What a change did Tubbermore present to its aspect of the day before! All the emblems of joy and festivity, all the motley of pleasure, all the gay troops of guests hastening onward in glowing eagerness and anticipation, were gone; and in their stead a dreary and mysterious silence brooded over the place, interrupted at intervals by the bustle of some departure. For thus, without one word of sympathy, without even a passing good-bye, Roland's “friends” hurried away, as if flying from the very memories of the spot.
It was a dreary winter's day; the dark leaden clouds that flitted past, and the long-sighing wind, seemed to add their sad influence to the melancholy. The house itself already appeared to feel its altered fortunes. Most of the windows were closed and shuttered; the decorations of rare plants and shrubs and lamps were removed; instead of the movement of liveried servants to and fro, ill-favored and coarse-clad men, the underlings of the law, crept stealthily about, noticing each circumstance of the locality, and conferring together in mysterious whispers. Mounted messengers, too, came and went with a haste that boded urgency; and post-horses were each moment arriving to carry away those whose impatience to leave was manifested in a hundred ways. Had the air of the place been infected with some pestilential malady, their eagerness could scarce have been greater. All the fretful irritability of selfishness, all the peevish discontent of petty natures, exhibited themselves without shame; and envious expressions towards those fortunate enough to “get away first,” and petulant complaints over their own delay, were bandied on every side.
A great table was laid for breakfast in the dining-room, as usual. All the luxuries and elegances that graced the board on former occasions were there, but a few only took their places. Of these, Frobisher and some military men were the chief; they, indeed, showed comparatively little of that anxiety to be gone so marked in the others. The monotony of the barrack and the parade was not attractive, and they lingered like men who, however little they had of pleasure here, had even less of inducement to betake them elsewhere.
Meek had been the first to make his escape, by taking the post-horses intended for another, and already was many miles on his way towards Dublin. The Chief Justice and his family were the next. From the hour of the fatal event, Mrs. Malone had assumed a judicial solemnity of demeanor that produced a great impression upon the beholders, and seemed to convey, by a kind of reflected light, the old judge's gloomiest forebodings of the result.
Mrs. Leicester White deferred her departure to oblige Mr. Howie, who was making a series of sketches for the “Pictorial Paul Pry,” showing not only the various façades of Tubbermore House, but several interesting “interiors:” such as the “Ball-room, when the fatal tidings arrived:” “Dressing-room of Roland Cashel, Esq., when entered by the Chief Justice and his party;” the most effective of all being a very shadowy picture of the “Gap of Ennismore—the scene of the murder;” the whole connected by a little narrative so ingeniously drawn up as to give public opinion a very powerful bias against Cashel, whose features, in the woodcut, would in themselves have made a formidable indictment.
Of the Kennyfecks, few troubled themselves with even a casual inquiry: except the fact that a fashionable physician had been sent for to Dublin, little was known about them. But where was Linton all this while? Some averred that he had set out for the capital, to obtain the highest legal assistance for his friend; others, that he was so overwhelmed by the terrible calamity as to have fallen into a state of fatuous insensibility. None, however, could really give any correct account of him; he had left Tubbermore, but in what direction none could tell.
As the day wore on, a heavy rain began to fall; and of those who still remained in the house, little knots of two and three assembled at the windows, to watch for the arrival of their wished-for “posters,” or to speculate upon the weather. Another source of speculation there was besides. Some hours before, a magistrate, accompanied by a group of ill-dressed and vulgar-looking men, had been seen to pass the house, and take the path which led to the Gap of Ennismore. These formed the inquest, who were to inquire into the circumstances of the crime, and whose verdict, however unimportant in a strictly legal sense, was looked for with considerable impatience by some of the company. To judge from the anxious looks that were directed towards the mountain road, or the piercing glances which at times were given through telescopes in that direction, one would have augured that some, at least, of those there, were not destitute of sympathy for him whose guests they had been, and beneath whose roof they still lingered. A very few words of those that passed between them will best answer how this impression is well founded.
“Have you sent your groom off, Upton?” asked Frobisher, as he stood with a coffee-cup in his hand at the window.
“Yes, he passed the window full half an hour ago.”
“They are confoundedly tedious,” said Jennings, half suppressing a yawn. “I thought those kind of fellows just gave a look at the body, and pronounced their verdict at once.”
“So they do when it's one of their own class; but in the case of a gentleman they take a prodigious interest in examining his watch and his purse and his pocket-book; and, in fact, it is a grand occasion for prying as far as possible into his private concerns.”
“I 'll double our bet, Upton, if you like,” said Frobisher, languidly.
The other shook his head negatively.
“Why, the delay is clearly in your favor, man. If they were strong in their convictions, they 'd have brought him in guilty an hour ago.”
“That is my opinion too,” said Jennings.
“Well, here goes. Two fifties be it,” cried Upton.
Frobisher took out his memorandum-book and wrote something with a pencil.
“Is n't that it?” said he, showing the lines to Upton.
“Just so. 'Wilful murder,'” muttered the other, reading.
“You have a great 'pull' upon me, Upton,” said Frobisher; “by Jove! if you were generous, you'd give me odds.”
“How so?”
“Why, you saw his face since the affair, and I did n't.”
“It would need a better physiognomist than I am to read it. He looked exactly as he always does; a thought paler, perhaps, but no other change.”
“Here comes a fellow with news,” said Jennings, throwing open the window. “I say, my man, is it over?”
“No, sir; the jury want to see one of Mr. Cashel's boots.”
Jennings closed the sash, and, lighting a cigar, sat down in an easy-chair. A desultory conversation here arose among some of the younger military men whether a coroner's verdict were final, and whether a “fellow could be hanged” when it pronounced him guilty; the astute portion of the debaters inclining to the opinion that although this was not the case in England, such would be “law” in Ireland. Then the subject of confiscation was entertained, and various doubts and surmises arose as to what would become of Tubbermore when its proprietor had been executed; with sly jests about the reversionary rights of the Crown, and the magnanimity of extending mercy at the price of a great landed estate. These filled up the time for an hour or so more, interspersed with conjectures as to Cashel's present frame of mind, and considerable wonderment why he had n't “bolted” at once.
