It was already evening when I came to myself, and still lay there stunned, but uninjured. A wild plain, studded over with yellow furze bushes, lay in front, and beyond in the distance I could see the straggling huts of a small village. It was a wild and dreary scene; but the soft light of a summer's evening beamed calmly over it, and the silence was unbroken around. With an effort, I arose, and, though weak and sorely bruised, found that I could walk. My faculties were yet so confused that of the late events I could remember but little with any distinctness. At times I fancied I had been actually torn and worried by savage dogs; and then I would believe that the whole was but a wild and feverish dream, brought on by intense anxiety and care. My tattered and ragged clothes, clotted over with blood, confused, but did not aid, my memory; and thus struggling with my thoughts, I wandered along, and, as night was falling, reached the little village of Shanestown. Directing my steps towards a cabin where I perceived a light, I discovered that it was the alehouse of the village. Two or three country people were sitting smoking on a bench before the door, who arose as I came forward, half in curiosity, half in respect; and as I was asking them in what quarter I might find a lodging for the night, the landlord came out. No sooner did his eyes fall on me than he started back in seeming terror, and, after a pause of a few seconds, cried out,—
“Molly! Molly! come here quick! Who's that standing there?” said he, as he pointed with his finger towards me.
“The heavens be about us! but it's Mr. Walter Carew himself,” said the woman, crossing herself.
This sudden recognition of my resemblance to my father so overcame me that though I struggled hard for speech, the words would not come; and I stood pale and gasping before them.
“For Heaven's sake, speak!” cried the man, in terror.
I heard no more; faint, agitated, and exhausted, I tottered towards the bank, and swooned away.
The last few pages I mean to append to these notices of my life might be, perhaps, equally well derived from the public newspapers of the time. At a period when great events were occurring; when the conquering armies of France marched over the length and breadth of Europe,—the humble historian of these pages was able, for a brief space, to engage public attention, and become for a short season the notoriety of the hour. I will not presume so far as to say that the fame to which I attained was of that kind which flatters most, or that the reputation attaching to me was above reproach. Still, I had my partisans and adherents, nay, I believe I might even aver, my friends and well-wishers. He must, perchance, have had a fortunate existence who can say more.
Of what followed after the event detailed in my last chapter I can relate nothing, for I was seized with shivering and other signs of fever that same night, and for several weeks my life was despaired of. Even when the dangerous period passed over, my convalescence made but little progress. For me there were none of those aids which so powerfully assist the return to health. The sympathy of friends, the affections of family, the very hope of once more assuming one's place at hearth and board,—I had none of these. If the past was filled with trouble and suffering, the future was a bleak expanse that offered nothing to speculate on. My thoughts turned to the New World beyond the seas, to a region wherein nothing should recall a memory of the bygone, and where even I might at last forget the early years of my own life. There were not then, as now, the rapid means of intercourse between this country and America; as little, too, was there of that knowledge of the great continent of the west which now prevails. Men talked of it as a far-away land only emerging into civilization, and whose vast regions were still untrodden and unexplored. Dreamy visions of the existence men might carve out for themselves in such a scene formed the amusements of the long hours of my solitary sick bed. I fancied myself at times a lone settler on the bank of some nameless river, and at other moments as a member of some Indian tribe, following their fortunes to the chase and to the battle-field, and dreaming through life in the uneventful stillness of the forest.
In part from the effect of malady itself, in part from this dreamy state of mind, I sank into a state of impassive lethargy wherein nothing pleased or displeased me. Worse than actual despondency, a sense of indifference had settled down on all my feelings; and if I could have asked a boon, it would have been to have been left utterly alone. To reply when spoken to became irksome; even to listen was a painful exertion to me. Looking back now on this period, it seems to me that such intervals of apathetic repose are often inserted in the lives of men of more than ordinary activity, acting as sleep does in our habitual existence, and serving to rest and recruit faculties overcharged and overworked.
I was in a very humble lodging in a very humble street, still attended by doctors, and besieged by lawyers and solicitors, who came and went, held consultations, questioned and cross-questioned me with a greedy avidity on themes in which my own interest had long ceased, and which I was gradually learning to think of with absolute aversion.
Ysaffich, whose confidence in our success rose higher every day, appeared from time to time to see me; but his visits were generally hurried ones, as he was constantly on the road, travelling hither and thither, exploring registries here, and certificates there, and fortifying our case by every possible means he could think of. His energy was untiring; and in the shrewd devices of his quick intelligence, even the long-practised acuteness of the lawyers discovered great resources.
Paragraphs of a half mysterious kind in the public newspapers announced to the world that a most remarkable case might ere long transpire, and a claim be preferred which should threaten the possession of one of the largest estates in a county adjacent to the metropolis. To these succeeded others, more openly expressed, in which it was announced that some of the most distinguished members of the inner bar had received retainers for a cause that would soon astonish the world, wherein the plaintiff was represented to be the son and heir of one who once had figured most conspicuously in the fashionable and political circles of Dublin.
As the time approached for bringing the case to trial it was judged expedient that I should be provided with lodgings in a more fashionable quarter of the town, be seen abroad in places of public resort, and, in fact, a certain éclat be imparted to my presence, which should enlist, so far as might be, popular feeling in my favor. The chief adviser and leader of my case was a lawyer of great repute in the Irish bar of those days,—a certain Samuel Hanchett,—one of those men who owe their success in life less to actual learning than to the possession of immense natural acuteness, great resources in difficulty, and a vast acquaintance with all the arts of their fellow-men. There had been, I believe, considerable difficulty in securing his services originally in our behalf. It was reported that he disliked such cases; that they were not what “suited him.” He made various objections when first addressed, and threw every discouragement when the cause was submitted for his opinion. He asked for evidence that was not to be obtained, and proofs that were not forthcoming. The merest accident—if I am justified in calling such what was to be followed by consequences so important to myself—overruled these objections on his part. It chanced that in one of my solitary walks on a Sunday afternoon I happened to find myself at the bank of a little stream near Milltown, with an elderly man who seemed to have some apprehensions about crossing on the slippery and uncertain stepping-stones by which the passage was forded. Perceiving his difficulty, I tendered my assistance to him at once, which he accepted. On arriving at then opposite bank, and finding that our roads led in the same direction, we began to converse together, during which my accidental pronunciation of a word with a slightly foreign accent attracted his notice. To a question on his part, I mentioned that a great part of my life had been passed abroad; and amongst the places to which I alluded was Reichenau. He asked me in what year I had been there, and inquired if by any chance I had ever heard of a certain school there in which it was said the son of the late Duke of Orleans had been a teacher.
“You are speaking of Monsieur Jost, my old master?” said I, warmed up by even this passing remembrance of happier days.
“Will you pardon the liberty I am about to take,” said he, with some earnestness, “and allow me to ask, with whom I have the honor to speak?”
“My name is Jasper Carew, sir,” said I, with a degree of stern pride a man feels in asserting a claim that he knows may be contested.
“Jasper Carew!” repeated he, slowly, while he stood still and stared steadfastly at me—“Jasper Carew! You are then the claimant to the estates of Castle Carew and Crone Lofty in Wicklow?”
