Mr. Hardie suppressed a start, and said nothing. Skinner bowed low with a mixture of his old cringing way, and a certain sly triumphant leer, so that his body seemed to say one thing, and his face the opposite. Mr. Hardie eyed him, and saw that his coat was rusty, and his hat napless: then Mr. Hardie smelt a beggar, and prepared to parry all attempts upon his purse.
“I hope I see my old master well,” said Skinner coaxingly.
“Pretty well in body, Skinner; thank you.”
“I had a deal of trouble to find you, sir. But I heard of the great lawsuit between Mr. Alfred and you, and I knew Mr. Heathfield was your solicitor; so I watched at his place day after day: and at last you came. Oh, I was so pleased when I saw your noble figure; but I wouldn't speak to you in the street for fear of disgracing you. I'm such a poor little guy to be addressing a gentleman like you.”
Now this sounded well on the surface, but below there was a subtle something Mr. Hardie did not like at all: but he took the cue, and said, “My poor Skinner, do you think I would turn up my nose at a faithful old servant like you? Have a glass of wine with me, and tell me how you have been getting on.” He went behind a screen and opened a door, and soon returned with a decanter, leaving the door open. Now in the next room sat, unbeknown to Skinner, a young woman with white eyelashes, sewing buttons on Mr. Hardie's shirts. That astute gentleman gave her instructions, and important ones too, with a silent gesture; then reappeared and filled the bumper high to his faithful servant. They drank one another's healths with great cordiality, real or apparent. Mr. Hardie then asked Skinner carelessly, if he could do anything for him. Skinner said, “Well, sir, I am very poor.”
“So am I, between you and me,” said Mr. Hardie confidentially; “I don't mind telling you; those confounded Commissioners of Lunacy wrote to Alfred's trustees, and I have been forced to replace a loan of five thousand pounds. That Board always sides with the insane. That crippled me, and drove me to the Exchange: and now what I had left is all invested in time-bargains. A month settles my fate: a little fortune, or absolute beggary.”
“You'll be lucky, sir, you'll be lucky,” said Skinner cheerfully; “you have such a long head; not like poor little me; the Exchange soon burnt my wings. Not a shilling left of the thousand pounds, sir, you were so good as to give me for my faithful services. But you will give me another chance, sir, I know; I'll take better care this time.” Mr. Hardie shook his head sorrowfully, and said it was impossible. Skinner eyed him askant, and remarked quietly, and half aside, “Of course, I could go to the other party: but I shouldn't like to do that. They would come down handsome.”
“What other party?”
“La, sir, what other party? Why Mrs. Dodd's, or Mr. Alfred's; here's the trial coming on, you know, and of course if they could get me to go on the box and tell all I know, or half what I know, why the judge and jury would say locking Mr. Alfred up for mad was a conspiracy.”
Mr. Hardie quaked internally: but he hid it grandly, and once more was a Spartan gnawed beneath his robe by this little fox. “What,” said he sternly, “after all I and mine have done for you and yours, would you be so base as to go and sell yourself to my enemies?”
“Never, sir,” shouted Skinner zealously: then in a whisper, “Not if you'll make a bid for me.”
“How much do you demand?”
“Only another thousand, sir?”
“A thousand pounds!”
“Why, what is that to you, sir? you are rich enough to buy the eighth commandment out of the tables of ten per cent.: and then the lawsuit, Hardies versus Hardies!”
“You have spoken plainly at last,” said Mr. Hardie grimly. “This is extorting money by threats. Do you know that nothing is more criminal, nor more easy to punish? I can take you before a magistrate, and imprison you on the instant for this attempt. I will, too.”
“Try it,” said Skinner coolly. “Where's your witness?”
“Behind that screen.”
Peggy came forward directly with a pen in her hand. Skinner was manifestly startled and disconcerted. “I have taken all your words down, Mr. Skinner,” said Peggy softly; then to her master, “Shall I go for a policeman, sir?”
Mr. Hardie reflected. “Yes,” said he sternly: “there's no other course with such a lump of treachery and ingratitude as this.”
Peggy whipped on her bonnet.
“What a hurry you are in,” whined Skinner: “a policeman ought to be the last argument for old friends to run to.” Then, fawning spitefully, “Don't talk of indicting me, sir,” said he; “it makes me shiver: why how will you look when I up and tell them all how Captain Dodd was took with apoplexy in our office, and how you nailed fourteen thousand pounds off his senseless body, and forgot to put them down in your balance-sheet, so they are not whitewashed off like the rest.”
“Any witnesses to all this, Skinner?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who?”
“Well; your own conscience for one,” said Skinner.
