Martin Farquhar Tupper - The Crock of Gold

M >> Martin Farquhar Tupper >> The Crock of Gold

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

Enlightened as we are, and intimate with all the hidden secrets of the
story, we may be astonished to hear that, notwithstanding all Mr.
Grantly's ingenuity, and all the siftings of cross-questioners, the case
was clear as light against poor Acton. No _alibi_, he lived upon the
spot. No witnesses to character; for Roger's late excesses had wiped
away all former good report: kind Mr. Evans himself, with tears in his
eyes, acknowledged sadly that Acton had once been a regular church-goer,
a frequent communicant: but had fallen off of late, poor fellow! And
then, in spite of protestations to the contrary, behold! the _corpus
delicti_--that unlucky crock of gold, actually in the man's possession,
and the fragment of shawl--was not that sufficient?

Jonathan Floyd in open court had been base enough to accuse Mr. Jennings
of the murder. Mr. Jennings indeed! a strict man of high character,
lately dismissed, after twenty years' service, in the most arbitrary
manner by young Sir John, who had taken a great liking to the Actons.
People could guess why, when they looked on Grace: and Grace, too, was
sufficient reason to account for Jonathan's wicked suspicions; of
course, it was the lover's interest to throw the charge on other people.
As to Mr. Jennings himself, just recovered from a fit of illness, it was
astonishing how liberally and indulgently he prayed the court to show
the prisoner mercy: his white and placid face looked quite benevolently
at him--and this respectable person was a murderer, eh, Mr. Jonathan?

So, when the judge summed up, and clearly could neither find nor make a
loop-hole for the prisoner, the matter seemed accomplished; all knew
what the verdict must be--poor Roger Acton had not the shadow of a
chance.

CHAPTER XLV.

ROGER'S DEFENCE.

THEN, while the jury were consulting--they would not leave the
box, it seemed so clear--Roger broke the death-like silence; and he
said:

"Judge, I crave your worship's leave to speak: and hearken to me,
countrymen. Many evil things have I done in my time, both against God
and my neighbour: I am ashamed, as well I may be, when I think on 'em: I
have sworn, and drunk, and lied; I have murmured loudly--coveted
wickedly--ay, and once I stole. It was a little theft, I lost it on the
spot, and never stole again: pray God, I never may. Nevertheless,
countrymen, and sinful though I be in the sight of Him who made us,
according to man's judgment and man's innocency, I had lived among you
all blameless, until I found that crock of gold. I did find it,
countrymen, as God is my witness, and, therefore, though a sinner, I
appeal to Him: He knoweth that I found it in the sedge that skirts my
garden, at the end of my own celery trench. I did wickedly and foolishly
to hide my find, worse to deny it, and worst of all to spend it in the
low lewd way I did. But of robbery I am guiltless as you are. And as to
this black charge of murder, till Simon Jennings spoke the word, I never
knew it had been done. Folk of Hurstley, friends and neighbours, you all
know Roger Acton--the old-time honest Roger of these forty years,
before the devil made him mad by giving him much gold--did he ever
maliciously do harm to man or woman, to child or poor dumb brute?--No,
countrymen, I am no murderer. That the seemings are against me, I wot
well; they may excuse your judgment in condemning me to death--and I and
the good gentleman there who took my part (Heaven bless you, sir!)
cannot go against the facts: but they speak falsely, and I truly; Roger
Acton is an innocent man: may God defend the right!"

"Amen!" earnestly whispered a tremulous female voice, "and God will save
you, father."

The court was still as death, except for sobbing; the jury were doubting
and confounded; in vain Mr. Jennings, looking at the foreman, shook his
head and stroked his chin in an incredulous and knowing manner; clearly
they must retire, not at all agreed; and the judge himself, that masqued
man in flowing wig and ermine, but still warmed by human sympathies,
struck a tear from his wrinkled cheek; and all seemed to be
involuntarily waiting (for the jury, though unable to decide, had not
yet left their box), to see whether any sudden miracle would happen to
save a man whom evidence made so guilty, and yet he bore upon his open
brow the genuine signature of Innocence.

