“’Tis the wisest way, upon all tender topics, to be silent; for he who
takes upon himself to defend a lady’s reputation, only publishes her
favours to the world.”—_Cumberland._
The wing of “Horton’s Inn” that contained the room of Dunscomb, was of
considerable extent, having quite a dozen rooms in it, though mostly of
the diminutive size of an American tavern bed-room. The best apartment
in it, one with two windows, and of some dimensions, was that
appropriated to the counsellor. The doctor and his party had a parlour,
with two bed-rooms; while, between these and the room occupied by
Dunscomb, was that of the troublesome guest—the individual who was said
to be insane. Most of the remainder of the wing, which was much the most
quiet and retired portion of the house, was used for a better class of
bed-rooms. There were two rooms, however, that the providence of Horton
and his wife had set apart for a very different purpose. These were
small parlours, in which the initiated smoked, drank, and played.
Nothing sooner indicates the school in which a man has been educated,
than his modes of seeking amusement. One who has been accustomed to see
innocent relaxation innocently indulged, from childhood up, is rarely
tempted to abuse those habits which have never been associated, in his
mind, with notions of guilt, and which, in themselves, necessarily imply
no moral delinquency. Among the liberal, cards, dancing, music, all
games of skill and chance that can interest the cultivated, and
drinking, in moderation and of suitable liquors, convey no ideas of
wrong doing. As they have been accustomed to them from early life, and
have seen them practised with decorum and a due regard to the habits of
refined society, there is no reason for concealment or consciousness. On
the other hand, an exaggerated morality, which has the temerity to
enlarge the circle of sin beyond the bounds for which it can find any
other warranty than its own metaphysical inferences, is very apt to
create a factitious conscience, that almost invariably takes refuge in
that vilest of all delinquency—direct hypocrisy. This, we take it, is
the reason that the reaction of ultra godliness so generally leaves its
subjects in the mire and sloughs of deception and degradation. The very
same acts assume different characters, in the hands of these two classes
of persons; and that which is perfectly innocent with the first,
affording a pleasant, and in that respect a useful relaxation, becomes
low, vicious, and dangerous with the other, because tainted with the
corrupting and most dangerous practices of deception. The private wing
of Horton’s inn, to which there has been allusion, furnished an example
in point of what we mean, within two hours of the adjournment of the
court.
In the parlour of Mrs. McBrain, late Dunscomb’s Widow Updyke, as he used
to call her, a little table was set in the middle of the room, at which
Dunscomb himself, the doctor, his new wife and Sarah were seated, at a
game of whist. The door was not locked, no countenance manifested either
a secret consciousness of wrong, or an overweening desire to transfer
another’s money to its owner’s pocket, although a sober sadness might be
said to reign in the party, the consequence of the interest all took in
the progress of the trial.
Within twenty feet of the spot just mentioned, and in the two little
parlours already named, was a very different set collected. It consisted
of the rowdies of the bar, perhaps two-thirds of the reporters in
attendance on Mary Monson’s trial, several suitors, four or five country
doctors, who had been summoned as witnesses, and such other equivocal
gentry as might aspire to belong to a set as polished and exclusive as
that we are describing. We will first give a moment’s attention to the
party around the whist-table, in the parlour first described.
“I do not think the prosecution has made out as well, to-day, all things
considered, as it was generally supposed it would,” observed McBrain.
“There is the ace of trumps, Miss Sarah, and if you can follow it with
the king, we shall get the odd trick.”
“I do not think I shall follow it with anything,” answered Sarah,
throwing down her cards. “It really seems heartless to be playing whist,
with a fellow-creature of our acquaintance on trial for her life.”
“I have not half liked the game,” said the quiet Mrs. McBrain, “but Mr.
Dunscomb seemed so much bent on a rubber, I scarce knew how to refuse
him.”
“Why, true enough, Tom,” put in the doctor, “this is all your doings,
and if there be anything wrong about it, you will have to bear the
blame.”
“Play anything but a trump, Miss Sarah, and _we_ get the game. You are
quite right, Ned”—throwing down the pack—“the prosecution has not done
as well as I feared they might. That Mrs. Pope was a witness I dreaded,
but her testimony amounts to very little, in itself; and what she has
said, has been pretty well shaken by her ignorance of the coin.”