“He is mad, Peggy,” said Mr. Hardie, shrugging his shoulders. He then looked Skinner full in the face, and said, “Nobody was ever seized with apoplexy in my office. Nobody ever gave me L. 14,000. And if this is the probable tale with which you come here to break the law and extort money, leave my house this instant: and if ever you dare to utter this absurd and malicious slander, you shall lie within four stone walls, and learn what it is for a shabby vagabond to come without a witness to his back, and libel a man of property and honour.”
Skinner let him run on in this loud triumphant strain till he had quite done; then put out a brown skinny finger, and poked him lightly in the ribs, and said quite quietly, and oh, so drily, with a knowing wink—
“I've—got—The Receipt.”
CHAPTER LI
MR. HARDIE collapsed as if he had been a man inflated, and that touch had punctured him. “Ah!” said he. “Ah!” said Skinner, in a mighty different tone: insolent triumph to wit.
After a pause, Mr. Hardie made an effort and said contemptuously, “The receipt (if any) was flung into the dusthole and carried away. Do you think I have forgotten that?”
“Don't you believe it, sir,” was the reply. “While you turned your back and sacked the money, I said to myself, 'Oho, is that the game?' and nailed the receipt. What a couple of scoundrels we were! I wouldn't have her know it for all your money. Come, sir, I see its all right; you will shell out sooner than be posted.”
Here Peggy interposed; “Mr. Skinner, be more considerate; my master is really poor just now.”
“That is no reason why I should be insulted and indicted and trampled under foot,” snarled Skinner all in one breath.
“Show me the receipt and take my last shilling, you ungrateful, vindictive viper,” groaned Mr. Hardie.
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Skinner. “I'm not a viper; I'm a man of business. Find me five hundred pounds; and I'll show you the receipt and keep dark. But I can't afford to give it you for that, of course.”
Skinner triumphed, and made the great man apologise, writhing all the time, and wishing he was a day labourer with Peggy to wife, and fourteen honest shillings a week for his income. Having eaten humble pie, he agreed to meet Skinner next Wednesday at midnight, alone, under a certain lamp on the North Kensington Road: the interval (four days) he required to raise money upon his scrip. Skinner bowed himself out, fawning triumphantly. Mr. Hardie stood in the middle of the room motionless, scowling darkly. Peggy looked at him, and saw some dark and sinister resolve forming in his mind: she divined it, as such women can divine. She laid her hand on his arm, and said softly, “Richard, it's not worth that.” He started to find his soul read through his body so clearly. He trembled.
But it was only for a moment. “His blood be on his own head,” he snarled. “This is not my seeking. He shall learn what it is to drive Richard Hardie to despair.”
“No, no,” implored Peggy; “there are other countries beside this: why not gather all you have, and cross the water? I'll follow you to the world's end, Richard.”
“Mind your own business,” said he fiercely.
She made no reply, but went softly and sat down again, and sewed the buttons on his shirts. Mr. Hardie wrote to Messrs. Heathfield to get Hardie v. Hardie tried as soon as possible.
Meantime came a mental phenomenon: gliding down Sackville Street, victorious Skinner suddenly stopped, and clenched his hands; and his face writhed as if he had received a death-wound. In that instant Remorse had struck him like lightning; and, perhaps, whence comes the lightning. The sweet face and voice that had smiled on him, and cared for his body, and cared for his soul, came to his mind, and knocked at his heart and conscience. He went home miserable with an inward conflict; and it lasted him all the four days; sometimes Remorse got the better, sometimes Avarice. He came to the interview still undecided what he should do. But, meantime, he had gone to a lawyer and made his will, leaving his little all to Julia Dodd: a bad sign this; looked like compounding with his awakened conscience.
It was a dark and gusty night. Very few people were about. Skinner waited a little while, and shivered, for his avarice had postponed the purchase of a greatcoat until Christmas Day. At last, when the coast seemed clear, Mr. Hardie emerged from a side street. Skinner put his hand to his bosom.
They met. Mr. Hardie said quietly, “I must ask you, just for form, to show me you have the Receipt.”
“Of course, sir; but not so near, please: no snatching, if I know it.”
“You are wonderfully suspicious,” said Mr. Hardie, trying to smile.
Skinner looked, and saw by the lamplight he was deadly pale. “Keep your distance a moment, sir,” said he, and, on Mr. Hardie's complying, took the Receipt out, and held it under the lamp.
Instantly Mr. Hardie drew a life-preserver, and sprang on him with a savage curse—and uttered a shriek of dismay, for he was met by the long shiny barrel of a horse-pistol, that Skinner drew from his bosom, and levelled full in the haggard face that came at him. Mr. Hardie recoiled, crying, “No! no! for Heaven's sake!”
“What!” cried Skinner, stepping forward and hissing, “do you think I'm such a fool as to meet a thief unarmed? Come, cash up, or I'll blow you to atoms.”
“No, no, no!” said Mr. Hardie piteously, retreating as Skinner marched on him with long extended pistol. “Skinner,” he stammered, “th-this is n-not b-b-business.”