"Silence, there, silence! you can't get in; there's no room for'ards!"
But a couple of javelin-men at the door were knocked down right and
left, and through the dense and suffocating crowd, a black-whiskered
fellow, elbowing his way against their faces, spite of all obstruction,
struggled to the front behind the bar. Then, breathless with gigantic
exertion (it was like a mammoth treading down the cedars), he roared
out,

"Judge, swear me, I'm a witness; huzza! it's not too late."

And the irreverent gentleman tossed a fur cap right up to the skylight.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE WITNESS.

MR. GRANTLY brightened up at once, Grace looked happily to
Heaven, and Roger Acton shouted out,

"Thank God! thank God!--there's Ben Burke!"

Yes, he had heard miles away of his friend's danger about an old shawl
and a honey-pot full of gold, and he had made all speed, with Tom in his
train, to come and bear witness to the innocence of Roger. The sensation
in court, as may be well conceived, was thrilling; but a vociferous
crier, and the deep anxiety to hear this sturdy witness, soon reduced
all again to silence.

Then did they swear Benjamin Burke, who, to the scandal of his cause,
would insist upon stating his profession to be "poacher;" and at first,
poor simple fellow, seemed to have a notion that a sworn witness meant
one who swore continually; but he was soon convinced otherwise, and his
whole demeanour gradually became as polite and deferent as his coarse
nature would allow. And Ben told his adventure on Pike island, as we
have heard him tell it, pretty much in the same words, for the judge and
Mr. Grantly let him take his own courses; and then he added (with a
characteristic expletive, which we may as well omit, seeing it
occasioned a cry of "order" in the court), "There, if that there
white-livered little villain warn't the chap that brought the crocks, my
name an't Ben Burke."

"Good Heavens! Mr. Jennings, what's the matter?" said a briefless one,
starting up: this was Mr. Sharp, a personage on former occasions
distinguished highly as a thieves' advocate, but now, unfortunately, out
of work. "Loosen his cravat, some one there; the gentleman is in fits."

"Oh, Aunt--Aunt Quarles, don't throttle me; I'll tell all--all; let go,
let go!" and the wretched man slowly recovered, as Ben Burke said,

"Ay, my lord, ask him yourself, the little wretch can tell you all about
it."

"I submit, my lurd," interposed the briefless one, "that this
respectable gentleman is taken ill, and that his presence may now be
dispensed with, as a witness in the cause."

"No, sir, no;" deliberately answered Jennings; "I must stay: the time I
find is come; I have not slept for weeks; I am exhausted utterly; I have
lost my gold; I am haunted by her ghost; I can go no where but that face
follows me--I can do nothing but her fingers clutch my throat. It is
time to end this misery. In hope to lay her spirit, I would have offered
up a victim: but--but she will not have him. Mine was the hand that--"

"Pardon me," upstarted Mr. Sharp, "this poor gentleman is a mono-maniac;
pray, my lurd, let him be removed while the trial is proceeding."

"You horse-hair hypocrite, you!" roared Ben, "would you hang the
innocent, and save the guilty?"

Would he? would Mr. Philip Sharp? Ay, that he would; and glad of such a
famous opportunity. What! would not Newgate rejoice, and Horsemonger be
glad? Would not his bag be filled with briefs from the community of
burglars, and his purse be rich in gold subscribed by the brotherhood of
thieves? Great at once would be his name among the purlieus of iniquity:
and every rogue in London would retain but Philip Sharp. Would he? ask
him again.

But Jennings quietly proceeded like a speaking statue.

"I am not mad, most noble--" [the Bible-read villain was from habit
quoting Paul]--"my lord, I mean. My hand did the deed: I throttled her"
(here he gave a scared look over his shoulder): "yes--I did it once and
again: I took the crock of gold. You may hang me now, Aunt Quarles."