“I really begin to hope the unfortunate lady may be innocent,” said the
doctor.
“Innocent!” exclaimed Sarah—“surely, uncle Ned, you can never have
doubted it!”
McBrain and Dunscomb exchanged significant glances, and the last was
about to answer, when raising his eyes, he saw a strange form glide
stealthily into the room, and place itself in a dark corner. It was a
short, sturdy figure of a man, with all those signs of squalid misery in
his countenance and dress that usually denote mental imbecility. He
seemed anxious to conceal himself, and did succeed in getting more than
half of his person beneath a shawl of Sarah’s, ere he was seen by any of
the party but the counsellor. It at once occurred to the latter that
this was the being who had more than once disturbed him by his noise,
and who Mrs. Horton had pretty plainly intimated was out of his mind;
though she had maintained a singularly discreet silence for her,
touching his history and future prospects. She believed “he had been
brought to court by his friends, to get some order, or judgment—may be,
his visit had something to do with the new code, about which ’Squire
Dunscomb said so many hard things.”
A little scream from Sarah soon apprised all in the room of the presence
of this disgusting-looking object. She snatched away her shawl, leaving
the idiot, or madman, or whatever he might be, fully exposed to view,
and retreated, herself, behind her uncle’s chair.
“I fancy you have mistaken your room, my friend,” said Dunscomb, mildly.
“This, as you see, is engaged by a card-party—I take it, you do not
play.”
A look of cunning left very little doubt of the nature of the malady
with which this unfortunate being was afflicted. He made a clutch at the
cards, laughed, then drew back, and began to mutter.
“She won’t let me play,” mumbled the idiot—“she never _would_.”
“Whom do you mean by she?” asked Dunscomb. “Is it any one in this
house—Mrs. Horton, for instance?”
Another cunning look, with a shake of the head, for an answer in the
negative.
“Be you ’Squire Dunscomb, the great York lawyer?” asked the stranger,
with interest.
“Dunscomb is certainly my name—though I have not the pleasure of knowing
yours.”
“I haven’t got any name. They may ask me from morning to night, and I
won’t tell. She won’t let me.”
“By _she_, you again mean Mrs. Horton, I suppose?”
“No I don’t. Mrs. Horton’s a _good_ woman; she gives me victuals and
drink.”
“Tell us whom you do mean, then.”
“Won’t you tell?”
“Not unless it be improper to keep the secret. Who is this _she_?”
“Why, _she_.”
“Ay, but who?”
“Mary Monson. If you’re the great lawyer from York, and they say you be,
you must know all about Mary Monson.”
“This is very extraordinary!” said Dunscomb, regarding his companion, in
surprise. “I _do_ know something about Mary Monson, but not _all_ about
her. Can you tell me anything?”
Here the stranger advanced a little from his corner, listened, as if
fearful of being surprised, then laid a finger on his lip, and made the
familiar sound for ‘hush.’
“Don’t let her hear you; if you do, you may be sorry for it. She’s a
witch!”
“Poor fellow!—she seems, in truth, to have bewitched you, as I dare say
she may have done many another man.”
“That has she! I wish you’d tell me what I want to know, if you really
be the great lawyer from York.”
“Put your questions, my friend; I’ll endeavour to answer them.”
“Who set fire to the house? Can you tell me _that_?”
“That is a secret yet to be discovered—do you happen to know anything
about it?”
“Do I?—I think I do. Ask Mary Monson; _she_ can tell you.”
All this was so strange, that the whole party now gazed at each other in
mute astonishment; McBrain bending his looks more intently on the
stranger, in order to ascertain the true nature of the mental malady
with which he was obviously afflicted. In some respects the disease wore
the appearance of idiocy; then again there were gleams of the
countenance that savoured of absolute madness.
“You are of opinion, then, that Mary Monson knows who set fire to the
house.”
“Sartain, she does. I know, too, but I won’t tell. They might want to
hang me, as well as Mary Monson, if I told. I know too much to do
anything so foolish. Mary has said they would hang _me_, if I tell. I
don’t want to be hanged, a bit.”