“The property of my late father,” said I, assentingly.
“What a singular coincidence should have brought us together,” said he, after a pause. “Do you know, sir, that when you overtook me half an hour ago, and saw me standing on the side of the stream there, I was less occupied in thinking how I should cross it than how I could reconcile certain strange statements which had been made to me respecting your claim. I am Mr. Hanchett, sir, the counsel to whom your case has been submitted.”
“It is indeed a curious accident that has brought us thus in contact,” exclaimed I, in surprise.
“I should like to give it another name, young gentleman,” said he, thoughtfully, while he walked along at my side for some moments in silence. “Has it ever been explained to you, Mr. Carew,” said he, gravely, “what dangers attend such a course of proceeding as you are now engaged in? How necessarily you must be prepared to give in your adhesion to many things your advisers deem essential, and of which you can have no cognizance personally,—in a word, how frequently you will be forced into a responsibility which you never contemplated or anticipated? Have all these circumstances been placed fairly and clearly before you?”
“Never!” replied I.
“Then suffer me to endeavor, in a very few words, to show you some at least of the perils I allude to.” In a few short and graphic sentences he stated my case, with all its favorable points forcibly and well delineated. He then exhibited its various weaknesses and deficiencies, the assumptions for which no proofs were forthcoming, the positions which were taken without power to maintain them. “To give the required coherence and consistency to these, your advisers will of course take all due precaution; but they will require aid also from you. You will be asked for information you have no means of obtaining, for details you cannot supply. A lawsuit is like a chase: the ardor of pursuit deadens every sense of peril, and in the desire to win you become reckless for the cost. I perceive,” said he, “that you demur to some of this; but remember that as yet you have not entered the field, that you have only viewed the sport from afar, and its passions of hope and fear are all untasted by you!”
“It may be as you say,” said I, “and that hereafter I may seem to feel differently; but for the present I can promise you that to secure a verdict in my favor, not only would I not strain any point myself, but I would not condescend to accept the benefit of such a sacrifice from another. I believe—I have strong reasons to believe—that I am asserting a rightful claim; the arguments that shall be sufficient to convince others that I am wrong will, doubtless, be strong enough to satisfy me.”
He had fixed his eyes steadily on me while I was speaking these words, and I could, easily perceive that the impression they produced on him was favorable. He then led me on to speak of my life and its vicissitudes, and I could detect in many of his questions that he had formed erroneous notions as to various parts of my story. I cannot attempt to explain why it was so; but the fact unquestionably was, that I opened my heart more freely and unreservedly to this stranger than I had ever done to any of those with whom I had before conversed; and when we parted at length, it was like old friends.
The accident of our meeting was not known to others, and there was considerable astonishment excited when it was heard that Hanchett, who had hitherto shown no disposition to engage in the cause, now accepted the brief and exhibited the warmest anxiety for success. His acute intelligence quickly detected many things which had been passed over as immaterial, and by his activity various channels of information were opened which others had not thought of. In these details Ysaffich came more than once before him; and it was remarkable with what shrewdness he read the man's nature, bold, resolute, and unscrupulous as it was. Between the two, the feeling of distrust rapidly ripened into open hatred, each not hesitating to accuse the other of treachery; and thus was a new element of difficulty added to a case whose complications were already more than enough.
My own position at this period was embarrassing in the extreme. Hanchett frequently invited me to his house, and presented me freely to his friends; while Ysaffich continued to suggest doubts of his good faith on every occasion, and by a hundred petty slights showed his implacable enmity towards him. Day after day this breach grew wider and wider, every effort of the one being sure to excite the animosity and opposition of the other. Ysaffich, too, far from endeavoring to repress this spirit on his part, seemed to foster and encourage it, sneering at the old lawyer's caution and reserve, and even insinuating against him darker and more treacherous intentions.
“To what end,” said he, at length, one morning when our discussion had become unusually warm and animated, “to what end the inquiries to which this learned adviser of yours would push us: he wants to discover the Countess of Ga-briac and Raper. Why, bethink you, my worthy friend, that these are the very people we hope never to hear more of; that if by any mischance they could possibly be forthcoming, our whole scheme is blown up at once. We have now enough, or we shall have enough by the end of the month, to go to a jury. There is not a document nor a paper that will not, in some form or other, be supplied. Let us stand or fall by that issue; but, of all things, let us not protract the campaign till the arrival of the forces that shall overwhelm us. If this be your policy, Master Gervois, speak it out freely, and let us be frank with each other.”
There was a tone of bold defiance in this speech that startled me; but the way in which he addressed me, as Gervois, a name he had never called me by for several months, in even our closest intimacy, was like a declaration of open hostility.
“I claim to be called Jasper Carew,” said I, calmly and slowly; “I will accept no other designation from you nor any one.”
“You have learned your part admirably,” said he, with a sneer; “but remember that I am myself the prompter; so pray reserve the triumphs of your art for the public!”
“Anatole,” said I, addressing him with an emotion I could not repress, “I desire to be frank and candid with you. This name of Jasper Carew I believe firmly to be mine.”
A burst of laughter, insulting to the last degree, stopped me in my speech.
“Why, Gervois, this is madness, my worthy fellow. Just bethink you of how this plot originated; who suggested, who carried it on,—ay, and where it stands at this very moment. That you yourself are as nothing in it; the breath that made can still unmake you; and that I have but to declare you an impostor and a cheat,—hard words, but you will have them,—and the law will deal with you as it knows how to deal with those who trade on false pretences. Yours be the blame if I be pushed to such reprisals!”
“And what if I defied you, Count Ysaffich?” said I, boldly.
“If you but dared to do it!” said he, with a menace of his clenched hand.
“Now listen to me calmly,” said I; “and there is the more need of calm, since, possibly, these are the very last words that shall ever pass between us. My claim can neither be aided nor opposed by you.”
“Is the fellow mad?” exclaimed he, staring wildly at me.
“I am in my calm and sober senses,” replied I, quietly.
“Then what say you to this bond?” said he, taking a paper from his pocket-book. “Is this a written promise that if you succeed to the fortune and estates of the late Walter Carew, you will pay me, Count Anatole Ysaffich, one hundred thousand pounds?”
“I own every word of it,” said I.
“And for what service is this the recompense? Answer me that.”
“That I am indebted to you for having opened to me the path by which my right was to be established.”
“Say rather that by me was the fraud of a false name, and birth, and rank first suggested; that from Gervois the courier I created you Carew the gentleman. The whole scheme was and is my own. You are as nothing in it.”
Stupefied, almost stunned, by the outrageous insult of his words, I did not speak, and he went on,—
“But you have not taken me unawares. I was not without my suspicion that such an incident as this might arise. I foresaw at least its possibility, and was prepared for it. Be advised, then, in time, since if your foot was on the very threshold of that door you hope to call your own, the power lies with me to drag you back again and proclaim you to all the world a swindler.”
My passion boiled over at the word, and I sprung towards him, I know not with what thoughts of vengeance. He darted back suddenly, and gained the door.
“If you had dared,” said he, with a savage grin, “you had been a corpse on that floor the minute after.”