"My lurd, my lurd, this is a most irregular proceeding," urged Mr.
Sharp; "on the part of the prisoner--I, I crave pardon--on behalf of
this most respectable and deluded gentleman, Mr. Simon Jennings, I
contend that no one may criminate himself in this way, without the
shadow of evidence to support such suicidal testimony. Really, my
lurd--"

"Oh, sir, but my father may go free?" earnestly asked Grace. But Ben
Burke's voice--I had almost written woice--overwhelmed them all:

"Let me speak, judge, an't it please your honour, and take you notice,
Master Horsehair. You wan't ewidence, do you, beyond the man's
confession: here, I'll give it you. Look at this here wice:" and he
stretched forth his well-known huge and horny hand:

"When I caught that dridful little reptil by the arm, he wriggled like a
sniggled eel, so I was forced you see, to grasp him something tighter,
and could feel his little arm-bones crack like any chicken's: now then,
if his left elbow an't black and blue, though it's a month a-gone and
more, I'll eat it. Strip him and see."

No need to struggle with the man, or tear his coat off. Jennings
appeared only too glad to find that there was other evidence than his
own foul tongue, and that he might be hung at last without sacking-rope
or gimlet; so, he quietly bared his arm, and the elbow looked all manner
of colours--a mass of old bruises.

CHAPTER XLVII.

MR. SHARP'S ADVOCACY.

THE whole court trembled with excitement: it was deep, still
silence; and the judge said,

"Prisoner at the bar, there is now no evidence against you: gentlemen of
the jury, of course you will acquit him."

The foreman: "All agreed, my lord, not guilty."

"Roger Acton," said the judge, "to God alone you owe this marvellous,
almost miraculous, interposition: you have had many wrongs innocently to
endure, and I trust that the right feelings of society will requite you
for them in this world, as, if you serve Him, God will in the next. You
are honourably acquitted, and may leave this bar."

In vain the crier shouted, in vain the javelin-men helped the crier, the
court was in a tumult of joy; Grace sprang to her father's neck, and Sir
John Vincent, who had been in attendance sitting near the judge all the
trial through, came down to him, and shook his hand warmly.

Roger's eyes ran over, and he could only utter,

"Thank God! thank God! He does better for me than I deserved." But the
court was hushed at last: the jury resworn; certain legal forms and
technicalities speedily attended to, as counts of indictment, and so
forth: and the judge then quietly said,

"Simon Jennings, stand at that bar."

He stood there like an image.

"My lurd, I claim to be prisoner's counsel."

"Mr. Sharp--the prisoner shall have proper assistance by all means; but
I do not see how it will help your case, if you cannot get your client
to plead not guilty."

While Mr. Philip Sharp converses earnestly with the criminal in
confidential whispers, I will entertain the sagacious reader with a few
admirable lines I have just cut out of a newspaper: they are headed

"SUPPRESSION OF TRUTH AND EXCLUSION OF EVIDENCE.

"Lawyers abhor any short cut to the truth. The pursuit is the thing for
their pleasure and profit, and all their rules are framed for making the
most of it.

"Crime is to them precisely what the fox is to the sportsman: and the
object is not to pounce on it, and capture it at once, but to have a
good run for it, and to exhibit skill and address in the chase. Whether
the culprit or the fox escape or not, is a matter of indifference, the
run being the main thing.

"The punishment of crime is as foreign to the object of lawyers, as the
extirpation of the fox is to that of sportsmen. The sportsman, because
he hunts the fox, sees in the summary destruction of the fox by the hand
of a clown, an offence foul, strange, and unnatural, little short of
murder. The lawyer treats crime in the same way: his business is the
chase of it; but, that it may exist for the chase, he lays down rules
protecting it against surprises and capture by any methods but those of
the forensic field.