At last Upton's groom was seen approaching at a tremendous pace; and in a few minutes after he had pulled up at the door, and dismounting with a spring, hastened into the house.
“Well, Robert, how did it go?” cried Upton, as, followed by the rest, he met him in the hall.
“You 've lost, sir,” said the man, wiping his forehead.
“Confound the rascals! But what are the words of the verdict?”
“'Wilful murder,' sir.”
“Of course,” said Frobisher, coolly; “they could give no other.”
“It's no use betting against you,” cried Upton, pettishly. “You are the luckiest dog in Europe.”
“Come, I 'll give you a chance,” said Frobisher; “double or quit that they hang him.”
“No, no; I 've lost enough on him. I 'll not have it.”
“Well, I suppose we've nothing to wait for now,” yawned Jennings. “Shall we start?”
“Not till we have luncheon, I vote,” cried an infantry sub.; and his suggestion met general approval. And while they are seated at a table where exquisite meats and rarest wines stimulated appetite and provoked excess, let us turn for a few brief moments to him who, still their entertainer, sat in his lone chamber, friendless and deserted.
So rapid had been the succession of events which occupied one single night, that Roland could not believe it possible months had not passed over. Even then, he found it difficult to disentangle the real circumstances from those fancied results his imagination had already depicted; many of the true incidents appearing far more like fiction than the dreamy fancies his mind invented. His meeting with Enrique, for instance, was infinitely less probable than that he should have fought a duel with Linton; and so, in many other cases, his faculties wavered between belief and doubt, till his very senses reeled with the confusion. Kennyfeck's death alone stood out from this chaotic mass, clear, distinct, and palpable, and, as he sat brooding over this terrible fact, he was totally unconscious of its bearing upon his own fortunes. Selfishness formed no part of his nature; his fault lay in the very absence of self-esteem, and the total deficiency of that individuality which prompts men to act up to a self-created standard. He could sorrow for him who was no more, and from whom he had received stronger proofs of devotion than from all his so-called friends; he could grieve over the widowed mother and the fatherless girls, for whose destitution he felt, he knew not how, or wherefore, a certain culpability; but of himself and his own critical position, not a thought arose. The impressions that no effort of his own could convey fell with a terrific shock upon him when suggested by another.
He was seated at his table, trying, for the twentieth time, to collect his wandering thoughts, and determine what course to follow, when a tap was heard at his door, and it opened at the same instant.
“I am come, sir,” said Mr. Goring, with a voice full of feeling, “to bring you sad tidings; but for which events may have, in a measure, prepared you.” He paused, perhaps hoping that Cashel would spare him the pain of continuing; but Roland never spoke.
“The inquest has completed its labors,” said Goring, with increasing agitation; “and the verdict is one of 'wilful murder.'”
“It was a foul and terrible crime,” said Cashel, shuddering; “the poor fellow was animated with kind intentions and benevolent views towards the people. In all our intercourse he displayed but one spirit—”
“Have a care, sir,” said Goring, mildly. “It is just possible that, in the frankness of the moment something may escape you which hereafter you might wish unsaid; and standing in the position you now do—”
“How so? What position, sir, do I occupy, that should preclude me from the open expression of my sentiments?”
“I have already told you, sir, that the verdict of the jury was wilful murder, and I hold here in my hand the warrant for your arrest.”
“As the criminal? as the murderer?” cried Cashel, with a voice almost like a shriek of agony. Goring bowed his head, and Roland fell powerless on the floor.
Summoning others to his aid, Goring succeeded in lifting him up and placing him on a bed. A few drops of blood that issued from his mouth, and his heavy snoring respiration, indicated an apoplectic seizure. Messengers were sent in various directions to fetch a doctor. Tiernay was absent, and it was some hours ere one could be found. Large bleeding and quiet produced the usual effects, and towards evening Cashel's consciousness had returned; but memory was still clouded and incoherent, and he lay without speaking, and almost without thought.
After the lapse of about a week he was able to leave his bed and creep about his chamber, whose altered look contributed to recall his mind to the past. All his papers and letters had been removed; the window was secured with iron stanchions; and policemen stood sentry at the door. He remembered everything that had occurred, and sat down in patient thought to consider what he should do.
He learned without surprise, but not without a pang, that of all his friends not one had remained,—not one had offered a word of counsel in his affliction, or of comfort in his distress. He asked after Mr. Corrigan, and heard that he had quitted the country, with his granddaughter, on the day before the terrible event. Tiernay, it was said, had accompanied them to Dublin, and not since returned. Roland was, then, utterly friendless! What wonder if he became as utterly reckless, as indifferent to life, as life seemed valueless? And so was it: he heard with indifference the order for his removal to Limerick, although that implied a Jail! He listened to the vulgar but kindly meant counsels of his keepers, who advised him to seek legal assistance, with a smile of half-contempt. The obdurate energy of a martyrdom seemed to take possession of him; and, so far from applying his mind to disentangle the web of suspicion around him, he watched, with a strange interest, the convergence of every minute circumstance towards the proof of his guilt; a secret vindictiveness whispering to his heart that the day would come when his innocence should be proclaimed; and then, what tortures of remorse would be theirs who had brought him to a felon's death!
