Richard had indeed turned deadly pale, and though his fingers still mechanically clutched the iron rail, was swaying to and fro; the warder unlocked the passage-gate, and ran to him just in time to save his falling headlong on the pavement.
"Are you a man," said the agonized woman, "or iron like this"—and she beat against the railing passionately—"that you will not let a mother kiss her son when he is dying?"
"Nay, nay, ma'am; it's not so bad as that," said the warder, good-naturedly; "see, he's a-coming round agen all right. I've seen a many took like that. In half a minute he'll be himself again. It's his trouble as does it, bless you. If you'll take my advice, you'll spare both your son and yourself the pain of parting, and leave him as he is. I'd go bail for it, it's just a faint, that's all."
"Let me kiss him once," implored the unhappy woman. "Oh, man, if you have ever known a mothers love, let me kiss him once! Here is a five-pound note—take it, and leave me still your debtor—but one kiss."
"Nay, ma'am, I can't take your money; of which, as I couldn't help hearing you say, you have not got too much to spare. But you shall kiss your bonnie boy, and welcome;" and with that the stout warder took the unconscious lad up in his arms, and bore him within the passage; and his, mother put her lips between the bars and pressed them to his forehead once, twice, thrice.
"There, there, ma'am; that will do," muttered the man, impatiently; "and even that is as much as my place is worth. Now, just tap at yonder door, and they'll let you out."
Mrs. Yorke obeyed him without a word. She had heard the heavy fluttering sigh that betokened Richard's return to consciousness, and knew that the worst was over; unless, indeed, the coming back to life might not be the worst of all.
It is proposed by some elevators of the public mind to make us all philosophers, and to abolish the morbid interest which mankind at present entertains in the issues of life and death. They hold it weakness that we should become excited by incident, or enthralled by mystery, and prophesy a future when intelligence shall reign supreme, to the extinction of the vulgar passion for sensation. In the mean time, however, the sympathetic hopes and fears of humanity remain pretty much as they have been within all living memory; and one of the greatest treats that can be provided for the popular palate is a criminal trial. There are many reasons why this should be the case; the courts of law are free, and a sight that can be seen for nothing is of itself attractive, since we are, at all events, not losing our time and money too. Again, the most popular drama, the most popular novel, are those to which the dénouements can not easily be guessed; and in the court-house we see drama and novel realized with the verdict of the jury and the sentence of the judge—a matter of anxious speculation to the very last. Where theatres and books are rare the passion for such scenes is proportionally stronger, and perhaps there is no periodical event which so deeply stirs the agricultural interest—speaking socially, and not politically—as the advent of the Judges of Assize.
At Cross Key, at all events, there was nothing else talked of for weeks beforehand; and the case which above all others was canvassed, and prejudged, and descanted upon over all sorts of boards—from the mahogany one in the dining-room at Cross Key Park to the deal tripod which held the pots and pipes at the road-side beer-house—was that of Richard Yorke, the young gentleman-painter, who had run away with old John Trevethick of Gethin's hoarded store. The rumor had got abroad that he had almost run away with his daughter also, and this intensified the interest immensely. The whole female population, from the high-sheriff's wife down to the woman who kept the apple-stall in the market-place, was agog to see this handsome young Lothario, and especially to hear the evidence of his (clandestinely) betrothed, who was known to have been subpoenaed for the defense.
There were innumerable biographies of the prisoner to be had for nothing. He was a noble-man in disguise; he was the illegitimate son of the prime minister; he was indirectly but immediately connected with royalty itself; he could speak every European language (except Polish), and painted landscapes like an angel; he had four thousand a year in land, only waiting for him to come of age, which carried with it half the representation of a Whig borough; he had not a penny in the world, but had hitherto supported himself in luxury by skillful forgeries; young as he was, he was a married man, and had a wife (three times his age) alive. All these particulars were insisted upon and denied forty times a day. The least scraps of trust-worthy intelligence concerning him were greedily devoured. The turnpike-man who had opened gate to let him through on the night he came to the jail was cross-examined as to his appearance and demeanor. The rural policeman of the district (who had never had a chance of seeing him) was treated to pots of ale, and suddenly found himself the best of company. TheCastleat Gethin was thronged by local tourists, who, under pretense of being attracted by the scenery, came to stare at Harry, and, having seen her, returned to Cross Key with marvelous stories of her charms. As the time drew on the applications for admittance to the court-house made the life of the under-sheriff a burden, and caused the hearts of his subordinates (who got the half-crowns) to sing for joy.
The unhappy Richard was wholly ignorant of all this excitement. When he pictured the court-house to himself, as he often did, he only beheld a crowd of indifferent persons, who would pay no more attention to his own case than to that of Balfour, or any other that might follow or precede it. He saw himself taken out in custody, and carried in some conveyance, such as he had arrived in, through the gaping street; but the idea of that ordeal gave him no uneasiness. Those who saw him would forget him the next moment, or confuse him with some other in the same wretched plight. His mind always reverted from such reflections, as comparatively trivial, to the issue of the trial itself. Indeed, that thought might be said to be constant, though others intruded on it occasionally without obscuring it, like light clouds that cross the moon. As to the details of the scene of which he was about to be so prominent an actor, he knew nothing; for the warders never opened their lips to him, except officially, and Mr. Balfour had never happened to come to grief in the course of his professional practice in that particular locality before.