The shining blade of a stiletto glanced within his waistcoat as he spoke. The next moment he had descended the stairs, and was gone.
I will not speak of the suffering this scene cost me,—a misery, I am free to declare, less proceeding from my dread of his resentment than from the thought that one of the very few with whom I had ever lived on terms approaching friendship had now become a declared and bitter enemy. Oh for the hollowness of such attachments! The bonds which bind men to evil are the deadliest snares that beset us; and thus the very qualities which seem our best and purest, are among the weakest and the worst of our depraved natures.
To add to my discomfiture, Hanchett was obliged to go over to London in some case before the House of Lords, and my cause was intrusted to the second counsel, one with whom I had little intercourse, and few opportunities of knowing. Ysaffich's defection, too, threw a great gloom over all my supporters. His readiness in every difficulty was not less remarkable than his unwearied and untiring energy. He was, in fact, the bond of union between all the parties, stimulating, encouraging, and cheering them on. Even they who were least disposed towards him personally, avowed that his loss was irreparable; and some, taking a still graver view of the matter, owned their fears that he might seek service with the enemy.
I cannot tell the relief I experienced on hearing that he had sailed from Ireland the very night of our quarrel; and, from the observations he had dropped, it was believed with the intention of going abroad.
As the day fixed for the trial drew nigh, public curiosity rose to the very highest degree. The real nature of the claim to be set up was no longer a secret, and the case became the town talk of every club and society of the capital. Curtis had long ceased to be popular with any party. His dissolute life had thrown a disrepute upon those who sided with him; and the newspapers, almost without an exception, inclined towards my side. There is, perhaps, something too that savors of generosity in such cases, and disposes many to favor what they feel to be the weaker party. I am sure I had reason to experience much of this kind of sympathy, nor do I think of it even now without gratitude.
Early as it was when I prepared to leave my hotel, I found a considerable crowd had assembled in the street without, curious to see one whose story had attracted so much popular notice. They were mostly of the lower classes, but I observed that a knot of gentlemen had gathered on the steps of an adjoining door, and were eagerly watching for my appearance. As the window of my room was almost directly over their heads, and lay open, I could hear the conversation which passed between them. Shall I own that the words I overheard set my heart a beating violently?
“You knew Carew intimately, Parsons?” asked one.
“Watty! to be sure I did. We were class-fellows at school and at college.”
“And liked him, I have heard you say?”
“Extremely. There was no better fellow to be found. He had his weaknesses like the rest of us; but he was a true-hearted, generous friend, and a resolute enemy also.”
“Were you acquainted with his wife, Ned?” asked another.
“I was presented to her the day he brought her over,” replied he; “we all lunched with him at the hotel, but I never saw her after. The fact was, Watty made a foolish match, and never was the same man to his old friends after. Perhaps we were as much in fault as he was; at all events, except MacNaghten and a few who were very intimate with him, all fell off, and Carew, who was a haughty fellow, drew back from us, and left the breach still wider.”
“And what's your opinion of this claim?” asked another, who had not spoken before.
“That I 'd not give sixpence for the chance of its success,” said he, laughingly. “Why, everybody knows that no trace of any document establishing Carew's marriage could be found after his death. Some went so far as to say that there never had been a marriage at all; and as to the child, Dan MacNaghten told me years ago that the boy was killed in some street skirmish in Paris,—so that, taking all the doubts and difficulties together, and bearing in mind that old Joe Curtis has a strong purse and is in possession, is there any man with common sense to guide him would think the contest worth a trial?”
“Have you seen this young fellow yet?”
“No; and I am rather curious to have a look at him, for there were strong family traits about the Carews.”
As I heard these last words, I walked boldly out upon the balcony as if to examine the state of the weather. There was a slight murmur of voices heard beneath as I came forward, and one speaker exclaimed, “Indeed!” to which Parsons quickly replied,—
“Positively astounding! It is not only that he has Carew's features, but the carriage of the head and a certain half supercilious look are exactly his!”
The words sent a thrill of hope through me, more than enough to recompense me for the pain his former speech had inflicted; and as I left the window, I felt a degree of confidence in the future that never entirely deserted me after.
I can more easily imagine a man being able to preserve the memory of all his sensations during some tremendous operation of surgery than to recall the varied tortures of his mind in the progress of a long and eventful trial. Certain incidents will impress themselves more powerfully than others, not always those of the deepest importance,—far from it; the veriest trifles—a stern look of the presiding judge, a murmur in the court—will live in the recollection for long years after the great events of the scene; and a casual glance, a half-uttered word, become texts of sorrow for many a day to come.
I could myself be better able to record my sensations throughout a long fever than tell of the emotions which I suffered in the three days of that trial. I awake occasionally from a dream full of every circumstance all sharply defined, clear, and distinct. My throbbing temples and moist brow evidence the agonies I have gone through; my nerves still tingle with the torture; but with the first moments of wakefulness the memory is gone!—the sense of pain alone remains; but the cause fades away in dim indistinctness, and my heart throbs with gratitude at last to know it was but a dream, and has passed away.
But there are days, too, when all these memories are revived; and I could recount, even to the slightest circumstance, the whole progress of the case, from the moment when a doorkeeper drew aside a heavy curtain to let me pass into the court, to the dreadful instant when—But I cannot go on; already are images and forms crowding around me. To continue this theme would be to call up spirits of torture to the bedside, or the lonely chamber where, friendless and solitary, I sit as I write these lines.
I owe it to him whose patience and sympathy may have carried him so far as my listener, to complete this much of the story of my life; happily a few words will now suffice to do so.
A newspaper of “Old Dublin,” a great authority in those days, the “Morning Advertiser,” informed its readers on a certain day of February that the interesting events of a recent trial should be its apology for any deficiency in its attention to foreign news, or even the domestic occurrences of the country, since the editor could not but participate in the intense anxiety felt by all classes of his fellow-citizens in the progress of one of the most remarkable cases ever submitted before a jury.
After a brief announcement of the trial, he proceeds:
“Mr. Foxley opened the plaintiff's case, in the absence of Serjeant Hanchett; and certainly even the distinguished leader of the Western Circuit never exceeded in clearness, accuracy, or close reasoning the admirable statement then delivered,—a statement which, while supported by a vast variety of well-known incident, may yet vie with romance for the strangeness of the events it records.
“Probably, with a view of enlisting public sympathy in his client's behalf, not impossibly also to give a semblance of consistency to a narrative wherein any individual incident might have startled credulity, the learned counsel gave a brief history of the claimant from his birth; and certainly a stranger tale it would be hard to conceive. Following all the vicissitudes of fortune, fighting to-day in the ranks of the revolutionists in Paris, we find him to-morrow the bearer of important despatches from crowned heads to the members of the exiled family of France. Ever active, ever employed, and ever faithful to his trust, this extraordinary youth became mixed up with great events, and conversant with great people everywhere. If a consciousness that he was a man of birth, and with just claims to station and property, often sustained him in moments of difficulty, there were also times when this thought suggested his very saddest reflections. He saw himself poor, and almost unfriended; he knew the scarcely passable barriers the law erects against all pretenders, whatever the justice of their demands; he was aware that his adversary would have all the benefit which vast resources and great wealth can command. No wonder, then, if he felt faint-hearted and dispirited! Another and a very different train of reasoning may, possibly, have also had its influence on his mind.