Each day added to the number of these seeming proofs, and the newspapers, in paragraphs of gossiping, abounded with circumstances that had already convinced the public of Cashel's guilt: and how often do such shadowy convictions throw their gloom over the prisoner's dock! One day, the fact of the boot-track tallying precisely with Roland's, filled the town; another, it was the pistol-wadding—part of a letter addressed to Cashel—had been discovered. Then, there were vague rumors afloat that the causes of Cashel's animosity to Kennyfeck were not so secret as the world fancied; that there were persons of credit to substantiate and explain them; and, lastly, it was made known that among the papers seized on Cashel's table was a letter, just begun by himself, but to whom addressed uncertain, which ran thus:—
“As these in all likelihood may be the last lines I shall eyer write—”
Never, in all the gaudy glare of his prosperity, had he occupied more of public attention. The metaphysical penny-a-liners speculated upon the influence his old buccaneer habits might have exercised upon a mind so imperfectly trained to civilization; and amused themselves with guesses as to how far some Indian “cross” in blood might not have contributed to his tragic vengeance. Less scrupulous scribes invented deeds of violence: in a word, there seemed a kind of impulse abroad to prove him guilty; and it would have been taken as a piece of casuistry, or a mawkish sympathy with crime, to assume the opposite. Not, indeed, that any undertook so ungracious a task; the tide of accusation ran uninterrupted and unbroken. The very friendless desolation in which he stood was quoted and commented on to this end. One alone of all his former friends made an effort in his favor, and ventured to insinuate that his guilt was far from certain. This was Lord Charles Frobisher, who, seeing in the one-sidedness of public opinion the impossibility of obtaining a bet, tried thus to “get up” an “innocent party,” in the hope of a profitable wager.
But what became of Linton all this time? His game was a difficult one; and to enable him to play it successfully he needed reflection. To this end he affected to be so shocked by the terrible event as to be incapable of mixing in society. He retired, therefore, to his cottage near Dublin, and for some weeks lived a life of perfect seclusion. Mr. Phillis accompanied him; for Linton would not trust him out of his sight till—as he muttered in his own phrase—“all was over.”
This was, indeed, the most eventful period of Linton's life; and with consummate skill he saw that any move on his part would be an error. It is true that, through channels with whose workings he was long conversant, he contributed the various paragraphs to the papers by which Cashel's guilt was foreshadowed; his knowledge of Roland suggesting many a circumstance well calculated to substantiate the charge of crime. If he never ventured abroad into the world, he made himself master of all its secret whisperings; and heard how he was himself commended for delicacy and good feeling, with the satisfaction of a man who glories in a cheat. And how many are there who play false in life, less from the gain than the gratification of vanity!—a kind of diabolical pride in outwitting and overreaching those whose good faith has made them weak! The polite world does not take the same interest in deeds of terror as do their more humble brethren; they take their “horrors” as they do their one glass of Tokay at dessert,—a something, of which a little more would be nauseating. The less polished classes were, therefore, those who took the greatest pleasure in following up every clew and tracing each circumstance that pointed to Roland's guilt; and so, at last, his name was rarely mentioned among those with whom so lately he had lived in daily, almost hourly, companionship.
When Linton, then, deemed the time expired which his feelings of grief and shame had demanded for retirement, he reappeared in the world pretty much as men had always seen him. A very close observer, if he would have suffered any one to be such, might have perhaps detected the expression of care in certain wrinkles round his mouth, and in the extra blackness of his whiskers, where gray hairs had dared to show themselves; but to the world at large these signs were inappreciable. To them he was the same even-tempered, easy-mannered man they ever saw him. Nor was this accomplished without an effort; for, however Linton saw the hour of his vengeance draw nigh, he also perceived that all his personal plans of fortune and aggrandizement had utterly failed. The hopes he had so often cherished were all fled. His title to the cottage, his prospect of a seat in Parliament, the very sums he had won at play, and which to a large amount remained in Cashel's hands, he now perceived were all forfeited to revenge. The price was, indeed, a heavy one! and already he began to feel it so. Many of his creditors had abstained from pressing him so long as his intimacy with Cashel gave promise of future solvency. That illusion was now dispelled, and each post brought him dunning epistles, and threatening notices of various kinds. Exposures menaced him from men whose vindictiveness he was well aware of; but far more perilous than all these were his relations with Tom Keane, who continued to address letter after letter to him, craving advice and pecuniary assistance, in a tone where menace was even more palpable than entreaty. To leave these unreplied to might have been dangerous in the extreme; to answer them even more perilous. No other course was, then, open than to return to Tubbermore, and endeavor, in secret, to confer with this man face to face. There was not any time to lose. Cashel's trial was to take place at the ensuing assizes, which now were close at hand. Keane was to figure there as an important witness. It was absolutely necessary to see him, and caution him as to the nature of the evidence he should give, nor suffer him in the exuberance of his zeal to prove “too much.”
Under pretence, therefore, of a hurried trip to London, he left his house one evening, and went on board the packet at Kingstown, dismissing his carriage as if about to depart; then, suddenly affecting to discover that his luggage had been carried away by mistake, he landed, and set out with post-horses across country towards the western road. Before midnight he was safe in the mail, on his way to Limerick; and by daybreak on the following morning he was standing in the wood of Tubbermore, and gazing with a thoughtful head upon the house, whose shuttered windows and barred doors told of its altered destiny.
From thence he wandered onward towards the cottage—some strange, inexplicable interest over him—to see once more the spot he had so often fancied to be his own, and where, with a fervor not altogether unreal, he had sworn to pass his days in tranquil solitude. Brief as had been the interval since last he stood there, the changes were considerable. The flower-plots were trampled and trodden down, the palings smashed, the ornamental trees and shrubs were injured and broken by the cattle; traces of reckless haste and carelessness were seen in the broken gates and torn gate-posts; while fragments of packing-cases, straw, and paper littered the walks and the turf around.
Looking through the windows, broken in many places, he could see the cottage was perfectly dismantled. Everything was gone: not a trace remained of those who for so many years had called it home! The desolation was complete; nor was it without its depressing influence upon him who stood there to mark it; for, strange enough, there are little spots in the minds of those, where evil actions are oftenest cradled, that form the refuge of many a tender thought! Linton remembered the cottage as he saw it bright in the morning sun; or, more cheerful still, as the closed curtains and the blazing fire gave a look of homelike comfort to which the veriest wanderer is not insensible; and now it was cold and dark. He had no self-accusings as to the cause. It was, to him, one of those sad mutations which the course of fortune is ever effecting. He even went further, and fancied how different had been their fate if they had not rejected his own alliance.