“Cash up, then; that's business. Fling the five hundred pounds down, and walk away. Mind it is loaded with two bullets; I'll make a double entry on your great treacherous carcass.”
“It's no use trying to deceive such a man as you,” said Mr. Hardie, playing on his vanity. “I could not get the money before Saturday, and so I listened to the dictates of despair. Forgive me.”
“Then come again Saturday night. Come alone, and I shall bring a man to see I'm not murdered. And look here, sir, if you don't come to the hour and do the right thing without any more of these unbusiness-like tricks, by Heaven, I'll smash you before noon on Monday.”
“I'll come.”
“I'll blow you to Mr. Alfred and Miss Dodd.”
“I'll come, I tell you.”
“I'll post you for a thief on every brick in the Exchange.”
“Have mercy, Skinner. Have pity on the wretched man whose bread you have eaten. I tell you I'll come.”
“Well, mind you do, then, cash and all,” said Skinner sulkily, but not quite proof against the reminiscences those humble words awakened.
Each walked backwards a good dozen steps, and then they took different roads, Skinner taking good care not to be tracked home. He went up the high stairs to the hole in the roof he occupied, and lighted a rushlight. He had half a mind to kindle a fire, he felt so chilly; but he had blocked up the vent, partly to keep out the cold, partly to shun the temptation of burning fuel. However, he stopped the keyhole with paper, and also the sides of the window, till he had shut the wintry air all out. Still, what with the cold and what with the reaction after so great an excitement, his feeble body began to shiver desperately. He thought at last he would light a foot-warmer he had just purchased for old iron at a broker's; that would only spend a halfpenneyworth of charcoal. No, he wouldn't; he would look at his money; that would cheer him. He unripped a certain part of his straw mattress and took out a bag of gold. He spread three hundred sovereigns on the floor and put the candle down among them. They sparkled; they were all new ones, and he rubbed them with an old toothbrush and whiting every week. “That's better than any fire,” he said, “they warm the heart. For one thing, they are my own: at all events, I did not steal them, nor take them of a thief for a bribe to keep dark and defraud honest folk.” Then remorse gripped him: he asked himself what he was going to do. “To rob an angel,” was the answer. “The fourteen thousand pounds is all hers, and I could give it her in a moment. Curse him, he would have killed me for it.”
Then he pottered about and took out his will. “Ah,” said he, “that is all right so far. But what is a paltry three hundred when I help do her out of fourteen thousand? Villain!” Then, to ease his conscience, he took a slip of paper and wrote on it a short account of the Receipt, and how he came by it, and lo: as if an unseen power had guided his hand, he added, “Miss Dodd lives at 66, Pembroke Street, and I am going to take it to her as soon as I am well of my cold.” Whether this preceded an unconscious resolve which had worked on him secretly for some time, or whether it awakened such a resolve, I hardly know: but certain it is, that having written it, he now thought seriously of doing it; and, the more seriously he entertained the thought, the more good it seemed to do him. He got “The Sinner's Friend” and another good book she had lent him, and read a bit: then, finding his feet frozen, he lighted his chafer and blew it well, and put it under his feet and read. The good words began to reach his heart more and more: so did the thought of Julia's goodness. The chafer warmed his feet and legs. “Ay,” said he, “men don't want fires; warm the feet and the body warms itself.” He took out “The Receipt” and held it in his hand, and eyed it greedily, and asked himself could he really part with it. He thought he could—to Julia. Still holding it tight in his left hand, he read on the good but solemn words that seemed to loosen his grasp upon that ill-gotten paper. “How good it was of her,” he thought, “to come day after day and feed a poor little fellow like him, body and soul. She asked nothing back. She didn't know he could make her any return. Bless her! bless her!” he screamed. “Oh, how cruel I have been to her, and she so kind to me. She would never let me want, if I took her fourteen thousand pounds. Like enough give me a thousand, and help me save my poor soul, that I shall damn if I meet him again. I won't go his way again. Lead us not into temptation. I repent. Lord have mercy on me a miserable sinner.” And tears bedewed those wizened cheeks, tears of penitence, sincere, at least for the time.
A sleepy languor now came over him, and the good book fell from his hand; but his resolution remained unshaken. By-and-by waking up from a sort of heavy dose, he took, as it were, a last look at the receipt, and murmured, “My head, how heavy it feels.” But presently he roused himself, full of his penitent resolution, and murmured again brokenly, “I'll—-take it to—-Pembroke Street to—-morrow: to—-mor—-row.”