But the fact was that the jail of Cross Key, though situated in so out-of-the-way a spot, was a model establishment in its way, and built upon the very highest principles of architecture, as connected with the administration of the criminal law. No prisoner was ever taken out of it for trial at all, but was conducted by an underground passage into the court-house itself—indeed, into the very heart of it, for a flight of steps, with a trap-door at the top, led straight into the dock, in which he made his appearance like a Jack-in-the-box, but much more to his own astonishment than to that of the spectators.
Imagine the unhappy Richard thus confronted, wholly unexpectedly, with a thousand eager eyes! They devoured him on the right hand and on the left, before him and behind him; they looked down upon him from the galleries above with a hunger that was increased by distance. Even the barristers in the space between him and the judge turned round to gaze at him, and the judge himself adjusted his spectacles upon his nose to regard him with a searching look. Not a sound was to be heard except the monotonous voice of the clerk reading the indictment; it was plain that every one of that vast concourse knew him, and needed not that his neighbor should whisper, "That is he." Was his mother there? thought Richard, and above all, Was Harry there? He looked round once upon that peering throng; but he could catch sight of neither. The former, with a thick veil over her features, was, indeed, watching him from a corner of the court; but the only face he recognized was that of his attorney, seated immediately behind a man with a wig, whom he rightly concluded to be Mr. Sergeant Balais.
There was a sudden silence, following upon the question, "How say you, Richard Yorke, are you guilty of this felony, or not guilty?" The turnkey by the prisoner's side muttered harshly behind his hand, "They have called on you to plead."
"Not guilty," answered Richard, in a loud, firm voice, and fixing his eyes upon the judge.
A murmur of satisfaction ran softly through the court-house. His hesitation had alarmed the curious folks; they were afraid that he might have pleaded "Guilty," and robbed them of their treat. Not a few of them, and perhaps all the women, were also pleased upon his own account. He was so young and handsome that they could not choose but wish him well, and out of his peril.
Then Mr. Smoothbore rose, and was some time about it. He was six feet four inches high, and it seemed as though you would never see the last of him. ("Oh, Jerryusalem, upon wheels!" was the remark that Mr. Robert Balfour muttered to himself when some hours afterwardhefound himself confronted by the same gigantic counsel, instructed specially by the crown to prosecute so notorious a marauder.) The twelve men in the box opposite at once became all ear. Some leaned forward, as though to anticipate by the millionth of a second the silvery accents of Mr. Smoothbore; others leaned back with head aside, as though to concentrate their intelligence upon them; and the foreman held his head with both his hands, as though that portion of his person was not wholly under control, but might make some erratic twist, and thereby lose him some pregnant sentence. These honest men did not know Mr. Smoothbore, and thought (for the first five minutes) that they could sit and listen to him forever; before they had done with him they began to think that they should have to do it.
Far be it from us to emulate the prolixity with which the learned counsel set forth his case; it must be conceded that he did not hang over it; his words ran as smoothly as oil, and with perfect distinctness, and if any body missed his meaning, it was not for want of its being sufficiently expressed. To a listener of average ability, however, he became insupportable by repetition, which is, unhappily, not exclusively "the vice of the pulpit." We will take care to avoid his error. It will be sufficient to say that when he had finished Richard stood accused not only of having stolen two thousand pounds from John Trevethick, but of having compassed that crime under circumstances of peculiar baseness. He had taken advantage of his superior education, manners, and appearance, to impose himself upon the honest Cornishman as the legitimate son of his landlord, and secured within that humble home a footing of familiarity, only the better to compass a scheme of villainy, which must have occurred to him at a very early period of their acquaintance. Indeed, Mr. Smoothbore hinted that the prisoner's profession of landscape-painting was a mere pretense and pretext, and that it was more than probable that, having heard by some means of Trevethick's hoard, he had come down to Gethin with the express intention of becoming possessed of it, which his accidental discovery of the secret of the letter padlock enabled him to do. In short, by artful innuendo at this or that part of the story, Richard was painted as a common thief, whose possession of such faculties as dexterity andfinesseonly made him a more dangerous enemy of society. There had been rumors, Mr. Smoothbore admitted, of certain romantic circumstances connected with the case, but he was instructed to say that they were wholly baseless, and that the matter which the jury would have to decide upon was simply an impudent and audacious robbery, committed in a manner that he might stigmatize as being quite exceptionally void of extenuation.