“In this world of ours,” muttered he, “the cards we are dealt by Fortune would nearly always suffice to win, had we but skill. These people had a noble game before them, but, forsooth, they did not fancy their partner! And see what is come of it—ruin on every side!”
Gloomy thoughts over his own opportunities neglected—over eventful moments left to slip by unprofitably—stole over him. Many of his late speculations had been unsuccessful; he had had heavy losses on the “turf” and the “'Change.” He had failed in promises by which menacing dangers had been long averted. His enemies would soon be upon him, and he was ill provided for the encounter. Vengeance alone, of all his aspirations, seemed to prosper; and he tried to revel in that thought as a compensation for every failure.
Nor was this unmixed with fear. What if Cashel should enter upon a defence by exposing the events of that last night at Tubbermore? What if he should produce the forged deed in open court? Who was to say that Enrique himself might not be forthcoming to prove his falsehood? Again: how far could he trust Tom Keane? might not the fellow's avarice suggest a tyranny impossible to endure? Weighty considerations were these, and full of their own peril. Linton paused beside the lake to ruminate, and for some time was deep buried in thought A light rustling sound at last aroused him; he looked up, and perceived, directly in front of him, the very man of whom he was thinking—Tom Keane himself.
Both stood still, each fixedly regarding the other without speaking. It seemed a game in which he who made the first move should lose. So, certainly, did Linton feel; but not so Tom Keane, who, with an easy composure that all the other's “breeding” could not compass, said,—
“Well, sir, I hope you like your work?”
“My work! my work! How can you call it mine, my good friend?” replied Linton, with a great effort to appear as much at ease as the other.
“Just as ould Con Corrigan built the little pier we're standin' on this minit, though his own hands did n't lay a stone of it.”
“There's no similarity between the cases whatever,” said Linton, with a well-feigned laugh. “Here there was a plan—an employer—hired laborers engaged to perform a certain task.”
“Well, well,” broke in Keane, impatiently; “sure we're not in 'Coort,' that you need make a speech. 'T was your own doing: deny it if you like, but don't drive me to prove it.”
The tone of menace in which these words were uttered was increased by the fact, now for the first time apparent to Linton, that Tom Keane had been drinking freely that morning, and was still under the strong excitement of liquor.
Linton passed his arm familiarly within the other's, and in a voice of deep meaning, said: “Were you only as cautious as you are courageous, Tom, there's not a man in Europe I 'd rather take as my partner in a dangerous enterprise. You are a glorious fellow in the hour of peril, but you are a child, a mere child, when it's over.”
Keane did not speak, but a leer of inveterate cunning seemed to answer this speech.
“I say this, Tom,” said Linton, coaxingly, “because I see the risk to which your natural frankness will expose you. There are fellows prowling about on every side to scrape up information about this affair; and as, in some unguarded moment, when a glass too much has made the tongue run freely, any man may say things, to explain which away afterwards he is often led to go too far—You understand me, Tom?”
“I do, sir,” said the other, nodding shortly.
“It was on that account I came down here to-day, Tom. The trial is fixed for the 15th: now, the time is so short between this and that, you can surely keep a strict watch over yourself till 'all is over'?”
“And what then, sir?” asked Tom, with a cunning glance beneath his brows.
“After that,” rejoined Linton, affecting to mistake the meaning of the question—“after that, the law takes its course, and you trouble yourself no more on the matter.”
“And is that all, Mr. Linton?—is that all?” asked the man, as, freeing himself from the other's arm, he drew himself up to his full height, and stood directly in front of him.
“I must own, Tom, that I don't understand your question.”
“I'll make it plain and azy for you, then,” said Keane, with a hardened determination in his manner. “'T was you yourself put me up to this business. 'T was you that left the pistol in my possession. 'T was you that towld me how it was to be done, and where to do it; and”—here his voice became deep, thick, and guttural with passion—“and, by the 'mortal God! if I 'm to hang for it, so will you too.”
“Hang!” exclaimed Linton. “Who talks of hanging? or what possible danger do you run—except, indeed, what your own indiscreet tongue may bring upon you?”
“Is n't it as good to die on the gallows as on the roadside?” asked the other, fiercely. “What betther am I for what I done, tell me that?”
“I have told you before, and I tell you again, that when 'all is over' you shall be amply provided for.”
“And why not before?” said he, almost insolently.
“If you must know the reason,” said Linton, affecting a smile, “you shall hear it. Your incaution would make you at once the object of suspicion, were you to be seen with money at command as freely as you will have it hereafter.”
“Will you give me that in writin'?—will you give it to me undher your hand?” asked Keane, boldly.
“Of course I will,” said Linton, who was too subtle a tactician to hesitate about a pledge which could not be exacted on the instant.
“That's what I call talkin fair,” said Keane; “an', by my sowl, it's the best of your play to trate me well.”
“There is only one thing in the world could induce me to do otherwise.”
“An' what's that, sir?”
“Your daring to use a threat to me!” said Linton, sternly. “There never was the man that tried that game—and there have been some just as clever fellows as Tom Keane who did try it—who did n't find that they met their match.”
“I only ax what's right and fair,” said the other, abashed by the daring effrontery of Linton's air.
“And you shall have it, and more. You shall either have enough to settle in America, or, if you prefer it, to live abroad.”
“And why not stay at home here?” said Tom, doggedly.
“To blurt out your secret in some drunken moment, and be hanged at last!” said Linton, with a cutting irony.
“An', maybe, tell how one Misther Linton put the wickedness first in my head,” added Tom, as if finishing the sentence.