CHAPTER LII
MR. HARDIE raised the money on his scrip, and at great inconvenience, for he was holding on five hundred thousand pounds' worth of old Turkish Bonds over an unfavourable settling day, and wanted every shilling to pay his broker. If they did not rise by next settling day, he was a beggar. However, being now a desperate gamester, and throwing for his last stake, he borrowed this sum, and took it within a heavy heart to his appointment with Skinner. Skinner never came. Mr. Hardie waited till one o'clock. Two o'clock. No Skinner. Mr. Hardie went home hugging his five hundred pounds, but very uneasy. Next day he consulted Peggy. She shook her head, and said it looked very ugly. Skinner had most likely got angrier and angrier with thinking on the assault. “You will never see him again till the day of the trial: and then he will go down and bear false witness against you. Why not leave the country?”
“How can I, simpleton? My money is all locked up in the bargains. No, I'm tied, tied to the stake; I'll fight to the last: and, if I'm defeated and disgraced, I'll die, and end it.”
Peggy implored him not to talk so. “I've been down to the court,” said she softly, “to see what it is like. There's a great hall; and he must pass through that to get into the little places where they try 'em. Let me be in that hall with the five hundred pounds, and I promise you he shall never appear against you. We will both go; you with the money, I with my woman's tongue.”
He gave her his hand like a shaky monarch, and said she had more wit than he had.
Mr. Heathfield, who had contrived to postpone Hardie v. Hardie six times in spite of Compton, could not hurry it on now with his co-operation. It hung fire from some cause or another a good fortnight: and in this fortnight Hardie senior endured the tortures of suspense. Skinner made no sign. At last, there stood upon the paper for next day, a short case of disputed contract, and Hardie v. Hardie.
Now, this day, I must premise, was to settle the whole lawsuit: for while trial of the issue was being postponed and postponed, the legal question had been argued and disposed of. The very Queen's counsel, unfavourable to the suit, was briefed with Garrow's views, and delivered them in court with more skill, clearness, and effect than Garrow ever could; then sat down, and whispered over rather contemptuously to Mr. Compton, “That is your argument, I think.”
“And admirably put,” whispered the attorney, in reply.
“Well; now hear Saunders knock it to pieces.”
Instead of that, it was Serjeant Saunders that got maltreated: first one judge had a peck at him: then another: till they left him scarce a feather to fly with; and, when Alfred's counsel rose to reply, the judges stopped him, and the chief of the court, Alfred's postponing enemy, delivered his judgment after this fashion:
“We are all of opinion that this plea is bad in law. By the common law of England no person can be imprisoned as a lunatic unless actually insane at the time. It has been held so for centuries, and down to the last case. And wisely: for it would be most dangerous to the liberty of the subject, if a man could be imprisoned without remedy unless he could prove mala fides in the breast of the party incarcerating him. As for the statute, it does not mend the matter, but rather the reverse; for it expressly protects duly authorised persons acting under the order and certificates, and this must be construed to except from the protection of the statute the person making the order.”
The three puisne judges concurred and gave similar reasons. One of them said that if A. imprisoned B. for a felon, and B. sued him, it was no defence to say that B., in his opinion, had imitated felony. They cited Elliot v. Allen, Anderdon v. Burrows, and Lord Mansfield's judgment in a very old case, the name of which I have unfortunately forgotten.
Judgment was entered for the plaintiff; and the defendant's ingenious plea struck off the record; and Hardie v. Hardie became the leading case. But in law one party often wins the skirmish and the other the battle. The grand fight, as I have already said, was to be to-day.
But the high hopes and ardour with which the young lovers had once come into court were now worn out by the postponement swindle, and the adverse events delay had brought on them. Alfred was not there: he was being examined in the schools; and had plumply refused to leave a tribunal that named its day and kept it—for Westminster, until his counsel should have actually opened the case. He did not believe trial by jury would ever be allowed him. Julia was there, but sad and comparatively listless. One of those strange vague reports, which often herald more circumstantial accounts, had come home, whispering darkly that her father was dead, and buried on an island in the South Sea. She had kept this report from her mother, contrary to Edward's wish: but she implored him to restrain his fatal openness. In one thing both these sorely tried young people agreed, that there could be no marriage with Alfred now. But here again Julia entreated her brother not to be candid; not to tell Alfred this at present. “Oh do not go and dispirit him just now,” she said, “or he will do something rash. No, he must and shall get his first-class, and win his trial; and then you know any lady will be too proud to marry him, and, when he is married and happy, you can tell him I did all I could for him, and hunted up the witnesses, and was his loving friend, though I could not—be—his—wife.”
She could not say this without crying; but she said it for all that, and meant it too.
Besides helping Mr. Compton to get up the evidence, this true and earnest friend and lover had attended the court day after day, to watch how things were done, and, womanlike, to see what pleased and what displeased the court.
The witnesses subpoenaed on either side in Hardie v. Hardie began to arrive at ten o'clock, and a tall stately man paraded Westminster Hall, to see if Skinner came with them. All other anxieties had merged in this: for the counsel had assured him if nothing unexpected turned up, Thomas Hardie would have a verdict, or if not, the damages would be nominal.
