Better be with the dead
Whom we to gain our place have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy.
SHAKSPEARE.
How many pine in want and dungeon glooms,
Shut from the common air, and common use
Of their own limbs!
THOMSON.
It has often struck me, that though it is said, in answer to the
question, “whom does time gallop withal?--with a thief to the
gallows, for, though he goes as softly as foot can fall, he thinks
himself too soon there:” yet, if there is a course which time has to
run, which should, if possible, be shortened, it is that elongated
period which, in the greater part of this kingdom, has often to be
passed between the commitment of a prisoner and his trial. In many
cases nine months may elapse--nine weary months elapse before those
whose trials ultimately end in acquittal, can be restored to their
family; and of those who are committed, how large a proportion are
afterwards proved to have been innocent? or rather, if you please,
not proved to be guilty? With the numberless law reforms, previously
deemed visionary and impossible, which the last few years have seen
actually put in practice, it is not likely that this evil should long
be allowed to continue. How the alteration is to be effected, or by
what separation of the civil and criminal functions of the judges the
courts of law at Westminster Hall could still continue open during
the terms, as they are now required to be, and yet commissions for
the dispatch of criminal justice be issued to the country,--must be
left to more experienced heads than mine to determine. But the evil
of the want of some such arrangement is not confined alone to that
one, in itself sufficient, of an innocent man chancing to be detained
whilst those seasons have almost revolved during which he should have
supported his family by his labour; but it is also not rare that
the tendency to crime, which might be epidemic before, is rendered
so much more virulent by contagion, that he who went in a petty
offender, whether acquitted that time or not, comes out a confirmed
criminal; and even on the guilty, on whom certain punishment must
be done, how much of the benefit of that example, which is the sole
object of punishment, is destroyed by its not being speedy as well as
certain! In this age, celebrated above all its other peculiarities
for the rapid succession of fresh sensations, what crime, however
atrocious, can fix the attention of the public for nine long months?
A rural Burke, or a provincial Bishop, is examined upon a charge,
which the infamous notoriety of the first has identified with his
name, both as a noun and a verb. The London journals teem with the
fullest accounts, headed with the most inviting particulars of the
most revolting details. Nine months, perhaps, elapse, and he dies,
without confession, is hanged and dissected, and all in three lines
of the smallest type in an obscure corner of the fourth page of the
same newspaper. Here the benefit of the example is lost, and nobody
can tell exactly why. The interval that has elapsed is rarely blamed
for it. Nobody out of prison holds the stop-watch for him that is
within. I remember, some years back, a fashionable offender, whose
name was in every body’s mouth at the time, being sentenced to five
years’ confinement in ---- gaol; his liberation was, at length,
announced in the papers. It became the subject of conversation. No
one could believe that any how he could have stayed his whole time,
and bets were made and lost upon the utter impossibility of the
fact. And yet, though to those who had “_thus doft the world_ aside,
and bid it pass,” and had kept no count of time, the fact seemed
impossible, to the individual himself, how endless had seemed the
early snail-like creeping days, how tedious the last lingering hours!
But though the first part of these reflections were meant for the
benefit of my friend George, whom we left on his way to the county
gaol, the last seem exclusively devoted to the reader, and as,
perhaps, he may think being longer detained by them as cruel as would
be George’s protracted confinement, I hasten to the week preceding
the one in which the Assizes were to be held.
The time of George’s confinement had not extended at all near
to the full period to which, if his offence had happened at a
different moment, it might have stretched; but was within the
average length previous to trial. Still it had been long enough to
work a considerable effect upon his feelings, which were naturally
good; and with a strongly reviving anxiety that his existence might
be preserved, came a steadfast purpose, if his prayer should be
granted, to lead a new life. He had passed, as usual, much of his
day in solitary meditation, when one evening the door of his cell
was opened by the turnkey, who ushered in a respectable-looking
gentleman, dressed in black, whom the gaoler proposed to leave alone
with George, saying, as he went out, “You may speak your mind freely
to this gemman; he’s come to sarve you in a professional _pint_, and
he never meddles but where there’s a chance; he’s not one of them
carrion beaks, as we calls those who hover about them who are as safe
bespoke as if they were already doomed.”
The professional gentleman, when left alone with George, proceeded
to tell him, that from the examination he had already made into his
case, he thought it by no means a bad one. The worst point was the
confession he had been foolish enough to make and sign; but he was
in hopes that there were informalities and illegalities in the terms
of that confession which would at once prevent its being recorded
as evidence, and therefore also prevent his being obliged to have
recourse to a last expedient, which he hinted he thought he had in
his power, to procure his acquittal. “But,” added he, “you may depend
upon it that, if you are only sincere with me, every possible pains
shall be taken, for I am directed to spare no expense.”
“But I beg you will spare it, though,” said George, “I’m not going to
have the hard-earned savings of my poor uncle squandered to save such
a prodigal as I have been.”
“I beg your pardon, but it is not from your uncle I have received
those directions. No part of the costs will fall on him.”
“On whom then? for I’ve not a stiver to give you, if that’s your
hope.”
“I am not at liberty to explain farther,” replied the solicitor. “But
it is sufficient for you to know, that I do not intend any demand on
you, and am myself quite easy on the subject. With respect to your
uncle, the only communication I have had with him has been on the
subject of his daughter’s testimony. She was subpœnaed on the other
side, but from the conversation I had during my visit to your uncle,
I thought her testimony was so likely to be favourable to you, that,
upon hearing this, her previous distress was changed to eagerness on
the subject; and she now expresses perfect readiness to come forward.”
“Bless her! does she indeed?” said George, “and to speak in my
behalf! A word from her cannot fail to do me good: it must tell with
every one.”
After this they proceeded more in detail to arrange the particulars
of the defence. The same professional gentleman had, as he told
George, been to Bankside Farm, and upon expressing there the same
anonymous commission to spare no expense in the defence, Lucy knew
not to whom she could trace, at the same time, the will and the power
so to act, except, perhaps, to the Lady who had been so kind to her
at Hornscliff Abbey.
The evening preceding the day of trial at length arrived.
This was, as usual on such occasions, fixed for Friday, as was
considerately explained to George by the turnkey, that he might have
four-and-twenty hours more to prepare, in case of any awkward result,
as murderers must die within eight-and-forty hours of conviction;
and, as Sunday does not count, they, by this arrangement, gain one
day more.
Lucy came into the town on that evening, accompanied by her father,
and also by her aunt, who had upon this occasion made the effort
to leave a home from which she had never stirred for many years,
conceiving it to be her duty to support her beloved niece through
this painful trial, and knowing that, if she did not go, her
sister-in-law would have thought she must: and Alice was aware that
her mother’s presence must inevitably be the source of additional,
though unintentional, torment to Lucy. It was settled, that on
no account would it be proper for Lucy to visit George in prison,
even if her character of witness would not have prevented her from
obtaining admission; but Alice Darnell, by the indulgence of the
governor of the prison, had a long interview with her unfortunate
nephew, and, as he expressed himself, it was from that alone that
he had derived the only true consolation of which he had for long
partaken. But poor Alice’s efforts to maintain her composure before
him, combined with the unusual exertion which the whole expedition
had occasioned her, had so shattered her already broken spirits, that
she was utterly unequal to accompany her niece to court next morning,
and it was with her father alone, that Lucy attended there.
The Grand Jury had, the day before, found a “true bill” against
George Darnell for “wilful murder;” and against Christopher Collett,
and three other of the smugglers, as accessaries after the fact; and
had thrown out the bills against the others.