The speech for the prosecution immensely disappointed the general public, already half-convinced, in spite of themselves, by Mr. Smoothbore's impassioned clearness and straightforward simplicity, while it pleased the jury, who were glad to hear that the matter in hand was, after all, an ordinary one, which would necessitate no deprivation of victuals, nor absence of fire and candle. The witnesses for the prosecution appeared, as usual, in an order in inverse ratio to the interest and importance of their respective testimonies—the clerk of the Miners' Bank into whose hands the notes had been paid, policemen, Mr. Dodge, and others, who only repeated what we already know. Even the appearance of Solomon Coe was marked by nothing especial, save to the eyes of the accused. In the triumphant bearing of this witness, and in the malignant glance which he had shot toward him ere he began his tale, Richard read that the charge against him was to be pushed to the bitter end. It was in this man's power, more than in any other's (save one), to extenuate or to set down in malice; and there was no doubt in his rival's mind (though his rancor took so blunt a form that it might well have been mistaken by others for outspoken candor) which of the two courses Solomon had chosen. He showed neither scruple nor hesitation; every word was distinct and decisive, and on one occasion (though the repetition of it was forbidden by the judge) even accompanied by a blow with his sledge-hammer fist in the way of corroboration. It seemed that the story he had to tell was, after all, a very plain one.
When John Trevethick, who was the last witness examined for the prosecution, strode into the box, this feeling was intensified. His giant frame and massive features seemed, somehow, to associate themselves with a plain story; and his evidence was as much in consonance with his counsel's speech as evidence could be with pleading.
But when he had quite done with his unvarnished tale, and when Mr. Smoothbore had given him a parting nod in sign thathehad done with him, Sergeant Balais rose, for the first time, with an uplifted finger, as though, but for that signal of delay, the honest landlord would have fled incontinently, and hanged himself, like another Judas.
"You have a daughter, I believe, Mr. Trevethick?" and the Sergeant looked at the jury, with elevated eyebrows, as though he would have said, "If we can get even that admission out of this hoary miscreant, we may consider ourselves fortunate."
And indeed John Trevethick did hesitate for one instant ere he replied. He had not even looked at the prisoner before, but at that question he gave an involuntary glance toward him, and met Richard's answering look. When two men are fighting, each with his hands upon the throat of the other, not for dear life, but for the longed-for death of his foe, it is possible that in their faces some such inextinguishable lurid fire of hatred may be seen burning as then flashed from witness-box to dock, from dock to witness-box; but scarcely under any other circumstances could such a look of deadly malice be exchanged between man and man. It passed, however, in an instant, like the electric fire, and was gone, leaving no trace behind it.
"Ihavea daughter," replied Trevethick; and as he spoke his face, though somewhat pale, became as blank and hard and meaningless as a wall of stone.
"This man is about to perjure himself," thought the experienced Mr. Balais; and he looked around him with the air of one who was convinced of the fact.
"The prisoner at the bar was, I believe, your daughter's lover, was he not?"
"Not that I knew of."
"Not that you know of?" repeated Mr. Balais. "Will you venture to repeat that?"
"The witness saidknew," interposed the judge, demurely, and ordered a sky-light to be closed, the draught from which inconvenienced him. Every body looked at the officer of the court who pulled the string and shut the sky-light, as though it had been the most ingenious contrivance known to man. Not that it was a relief to them to do so, but from that inexplicable motive which prompts us all to observe trivial circumstances with which we have nothing whatever to do, on any occasion of engrossing interest. Even Richard regarded this little process of ventilation with considerable concern, and wondered whether the judge would feel himself better after it.
"Oh, you didn't know of this attachment between the prisoner and your daughter at the time it was going on under your roof, but you knew of it afterward, did you? You read of it in the papers, I suppose, eh?"
"I heard of it, after the robbery was discovered, from my daughter herself."
"And, upon your oath, you did not know of it before then?"
"I did not."
"Nor suspect it even, perhaps?"
"Nor even suspect it."
Mr. Balais smiled, shrugged his shoulders. His principles of oratory were Demosthenean; his motto was "Action, action, action." His. friends on circuit called him the Balais of action. He had had some experience of the depravity of human nature, said the shrug, but this beat every thing, and would be really amusing but for its atrocious infamy. Good Heavens!
"Then you never had any conversation with the prisoner with reference to your daughter at all?"
"Never."
Mr. Balais bent down and interchanged a word or two with Mr. Weasel behind him.
"Now be so good as to give me your best attention, Mr. Trevethick, for upon my next question more may depend than you may be aware of. If you have any regard for your own interests you will answer it truly; for as sure as—"
"Is this necessary, Brother Balais?" interrupted the judge, scratching his forehead with his forefinger, and looking up at the sky-light, as though that matter was not satisfactorily settled even yet.
"My lud, I am instructed that nothing less than a conspiracy has been entered into against my unfortunate client."
The judge nodded slightly, shivered considerably, and made a mental note to complain of that infernal draught before he should dismiss the grand jury.
"I ask you, Mr. Trevethick," continued the counsel, solemnly, "whether or not, in a conversation which you held with the prisoner upon a certain day last month, you mentioned two thousand pounds as the sum you must needs see in his possession before you could listen to any proposition of his with respect to your daughter's hand?"
"I did not."
"You never spoke of that particular sum to him at all?"
"Never at all."
It was Mr. Balais who looked up at the sky-light this time—as though he expected a thunder-bolt.
"The notes, of which we have heard so much, as being hoarded in this ingenious box of yours—and that you are a very ingenious man, Mr. Trevethick, there is no doubt—this box, I say, was kept in a certain cupboard, was it not?"
"It was."