A shudder from Sarah betrayed the effect of these words on the
listeners; and Mrs. McBrain actually rose with the intention of sending
for her daughter, who was then in the gaol, consoling the much-injured
prisoner, as Anna Updyke firmly believed her to be, by her gentle but
firm friendship. A word from the doctor, however, induced her to resume
her seat, and to await the result with a greater degree of patience.
“Mary Monson would seem to be a very prudent counsellor,” rejoined
Dunscomb.
“Yes; but she isn’t the great counsellor from York—you be that
gentleman, they tell me.”
“May I ask who told you anything about me?”
“Nancy Horton—and so did Mary Monson. Nancy said if I made so much
noise, I should disturb the great counsellor from York, and he might get
me hanged for it. I was only singing hymns, and they say it is good for
folks in trouble to sing hymns. If you be the great counsellor from
York, I wish you would tell me one thing. Who got the gold that was in
the stocking?”
“Do you happen to know anything of that stocking, or of the gold?”
“Do I—” looking first over one shoulder, then over the other, but
hesitating to proceed. “Will they hang me, if I tell?”
“I should think not; though I can only give you an opinion. Do not
answer, unless it be agreeable to you.”
“I want to tell—I want to tell _all_, but I’m afeard. I don’t want to be
hanged.”
“Well, then, speak out boldly, and I will promise that you shall not be
hanged. Who got the gold that was in the stocking?”
“Mary Monson. That’s the way she has got so much money.”
“I cannot consent to leave Anna another instant in such company!”
exclaimed the anxious mother. “Go, McBrain, and bring her hither at
once.”
“You are a little premature,” coolly remarked Dunscomb. “This is but a
person of weak mind; and too much importance should not be attached to
his words. Let us hear what further he may have to say.”
It was too late. The footstep of Mrs. Horton was heard in the passage;
and the extraordinary being vanished as suddenly and as stealthily as he
had entered.
“What can be made of this?” McBrain demanded, when a moment had been
taken to reflect.
“Nothing, Ned; I care not if Williams knew it all. The testimony of such
a man cannot be listened to for an instant. It is wrong in us to give it
a second thought; though I perceive that you do. Half the mischief in
the world is caused by misconceptions, arising from a very numerous
family of causes; one of which is a disposition to fancy a great deal
from a little. Do you pronounce the man an idiot—or is he a madman?”
“He does not strike me as absolutely either. There is something peculiar
in his case; and I shall ask permission to look into it. I suppose we
are done with the cards—shall I go for Anna?”
The anxious mother gave a ready assent; and McBrain went one way, while
Dunscomb retired to his own room, not without stopping before his
neighbour’s door, whom he heard muttering and menacing within.
All this time the two little parlours mentioned were receiving their
company. The law is doubtless a very elevated profession, when its
practice is on a scale commensurate with its true objects. It becomes a
very different pursuit, however, when its higher walks are abandoned, to
choose a path amid its thickets and quagmires. Perhaps no human pursuit
causes a wider range of character among its votaries, than the practice
of this profession. In the first place, the difference, in an
intellectual point of view, between the man who sees only precedents,
and the man who sees the principles on which they are founded, is as
marked as the difference between black and white. To this great
distinction in mind, is to be added another that opens a still wider
chasm, the results of practice, and which depends on morals. While one
set of lawyers turn to the higher objects of their calling, declining
fees in cases of obviously questionable right, and struggle to maintain
their honesty in direct collision with the world and its temptations,
another, and much the largest, falls readily into the practices of their
craft—the word seems admirably suited to the subject—and live on,
encumbered and endangered not only by their own natural vices, but
greatly damaged by those that in a manner they adopt, as it might be _ex
officio_. This latter course is unfortunately that taken by a vast
number of the members of the bar all over the world, rendering them
loose in their social morality, ready to lend themselves and their
talents to the highest bidder, and causing them to be at first
indifferent, and in the end blind, to the great features of right and
wrong. These are the moralists who advance the doctrine that “the
advocate has a right to act as his client would act;” while the class
first named allow that “the advocate has a right to do what his client
_has_ a _right_ to do,” and no more.
Perhaps there was not a single member of the profession present that
night in the two little parlours of Mrs. Horton, who recognized the
latter of these rules; or who did not, at need, practise on the former.