"One good turn deserves another, and as the lawyer owes his business to
crime, he naturally makes it his business to favour and spare it as much
as possible. To seize and destroy it wherever it can be got at, seems to
him as barbarous as shooting a bird sitting, or a hare in her form, does
to the sportsman. The phrase, to give _law_, for the allowance of a
start, or any chance of escape, expresses the methods of lawyers in the
pursuit of crime, and has doubtless been derived from their practice.

"Confession is the thing most hateful to law, for this stops its sport
at the outset. It is the surrender of the fox to the hounds. 'We don't
want your stinking body,' says the lawyer; 'we want the run after the
scent. Away with you, be off; retract your admission, take the benefit
of telling a lie, give us employment, and let us take our chance of
hunting out, in our roundabout ways, the truth, which we will not take
when it lies before us.'"

* * * * *

As I perceive that Mr. Sharp has not yet made much impression upon the
desponding prisoner, suffer me to recommend to your notice another
sensible leader: the abuse which it would combat calls loudly for
amendment. There is plenty of time to spare, for some preliminaries of
trial have yet to be arranged, and the judge has just stepped out to get
a sandwich, and every body stands at ease; moreover, gentle reader, the
paragraphs following are well worthy of your attention. Let us name
them,

"MORBID SYMPATHIES.

"We have often thought that the tenderness shown by our law to presumed
criminals is as injurious as it is inconsistent and excessive. A
miserable beggar, a petty rioter, the wretch who steals a loaf to
satisfy the gnawings of his hunger, is roughly seized, closely examined,
and severely punished; meanwhile, the plain common sense of our mobs, if
not of our magistracy, has pitied the offender, and perhaps acquitted
him. But let some apparent murderer be caught, almost in the flagrant
deed of his atrocity; let him, to the best of all human belief, have
killed, disembowelled, and dismembered; let him have united the coolness
of consummate craft to the boldest daring of iniquity, and straightway
(though the generous crowd may hoot and hunt the wretch with yelling
execration) he finds in law and lawyers, refuge, defenders, and
apologists. Tenderly and considerately is he cautioned on no account to
criminate himself: he is exhorted, even by judges, to withdraw the
honest and truthful plea of 'guilty,' now the only amends which such a
one can make to the outraged laws of God and man: he is defended, even
to the desperate length of malignant accusation of the innocent, by
learned men, whose aim it is to pervert justice and screen the guilty!
he is lodged and tended with more circumstances of outward comfort and
consideration than he probably has ever experienced in all his life
before; and if, notwithstanding the ingenuity of his advocates, and the
merciful glosses of his judge, a simple-minded British jury capitally
convict him, and he is handed over to the executioner, he still finds
pious gentlemen ready to weep over him in his cell, and titled dames to
send him white camellias, to wear upon his heart when he is hanging.[A]

"Now what is the necessary consequence of this, but a mighty, a
fearfully influential premium on crime? And what is its radical cause,
but the absurd indulgence wherewith our law greets the favoured,
_because_ the atrocious criminal? Upon what principle of propriety, or
of natural justice, should a seeming murderer not be--we will not say
sternly, but even kindly--catechised, and for his very soul's sake
counselled to confess his guilt? Why should the _morale_ of evidence be
so thoroughly lost sight of, and a malefactor, who is ready to
acknowledge crime, or unable, when questioned, to conceal it, on no
account be listened to, lest he may do his precious life irreparable
harm? It is not agonized repentance, or incidental disclosure, that
makes the culprit his own executioner, but his crime that has preceded;
it is not the weak, avowing tongue, but the bold and bloody hand.