At last the court crier cried, with a loud voice, “Hardie v. Hardie.” Julia's eyes roved very anxiously for Alfred, and up rose Mr. Garrow, and stated to the court the substance of the declaration: “To this,” he said, “three pleas have been pleaded: first, the plea of not guilty, which is a formal plea; also another plea, which has been demurred to, and struck off the record; and, lastly, that at the time of the alleged imprisonment the plaintiff was of unsound mind, and a fit person to be confined; which is the issue now to be tried.”
Mr. Garrow then sat down, very tired of this preliminary work, and wondering when he should have the luck to conduct such a case as Hardie v. Hardie; and leaned forward to be ready to prompt his senior, a portly counsel, whom Mr. Compton had retained because he was great at addressing juries, and no point of law could now arise in the Case.
Colt, Q. C., rose like a tower, knowing very little of the facts, and seeming to know everything. He had a prodigious business, and was rather indolent, and often skimmed his brief at home, and then mastered it in court—if he got time. Now, it is a good general's policy to open a plaintiffs case warily, and reserve your rhetoric for the reply; and Mr. Colt always took this line when his manifold engagements compelled him, as in Hardie v. Hardie, to teach his case first and learn it afterwards. I will only add, that in the course of his opening he was on the edge of seven distinct blunders; but Garrow watched him and always shot a whisper like a bullet just in time. Colt took it, and glided away from incipient error imperceptibly, and with a tact you can have no conception of. The jury did not detect the creaking of this machinery; Serjeant Saunders did, and grinned satirically; so did poor Julia, and her cheeks burned and her eyes flashed indignant fire. And horror of horrors, Alfred did not appear.
Mr. Colt's opening may be thus condensed: The plaintiff was a young gentleman of great promise and distinction, on whom, as usual in these cases of false imprisonment, money was settled. He was a distinguished student at Eton and Oxford, and no doubt was ever expressed of his sanity till he proposed to marry, and take his money out of his trustees hands by a marriage settlement. On this his father, who up to that time had managed his funds as principal trustee, showed him great personal hostility for some time, and looked out for a tool: that tool he soon found in his brother, the defendant, a person who, it would be proved, had actually not seen the plaintiff for a year and a half, yet, with great recklessness and inhumanity, had signed away his liberty and his happiness behind his back. Then tools of another kind—the kind that anybody can buy, a couple of doctors—were, as usual, easily found to sign the certificates. One of these doctors had never seen him but for five minutes, and signed in manifest collusion with the other. They decoyed this poor young gentleman away on his wedding morning—on his wedding morning, gentlemen, mark that—and consigned him to the worst of all dungeons. What he suffered there he must himself relate to you; for we, who have the happiness to walk abroad in the air of reason and liberty, are little able to realise the agony of mind endured by a sane man confined among the insane. What we undertake is to prove his sanity up to the very hour of his incarceration; and also that he was quite sane at the time when a brutal attempt to recapture him by violence was made under the defendant's order, and defeated by his own remarkable intelligence and courage. Along with the facts the true reason why he was imprisoned will probably come out. But I am not bound to prove sinister motives. It is for the defendant to prove, if he can, that he had lawful motives for a lawless act; and that he exercised due precaution, and did not lend himself recklessly to the dark designs of others. If he succeed in this, that may go in mitigation of damages, though it cannot affect the verdict. Our principal object is the verdict, which will remove the foul aspersion cast on my injured client, and restore him to society. And to this verdict we are entitled, unless the other side can prove the plaintiff was insane. Call Alfred Hardie.
And with this he sat down.
An official called Alfred Hardie very loud; he made no reply. Julia rose from her seat with dismay painted on her countenance. Compton's, Garrow's, and Colt's heads clashed together.
Mr. Colt jumped up again, and said, “My Lud, I was not aware the gentleman they accuse of insanity is just being examined for high honours in the University of Oxford.” Aside to Compton, “And if he doesn't come you may give them the verdict.”
“Well,” said the judge, “of course he will be here before you close your case.”
On this the three heads clashed again, and Serjeant Saunders, for the defendant, popped up and said with great politeness, and affectation of sympathy, “My Lud, I can quite understand my learned friend's hesitation to produce his, principal witness.”
“You understand nothing about the matter,” said Colt cavalierly. “Call Mr. Harrington.”