“This boy grew up to manhood in the midst of all the startling theories of the French Revolution. He had imbibed the doctrines of equality and universal brotherhood; he had been taught that a state was a family, and its population were the children, amongst whom no inequality of condition should prevail. To sue for the restitution of his own was, then, but a sorry recognition of the principles he professed. The society of the time enjoined the theory that property was a mere usurpation; and I say it is by no means improbable that, educated in such opinions, he should have deemed the prosecution of such a suit a direct falsification of his professions. The world, however, changed.
“After the Revolution came the reaction of order. To the guillotine succeeded the court-martial; then the Consulate, then the Empire. All the external forms of society underwent a less change than did the very nature of men themselves.
“Wearied of anarchy, they sought the repose of a despotism. With monarchy, too, came back all the illusions of pomp and splendor, all the tastes that wealth fosters and wealth alone confers. Carew, who had never bewailed his condition when a 'sansculottes,' now saw himself degraded in the midst of the new movement. He knew that he had been born to fortune and high estate. He had heard of the vast domains of his ancestry, from his cradle. He had got off by heart the names of townlands and baronies that all belonged to his family; and though, at the time he learned the lesson, the more stern teaching of democracy instilled the maxim that 'all property was a wrong,' yet now another impression had gained currency in the world, and he saw that even for the purposes of public utility, and the benefit of society, a man was powerless who was poor.
“Alas, however, for his prospects! every document, every letter, every scrap of writing that could have authenticated his claim was gone. Of the very nature of these papers he scarcely retains a recollection himself; he only knows that Madame de Gabriac, whose name I have already introduced to your notice, deemed them all-sufficient, if only backed by one essential document,—the certificate of his father's marriage with his mother. To obtain this had been the great object of her whole life.
“With a heroic devotion to the cause of her friend's orphan child, she had travelled over Europe in every direction, and during times of the greatest peril and disturbance. Accompanied by one trusty companion, Mr. Raper, she had never wearied in her pursuit.
“Probably, if the occasion permitted, the story I could tell of her efforts in this cause would surprise you not less than that of my client himself. Enough that I say that she stooped to poverty and privation of the very severest kind; she toiled, and labored, and suffered for years long; and, when having exhausted every resource the Old World seemed to offer to her search, she set out for the New! Since that she has not been heard of. The solicitors with whom she had corresponded have long since ceased to receive tidings of her. The belief in her death was so complete that her father, a well-known citizen of Dublin, who died two years back, bequeathed his vast fortune to various charitable institutions, alleging his childless condition as the cause.
“I have told you how, originally, my client, then a mere boy, became separated from her he had ever regarded as his mother; I have traced him through some, but far from the whole, of the strange incidents of his eventful career; and it now only remains that I should speak of the extraordinary accident by which he came upon the clew to his long sought-for, long despaired-of, inheritance.
“A short statement will suffice here, since the witnesses I mean to call before you will amply elucidate this part of my case. It was while travelling with despatches to the North of Europe my client formed acquaintance with a certain Count Ysaffich, at that time himself employed in the diplomatic service; and though at the period a warm friendship grew up between them, it was not till after the lapse of many years that the Count came to know that a large mass of papers—copies of documents drawn out by Raper, and which had come into the Count's hands in a manner I shall relate to you—actually bore reference to his former acquaintance,—the casual intimate of a journey.
“These two men, thrown together by one of the most extraordinary chances of fortune, sit down to recount their lives to each other. Beside the fire of an humble chalet, in a forest, Carew hears again the story he had once listened to in his infancy; the very tale his dear mother had repeated to him in the midst of the Alps, he now hears from the lips of one almost a stranger. Names once familiar, but long forgotten, come back to him. The very sounds thrilled through his heart like as the notes of the Swiss melody awaken in the far-away wanderer thoughts of home and fatherland. In an instant he throws off the apathy of his former life, he ceases to be the sport and plaything of fortune, and devotes himself heart and soul to the restitution of the ancient name of his house and the long dormant honors of a distinguished family.
“We cannot,” writes the journalist, “undertake at this late hour to follow the learned counsel into the minute enumeration he went into, of small circumstances of proof, memoranda of conversations, scraps of letters, allusions in the course of correspondence, and so on; the object of which was to show that although the late Walter Carew had some secret reason of his own for maintaining a mystery about his marriage, that of the fact of the marriage there could be no doubt,—nor of the legitimacy of him who claimed to be his heir; neither are we able to enter upon the intricate question of establishing the identity of the present claimant; suffice it to say that he succeeded in connecting him with a number of events from the days of his earliest childhood to a comparatively recent period, all corroboratory of his assumption; the possession of the seal and arms of his family, his name, and, above all, the unmistakable traits of family resemblance, being wonderful evidences in his favor. Indeed, we are not aware of a more dramatic incident in the administration of justice than our court presented yesterday, when, at the close of his seven hours' speech, full of all its details, narrative and legal, the able counsel suddenly paused, and, in a voice of subdued accent, asked if there chanced at that moment to be present in the court any of those who once enjoyed the friendship or even the acquaintance of the late Walter Carew. He was one, continued he, not easily to be forgotten, even by a casual observer. His tall and manly figure, the type at once of dignity and strength, his bold, high forehead, his deep-set blue eyes, soft as a child's in their expression, or sparkling like the orbs of an eagle; his mouth more characteristic than all, since, though marked by an air of pride, it never moved without an expression of genial kindliness and good-humor,—the traits that we love to think eminently national; the mingled nature of daring intrepidity with a careless ease; the dash of almost reckless courage with a still milder gayety,—these were all his. Are there not some here, is there not even one who can recall them? And if there be, let him look there! and he pointed to the gallery beside the jury-box, at the end of which was seated a young man, pale and sickly-looking, it is true, but whose countenance at once corroborated the picture. The vast multitude that filled the body of the court, crowding every avenue and space, and even invading the seats reserved for the Bar, rose as one man, and turned to gaze on the living evidence of the description. It would be difficult to conceive a more striking scene enacted within walls where the solemnity of the law usually represses every semblance of popular emotion; nor was it till after several seconds had elapsed that the judges were enabled to recall the Court to the observance of the rigid propriety of the justice-seat.
“Himself exhausted by his efforts, and really overborne by feeling, the counsel was unable to continue his address, and the Court, willingly granting an indulgence that his exertions amply deserved, adjourned till to-morrow, when at ten o'clock this remarkable case will be resumed; though it is believed, from the number of witnesses to be examined, and the necessary length of 'the reply,' the trial cannot be completed before Saturday evening.”
The second day was chiefly occupied in examining witnesses,—old acquaintances of my father's, for the most part, who had known him on his return to Ireland, and who could bear their testimony as to the manner in which he lived, and the acceptance he and my mother had met with in the best society of the capital. Though their evidence really went no further than a mere impression on their part, it was easy to perceive that its effect was most favorable on the jury; nor could cross-examination elicit the slightest flaw in the belief that they lived amongst their equals, without the shadow of aspersion on their honor.