"And now, please to look at the jury when you answer me this question:Where was this particular cupboard situated, Mr. Trevethick?"
Into the landlord's impassive face there stole for the first time a look of disquiet, and his harsh, monotonous voice grew tremulous as he replied, "The cupboard was in my daughter's bedroom."
"That will do, Mr. Trevethick,for the present," observed Mr. Balais, with emphasis; "though I shall probably have the opportunity of seeing you another time"—and he glanced significantly toward the dock—"in another place."
When Mr. Balais rose again it was to speak for the defense, and he addressed the jury amidst an unbroken silence. So rapt, indeed, was the attention of his audience that the smack of a carter's whip, as he went by in the street below, was resented by many a frown as an impertinent intrusion; and even the quarters of the church clock were listened to with impatience, lest its iron tongue should drown a single sentence. This latter interruption did not, however, often take place, for Mr. Balais was as brief in speech as he was energetic in action. He began by at once allowing the main facts which the prosecution had proved—that the notes had been taken from Trevethick's box, and found in the prisoner's possession, who had been detected in the very act of endeavoring to change them for notes of another banking company. But what he maintained was, that this exchange was not, as Mr. Smoothbore had suggested, effected for the purpose of realizing the money, but simply of throwing dust in the prosecutor's eyes. He had changed the notes only with the intention of returning his own money to Trevethick under another form. Even so young a man, and one so thoroughly ignorant of the ways of the world and of business matters as was his client, must surely have been aware, if using the money for himself had been his object, that it could be traced in notes of the Mining Company as easily as in notes of the Bank of England; nay, by this very proceeding of his, he had even given them adoublechance of being traced. He (Mr. Balais) was not there, of course, to justify the conduct of the prisoner at the bar. It was unjustifiable, it was reprehensible in a very high degree; but what he did maintain was that, even taking for granted all that had been put in evidence, this young man's conduct was not criminal; it was not that of a thief. He had never had the least intention of stealing this money; his scheme had been merely a stratagem to obtain the object of his affections for his wife. This Trevethick was a hard and grasping man, and it was necessary for the young fellow to satisfy him that he was possessed of certain property before he would listen to any proposition for his daughter's hand. His idea—a wrong and foolish one, indeed, but then look at his youth and inexperience—was to impose upon this old miser, by showing him his own money in another form, and then, when he had gained his object, to return it to him. Mr. Balais was, for his own part, as certain of such being the fact as that he was standing in that court-house. Let them turn their eyes on the unhappy prisoner in the dock, and judge for themselves whether he looked like the mere felon which his learned friend had painted him, or the romantic, self-deceiving, thoughtless lad, such as he (Mr. Balais) felt convinced he was. They had all heard of the proverb that all things were fair in love as in war. When the jury had been young themselves perhaps some of them had acted upon that theory; at all events, it was not an unnatural idea for young people to act upon. Proverbs had always a certain weight and authority of their own. They were not necessarily Holy Writ (Mr. Balais was not quite certain whether the proverb in question was one of Solomon's own or not, so he put it in this cautious manner), but they smacked of it. This Richard Yorke, perhaps, had thought it no great harm to win his love by a false representation of the state of his finances. He could not see his way how otherwise to melt the stony heart of this old curmudgeon, who had doubtless—notwithstanding the evidence they had heard from him that day—encouraged the young man's addresses so long as he believed him to be Mr. Carew's lawful heir. The whole question, in fact, resolved itself into one ofmotive; and if there was not a word of evidence forthcoming upon the prisoner's part, he (Mr. Balais) would have left the case in the jury's hands, with the confident conviction that they would never impute to that unhappy boy—who had already suffered such tortures of mind and body as were more than a sufficient punishment for his offense—the deliberate and shameful crime of which he stood accused. He had lost his position in the world already; he had lost his sweetheart, for they had all heard that day that she was about to be driven into wedlock with his rival, a man twice his age and hers; he had lost the protection of his father—his own flesh and blood—for since this miserable occurrence he had chosen to disown him; and yet here was the prosecutor, who had lost nothing (except his own self-respect, and the respect of all who had listened to his audacious testimony that morning), pressing for a conviction, for more punishment; in a word, for the gratification of a mean revenge. If he (Mr. Balais) had nothing more, therefore, to urge in his client's defense, he would have been content to leave the jury to deal with this case—Englishmen, who detested oppression, and loved that justice only which is tempered with mercy. But as it so happened, there was no need thus to leave it; no necessity to appeal to mercy at all. He had only to ask them for the barest justice. He was happily in a position to prove that the prisoner at the bar had no more stolen this two thousand pounds than their own upright and sagacious foreman.
A sigh of relief was uttered from a hundred gentle breasts. "We are coming to something at last," it seemed to say. A hundred fair faces looked at Mr. Balais—who was growing gray and wrinkled, and found every new performance of his pantomime harder and harder—as though they could have kissed him, nevertheless. "Yes, gentlemen of the jury, that money was given to him by the prosecutor's daughter with her own hand."
A murmur of satisfaction ran round the court-house.
Therewasa romance—a love-story—in the case, then, after all.