Linton bit his lip, and turned angrily away to conceal the mortification the speech had caused him. “My good friend,” said he, in a deliberate voice, “you think that whenever you upset the boat you will drown me; and I have half a mind to dare you to it, just to show you the shortness of your calculation. Trust me”—there was a terrible distinctness in his utterance of these words—“trust me, that in all my dealings with the world, I have left very little at the discretion of what are called men of honor. I leave nothing, absolutely nothing, in the power of such as you.”
At last did Linton strike the right chord of the fellow's nature; and in his subdued and crestfallen countenance might be read the signs of his prostration.
“Hear me now attentively, Keane, and let my words rest well in your memory. The trial comes on on the 15th; your evidence will be the most important of all; but give it with the reluctance of a man who shrinks from bringing his landlord to the scaffold. You understand me? Let everything you say show the desire to screen Mr. Cashel. Another point: affect not to know anything save what you actually saw. You never can repeat too often the words, 'I did n't see it.' This scrupulous reliance on eyesight imposes well upon a jury. These are the only cautions I have to give you. Your own natural intelligence will supply the rest. When all is finished you will come up to Dublin, and call at a certain address which will be given you hereafter. And now we part. It is your own fault if you lose a friend who never deserted the man that stood by him.”
“An' are you going back to Dublin now, sir?” asked Keane, over whose mind Linton's influence had become dominant, and who actually dreaded to be left alone, and without his guidance.
Linton nodded an assent.
“But you 'll be down here at the trial, sir?” asked Tom, eagerly.
“I suspect not,” said Linton. “If not summoned as a witness, I'll assuredly not come.”
“Oh, murther!” exclaimed Tom. “I thought I 'd have you in the 'Coort,' just to look up at you from time to time, to give me courage and make me feel bowld; for it does give me courage when I see you so calm and so azy, without as much as a tremble in your voice.”
“It is not likely that I shall be there,” rejoined Linton; “but mind, if I be, that you do not direct your eyes towards me. Remember, that every look you give, every gesture you make, will be watched and noted.”
“I wondher how I'll get through it!” exclaimed the other, sorrowfully.
“You'll get through it admirably, man, if you'll only think that you are not the person in peril. It is your conscience alone can bring you into any danger.”
“Well, I hope so! with the help of—” The fellow stopped short, and a red flush of shame spread itself over features which in a whole life long had never felt a blush.
“I 'd like to be able to give you something better than this, Tom,” said Linton, as he placed a handful of loose silver in the other's palm, “but it is safer for the present that you should not be seen with much money.”
“I owe more than this at Mark Shea's 'public,'” said Tom, looking discontentedly at the money.
“And why should you owe it?” said Linton, bitterly. “What is there in your circumstances to warrant debts of this kind?”
“Did n't I earn it—tell me that?” asked the ruffian, with a savage earnestness.
“I see that you are hopeless,” said Linton, turning away in disgust. “Take your own course, and see where it will lead you.”
“No—you mean where it will lead us,” said the fellow, insolently.
“What! do you dare to threaten me? Now, once for all, let this have an end. I have hitherto treated you with candor and with kindness. If you fancy that my hate can be more profitable than my friendship, say so, and before one hour passes over your head I 'll have you committed to prison as an accessory to the murder.”
“I ax your pardon humbly—I did n't mean to anger yer Honer,” said the other, in a servile tone. “I'll do everything you bid me—and sure you know best what ought to be done.”
“Then let us part good friends,” said Linton, holding out his hand towards him. “I see a boat coming over the lake which will drop me at Killaloe; we must not be seen together—so good-bye, Tom, good-bye.”
“Good-bye, and a safe journey to yer Honer,” said Tom, as, touching his hat respectfully, he retired into the wood.
The boat which Linton descried was still above a mile from the shore, and he sat down upon a stone to await its coming. Beautiful as that placid lake was, with its background of bold mountains, its scattered islands, and its jutting promontories, he had no eye for these, but followed with a peering glance the direction in which Tom Keane had departed.
“There are occasions,” muttered he to himself, “when the boldest courses are the safest. Is this one of these? Dare I trust that fellow, or would this be better?” And, as if mechanically, he drew forth a double-barrelled pistol from his breast, and looked fixedly at it.
He arose from his seat, and sat down again—his mind seemed beset with hesitation and doubt; but the conflict did not last long, for he replaced the weapon, and walking down to the lake, dipped his fingers in the water and bathed his temples, saying to himself,—
“Better as it is: over-caution is as great an error as foolhardiness.”
With a dexterity acquired by long practice, he now disguised his features so perfectly that none could have recognized him; and by the addition of a wig and whiskers of bushy red hair, totally changed the character of his appearance. This he did, that at any future period he might not be recognized by the boatmen, who, in answer to his signal, now pulled vigorously towards the shore.
He soon bargained with them to leave him at Killaloe, and as they rowed along engaged them to talk about the country, in which he affected to be a tourist. Of course the late murder was the theme uppermost in every mind, and Linton marked with satisfaction how decisively the current of popular belief ran in attributing the guilt to Cashel.
With a perversity peculiar to the peasant, the agent whom they had so often inveighed against for cruelty in his lifetime, they now discovered to have been the type of all that was kind-hearted and benevolent; and had no hesitation in attributing his unhappy fate to an altercation in which he, with too rash a zeal, was the “poor man's advocate.”
The last words he was heard to utter on leaving Tub-bermore were quoted, as implying a condemnation on Cashel's wasteful extravagance, at a time when the poor around were “perishing of hunger.” Even to Linton, whose mind was but too conversant with the sad truths of the story, these narratives assumed the strongest form of consistency and likelihood; and he saw how effectually circumstantial evidence can convict a man in public estimation, long before a jury are sworn to try him.
Crimes of this nature, now, had not been unfrequent in that district; and the country people felt a species of savage vengeance in urging their accusations against a “gentleman,” who had not what they reckoned as the extenuating circumstances to diminish or explain away his guilt.