An uninterested spectator of the scene might have felt amusement in contrasting the description of manners and habits with the customs of the present time; for although the evidence referred to a period so recent, yet were all the details mixed up with usages, opinions, and ways that seemed those of a long-past epoch. Men were just then awakening after that long and splendid orgie which had formed the life of Ireland before the Union. With bankrupt fortunes and ruined estates, they saw themselves the successors of a race whose princely hospitalities had never known a limit, and who had really imparted a character of barbaric splendor to lives of reckless extravagance.
A certain Mr. Archdall was examined as to his recollection of Castle Carew and the company who frequented there. He had been my father's guest when the Viceroy visited him; and certainly his account of the festivities might well have startled the credulity of his hearers. It was not at first apparent with what object these revelations were elicited by the cross-examination; but at length it came out that they were intended to show that my father, having no heir, nor expecting to have any, suffered himself to follow a career of the wildest wastefulness. With equal success they drew forth from the witness stories of my mother's unpopularity with the ladies of her own set in society, and the suspicion and distrust that pervaded the world of fashion that she had not originally been born in, or belonged to, the class with which she was then associating.
It was but too plain to what all this pointed; and although old servants of the family were brought forward to show the deference with which my mother's position was ever regarded, and the degree of respect, almost amounting to state, with which she was treated, yet the artfulness of the cross-examiner had at least succeeded in representing her to the jury as self-willed, vain, and capricious, constantly longing for a return to France, and cordially hating her banishment to Ireland. My mother's friendship and attachment to Polly Fagan was ingeniously alluded to as a strange incident in the life of one whose circumstances might seem to have separated her from such companionship; and the able counsel dwelt most effectively on the disparity which separated their conditions.
These circumstances were, however, not pressed home, but rather left to make their impression, with more or less of force, while other incidents were being related. To rebut in some measure these impressions, Foxley showed that my mother had been a guest at the Viceroy's table,—an honor which could not have been conferred on her on any questionable grounds. Unimportant and trivial as was the fact, the mode of eliciting it formed one of the amusing episodes of the trial, since it brought forward on the witness-table a well-known character of old Dublin,—no less a functionary than Samuel Cotterell, the hall trumpeter, now pensioned off and retired, but still, with all the weight of nearly fourscore-and-ten years, bearing himself erect, and carrying in his port the consciousness of his once high estate and dignity.
It was some time before the old man could be persuaded that in all the state and pomp of the justice-seat there was not occasion for some exercise of his ancient functions.
He seemed ashamed at appearing without his tabard, and looked anxiously around for his trumpet; but once launched upon the subject of his recollections, he appeared to revel with eager delight in all the associations they called up. It was perfectly miraculous to see with what tenacity he retained a memory of the festivities of old Viceregal times; they lived, however, in his mind like distinct pictures, unconnected with all around him. There was a duke in his “garter,” and a duchess in her diamonds; a gorgeously decked table; pineapples that came from France; and a dessert wine newly arrived from Portugal, some of which Sir Amyrald Fitzgerald spilled on Madame Carew's dress; at which she laughed pleasantly, and, in showing the stains, displayed her ankles to Barry Rutledge, who whispered his Grace that there was not such a foot and leg in Ireland. Lord Gartymore backed Kitty O'Dwyer's for fifty pounds, and lost his wager.
“How, then, was the bet decided, Mr. Cotterell?”
“We saw her dance the minuet with Colonel Candler, and my Lord said he had lost.”
“Madame Carew was, then, much admired at Court?”
“She was.”
“And a favorite guest, too?”
“We asked her on Wednesdays generally; they were the small dinners, but many thought them the pleasantest.”
“Her Grace noticed her particularly, you say?”
“She did so on one Patrick's night, and said she had never seen such lace before; and Madame Carew told her she would show her some still handsomer, for it had been given by the king to her grandmother, whom I think they called Madame Barry, or Du Barry, or something like that.”
Though little in reality beyond the gossiping revelation of a very old man, Cotterell's evidence tended to show that my mother had been a welcome and a favored guest in all the best houses of the day, and that, living as she did in the very centre of scandal, not the slightest imputation had been ever thrown upon her position or her conduct.
The counsel probably saw that, not having any direct proof of the marriage,—when, and how, and where solemnized,—it was more than ever necessary to show the rank my mother had always occupied in the world, and the respect with which she was ever received in society.
He had—I know not with what, if any, grounds—a little narrative of her family and birthplace in France, and most conveniently disposed of all belonging to her,—fortune, friends, and home,—by the events of “that disastrous Revolution, which swept away not only the nobles of the land, but every archive and document that had pertained to them.”
When he came to my own birth, he was fortunate enough to obtain all the evidence he wanted. The priest of Rathmullen, who had officiated at my christening, was yet alive, and related, with singular clearness of recollection, every circumstance of that sorrowful night when the tidings of my father's violent death reached the village beside Castle Carew. Of those present on this occasion, among whom were Polly Fagan and MacNaghten, he could not yet point to where one could be found.
There now only remained to sum up the evidence, and impart that consistency and coherence to the story which should carry conviction to the minds of the jury; and this task he performed with a most consummate ability, concluding all with an account of my own visit to the home of my fathers, and the reception which there had met me. The passionate vehemence of his indignation seemed fired by the theme; and, warming as he proceeded, he denounced the infamy of that morning as not only a stain upon the nation, but the age, and called upon the jury, whatever their decision might be in the cause itself,—whether to restore the heir to his own, or send him a beggared wanderer through the world,—to mark by some expression of their own the horror and disgust this act of barbaric cruelty had filled them with.
A burst of applause and indignation commingled saluted the orator as he sat down; nor was it till after repeated efforts of the criers that silence was again restored, and the business of the trial proceeded with.
Mr. M'Clelland, to whom the chief duty of the defence was intrusted, requested permission of the court to defer the reply to the following day, and, the leave being granted, the court arose.
I dined that day with Mr. Fozley. I would fain have been alone. The intense excitement of the scene had made me feverish, and I would gladly have felt myself at ease, and free to give way, in solitude, to the emotions which were almost suffocating me; but he insisted on my presence, and I went. The company included many very distinguished names,—members of both Houses of Parliament, and men of high consideration; and by all of them was I received with more than kindness, and some went so far as to congratulate me on a victory which, if not yet gazetted, was just as certainly achieved.
I dare not trust myself to dwell on this subject; the tremors of hope and fear I then went through threaten even yet to come back in memory. A few more words, and I have done. Would that I could spare myself the pain of these! But it cannot be so; my task must be completed.
I suppose that very few persons have ever formed a rightful estimate of the extent to which the skill and cleverness of an able lawyer have enabled him to wound their feelings and insult their self-love. I conclude this to be the case, not alone from my own brief and unhappy experience, but from reading a vast number of trials and always experiencing a sense of astonishment at the powerful perversity of these men. The cruel insinuation, the imputed meanness, the perversion of meaning, the insinuations of unworthy motive, are all acquired and cultivated, like the feints and parries of an accomplished fencer. The depreciation of a certain testimony, and the exaggerated estimate of some other; the sneering acknowledgment of this, or the triumphant assertion of that; the dark menace of a hidden meaning here, and the subtle insinuation that there was more than met the eye there,—are all studied and practised efforts, as artificial as the stage-trick of the actor. And yet how little does all our conviction of this artifice avail against their influence!