Mr. Harrington was Alfred's tutor at Eton, and deposed to his sanity there; he was not cross-examined. After him they went on step by step with a fresh witness for every six months, till they brought him close to the date of his incarceration; then they put in one of Julia's witnesses, Peterson, who swore Alfred had talked to him like a sane person that very morning; and repeated what had passed. Cross-examination only elicited that he and Alfred were no longer good friends, which rather strengthened the evidence. Then Giles and Hannah, now man and wife, were called, and swore he was sane all the time he was at Silverton House. Mr. Saunders diminished the effect by eliciting that they had left on bad terms with Mr. Baker, and that Alfred had given them money since. But this was half cured on re-examination, by being set down to gratitude on Alfred's part. And now the judge went to luncheon; and in came a telegraphic message to say Alfred was in the fast train coming up. This was good news and bad. They had hoped he would drop in before. They were approaching that period of the case, when not to call the plaintiff must produce a vile impression. The judge—out of good nature, I suspect—was longer at luncheon than usual, and every minute was so much gained to Mr. Compton and Julia, who were in a miserable state of anxiety. Yet it was equalled by Richard Hardie's, who never entered the court but paced the hall the livelong day to intercept Noah Skinner. And, when I tell you that Julia had consulted Mr. Green, and that he had instantly pronounced Mr. Barkington to be a man from Barkington who knew the truth about the fourteen thousand pounds, and that the said Green and his myrmidons were hunting Mr. Barkington like beagles, you will see that R. Hardie's was no vain terror. At last the judge returned, and Mr. Colt was obliged to put in his reserves; so called Dr. Sampson. Instantly a very dull trial became an amusing one; the scorn with which he treated the opinion of Dr. Wycherley and Mr. Speers, and medical certificates in general, was so droll coming from a doctor, and so racily expressed, that the court was convulsed. Also in cross-examination by Saunders he sparred away in such gallant style with that accomplished advocate that it was mighty refreshing. The judge put in a few intelligent questions after counsel had done, and surprised all the doctors in court with these words: “I am aware, sir, that you were the main instrument in putting down bloodletting in this country.”
What made Sampson's evidence particularly strong was that he had seen the plaintiff the evening before his imprisonment.
At this moment three men, all of them known to the reader, entered the court; one was our old acquaintance Fullalove, another was of course Vespasian; and the third was the missing plaintiff.
A buzz announced his arrival; and expectation rose high. Mr. Colt called him with admirably feigned nonchalance; he stepped into the box, and there was a murmur of surprise and admiration at his bright countenance and manly bearing.
Of course to give his evidence would be to write “Hard Cash” over again. It is enough to say that his examination in chief lasted all that day, and an hour of the next.
Colt took him into the asylum, and made him say what he had suffered there to swell the damages. The main points his examination in chief established were his sanity during his whole life, the money settled on him, the means the doctors took to irritate him, and then sign him excited, the subserviency of his uncle to his father, the double motive his father had in getting him imprisoned; the business of the L. 14,000.
When Colt sat down at eleven o'clock on the second day, the jury looked indignant, and the judge looked very grave, and the case very black.
Mr. Saunders electrified his attorney by saying, “My advice is, don't cross-examine him.”
Heathfield implored him not to take so strange a course.
On this Saunders shrugged his shoulders, rose, and cross-examined Alfred about the vision of one Captain Dodd he had seen, and about his suspicions of his father. “Had not Richard Hardie always been a kind and liberal father?” To this he assented. “Had he not sacrificed a large fortune to his creditors?” Plaintiff believed so. “On reflection, then, did not plaintiff think he must have been under an illusion?” No; he had gone by direct evidence.
Confining himself sagaciously to this one question, and exerting all his skill and pertinacity, Saunders succeeded in convincing the court that the Hard Cash was a myth: a pure chimera. The defendant's case looked up; for there are many intelligent madmen with a single illusion.
The re-examination was of course very short, but telling; for Alfred swore that Miss Julia Dodd had helped him to carry home the phantom of her father, and that Miss Dodd had a letter from her father to say that he was about to sail with the other phantom, the L. 14,000.
Here Mr. Saunders interposed, and said that evidence was inadmissible. Let him call Miss Dodd.
Colt.—How do you know I'm not going to call her?
The Judge.—If you are, it is superfluous; if not, it is inadmissible.
Mr. Compton cast an inquiring glance up at a certain gallery. A beautiful girl bowed her head in reply, with a warm blush and such a flash of her eye, and Mr. Colt said, “As my learned friend was afraid to cross-examine the plaintiff on any point but this, and as I mean to respond to his challenge, and call Miss Dodd, I will not trouble the plaintiff any further.”
Through the whole ordeal Alfred showed a certain flavour of Eton and Oxford that won all hearts. His replies were frank and honest, and under cross-examination he was no more to be irritated than if Saunders had been Harrow bowling at him, or the Robin sparring with him. The serjeant, who was a gentleman, indicated some little regret at the possible annoyance he was causing him. Alfred replied with a grand air of good fellowship, “Do not think so poorly of me as to suppose I feel aggrieved because you are an able advocate and do your duty to your client, sir.”
The Judge.—That is very handsomely said. I am afraid you have got an awkward customer, in a case of this kind, Brother Saunders.
Serjt. S.—It is not for want of brains he is mad, my lord.