“He was n't turned out of his little place to die on the roadside,” muttered one. “He wasn't threatened, like poor Tom Keane, to be 'starminated,'” cried another.
“And who is Tom Keane?” asked Linton.
“The gatekeeper up at the big house yonder, sir; one that's lived man and boy nigh fifty years there; and Mr. Cashel swore he 'd root him out, for all that!”
“Ay!” chimed in another, in a moralizing whine, “an' see where he is himself, now!”
“I wondher now if they'd hang him, sir?” asked one.
“Why not,” asked Linton, “if he should be found guilty?”
“They say, sir, the gentlemen can always pay for another man to be hanged instead of them. Musha, maybe 'tis n't true,” added he, diffidently, as he saw the smile on Linton's face.
“I think you 'll find that the right man will suffer in this case,” said Linton; and a gleam of malignant passion shot from his dark eyes as he spoke.
For several days before that appointed for the trial of Roland Cashel, the assize town was crowded with visitors from every part of the island. Not a house, not a room was unoccupied, so intense was the interest to witness a cause into which so many elements of exciting story entered. His great wealth, his boundless extravagance, the singular character of his early life, gave rise to a hundred curious anecdotes, which the press circulated with a most unscrupulous freedom.
Nor did public curiosity stop at the walls of the prison; for every detail of his life, since the day of his committal, was carefully recorded by the papers. The unbroken solitude in which he lived; the apparent calm collectedness in which he awaited his trial; his resolute refusal to employ legal assistance; his seeming indifference to the alleged clews to the discovery of the murder,—were commented on and repeated till they formed the table-talk of the land.
The only person with whom he desired to communicate was Dr. Tiernay; but the doctor had left Ireland in company with old Mr. Corrigan and Miss Leicester, and none knew whither they had directed their steps.
Of all his former friends and acquaintances, Cashel did not appear to remember one; nor, certainly, did they obtrude themselves in any way upon his recollection. The public, it is true, occupied themselves abundantly with his interests. Letters, some with signatures, the greater number without, were addressed to him, containing advices and counsels the strangest and most opposite, and requests, which to one in his situation were the most inappropriate. Exhortations to confess his crime came from some, evidently more anxious for the solution of a mystery than the repentance of a criminal. Some suggested legal quibbles to be used at the trial; others hinted at certain most skilful advocates, whose services had been crowned with success in the case of most atrocious wretches. A few asked for autographs; and one, in a neat crowquill hand, with paper smelling strongly of musk, requested a lock of his hair!
If by any accident Cashel opened one of these epistles, he was certain to feel amused. It was to him, at least, a new view of life, and of that civilization against which he now felt himself a rebel. Generally, however, he knew nothing of them: a careless indifference, a reckless disregard of the future, had taken complete possession of him; and the only impatience he ever manifested was at the slow march of the time which should elapse before the day of trial.
The day at length arrived; and even within the dreary walls of the prison were heard the murmured accents of excitement as the great hour drew nigh.
Mr. Goring at an early hour had visited the prisoner, to entreat him, for the last time, to abandon his mad refusal of legal aid; explaining forcibly that there were constantly cases occurring where innocence could only be asserted by disentangling the ingenious tissue with which legal astuteness can invest a circumstance. Cashel rejected this counsel calmly but peremptorily; and when pressed home by other arguments, in a moment of passing impatience confessed that he was “weary of life, and would make no effort to prolong it.”
“Even so, sir,” said Goring. “There is here another question at issue. Are you satisfied to fill the dishonored grave of a criminal? Does not the name by which men will speak of you hereafter possess any terror for you now?”
A slight tremor shook Cashel's voice as he replied, “Were I one who left kindred or attached friends behind him, these considerations would have their weight, nor would I willingly leave them the heritage of such disgrace; but I am alone in the world, without one to blush for my dishonor, or shed a tear over my sorrow. The calumny of my fellowmen will only fall on ears sealed by death; nor will their jeers break the slumber I am so soon to sleep.”
Goring labored hard to dissuade him from his resolve, but to no purpose. The only consolation of which Roland seemed capable arose from the dogged indifference he felt as to the result, and the consciousness of an innocence he was too proud to assert.
From an early hour of the morning the court was crowded. Many persons distinguished in the world of fashion were to be seen amid the gowned and wigged throng that filled the body of the building; and in the galleries were a vast number of ladies, whose elegance of dress told how much they regarded the scene as one of display, as well as of exciting interest. Some had been frequent guests at his house; others had often received him at their own; and there they sat, in eager expectancy to see how he would behave, to criticise his bearing, to scan his looks through their “lorgnettes,” and note the accents in which he would speak. A few, indeed, of his more intimate friends denied themselves the treat such an exhibition promised; and it was plain to see how highly they estimated their own forbearance. Still, Frobisher and some of his set stood beneath the gallery, and watched the proceedings with interest.
Some routine business of an uninteresting nature over, the case of the King versus Roland Cashel was called, and the governor of the jail was ordered to produce the prisoner. A murmur of intense interest quickly ran through the crowded assembly, and as suddenly was subdued to a dead silence as the crowd, separating, permitted the passage of two armed policemen, after whom Cashel walked, followed by two others. Scarcely had he merged from the dense throng and taken his place in the dock, when a buzz of astonishment went round; for the prisoner, instead of being dressed decorously in black, as is customary, or at least in some costume bespeaking care and respect, was attired in the very suit he wore on the eventful night of the murder, the torn sleeves and blood-stained patches attracting every eye around him. He was paler and thinner than his wont; and if his countenance was more deeply thoughtful, there was nothing in it that evinced anxiety, or even expectancy. As he entered the dock, they who stood nearest to him remarked that a slight flush stole over his face, and something that seemed painful to his feelings appeared to work within him. A brief effort overcame this, and he raised his eyes and carried his looks around the court with the most perfect unconcern.