As has been already said, these were the rowdies of the Duke’s county
bar. They chewed, smoked, drank, and played, each and all coarsely. To
things that were innocent in themselves they gave the aspect of guilt by
their own manners. The doors were kept locked; even amid their coarsest
jokes, their ribaldry, their oaths that were often revolting and
painfully frequent, there was an uneasy watchfulness, as if they feared
detection. There was nothing frank and manly in the deportment of these
men. Chicanery, management, double-dealing, mixed up with the
outbreakings of a coarse standard of manners, were visible in all they
said or did, except, perhaps, at those moments when hypocrisy was paying
its homage to virtue. This hypocrisy, however, had little, or at most a
very indirect connection with anything religious. The offensive
offshoots of the exaggerations that were so abounding among us half a
century since, are giving place to hypocrisy of another school. The
homage that was then paid to principles, however erroneous and
forbidding, is now paid to the ballot-boxes. There was scarcely an
individual around those card-tables, at which the play was so obviously
for the stakes as to render the whole scene revolting, who would not
have shrunk from having his amusements known. It would seem as if
conscience consulted taste. Everything was coarse and offensive; the
attitudes, oaths, conversation, liquors, and even the manner of drinking
them. Apart from the dialogue, little was absolutely done that might not
have been made to lose most of its repulsiveness, by adopting a higher
school of manners; but of this these scions of a noble stock knew no
more than they did of the parent stem.
It is scarcely necessary to say that both Williams and Timms were of
this party. The relaxation was, in fact, in conformity with their tastes
and practices; and each of these excrescences of a rich and beneficent
soil counted on the meetings in Mrs. Horton’s private rooms, as the more
refined seek pleasure in the exercise of their tastes and habits.
“I say, Timms,” bawled out an attorney of the name of Crooks—“You play’d
a trump, sir—all right—go ahead—first rate—good play, that—ours dead. I
say, Timms, you’re going to save Mary Monson’s neck. When I came here, I
thought she was a case; but the prosecution is making out miserably.”
“What do you say to that, Williams?” put in Crooks’s partner, who was
smoking, playing, and drinking, with occasional ‘asides’ of swearing,
all, as might be, at the same time. “I trump that, sir, by your
leave—what do you say to that, Williams?”
“I say that this is not the court; and trying such a cause once ought to
satisfy a reasonable man.”
“He’s afraid of showing his hand, which I am not,” put in another,
exposing his cards as he spoke. “Williams always has some spare trumps,
however, to get him out of all his difficulties.”
“Yes, Williams has a spare trump, and there it is, giving me the trick,”
answered the saucy lawyer, as coolly as if he had been engaged in an
inferior slander-suit. “I shall be at Timms pretty much by the same
process to-morrow.”
“Then you will do more than you have done to-day, Master Williams. This
Mrs. Jane Pope _may be_ a trump, but she is not the ace. I never knew a
witness break down more completely.”
“We’ll find the means to set her up again—I think that knave is yours,
Green—yes, I now see my game, which is to take it with the queen—very
much, Timms, as we shall beat you to-morrow. I keep my trump card always
for the last play, you know.”
“Come, come, Williams,” put in the oldest, member of the bar, a man
whose passions were cooled by time, and who had more gravity than most
of his companions—“Come, come, Williams, this is a trial for a life, and
joking is a little out of place.”
“I believe there is no juror present, Mr. Marvin, which is all the
reserve the law exacts.”
“Although the law may tolerate this levity, feeling will not. The
prisoner is a fine young woman; and for my part, though I wish to say
nothing that may influence any one’s opinion, I have heard nothing yet
to justify an indictment, much less a conviction.”
Williams laid down his cards, rose, stretched his arms, gaped, and
taking Timms by the arm, he led the latter from the room. Not content
with this, the wary limb of the law continued to move forward, until he
and his companion were in the open air.
“It is always better to talk secrets outside than inside of a house,”
observed Williams, as soon as they were at a safe distance from the
inn-door. “It is not too late yet, Timms—you must see how weak we are,
and how bunglingly the District Attorney has led off. Half those jurors
will sleep to-night with a feeling that Mary Monson has been hardly
dealt by.”
“They may do the same to-morrow night, and every night in the month,”
answered Timms.
“Not unless the arrangement is made. We have testimony enough to hang
the governor.”