Alfred.—That is a comfort, any way. (Laughter.)
When counsel had done with him, the judge used his right, and put several shrewd and unusual questions to him: asked him to define insanity. He said he could only do it by examples: and he abridged several intelligent madmen, their words and ways; and contrasted them with the five or six sane people he had fallen in with in asylums; showing his lordship plainly that he could tell any insane person whatever from a sane one, and vice versa. This was the most remarkable part of the trial, to see this shrewd old judge extracting from a real observer and logical thinker those positive indicia of sanity and insanity, which exist, but which no lawyer has ever yet been able to extract from any psychological physician in the witness-box. At last, he was relieved, and sat sucking an orange among the spectators; for they had parched his throat amongst them, I promise you.
Julia Dodd entered the box, and a sunbeam seemed to fill the court. She knew what to do: her left hand was gloved, but her white right hand bare. She kissed the book, and gave her evidence in her clear, mellow, melting voice; gave it reverently and modestly, for to her the court was a church. She said how long she had been acquainted with Alfred, and how his father was adverse, and her mother had thought it was because they did not pass for rich, and had told her they were rich, and with this she produced David's letter, and she also swore to having met Alfred and others carrying her father in a swoon from his father's very door. She deposed to Alfred's sanity on her wedding eve, and on the day his recapture was attempted.
Saunders, against his own judgment, was instructed to cross-examine her; and, without meaning it, he put a question which gave her deep distress. “Are you now engaged to the plaintiff?” She looked timidly round, and saw Alfred, and hesitated. The serjeant pressed her politely, but firmly.
“Must I reply to that?” she said piteously.
“If you please.”
“Then, no. Another misfortune has now separated him and me for ever.”
“What is that, pray?”
“My father is said to have died at sea: and my mother thinks he is to blame.”
The judge to Saunders.—What on earth has this to do with Hardie against Hardie?
Saunders.—You are warmly interested in the plaintiff's success?
Julia.—Oh yes, sir.
Colt (aside to Garrow).—The fool is putting his foot into it: there's not a jury in England that would give a verdict to part two interesting young lovers.
Saunders.—You are attached to him?
Julia.—Ah, that I do.
This burst, intended for poor Alfred, not the court, baffled cross-examination and grammar and everything else. Saunders was wise and generous, and said no more.
Colt cast a glance of triumph, and declined to re-examine. He always let well alone. The judge, however, evinced a desire to trace the fourteen thousand pounds from Calcutta; but Julia could not help him: that mysterious sum had been announced by letter as about to sail, and then no more was heard about it till Alfred accused his father of having it. All endeavours to fill this hiatus failed. However, Julia, observing that in courts material objects affect the mind most, had provided herself with all the pieces de conviction she could find, and she produced her father's empty pocket-book, and said, when he was brought home senseless, this was in his breast-pocket.
“Hand it up to me,” said the judge. He examined it, and said it had been in the water.
“Captain Dodd was wrecked off the French coast,” suggested Mr. Saunders.
“My learned friend had better go into the witness-box, if he means to give evidence,” said Mr. Colt.
“You are very much afraid of a very little truth,” retorted Saunders.
The judge stopped this sham rencontre, by asking the witness whether her father had been wrecked. She said “Yes.”
“And that is how the money was lost,” persisted Saunders.
“Possibly,” said the judge.
“I'm darned if it was,” said Joshua Fullalove composedly.
Instantly, all heads were turned in amazement at this audacious interruption to the soporific decorum of an English court. The transatlantic citizen received this battery of eyes with complete imperturbability.
“Si-lence!” roared the crier, awaking from a nap, with an instinct that something unusual had happened. But the shrewd old judge had caught the sincerity with which the words were uttered, and put on his spectacles to examine the speaker.
“Are you for the plaintiff or the defendant?”
“I don't know either of 'em from Adam, my lord. But I know Captain Dodd's pocket-book by the bullet-hole.”
“Indeed! You had better call this witness, Mr. Colt.”
“Your lordship must excuse me; I am quite content with my evidence,” said the wary advocate.
“Well then, I shall call him as amicus curiae; and the defendant's counsel can cross-examine him.”
Fullalove went into the box, was sworn, identified the pocket-book, and swore he had seen fourteen thousand pounds in it on two occasions. With very little prompting, he told the sea-fight, and the Indian darkie's attempt to steal the money, and pointed out Vespasian as the rival darkie who had baffled the attempt. Then he told the shipwreck to an audience now breathless—and imagine the astonished interest with which Julia and Edward listened to this stranger telling them the new strange story of their own father!—and lastly, the attempt of the two French wreckers and assassins, and how it had been baffled. And so the mythical cash was tracked to Boulogne.
The judge then put this question, “Did Captain Dodd tell you what he intended to do with it?”