Mr. Balais concluded a most energetic speech with a peroration of great brilliancy, in which Richard and Harry were exhibited like a transparency in the bright colors of Youth, and Hope, and Passion, and finally sat down amidst what would have been a burst of applause but for the harsh voice of the usher nipping it in the bud by proclaiming silence.
There was no need for his doing that when Mr. Balais jumped up to his feet again, as though he were on springs, and called for Harry Trevethick. The judge was taking snuff at the time; and such was the stillness that you could hear the overplus falling on the paper before him on which he wrote down his notes. There was a minute's delay, during which every eye was fixed upon the witness-box, and then Harry appeared. She was very pale, and wore a look of anxious timidity; but a bright spot came into her cheeks as she turned her face to the prisoner in the dock, and smiled upon him. From that moment Richard felt that he was safe. Guarded as he was, and still in peril, he forgot his danger, and once more resolved that he would cleave to this tender creature, to whom he was about to owe his safety, to his life's end.
Harry was simply yet attractively attired in a pale violet silk dress, with a straw bonnet trimmed with the same modest color. It was observed, with reference to this and to the innocence and gentleness of her expression, that she looked like a dove; and a dove she seemed to Richard, bringing him the signal that the flood was abating, the deep waters of which had so nearly overwhelmed both soul and body. Even the judge, as Mr. Weasel had foretold, regarded her through his double glasses with critical approval; for a most excellent judge he was—of female attractions.
Mr. Balais smiled triumphantly at the jury. "Did I not tell you," he seemed to say, "that my client is guiltless in this matter? Here is Truth herself come to witness in his favor. Bless her!" Richard's feverish eyes were fixed upon her; he knew no God, but here was his spring in the wilderness, his shadow of the great rock in a weary land. As for her, she looked only at the judge, expecting—poor little ignoramus—that it was he who would question her.
"You are the daughter of John Trevethick, of Gethin?" said Mr. Balais.
This interrogatory, simple as it was, made her color rise, coming from that unexpected quarter.
"Yes, Sir."
"He keeps an inn, does he not; the"—here Mr. Balais affected to consult his brief, to give her time to recover herself from her modest confusion—"theGethin Castle, I believe?"
"Yes, Sir."
"The prisoner at the bar has been staying there for some months, has he not?"
She stole another look at Richard: it spoke as plainly as looks could speak, "Oh yes; that is how I came to know and love him." But she only murmured, "Yes, Sir."
"Speak up, Miss Trevethick," said the counsel, encouragingly; "these twelve gentlemen are all very anxious to hear what you have to say." The judge nodded and smiled, as though in corroboration, as well as to add, upon his own account, that it would givehimalso much pleasure to hear her.
"Was the prisoner staying in the inn as an ordinary guest, or did he mix with the family?"
"He was in the bar parlor most nights, Sir, along with father and me andSolomon."
"He was in the bar parlor most nights," repeated Mr. Balais, significantly, for he was anxious that the jury should catch that answer—"'With father and me and Solomon.' And who introduced him into the parlor?"
"Father brought him first, Sir, on the second day after he came toGethin."
"Father brought him in, did he? Now, that is rather an unusual thing for the landlord of an inn to do, is it not? To introduce a young man whom he had known but twenty-four hours to his family circle, and to the society of his daughter, eh?"
"Please, Sir, I don't know, Sir."
"No, of course you don't, Miss Trevethick; how should you? But I think the jury know. You have no idea, then, yourself, why your father introduced this young gentleman to you so early?"
"Father said he was a friend of Mr. Carew's, of Crompton, who is father's landlord."
"Just so," said Mr. Balais, with another significant glance at the attentive twelve. "Mr. Trevethick had already discovered that this youth was of a good social position, and likely to prove an excellent match. 'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the spider to the fly; 'I have the prettiest daughter that ever you did spy.'"
Every body tittered at this except Mr. Smoothbore and his solicitor; even the judge blew his nose.
"Now, not only did the prisoner at the bar spend most nights in the bar parlor, but, as I am given to understand, he spent most days there, or, at all events, in your society, did he not?"
"Father and Solomon were away most days, Sir, and so we were left a good deal together."
"Just so. Your father took care to be away most days, did he, in order that you should be left a good deal together?"
Mr. Smoothbore started to his feet. "My lud, I submit," etc.; meaning that this was a mode of interrogating the witness that he couldnotsubmit to for an instant.
"Very good," said Mr. Balais, smiling. "I will not put the question in that form, then. The form is of very little consequence. You were left together, however, and the consequence was that you two young people fell in love with one another, eh?"
Harry was crimson. "I—he—we;" and there she stuck.
"I am very sorry to embarrass you, my dear young lady, but I am necessitated to press this question. Did you fall in love with one another or not?"
No answer. Harry was thinking of Solomon, to whom she was to be married within ten days, and hung her head.
"Come, did he fall in love withyou, then? There was ample apology for it, I am sure, and he ought to have been ashamed of himself if he hadn't. Now, did he 'court' you? I think you must know what that means."
No answer. Every eye was upon her, the judge's double glasses included.They might have been burning-glasses, she felt so hot and frightened.
"Come, did this young gentleman ever give you a kiss?"