Bad as these are, they are as nothing to the resources in store when the object is to assail the reputation and blacken the character; to hold up some poor fellow-man—frail and erring as he may be—to everlasting shame, and mark him with ignominy forever. Alas for the best and purest! what an alloy of meanness and littleness, what vanity and self-seeking mingle with their very noblest and highest efforts. What need, then, to overwhelm the guilty with more than his guilt, and quote the “Heart” in the indictment as well as the Crime? No, no; if the best be not all good, believe me the worst are not all and hopelessly depraved. I have a right to speak of these things, as one who has felt them. For eight hours and more I listened to such a character of myself as made me sick, to very loathing, at my own identity; I heard a man in a great assembly denounce me as one of the most corrupt and infamous of mankind! I felt the eyes that were turned towards me, I almost thought I overheard the muttered reprobation that surrounded me. A number of the incidents of my changeful life—how learned I know not—were related with every exaggeration and every perversion that malice could invest them with. For a while, a sense of guiltlessness supported me; I knew many of the accusations to be false, others grossly overstated. The scenes in which I was often depicted as an actor had either no existence, or were falsehoods based upon some small germ of truth; and yet I heard them detailed with a semblance of reality, and a degree of coherence as to time and place, that smote me with very terror, since, though I might deny, I could not disprove them.
To stamp me as an impostor, and my claim as a cheat, appeared to be the entire line of the defence. Indeed, he avowed openly that with all the evidence so painstakingly elicited by the opposite counsel, he should not trouble the jury with one remark. “When I tell you,” said he, “who this claimant really is, and how his claim originated, you will forgive me that I have not embarrassed you with details quite irrelevant to this action, since of Walter Carew or of any descendant of his there is no question here! I will produce before you on that table, I will leave him to all the ingenuity of my learned friend to cross-examine, one who shall account to you how the first impulse to this daring imposture was conceived. You will be astounded. It will be, I am aware, a tremendous tax upon your credulity to compass it; but I will show to your entire conviction that the man who aspires to the rank of an Irish gentleman, a vast estate, and an illustrious name, is a foreigner of unknown origin who began life as an emissary of the French revolutionary party. When secret treachery superseded the guillotine, he served as a spy; this trade failing, he fell into the straits and difficulties of the most abject poverty; the materials of that period of his history are, of course, difficult to come at. They who walk in such paths, walk darkly and secretly; but we may be able to display some, at least, of his actions at this time,—one of them, at all events, will exhibit the character of the individual, and at the same time put you in possession of an incident which, in all likelihood, originated this extraordinary action.
“There may be some now present in this court sufficiently familiar with London to remember a certain character well known in the precincts of Charing Cross by the nickname of Gentleman Jack. To those not acquainted with this individual I may mention that he swept a crossing in that locality, and had, by a degree of pretension in his appearance, aided by a natural smartness in repartee, attracted notice from many of the idle loungers of fashion who daily passed and repassed there. I am not able to say if his gifts were in any respect above the common. Indeed, I have heard that it was rather the singular fact that a man in such a station should be remarkable for any claim to notice whatever, which endowed him with the popularity he enjoyed. At all events, he was remarkable enough to be generally, I might say universally, known; and it was the caprice of certain fashionable folk to accord him a recognition as they passed by. This degree of attention was harmless, at least, and had it stopped at that point, might never have called for any reprobation; but modish follies occasionally take an offensive shape, and this man's pretension offered the opportunity to display such.
“You have all heard of Carlton House, gentlemen,—of the society of wits who frequent there, and the charms of a circle in which the chief figure is not more distinguished for his rank than for the gifts which elevate social intercourse. To the freedom which this exalted personage permitted those who approached him thus nearly, there seemed to be scarcely any limit. Admitting them to his friendship, he endowed them with almost equality; and there was not a liberty nor a license which could be practised in ordinary polite intercourse that was not allowed at that hospitable board.
“You might imagine that men who enjoyed such a privilege would have been guardedly careful against abusing it; you might fancy that even worldly motives might have rendered them cautious about imperilling the princely favor! Not so; they would seem to have lost every consciousness of propriety in the intoxication of this same flattery; and they actually dared to take a liberty with this Prince which had been more than hazardous if ventured upon with a gentleman of private station.
“The story goes that, offended by his Royal Highness having pronounced marked eulogium on the manners and breeding of an individual who was not of their set either in politics or society, one of the party—I am not disposed to give his name, if it can be avoided—dared to make a wager that he would take a fellow off the streets, give him ruffles and a dress-coat, and pass him off on the Prince as one of the most accomplished and well-bred men in Europe.
“Gentlemen, you may fancy that in this anecdote which I have taken the liberty to relate to you, I am endeavoring to compete with the very marvellous histories which my learned brother on the opposite side addressed to your notice. I beg most distinctly to disclaim all such rivalry. My story has none of those stirring incidents with which his abounded. The characters and the scene are all of home growth. It has neither remoteness in point of time, nor distance in country, to lend it attraction. It has, however, one merit which my learned friend might reasonably envy, and this is, that it is true. Yes, gentlemen, every particular I have stated is a fact. I will prove it by a witness whose evidence will be beyond gainsay. The wager was accepted, and for a considerable sum too, and a dinnerparty arranged as the occasion by which to test it. The secrecy which I wish to observe as to the actors in this most unpardonable piece of levity will prevent my mentioning the names of those most deeply implicated. One who does not stand in this unenviable category is now in court, and I will call him before you.”
Colonel Whyte Morris was now called to appear, and, after a brief delay, a tall, soldier-like, and handsome man, somewhat advanced in life, ascended the witness-table. I had no recollection of ever having seen him before; but it is needless to say with what anxiety I followed every word he uttered.
The ordinary preliminaries over, he was asked if he remembered a certain dinner-party, of which he was a guest, on a certain day in the autumn of the year.
He remembered it perfectly, and recounted that it was not easily to be forgotten, since it took place to decide a very extraordinary wager, the circumstances of which he briefly related.
“Gentleman Jack was the individual selected by a friend of mine,” said he, “and who should succeed in winning his Royal Highnesses good opinion, so as to obtain a flattering estimate of his manners and good-breeding. To what precise extent the praise was to go was not specified. There was nothing beyond a gentleman-like understanding that if Jack passed muster as a man of fashion and ton, his backer was to have won; if, on the contrary, the Prince should detect any anomalies in his breeding, so as to throw suspicion upon his real rank, then the wager was lost.