"We are unwilling to allude specifically to the name of any recent
malefactor in connexion with these plain remarks; for, in the absence
alike of hindered voluntary confession and of incomplete legal evidence,
we would not prejudge, that is, prejudice a case. But we do desire to
exclaim against any further exhibition of that morbid tenderness
wherewith all persons are sure to be treated, if only they are accused
of enormities more than usually disgusting; and we specially protest
against that foolish, however ancient, rule in our criminal law, which
discourages and rejects the slenderest approach to a confession, while
it has sacrificed many an innocent victim to the uncertainty of
evidence, supported by nothing more safe than outward circumstantials."

At length, and after much gesticulation and protestation, Mr. Sharp has
succeeded; he had apparently innoculated the miserable man with hopes;
for the miscreant now said firmly, "I plead not guilty."

* * * * *

The briefless one looked happy--nay, triumphant: Jennings was a wealthy
man, all knew; and, any how, he should bag a bouncing fee. How far such
money was likely to do him any good, he never stopped to ask. "Money is
money," said Philip Sharp and the Emperor Vespasian.

We need not trouble ourselves to print Mr. Sharp's very flashy, flippant
speech. Suffice it to say, that, not content with asserting vehemently
on his conscience as a Christian, on his honour as a man, that Simon
Jennings was an innocent, maligned, persecuted individual; labouring,
perhaps, under mono-mania, but pure and gentle as the babe new-born--not
satisfied with traducing honest Ben Burke as a most suspicious witness,
probably a murderer--ay, _the_ murderer himself, a mere riotous ruffian
[Ben here chucked his cap at him, and thereby countenanced the charge],
a mere scoundrel, not to say scamp, whom no one should believe upon his
oath; he again, with all the semblance of sincerity, accused, however
vainly, Roger Acton: and lastly, to the disgust and astonishment of the
whole court, added, with all acted appearances of fervent zeal for
justice, "And I charge his pious daughter, too, that far too pretty
piece of goods, Grace Acton, with being accessory to this atrocious
crime after the fact!"

There was a storm of shames and hisses; but the judge allayed it,
quietly saying,

"Mr. Sharp, be so good as to confine your attention to your client; he
appears to be quite worthy of you."

Then Mr. Sharp, like the firm just man immortalized by Flaccus, stood
stout against the visage of the judge, sneered at the wrath of citizens
commanding things unjust, turned to Ben Burke minaciously, calling him
"_Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae_" [as Burke had heard this quotation, he
thought it was about the "ducks" he had been decoying], and altogether
seemed not about to be put down, though the huge globe crack about his
ears. After this, he calmly worded on, seeming to regard the judge's
stinging observation with the same sort of indifference as the lion
would a dew-drop on his mane; and having poured out all manner of
voluminous bombast, he gradually ran down, and came to a conclusion;
then, jumping up refreshed, like the bounding of a tennis-ball, he
proceeded to call witnesses; and, judging from what happened at the
inquest, as well as because he wished to overwhelm a suspected and
suspecting witness, he pounced, somewhat infelicitously, on Jonathan
Floyd.

"So, my fine young fellow, you are a footman, eh, at Hurstley?"

"Yes, sir, an' it please you--or rather, an' it please my master."

"You remember what happened on the night of the late Mrs. Quarles's
decease?"

"Oh, many things happened; Mr. Jennings was lost, he wasn't to be found,
he was hid somewhere, nobody saw him till next morning."

"Stop, sirrah! not quite so quick, if you please; you are on your oath,
be careful what you say. I have it in evidence, sirrah, before the
coroner;" and he looked triumphantly about him at this clencher to all
Jonathan's testimony; "that you saw him yourself that night speaking to
the dog; what do you mean by swearing that nobody saw him till next
morning?"