"Yes, Sir," murmured poor Harry, almost under her breath.
"Did you say 'Yes' or 'No?'" inquired the judge, dipping his pen in the ink.
"I said 'Yes,' my lord," said the unhappy Harry.
"There were more kisses than one, now, I dare say," said Mr. Balais, with a wink at the jury; "and they were not all on one side, eh?"
No answer.
"Some of them were on the other side, were they not? I don't mean on the other cheek, for I have no doubt he was perfectly indifferent as to that."
Again there was a little titter.
"She is your own witness, Brother Balais," observed his lordship, "but it seems to me you are giving her unnecessary pain."
He had a very tender heart, had the old judge, where a young and pretty woman was concerned—otherwise he was a Tartar.
"My lud, it is absolutely necessary to prove that my client's passion was reciprocated. Did you ever return one of these many kisses, Miss Trevethick?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Did you ever meet him alone at night in a place, I believe, called theFairies' Bower?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Yes," repeated Mr. Balais, recapitulating these facts upon his fingers; "you were left alone with him all day; you met him alone at night, away from your father's roof; you returned his kisses; and all this without the slightest suspicion—if we are to believe his evidence—being aroused upon the part of your parent. Now, Miss Trevethick, you were aware that your father kept a large sum of money—these two thousand pounds—in his strong-box, were you not?"
"I was, Sir."
"Did you ever speak to the prisoner at the bar about it?"
"I think—yes, I did, Sir, on one occasion," and here Harry's voice fluttered and faltered. No one noticed it, however, except the prisoner; if any neighbor eyes had watched him narrowly—but they were all fixed upon the witness—they would have seen his face whiten, and his brow grow damp. Why should she have laid that stress upon "on one occasion?"
"You told him that the two thousand pounds were in the box in the cupboard in your bedroom?"
"I did, Sir."
"The fastening of the box was not an ordinary lock, I believe. It was what is called a letter padlock?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Did you ever open it?"
"No, Sir."
A great bell seemed to be suddenly set tolling in Richard's brain—it was the knell of all his hopes.
"You had never opened it at that time, eh?" continued Mr. Balais, cheerfully. "But you learned the secret afterward?"
"I—yes—I did."
"Do you remember the letters that did open it?"
"Yes, Sir."
"What were they?"
"Very good. We have heard from the counsel for the prosecution that they were so; and that Mr. Trevethick kept a memorandum of them on a piece of paper that fitted into his watch-case. Did he always carry that watch about with him?"
"Not always. When he went out to market, and was likely to be late, he sometimes left it at home."
"In his own room, I suppose, where you or any body else could get at it?"
"I suppose so, Sir."
"Yousuppose? You know he did, do you not? Did you not open the watch-case yourself, and so discover the means of unlocking the box?"
"No, Sir," said Harry, faintly; and once more she turned her eyes to Richard. It was a true and tender glance, one would have said, and accompanied by an attempt at a smile of encouragement. But if it had been a glance of a gorgon, it could not have had a more appalling effect; it literally seemed to turn him into stone.
[Illustration: "COME, DID THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN EVER GIVE YOU A KISS?"]
"Recollect yourself, Miss Trevethick," said Mr. Balais, earnestly; "you are getting confused, I fear. Now please to give me your attention. You say that you knew that the letters B, N, Z were those which formed the key of the letter padlock, and yet that you did not open your father's watch-case. How, then, did you become possessed of the secret?"
No answer. Harry caught her breath convulsively, and turned deadly pale.She could never tell how Mrs. Yorke had endeavored to suborn her.
"Well, well, this is a matter of very little consequence—though I see my learned friend is making a copious note of it," said Mr. Balais, gayly. "The main point is what, as you have told us, did occur—that you found out the secret somehow. When you got it, I suppose you opened the box?"
No answer, save from Mr. Smoothbore, who observed, tartly: "You have no right to assume that, Sergeant."
"Let the young woman have a glass of water," suggested the kindly judge.
"My lord, my lord!" cried Harry, with sudden passion, "he is not guilty. Richard did not mean to steal the money; indeed he did not. He only wished to get possession of it that my father might believe him to be a man of wealth. He did but—"
"Endeavor to compose yourself, young woman," interposed the judge. "The learned counsel will only ask what is necessary."
"Take your time. Miss Trevethick, take your time," pursued Mr. Balais, in his blandest tones. "The question is, how the prisoner became possessed of this money. Now, tell us, did you not give it him with your own hands?"
The bell was still tolling in Richard's brain, and yet he could hear the buzzing of a fly against a window of the court-house, and the careless whistle of some lad in the street without. It was the same tune that the keeper at Crompton had been wont to whistle in his leisure moments at home; and his mind reverted with a flash to the glades of the stately park, the herds of deer, the high-mossed gate, which he had shut in the face of the hounds when they were chasing Carew's carriage. Was it the bang of the gate, or had Harry really answered in a firm voice, that resounded through the silent court-house, "No, Sir?"
"What!" said Mr. Balais, raising his voice a little. "Do you mean to say, then—and recollect that the fate of the prisoner at the bar may depend upon your reply to this question—that Richard Yorke did not become possessed of these notes by your connivance, through your means, at all?"