The prisoner was now arraigned, and the clerk proceeded to read over the indictment; after which came the solemn question, “How say you, prisoner, Guilty or Not Guilty?” Either not understanding the “quaere” as directly addressed to himself, or conceiving it to be some formality not requiring an answer, Cashel stood in a calm and respectful silence for some minutes, when the judge, in a mild voice, explained the meaning of the interrogation.
“Not Guilty, my Lord,” said Cashel, promptly; and though the words were few, and those almost of course on such an occasion, the feeling in the court was manifestly in concurrence with the speaker. The routine detail of calling over the jury panel involving the privilege of “challenge,” it became necessary to explain this to Cashel, whose ignorance of all legal forms being now so manifest, the judge asked who was counsel for the prisoner.
“He has not named any, my Lord.”
With patient kindness the judge turned to the dock, and counselled him, even now, late as it was, to select some one among the learned members of the Bar, whose guidance would materially serve his interests, and save him from the many embarrassments his own unassisted efforts would produce.
“I thank you, my Lord, for your consideration,” replied he, calmly, “but if I be innocent of this crime, I stand in need of no skill to defend me. If guilty, I do not deserve it.”
“Were guilt and innocence always easy of detection,” said the judge, “your remark might have some show of reason; but such is rarely the case, and once more I would entreat you to intrust your cause to some one conversant with our forms and acquainted with our duties.”
“I am not guilty, my Lord,” replied Roland, boldly, “nor do I fear that any artifice can make me appear such. I will not have counsel.”
The Attorney-General here in a low voice addressed the Bench, and suggested that although the prisoner might not himself select a defender, yet the interests of justice generally requiring that the witnesses should be cross-examined, it would be well if the Court would appoint some one to that duty.
The judge repeated the suggestion aloud, adding his perfect concurrence in its nature, and inviting the learned Bar to lend a volunteer in the cause; when a voice called out, “I will willingly accept the office, my Lord, with your permission.”
“Very well, Mr. Clare Jones,” replied the judge; and that gentleman, of whom we have so long lost sight, advanced to the front of the bar, beside the dock.
Cashel, during this scene, appeared like one totally uninterested in all that was going forward; nor did he even turn his head towards where his self-appointed advocate was standing. As the names of the jury were called over, Jones closely scrutinized each individual, keenly inquiring from what part of the county he came—whether he had resided as a tenant on the Cashel estate—and if he had, on any occasion, expressed himself strongly on the guilt or innocence of the accused. To all these details Roland listened with an interest the novelty suggested, but, it was plain to see, without any particle of that feeling which his own position might have called for. The jury were at length impanelled, and the trial began.
Few, even among the most accomplished weavers of narrative, can equal the skill with which a clever lawyer details the story of a criminal trial. The orderly sequence in which the facts occur; the neat equipoise in which matters are weighed; the rigid insistence upon some points, the insinuated probabilities and the likelihood of others,—are all arranged and combined with a masterly power that more discursive fancies would fail in.
Events and incidents that to common intelligence appear to have no bearing on the case, arise, like unexpected witnesses, at intervals, to corroborate this, or to insinuate that. Time, place, distance, locality, the laws of light and sound, the phenomena of science, are all invoked, not with the abstruse pedantry of a bookworm, but with the ready-witted acuteness of one who has studied mankind in the party-colored page of real life.
To any one unaccustomed to these efforts, the effect produced is almost miraculous: conviction steals in from so many sources, that the mind, like a city assaulted on every side, is captured almost at once. All the force of cause and effect is often imparted to matters which are merely consecutive; and it requires patient consideration to disembarrass a case of much that is merely insinuated, and more that is actually speculative.
In the present instance everything was circumstantial; but so much the more did it impress all who listened, even to him who, leaning on the rails of the dock, now heard with wonderment how terribly consistent were all the events which seemed to point him out as guilty.
After a brief exordium, in which he professed his deep sorrow at the duty which had devolved on him, and his ardent desire to suffer nothing to escape him with reference to the prisoner save what the interests of truth and justice imperatively might call for, the Attorney-General entered upon a narrative of the last day of Mr. Kennyfeck's life; detailing with minute precision his departure from Tubbermore at an early hour in Mr. Cashel's company, and stating how something bordering upon altercation between them was overheard by the bystanders as they drove away. “The words themselves, few and unimportant as they might seem,” added he, “under common circumstances, come before us with a terrible significance when remembered in connection with the horrible event that followed.” He then traced their course to Drumcoologan, where differences of opinion, trivial, some might call them, but of importance to call for weighty consideration here, repeatedly occurred respecting the tenantry and the management of the estate. These would all be proved by competent witnesses, he alleged; and he desired the jury to bear in mind that such testimony should be taken as that of men much more disposed to think and speak well of Mr. Cashel, whose very spendthrift tastes had the character of virtues in the peasants eyes, in contrast with the careful and more scrupulous discretion practised by “the agent.”
“You will be told, gentlemen of the jury,” continued he, “how, after a day spent in continued differences of opinion, they separated at evening,—one to return to Tubbermore by the road; the other, by the less travelled path that led over the mountains. And here it is worthy of remark that Mr. Cashel, although ignorant of the way, a stranger, for the first time in his life in the district, positively refuses all offers of accompaniment, and will not even take a guide to show him the road. Mr. Kennyfeck continues for some time to transact business with the tenantry, and leaves Drumcoologan, at last, just as night was closing in. Now, about halfway between the manor-house of Tubbermore and the village of Drumcoologan, the road has been so much injured by the passage of a mountain-torrent, that when the travellers passed in the morning they found themselves obliged to descend from the carriage and proceed for some distance on foot,—a precaution that Mr. Kennyfeck was compelled also to take on his return, ordering the servant to wait for him on the crest of the hill. That spot he was never destined to reach! The groom waited long and anxiously for his coming; he could not leave his horses to go back and find out the reasons of his delay,—he was alone. The distance to Tubbermore was too great to permit of his proceeding thither to give the alarm; he waited, therefore, with that anxiety which the sad condition of our country is but too often calculated to inspire even among the most courageous, when, at last, footsteps were heard approaching, he called out aloud his master's name, but, instead of hearing the well-known voice in answer, he was accosted in Irish by an old man, who told him, in the forcible accents of his native tongue, 'that a murdered man was lying on the roadside.' The groom at once hurried back, and at the foot of the ascent discovered the lifeless but still warm body of his master; a bullet-wound was found in the back of the skull, and the marks of some severe blows across the face. On investigating further, at a little distance off, a pistol was picked up from a small drain, where it seemed to have been thrown in haste; the bore corresponded exactly with the bullet taken from the body; but more important still, this pistol appears to be the fellow of another belonging to Mr. Cashel, and will be identified by a competent witness as having been his property.