"Well, mister, I mean this; whether or no poor old Mrs. Quarles saw her
affectionate nephew that night before the clock struck twelve, there's
none alive to tell; but no one else did--for Sarah and I sat up for him
till past midnight. He was hidden away somewhere, snug enough; and as I
verily believe, in the poor old 'ooman's own--"

"Silence, silence! sir, I say; we want none of your impertinent guesses
here, if you please: to the point, sirrah, to the point; you swore
before the coroner, that you had seen Mr. Jennings, in his courage and
his kindness, quieting the dog that very night, and now--"

"Oh," interrupted Jonathan in his turn, "for the matter of that, when I
saw him with the dog, it was hard upon five in the morning. And here,
gentlemen," added Floyd, with a promiscuous and comprehensive bow all
round, "if I may speak my mind about the business--"

"Go down, sir!" said Mr. Sharp, who began to be afraid of truths.

"Pardon me, this may be of importance," remarked Roger Acton's friend;
"say what you have to say, young man."

"Well, then, gentlemen and my lord, I mean to say thus much. Jennings
there, the prisoner (and I'm glad to see him standing at the bar), swore
at the inquest that he went to quiet Don, going round through the front
door; now, none could get through that door without my hearing of him;
and certainly a little puny Simon like him could never do so without I
came to help him; for the lock was stiff with rust, and the bolt out of
his reach."

"Stop, young man; my respected client, Mr. Jennings, got upon a chair."

"Indeed, sir? then he must ha' created the chair for that special
purpose: there wasn't one in the hall then; no, nor for two days after,
when they came down bran-new from Dowbiggins in London, with the rest o'
the added furnitur' just before my honoured master."

This was conclusive, certainly; and Floyd proceeded.

"Now, gentlemen and my lord, if Jennings did not go that way, nor the
kitchen-way neither--for he always was too proud for scullery-door and
kitchen--and if he did not give himself the trouble to unfasten the
dining-room or study windows, or to unscrew the iron bars of his own
pantry, none of which is likely, gentlemen--there was but one other way
out, and that way was through Bridget Quarles's own room. Now--"

"Ah--that room, that bed, that corpse, that crock!--It is no use, no
use," the wretched miscreant added slowly, after his first hurried
exclamations; "I did the deed, I did it! guilty, guilty." And,
notwithstanding all Mr. Sharp's benevolent interferences, and appeals to
judge and jury on the score of mono-mania, and shruggings-up of
shoulders at his client's folly, and virtuous indignation at the evident
leaning of the court--the murderer detailed what he had done. He spoke
quietly and firmly, in his usually stern and tyrannical style, as if
severe upon himself, for being what?--a man of blood, a thief, a
perjured false accuser? No, no; lower in the scale of Mammon's judgment,
worse in the estimate of him whose god is gold; he was now a pauper, a
mere moneyless forked animal; a beggared, emptied, worthless, penniless
creature: therefore was he stern against his ill-starred soul, and took
vengeance on himself for being poor.

It was a consistent feeling, and common with the mercantile of this
world; to whom the accidents of fortune are every thing, and the
qualities of mind nothing; whose affections ebb and flow towards
friends, relations--yea, their own flesh and blood, with the varying
tide of wealth: whom a luckless speculation in cotton makes an enemy,
and gambling gains in corn restore a friend; men who fall down mentally
before the golden calf, and offer up their souls to Nebuchadnezzar's
idol: men who never saw harm nor shame in the craftiest usurer or
meanest pimp, provided he has thousands in the three per cents.; and
whose indulgent notions of iniquity reach their climax in the
phrase--the man is poor.

So then, with unhallowed self-revenge, Simon rigidly detailed his
crimes: he led the whole court step by step, as I have led the reader,
through the length and breadth of that terrible night: of the facts he
concealed nothing, and the crowded hall of judgment shuddered as one
man, when he came to his awful disclosure, hitherto unsuspected,
unimagined, of that second strangulation: as to feelings, he might as
well have been a galvanized mummy, an automaton lay-figure enunciating
all with bellows and clapper, for any sense he seemed to have of shame,
or fear, or pity; he admitted his lie about the door, complimented Burke
on the accuracy of his evidence, and declared Roger Acton not merely
innocent, but ignorant of the murder.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14