swelled
out his cassock. 'The Archbishop,' he said, 'will arrive, I believe,
next week. There will still be time for his Grace to procure my
release.' So rolling his head and squaring his sleeves, he followed
along the passage which leads to the Prison.
I left the Court and made my way through the crowd to the gates of
Newgate in order to tell Jenny.
'Four years,' she said, 'will more than suffice to ruin the man
Merridew. His companies of thieves will be broken up; he will no longer
have any hold over them. He will have to turn rogue himself. When all
has been said, this is the greatest villain of them all. I hope they
will not maltreat the prisoners in pillory; because there they are
defenceless. But a thief-taker--a thief-taker, they cannot abide. If I
were Mr. Merridew I should wish the job well over.'
While we were discoursing there came a message from the Captain. Would
Madame grant him the favour of speech with her?
He came in, walking with his heavy clanking irons. He had lost the
braggart swagger which he assumed at the trial, and now looked as
humble as any pickpocket about to undergo the discipline of the pump.
'Madame,' he said, 'I thank you for this favour.'
'Your trial is over, Captain, I hear.'
'It is over,' he sighed. 'Mr. Halliday, Sir, I hope you are satisfied.'
'I desire no revenge,' I said. 'I want safety and peace--nothing more.
These blessings you and your friends denied me.'
'It is quite true, Sir. It was a most damnable plot. The only excuse for
me is that I had no choice but to comply and obey, or be hanged.'
'Captain, I do not desire more of your company than is necessary. Will
you tell me what you want of me?'
'The sentence is'--he made a wry face--'Pillory, Pillory, Madame. And
four years' imprisonment. But the four years will pass--what I fear is
Pillory.'
'I have heard of a man's friends protecting him.'
'Mine will do what they can. But, Madame, my fear is not so much on my
own account as that I may be put up on the same scaffold with Mr.
Merridew or Mr. Probus. There isn't a rogue in London who will not come
out with something for the thief-taker. Madame, no one knows the terror
in which we poor robbers live. The world envies us our lot; they think
it is glorious to ride out of a moonlight night and stop the coach all
alone. They don't know that the thief-taker is always behind the
highwayman. He lays his hand on the largest share of the swag; he
encourages lads to take the roads, and whenever he wants money he says
that the time is up and then he takes the reward. My time was up.'
'I know all this--unhappily--as well as you. What do you want me to do?'
'Mr. Probus--he will prove quite as unpopular as Merridew. They thirst
for his blood. There will be murder done in the pillory. Madame, for the
love of God, do something for me.'
'What?'
'You have great influence. Everybody knows what powerful friends you
have. Make them put the two unpopular prisoners on the same scaffold.
They will share the flints between them. Let me stand up beside the
Bishop. Nobody will give us much more than a dead cat or two and a
basket of rotten eggs. But the other two'--he shivered with cold
terror--'I know not what will happen to them.'
'Well, Captain, perhaps if Merridew gives up the profession, you may
possibly turn honest man again when you go out of this place.'
He shook his head. 'No, that is impossible.'
'Well, I will do this. The Governor of the Prison is civil to me. I will
ask him as a special favour to place you as you desire. I hope that you
both--the Bishop as well as yourself--will enjoy your short hour on that
elevated position. Will, give the Captain a bottle of wine to take away
with him. You can go, sir.'