“Show us your list of witnesses, then, that we may judge of this for
ourselves.”
“That would never do. They might be bought off for half the money that
is necessary to take us out of the field. Five thousand dollars can be
no great matter for such a woman and her friends.”
“Whom do you suppose to be her friends, Williams?—If you know them, you
are better informed than her own counsel.”
“Yes, and a pretty point _that_ will make, when pressed against you. No,
no, Timms; your client has been ill-advised, or she is unaccountably
obstinate. She has friends, although you may not know who they are; and
friends who can, and who _would_ very promptly help her, if she would
consent to ask their assistance. Indeed, I suspect she has cash enough
on hand to buy us off.”
“Five thousand dollars is a large sum, Williams, and is not often to be
found in Biberry gaol. But, if Mary Monson has these friends, name them,
that we may apply for their assistance.”
“Harkee, Timms; you are not a man so ignorant of what is going on in the
world, as to require to be told the letters of the alphabet. You know
that there are extensive associations of rogues in this young country,
as well as in most that are older.”
“What has that to do with Mary Monson and our case?”
“Everything. This Mary Monson has been sent here to get at the gold of
the poor old dolt, who has not been able to conceal her treasure after
it was hoarded. She made a sub-treasury of her stocking, and exhibited
the coin, like any other sub-treasurer. Many persons like to look at it,
just to feast their eyes.”
“More to finger it; and you are of the number, Williams!”
“I admit it. The weakness is general in the profession, I believe. But
this is idle talk, and we are losing very precious time. Will you, or
will you not, apply again to your client for the money?”
“Answer me candidly, a question or two, and I will do as you desire. You
know, Williams, that we are old friends, and never had any serious
difficulty since we have been called to the bar.”
“Oh, assuredly,” answered Williams, with an ironical smile that it might
have been fortunate for the negotiation the obscurity concealed from his
companion; “excellent friends from the beginning, Timms, and likely to
continue so, I trust, to the last. Men who _know_ each other as well as
you and I, ought to be on the best of terms. For my part, I never
harboured a wrangle at the bar in my mind five minutes after I left the
court. Now for your question.”
“You surely do not set down Mary Monson as the stool pigeon of a set of
York thieves!”
“Who, or what else can she be, Mr. Timms? Better educated, and belonging
to an ‘upper ten’ in villany, but of a company of rogues. Now, these
knaves stand by each other much more faithfully than the body of the
citizens stand by the law; and the five thousand will be forthcoming for
the asking.”
“Are you serious in wishing me to believe you think my client guilty!”
Here Williams made no bones of laughing outright. It is true that he
suppressed the noise immediately, lest it should attract attention; but
laugh he did, and with right good will.
“Come, Timms, you have asked your question, and I leave you to answer it
yourself. One thing I will say, however, in the way of admonition, which
is this—we shall make out such a case against her to-morrow as would
hang a governor, as I have already told you.”
“I believe you’ve done your worst already—why not let me know the names
of your witnesses?”
“You know the reason. We wish the whole sum ourselves, and have no fancy
to its being scattered all over Duke’s. I give you my honour, Timms—and
you know what _that_ is—I give you my honour that we hold this testimony
in reserve.”
“In which case the District Attorney will bring the witnesses on the
stand; and we shall gain nothing, after all, by your withdrawal.”
“The District Attorney has left the case very much to me. I have
prepared his brief, and have taken care to keep to myself enough to turn
the scales. If I quit, Mary Monson will be acquitted—if I stay, she will
be hanged. A pardon for _her_ will be out of the question—she is too
high among the ‘upper ten’ to expect _that_—besides, she is not an
anti-renter.”
“I wonder the thieves do not combine, as well as other folks, and
control votes!”
“They do—these anti-renters belong to the gangs, and have already got
their representatives in high places. They are ‘land-pirates,’ while
_your_ client goes for the old stockings. The difference in principle is
by no means important, as any clear-headed man may see. It is getting
late, Timms.”
“I cannot believe that Mary Monson is the sort of person you take her
for! Williams, I’ve always looked upon you, and treated you, as a
friend. You may remember how I stood by you in the Middlebury case?”
“Certainly—you did your duty by me in that matter, and I have not forgot
it.”