“I was present,” said the Colonel, “when the ceremony of presenting him to the Prince took place; I did not know the man myself, nor had I the slightest suspicion of any trick being practised. I had recently returned from foreign service, and was almost a stranger to all the company. Standing close beside Colonel O'Kelly, however, I overheard what passed, and as the words were really very remarkable, under the circumstances, I have not forgotten them.” Being asked to relate the incident, he went on:
“There was a doubt in what manner—I mean rather by what name—the stranger should be presented to his Royal Highness: some suggesting one name,—others, a different one; and O'Kelly grew impatient, almost angry, at the delay, and said, 'D——n it all him something: what shall it be, Sheridan?' 'The King of the Beggars, say I,' cried Sheridan, and in a voice, as I thought, to be easily heard all around. 'Who was he?' asked O'Kelly. 'Bamfield Moore Carew,' answered the other. 'So be it, then,' said O'Kelly. 'Your Royal Highness will permit me to present a very distinguished friend of mine, recently arrived in England, and who, like every true Englishman, feels that his first homage is due to the Prince who rules in all our hearts.'—'Your friend's name?'—'Carew, your Royal Highness; but being a wanderer and a vagabond, he has gone by half-a-dozen names.' The Prince laughed, and turned to hear the remainder of a story that some one at his side was relating. Meanwhile the stranger had gone through his introduction, and as Mr. Carew was in succession presented to the other members of the company—”
“Was he never addressed by any other designation, Colonel?” asked the lawyer.
“Certainly not,—on that evening, at least.”
“Were you acquainted with his real name?” “No; O'Kelly told me, the day after the dinner, that the fellow had made his escape from London, doubtless dreading the consequences of his freak, and all trace of him was lost.”
“Should you be able to recognize him were you to see him again, Colonel Morris?”
“Unquestionably; his features were very marked, and I took especial notice of him as he sat at the card-table.”
“Will you cast your eyes about you through the court, and inform us if you see him here at present?”
The Colonel turned, and, putting his glass to his eye, scanned the faces in the gallery and along the crowded ranks beneath it. He then surveyed the body of the court, and at length fixed his glance on the inner bar, where, seated beside Mr. Foxley, I sat, pale and almost breathless with terror. “There he is! that man next but one to the pillar; that is the man!”
It was the second time that I had stood beneath the concentrated stare of a vast crowd of people; but oh, how differently this from the last time! No longer with aspects of compassionate interest and kind feeling, every glance now was the triumphant sparkle over detected iniquity, the haughty look of insolent condemnation.
“Tell me of this—what does this mean?” wrote my adviser, on a slip of paper, and handed it, unperceived, to me.
“It is true!” whispered I, in an accent that almost rent my heart to utter.
The commotion in the court was now great; the intense anxiety to catch a sight of me, added to the expressions of astonishment making up a degree of tumult that the officers essayed vainly to suppress. That the evidence thus delivered had been a great shock to my advisers was easily seen; and though Foxley proceeded to cross-examine the Colonel, the statement was not to be shaken.
“We purpose to afford my learned friend a further exercise for his ingenuity,” said M'Clelland; “for we shall now summon to the table a gentleman who has known the plaintiff long and intimately; who knew him in his real character of secret political agent abroad; and who will be able not alone to give a correct history of the individual, but also to inform the jury by what circumstances the first notion of this most audacious fraud was first suggested, and how it occurred to him to assume the character and name he had dared to preface this suit by taking. Before the witness shall leave that table I pledge myself to establish, beyond the possibility of a cavil, one of the most daring, most outrageous, and consummate pieces of rascality that has ever come before the notice of a jury. It is needless that I should say one word to exonerate my learned friends opposite,—they could, of course, know nothing of the evidence we shall produce here this day; the worst that can be alleged against them will be, the insufficiency of their own searches, and the inadequacy of the proofs on which they began this suit I can afford to reflect, however, upon their professional skill, as the recompense for not aspersing their reputation; and I will say that a more baseless, unsupported action never was introduced into a court of justice. Call Count Anatole Ysaffich!”
I shall not attempt to describe a scene, the humiliation of which no vindication of my honor can ever erase. For nearly three hours I listened to such details, not one of which I could boldly deny, and yet not one of which was the pure truth, that actually made me feel a perfect monster of treachery and corruption. Of that life which my own lawyer had given such a picturesque account, a new version was now to be heard; the history of my birth I had once given to Ysafflch was all related circumstantially.
He tracked me as the “adventurer” through every event and incident of my career,—ever aiming at fortune, ever failing; the hired spy of a party, the corrupt partisan of the press,—a fellow, in fact, without family, friends, or country, and just as bereft of every principle of honor.
Ysafflch went on to say that, having shown me Raper's letters and memoranda on one occasion, I had, on reading them, originated the notion of this suit, suggesting my own obscure birth and origin as sufficient to defy all inquiry or investigation. He represented me as stating that such actions were constantly brought, and as constantly successful; and even where the best grounds of defence existed, they who were in possession frequently preferred to compromise a claim rather than to contest it in open litigation. Though the Count always endeavored to screen himself behind his ignorance of English law and justice, he made no scruple of avowing his own complicity in the scheme. He detailed all the earliest steps of the venture,—where the family crest had been obtained; by whom it had been 'engraved on my visiting-cards. He mentioned, with strict accuracy, the very date I had first assumed the name of Carew; he actually exhibited a letter written by me on the evening before, and in which I signed myself “Paul Gervois.” With these matters of fact he mixed up other details, totally untrue,—such as a mock certificate of my father's marriage at a small town in Normandy, and which I had never seen nor heard of till that moment. He convulsed the court with laughter by describing the way in which I used to rehearse the part of heir and descendant of Walter Carew before him; and after a vast variety of details, either wholly or partially untrue, he produced my written promise to pay him an enormous sum, in the event of the success of the present action. Truly had the lawyer said, “Such an exposure was never before witnessed in a court of justice.” And now for above an hour did he continue to accumulate evidences of fraud and deception,—in the allegations made by me before officials of the court; affidavits sworn to; documents attested before consuls in Holland; inaccuracies of expression; faults even of spelling,—not very difficult to account for in one whose education and life for the most part had been spent abroad,—were all quoted and adduced, as showing the actual insolence of presumption which had marked every step of this imposture.
The Court interrupted the counsel at this conjuncture by an observation which I could not hear, to which the lawyer replied, “It shall be as your Lordship suggests; though, were I permitted a choice, I should infinitely prefer to probe this foul wound to its last depth. I would far rather display this consummate impostor to the world, less as a punishment to himself than as a warning and a terror to others.”
Here my counsel rose, and said that he had conferred with his learned friends in the case as to the course he ought to pursue. He could not express the emotions which he felt at the exposures they had just witnessed; nor did he deem it necessary to say for himself and his brother-barristers, as well as for the respectable solicitors employed, that the revelations then made had come upon them entirely by surprise. Well weighing the responsible position they occupied towards the plaintiff, whose advocates they were, they still felt, after the appalling exhibition they had witnessed,—an exposure unparalleled in a court of justice,—it would be unbefitting their station as gentlemen, and unworthy of their duty as barristers, any longer to continue this contest.
A low murmur of approbation ran through the court as the words were concluded, and the Judge solemnly added, “You have shown a very wise discretion, sir, and which completely exonerates you from any foreknowledge of this fraud.”