"No, Sir, no," answered Harry, passionately; "I can't say that; indeed, Sir, I can not. But he is innocent—Richard is innocent—he never meant to steal them. O God, help me!" In her excitement, and not because she wished to do so, she had turned about, and once more caught sight of the prisoner at the bar. It was her turn now to shrink appalled and petrified. It was not reproach that she saw pictured in that well-loved face, but downright hate and loathing. "He will never, never forgive me!" cried she, with a piteous wail; and then scream followed scream, and she was borne out in haste, and a doctor sent for.
Cross-examination was, of course, quite out of the question; and, indeed, Mr. Smoothbore was much too sagacious a man to wish to exercise that privilege. The failure of the witness for the defense had proved the case of the prosecution.
It was Mr. Smoothbore who could now best afford to praise the innocence and candor of the unhappy Harry. Was it not evident that that tender creature had been tampered with, and almost persuaded to perjure herself, for the sake of the prisoner at the bar—almost, but, happily for the ends of justice, not quite persuaded! Her natural love of right had conquered the ignoble passion with which she had been inspired by this unscrupulous man. What words could sufficiently paint the baseness of the conduct of the accused! Was it not clear that he had endeavored to escape scot-free, at the sacrifice of this poor girl's good name?She, forsooth, was to proclaim herself thief, to save his worthless self! It was not for Mr. Smoothbore—Heaven forbid!—to exaggerate such wickedness, but was it possible that the phrase, "Young in years, but old in vice," had ever had a more appropriate application than in the present case! For the credit of human nature, he trusted not. The point upon which his learned friend had mainly relied having been thus proved wholly untenable—the fact of Richard's taking the money having been incontestably brought home to him—it only remained for him (Mr. Smoothbore) to notice what had been said with respect to motive. If the prisoner at the bar had even had the intention, which had been so gratuitously imputed to him, of returning this money to the prosecutor, when once the object of his supposed scheme had been effected, he would be no less guilty of the crime that was laid to his charge. It was possible, indeed, in such a case, that there might be extenuating circumstances, but those would not affect the verdict of the jury, however they might influence his lordship's sentence after that verdict had been truly given. And this he would say, after what had just occurred in that court—after the painful scene they had just witnessed—the breaking down of that innocent girl in an act of self-sacrifice, culpable in itself, but infinitely more culpable in him who had incited her to do it—for he could not for an instant suppose that the prisoner's legal advisers could have suggested such a line of defense: taking all this into consideration, he, Mr. Smoothbore, would confidently ask the jury whether the prisoner at the bar was to be credited with merely a romantic stratagem, or with a crime the heinousness of which was only exceeded by the means by which he had striven to exculpate himself from it, and to evade the ends of justice.
When Mr. Smoothbore had thus concluded a lengthened and impassioned harangue, he sat down, wiping his hands upon his handkerchief, as though implying that he had washed them of the prisoner for good and all, and that a very dirty job it had been; while the judge rose and left the court, it being the hour appointed to his system, by nature, for the reception of lunch.
Richard remained in the dock. The warder who had charge of him gave him the option of retiring, but he preferred to stay where he was till all was over. He had at last caught sight of his mother, straining her loving eyes toward him—with still some hope in them—from a distant corner of the gallery; and he kept his gaze fixed upon that spot. They had all the world against them now, these two, so clever, and yet so wholly unable to combat with inexorable fate. Harry's evidence, and especially the manner of it, had not needed Mr. Smoothbore's fiery scorn to turn all hearts against the accused. To the great mass of spectators it seemed as though Richard would have made the girl change places with himself, and become a vicarious sacrifice for his worthless self.
The majesty of the law having withdrawn itself, a hum of many voices filled the court-house; a munching of biscuits, a sipping of flasks. The silence of suspense no longer reigned. The struggle was virtually over, and the victim was only waiting his doom. It was hoped it would be a severe one. The spectators were pitiless, and had turned their thumbs toward their breasts. As to the verdict there was no doubt. Those who knew the character of the judge opined that this young gentleman would "get it hot," notwithstanding that this was his first offense. Odds were taken that he would have fourteen years. "At all events," said one of the small officials, in answer to eager inquiries, "more than he could do on his head." With this enigmatical reply of the oracle its astonished questioners were compelled to be content.
"Silence in the court—si-lence." The judge had returned. It was thought by some that it was in the prisoner's favor that the judge had lunched. They were mistaken, or perhaps a fatal economy had provided African sherry. His charge was scarcely less dead against the prisoner than had been Mr. Smoothbore's closing speech. As for the motive, upon which such stress had been laid by the counsel for the defense, that might be a plea for a recommendation to mercy, if the jury believed it, but it could not affect the question of the prisoner's guilt. That the stolen property had been found in the possession of the accused there was no sort of doubt. If the prisoner at the bar had not himself taken it out of the prosecutor's strong-box, who had?
Such was the form in which the case was left for the jury.