The cause alluded to was an action for a “breach of promise,” which, at
one time, threatened all of Williams’s “future usefulness,” as it is
termed; but which was put to sleep in the end by means of Timms’s
dexterity in managing the “out-door” points of a difficult case.
“Well, then, be _my_ friend in this matter. I will be honest with you,
and acknowledge that, as regards my client, I have had—that is provided
she is acquitted, and her character comes out fair—that I have had—and
_still_ have, for that matter—what——”
“Are called ‘ulterior views.’ I understand you, Timms, and have
suspected as much these ten days. A great deal depends on what you
consider a fair character. Taking the best view of her situation, Mary
Monson will have been tried for murder and arson.”
“Not if acquitted of the first. I have the District Attorney’s promise
to consent to a _nolle prosequi_ on the last indictment, if we traverse
the first successfully.”
“In which case Mary Monson will have been tried for murder only,”
returned Williams, smiling. “Do you really think, Timms, that your heart
is soft enough to receive and retain an impression as deep as that made
by the seal of the court?”
“If I thought, as you do, that my client is or has been connected with
thieves, and burglars, and counterfeiters, I would not think of her for
a moment as a wife. But there is a vast difference between a person
overtaken by sudden temptation and one who sins on calculation, and by
regular habit. Now, in my own case, I sometimes act wrong—yes, I admit
as much as that——”
“It is quite unnecessary,” said Williams, drily.
“It is not according to Christian doctrine to visit old offences on a
sinner’s head, when repentance has washed away the crime.”
“Which means, Timms, that you will marry Mary Monson, although she may
be guilty; provided always, that two very important contingencies are
favourably disposed of.”
“What contingencies do you allude to, Williams? I know of none.”
“One is, provided she will have you; the other is, provided she is not
hanged.”
“As to the first, I have no great apprehension; women that have been
once before a court, on a trial for a capital offence, are not very
particular. On my side, it will be easy enough to persuade the public
that, as counsel in a most interesting case, I became intimately
acquainted with her virtues, touched by her misfortunes, captivated by
her beauty and accomplishments, and finally overcome by her charms. I
don’t think, Williams, that such an explanation would fail of its
effect, before a caucus even. Men are always favourably disposed to
those they think worse off than they are themselves. A good deal of
capital is made on that principle.”
“I do not know that it would. Now-a-days the elections generally turn
more on public principles than on private conduct. The Americans are a
most forgiving people, unless you tell them the _truth_. _That_ they
will not pardon.”
“Nor any other nation, I fancy. Human natur’ revolts at it. But
_that_”—snapping his fingers—“for your elections; it is the caucuses
that I lay myself out to meet. Give me the _nomination_, and I am as
certain of my seat as, in the old countries, a first-born is to his
father’s throne.”
“It is pretty safe as a rule, I allow; but nominations sometimes fail.”
“Not when regular, and made on proper principles. A nomination is almost
as good as popularity.”
“Often better; for men are just asses enough to work in the collar of
party, even when overloaded. But all this time the night is wearing
away. If I go into court in the morning, it will be too late. This thing
must be settled at once, and that in a very explicit manner.”
“I wish I knew what you have picked up concerning Mary Monson’s early
life!” said Timms, like a man struggling with doubt.
“You have heard the rumour as well as myself. Some say she is a wife
already; while others think her a rich widow. My opinion you know; I
believe her to be the stool-pigeon of a York gang, and no better than
she should be.”
This was plain language to be addressed to a lover; and Williams meant
it to be so. He had that sort of regard for Timms which proceeds from a
community in practices, and was disposed to regret that a man with whom
he had been so long connected, either as an associate or an antagonist,
should marry a woman of the pursuits that he firmly believed marked the
career of Mary Monson.
The gentlemen of the bar are no more to be judged by appearances than
the rest of mankind. They will wrangle, and seem to be at sword’s points
with each other, at one moment; when the next may find them pulling
together in harmony in the next case on the calendar. It was under this
sort of feeling that Williams had a species of friendship for his
companion.
“I will try, Williams,” said the last, turning towards the gaol. “Yes, I
will make one more trial.”
“Do, my good fellow—and, Timms—remember one thing, you can never marry a
woman that has been hanged.”