The defendant's counsel then requested that the Court would not permit the plaintiff to leave.
“We intend to prefer charges of forgery and perjury against him, my Lord,” said he; “and meanwhile I desire that the various documents we have seen may be impounded.”
On an order from the Judge, the plaintiff was now taken into custody; and after, as it appeared, one or two vain efforts to address the Court, in which his voice utterly failed him, he was removed.
Mr. M'Clelland could not take his farewell of the case without expressing his full concurrence in the opinion expressed by the Court regarding his learned friends opposite, whose ability during the contest was only to be equalled by the integrity with which they guided their conduct when defence had become worse than hopeless.
The defence of this remarkable suit will cost Mr. Curtis, it is said, upwards of seven thousand pounds.
A very few words will now complete this history. Let him who writes them be permitted to derive them from the public journals of the time, since it is no longer without deep humiliation he can venture to speak of himself. Alas and alas! too true is it, the penalties of crime are as stigmatizing as crime itself! The stripes upon the back, the brand upon the brow, are more enduring than the other memories of vice. Be innocent of all offence, appeal to your own heart with conscious rectitude, yet say, if the chain has galled your ankle, and the iron bar has divided the sunlight that streamed into your cell,—say, if you can, that self-esteem came out intact and unwounded, after such indignity.
I speak this with no malice to my fellow-men—I bear no grudge against those who sentenced me; too deeply conscious am I of my many offences against the world to assume even to myself the pretension of martyr; but I do assert that vindication of character, restitution to fair fame, comes late when once the terrible ordeal of public condemnation has been passed. The very pity men extend to you humiliates—their compassion savors of mercy; and mercy is the attribute of One alone!
The “Morning Advertiser” informed its readers, amidst its paragraphs of events, “That, on Wednesday last, Paul Gervois, the celebrated claimant to the estates of the late Walter Carew, was forwarded to Cork, previous to embarking on board the transport-ship 'Craven Castle,' in pursuance of the sentence passed upon him last assizes, of banishment beyond the seas for the term of his natural life. The wretched man, who since the discovery that marked the concluding scene of his trial, has scarcely uttered a word, declined all defence, and while obstinately rejecting any assistance from counsel, still persisted in pleading not guilty, to the last.
“It is asserted, we know not with what authority, that the eminent leader of the Western Circuit is fully persuaded not only of Gervois' innocence, but actually of his right to the vast property to which he pretended to be the heir; and had it not been for a severe attack of gout, Mr. Hanchett would have defended him on his late trial.”
Amidst the fashionable intelligence of the same day, we read that “a very large and brilliant company are passing the Easter holidays at the hospitable seat of Joseph Curtis, Castle Carew, amongst whom we recognized Lord and Lady Ogletown, Sir Massy Digby, the Right Hon. Francis Malone, Major-General Count Ysaffich, Knight of various orders, and Augustus Clifford, etc.”
I was on board of a convict hulk in Cork harbor from March till the latter end of November, not knowing, nor indeed caring, why my sentence of transportation had not been carried out. The shock under which I had fallen still stunned me. Life was become a dreary, monotonous dream, but I had no wish to awake from it; on the contrary, the only acute suffering I can trace to that period was, when the unhappy fate which attached to me excited sentiments of either compassion or curiosity in others. Prison discipline had not, at the time I speak of, received the development it has since attained; greater freedom of action was permitted to those in charge of prisoners, who, provided that their safety was assured, were suffered to treat them with any degree of severity or harshness that they fancied.
The extraordinary features of the trial in which I had figured—the “outrageous daring of my pretensions,” as the newspapers styled it—attracted towards me some of that half-morbid interest which, somehow, attaches to any remarkable crime. Scarcely a week passed without some visitor or other desiring to see me; and I was ordered to come up on deck, or to “walk aft on the poop,” to be stared at and surveyed, as though I had been some newly discovered animal of the woods.
These were very mortifying moments to me, and as I well knew that their humiliation formed no part of my sentence, I felt disposed to rebel against this infliction. The resolution required more energy, however, than I possessed, nor was it till after long and painful endurance that I resolved finally to resist. As I could not refuse to walk up on deck when ordered, the only resistance in my power was to maintain silence, and not reply to a single question of those whose vulgar and heartless curiosity prompted them to make an amusement of my suffering.
“The fellow won't speak, gentlemen,” said the superintendent one morning to a very numerous party, who, in all the joyousness of life and liberty, came to heighten their zest for pleasure by the sight of sorrow and pain. “He was never very communicative about himself, but latterly he refuses to utter a word.”
“He still persists in asserting his innocence?” asked one of the strangers, but in a voice easily overheard by me.
“Not to any of us, sir,” replied the turnkey, gruffly; “he may do so with his fellows below in the hold, but he knows better than to try on that gammon with us.”
“I must say,” said one, in a half-whisper, “that, even in that dress, he has the look of a gentleman about him.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed another, “if his story were to be true!”
I know not what chord in my heart responded to that sudden burst of feeling. I am fully convinced that, to anything like systematic condolence or well-worded compassion, I should have been cold as a stone; and yet I burst into tears as he spoke, and sobbed convulsively.
“Ah! he's a deep one,” muttered the turnkey. “Take him down with you, corporal;” and I was marched away, glad to hide my shame and my sorrow in secret.
Various drafts had been made of those who had been my companions, until at last not one remained of those originally sentenced at the same assizes with myself. What this might portend I knew not. Was I destined to end my days on board of this dark and dismal hulk?—was I never to press earth once more with my feet? How simply that sounds; but let me tell you, there is some strange, high instinct in the heart of man that attaches him to the very soil of earth. That clay of which we came, and to which we are one day to return, has a powerful hold upon our hearts. He who toils in it loves it with a fonder love than the great lord who owns it. Its varied aspects in sunshine and in shade, its changeful hues of season, its fragrance and its barrenness, are the books in which he reads; its years of fruitfulness are the joyous episodes of his existence. The mother earth is the parent that makes all men akin, and teaches us to love each other like brethren.
“Well, Gervois,” said the turnkey to me one morning, “you are to go at last, they say. Old Hanchett has argued your case till there is no more to be said of it; but the Lords have decided against you, and now you are to sail with the next batch.”
The announcement gave me neither pleasure nor pain; even this evidence of Hanchett's kindness towards me did not touch my feelings, for I had outlived every sentiment of regard or esteem, and lay cold and apathetic to whatever might betide me.
Possibly this indifference of mine might have piqued him, for he tried to stimulate me to some show of interest, or even of curiosity about my own case, by dropping hints of the points of law on which the appeal was grounded, and the ingenuity by which counsel endeavored to rescue me. But all his efforts failed; I was dead to the past, and careless for the future.
“Here's another order come about you,” said he to me about a week after this; “you are not to be shipped off next time. They 've found something else in your case now, which, they say, will puzzle the twelve judges. Mayhap you 'd like to read it, if I could get you the newspaper?”
“It were kinder to leave me as I am,” replied I. “He who can only awake to sorrow had better be let sleep on.”
“Just as you please, my man,” rejoined he, gruffly; “though, if I were you, I 'd like to know that my case was not hopeless.”