“An interval now occurs, in which a cloud of mystery intervenes; and we are unable to follow the steps of the prisoner, of whom nothing is known, till, on the alarm of the murder reaching Tubbermore, a rumor runs that footsteps have been heard in Mr. Cashel's apartment, the key of which the owner had taken with him. The report gains currency rapidly that it is Mr. Cashel himself; and although the servants aver that he never could have traversed the hall and the staircase unseen by some of them, a new discovery appears to explain the fact. It is this. The ivy which grew on the wall of the house, and which reached to the window of Mr. Cashel's dressing-room, is found torn down, and indicating the passage of some one by its branches. On the discovery of this most important circumstance, the Chief Justice, accompanied by several other gentlemen, proceeded in a body to the chamber, and demanded admittance. From them you will hear in detail what took place,—the disorder in which they found the apartment; heaps of papers littered the floor; letters lay in charred masses upon the hearth; the glass of the window was broken, and the marks of feet upon the window-sill and the floor showed that some one had entered by that means. Lastly—and to this fact you will give your utmost attention—the prisoner himself is found with his clothes torn in several places; marks of blood are seen upon them, and his wrist shows a recent wound, from which the blood flows profusely. Although cautioned by the wise foresight of the learned judge against any rash attempt at explanation, or any inadvertent admission which might act to his prejudice hire-after, he bursts forth into a violent invective upon the murderer, and suggests that they should mount their horses at once, and scour the country in search of him. This counsel being, for obvious reasons, rejected, and his plan of escape frustrated, he falls into a moody despondency and will not speak. Shrouding himself in an affected misanthropy, he pretends to believe that he is the victim of some deep-planned treachery,—that all these circumstances, whose detail I have given you, have been the deliberate schemes of his enemies. It is difficult to accept of this explanation, gentlemen of the jury; and, although I would be far from diminishing in the slightest the grounds of any valid defence a man so situated may take up, I would caution you against any rash credulity of vague and unsupported assertions; or, at least, to weigh them well against the statements of truth-telling witnesses. The prisoner is bound to lay before you a narrative of that day, from the hour of his leaving home to that of his return, to explain why he separated from his companion, and came back alone by a path he had never travelled before, and at night; with what object he entered his own house by the window,—a feat of considerable difficulty and of some danger. His disordered and blood-stained dress; his wounded hand; the missing pistol; the agitation of his manner when discovered amid the charred and torn remains of letters,—all these have to be accounted for. And remember at what moment they occurred! When his house was the scene of festivity and rejoicing; when above a thousand guests were abandoning themselves to the unbridled enjoyment of pleasure,—this is the time the host takes to arrange papers, to destroy letters, to make, in fact, those hurried arrangements that men are driven to on the eve of either flight or some desperate undertaking. Bear all this in mind, gentlemen: and remember that, to explain these circumstances, the narrative of the prisoner must be full, coherent, and consistent in all its parts. The courts of justice admit of neither reservations nor mysteries. We are here to investigate the truth, whose cause admits of no compromise.”
The witnesses for the prosecution were now called over and sworn. The first examined were some of the servants who had overheard the conversation between Cashel and Kennyfeck on the morning of leaving Tubbermore. They differed slightly as to the exact expressions used, but agreed perfectly as to their general import,—a fact which even the cross-examination of Mr. Jones only served to strengthen. Some peasants of Drumcoologan were next examined, to show that during the day slight differences were constantly occurring between the parties, and that Cashel had more than once made use of the expression, “Have your own way now, but ere long I'll take mine;” or words very similar.
The old man who discovered the body, and the postilion, were then questioned as to all the details of the place, the hour, and the fact; and then Tom Keane was called for. It was by him the pistol was picked up from the drain. The air of reluctance with which the witness ascended the table, and the look of affectionate interest he bestowed upon the dock were remarked by the whole assemblage. If the countenance of the man evinced little of frankness or candor, the stealthy glance he threw around him as he took his seat showed that he was not deficient in cunning.
As his examination proceeded, the dogged reluctance of his answers, the rugged bluntness by which he avoided any clear explanation of his meaning, were severely commented on by the Attorney-General, and even called forth the dignified censure of the Bench; so that the impression produced by his evidence was, that he was endeavoring throughout to screen his landlord from the imputation of a well-merited guilt.
The cross-examination now opened, but without in any way serving to shake the material character of the testimony, at the same time that it placed in a still stronger light the attachment of the witness to the prisoner. Cashel, hitherto inattentive and indifferent to all that was going forward, became deeply interested as this examination proceeded; his features, apathetic and heavy before, grew animated and eager, and he leaned forward to hear the witness with every sign of anxiety.
The spectators who thronged the court attributed the prisoner's eagerness to the important nature of the testimony, and the close reference it bore to the manner of the crime; they little knew the simple truth, that it was the semblance of affection for him,—the pretended interest in his fate,—which touched his lonely heart, and kindled there a love of life.
“That poor peasant, then,” said Roland to himself, “he, at least, deems me guiltless. I did not think that there lived one who cared as much for me!”