Fullalove (reverently).—I think, my lord, he said he was going to give it to his wife. (Sharply.) Well, what is it, old hoss? What are you making mugs at me for? Don't you know it's clean against law to telegraph a citizen in the witness-box?
The Judge.—This won't do; this won't do.
The Crier.—Silence in the court.
“Do you hyar now what his lordship says?” said Fullalove, with ready tact. “If you know anything more, come up hyar and swear it like an enlightened citizen; do you think I am going to swear for tew?” With this Vespasian and Fullalove proceeded to change places amidst roars of laughter at the cool off-hand way this pair arranged forensicalities; but Serjeant Saunders requested Fullalove to stay where he was. “Pray sir,” said he slowly, “who retained you for a witness in this cause?”
Fullalove looked puzzled.
“Of course somebody asked you to drop in here so very accidentally: come now, who was it?”
“I'm God Almighty's witness dropped from the clouds, I cal'late.”
“Come, sir, no prevarication. How came you here just at the nick of time?”
“Counsellor, when I'm treated polite, I'm ile; but rile me, and I'm thunder stuffed with pison: don't you raise my dander, and I'll tell you. I have undertaken to educate this yar darkie,”—here he stretched out a long arm, and laid his hand on Vespasian's woolly pate—“and I'm bound to raise him to the Eu-ropean model.” (Laughter.) “So I said to him, coming over Westminster Bridge, 'Now there's a store hyar where they sell a very extraordinary Fixin; and it's called Justice; they sell it tarnation dear; but prime. So I make tracks for the very court where I got the prime article three years ago, against a varmint that was breaking the seventh and eighth commandments over me, adulterating my patent and then stealing it. Blast him!” (A roar of laughter.) “And coming along I said this old country's got some good pints after all, old hoss. One is they'll sell you justice dear, but prime in these yar courts, if you were born at Kamschatkee; and the other is, hyar darkies are free as air, disenthralled by the univarsal genius of British liberty; and then I pitched Counsellor Curran's bunkum into this darkie, and he sucked it in like mother's milk, and in we came on tiptoe, and the first thing we heard was a freeborn Briton treated wus than ever a nigger in Old Kentuck, decoyed away from his gal, shoved into a darned madhouse—the darbies clapped on him——”
“We don't want your comments on the case, sir.”
“No, nor any other free and enlightened citizen's, I reckon. Wal, Vespasian and me sat like mice in a snowdrift, and hid our feelings out of good manners, being strangers, till his lordship got e-tarnally fixed about the Captain's pocket-book. Vesp., says I, this hurts my feelings powerful. Says I, this hyar lord did the right thing about my patent: he summed up just: and now he is in an everlasting fix himself: one good turn deserves another, I'll get him out of this fix, any way.” Here the witness was interrupted with a roar of laughter that shook the court. Even the judge leaned back and chuckled, genially though quietly. And right sorrowful was every Briton there when Saunders closed abruptly the cross-examination of Joshua Fullalove.
His lordship then said he wished to ask Vespasian a question.
Saunders lost patience. “What, another amicus curiae, my lud! This is unprecedented.”
“Excuse my curiosity, Brother Saunders,” said the judge ironically. “I wish to trace this L. 14,000 as far as possible. Have you any particular objection to the truth on this head of evidence?”
“No, my lud, I never urge objections when I can't enforce them.”
“Then you are a wise man.” (To Vespasian, after he had been sworn), “Pray did Captain Dodd tell you what he intended to do with this money?”
“Is, massa judge, massa captan told dis child he got a branker in some place in de old country, called Barkinton. And he said dis branker bery good branker, much sartiner not to break dan the brank of England. (A howl.) De captan said he take de money to dis yer branker, and den hab no more trouble wid it. Den it off my stomach, de captan say, and dis child heerd him. Yah!”
The plaintiff's case being apparently concluded, the judge retired for a few minutes.
In the buzz that followed, a note was handed to Mr. Compton; “Skinner! On a hot scent. Sure to find him to-day.—N.B. He is wanted by another party. There is something curious a-foot.”
Compton wrote on a slip, “For Heaven's sake, bring him directly. In half an hour it will be too late.”
Green hurried out and nearly ran against Mr. Richard Hardie, who was moodily pacing Westminster Hall at the climax of his own anxiety. To him all turned on Skinner. Five minutes passed, ten, fifteen, twenty: all the plaintiff's party had their eyes on the door; but Green did not return; and the judge did. Then to gain a few minutes more, Mr. Colt, instructed by Compton, rose and said with great solemnity, “We are about to call our last witness: the living have testified to my client's sanity, and now we shall read you the testimony of the dead.”
Saunders.—That I object to, of course.
Colt.—Does my learned friend mean to say he objects at random?
Saunders.—Nothing of the kind. I object on the law of evidence—a matter on which my learned friend seems to be under a hallucination as complete as his client's about that L. 14,000.
Colt.