"It's UP," whispered Mr. Weasel behind his hand to Mr. Balais. Mr. Balais nodded indifferently; the case was over so far as he was concerned, and he was not going to employ significant action gratuitously. That would have been waste of power indeed at his age. The jury did not leave the box; they laid their heads together, like a hydra, and "deliberated" for half a minute; that is to say, the foreman whispered, "We can return but one verdict, I should say, gentlemen;" and the eleven answered, "But one."
"We find the prisoner guilty, your lordship."
His lordship nodded approval. "In my opinion, gentlemen, you could not have done otherwise. Hem!" Then that common phrase, "You could have heard a pin drop," might have been used with respect to that vast assemblage. That "hem!" was a very fatal sign with Mr. Justice Bantam, as the bar well knew.
"I'll take you six to five in sovs he gives him seven years," whispered one learned gentleman to another, without moving his lips.
"It seems to me you are rather fond of a good thing," returned the other, scornfully, but with a like precaution.
"Hem!" said the judge again. "Is there any one in court able to give any information concerning the antecedents of the prisoner?"
"We have no witnesses to character, my lud," said Mr. Balais, gravely; "we had hoped it would not have been necessary."
"Thereisa witness in court, please your lud-ship, a detective of the A division of metropolitan police, I believe," observed Mr. Smoothbore, "who knows something of the prisoner."
"Let him stand up," said the judge.
Here was an extra excitement—an additional attraction, which had not been advertised in the bills—and the public evinced their satisfaction accordingly by craning and crowding. Richard turned his heated eyes in the direction of this new enemy. He had no hope of seeing a friend. The individual in question was unknown to him. He was a tall, quiet-looking man, whose face might have been carved out of box-wood, it was so hard and serious, but for its keen eyes, which seemed to meet his own with a look of recognition.
"I know the prisoner at the bar; that is to say, I have seen him on a previous occasion, when he passed under the name of Chandos, and on other occasions, as I believe, under other names. From information received I attended a competitive examination, under the authority of government."
"Do you mean that you were employed by the government, or that the examination was a government one?" interrupted the judge.
"You'll hear something now," whispered Mr. Weasel to Mr. Balais, "byJove!"
"Both, my lord," explained the witness. "It had come to the knowledge of the government that there had been several cases of personation in the competitive examinations recently instituted both for the military and civil services. Not only were young gentlemen, who had apparently passed with credit, found grossly ignorant of the subjects which they had previously been examined upon, but their physical appearance was sometimes such as would have seemed to have disqualified them: it appeared incredible that they should have passed the preliminary medical examination. One was hump-backed; another almost blind. It was understood that some systematized scheme of imposture, of mispersonation, was at work to produce these results, and I was instructed to inquire into it. I did so. I came to the conclusion that only one person was concerned in the matter—the prisoner at the bar. I had had my suspicions of him for some time. I had seen him on three separate occasions as a candidate at public examinations. His nomination was correct and genuine, but (as I have since discovered) it had been issued to another person. He succeeded in every instance in obtaining the appointments in question for his employers, who received them in due course, though they have, I believe, since been canceled. In the case of Chandos, a letter was written, by the supposed successful candidate, to the authorities of the government branch—the India Board—under which he was to serve, so grossly misspelled that the fraud was at once suspected. In this instance the guilt was brought home to the prisoner by the confession of the young man Chandos himself, who paid over to him a considerable sum of money for the service in question. But I am now in a position to prove that on several other occasions the prisoner has committed the same offense; and, in short, if he may be said to have a calling, it is that of personating, at competitive examinations, young gentlemen of small ability, who are thus enabled to secure situations and appointments which they could otherwise never obtain."
Mr. Justice Bantam had his prejudices, but he had a fair and honest mind.
"This is a most unlooked-for communication, Brother Balais," said he, doubtfully; "and it is not permitted you to cross-examine upon a point of character."
"I am sorry to say, my lud," returned Mr. Balais, after a hurried conversation with the little attorney, "that my client is not in a position to dispute the evidence just adduced. He prefers to throw himself upon the mercy of the court, on the ground—a very tenable one, I think—of his youth and," he was going to add "inexperience," but, under the circumstances, he thought it better not—"of his extreme youth, my lud; my unhappy client is barely eighteen years of age."
"Very good," said Mr. Justice Bantam, looking as if it could not be worse. "Hem! Prisoner at the bar: after a careful and fair trial, in which you have had the benefit of the best legal aid, you have been foundguiltyof the charge of which you are accused. In that verdict I cordially concur. The offense was a very serious one; but the endeavor which you have made to screen yourself, at the expense of that beautiful and innocent young girl, is, in my opinion, still more heinous and contemptible than the crime itself. Having made yourself master of her affections, you used your power to the utmost to effect her moral and social hurt. You would have had her perjure herself, and proclaim herself guilty of a crime she did not commit, in order that you might yourself escape justice. Nobody who heard her evidence—who saw her in yonder box—can doubt it. Still, as your counsel has just remarked, you are but a youth in years, and I looked about me in hopes to find some extenuating circumstances in your past career—some record of good—which might have justified me in inflicting on you a more lenient sentence than your offense had earned. I had no other purpose in asking whether any thing was known of your previous career. The reply to that question has astonished and shocked me, as it has shocked and astonished every right-thinking person in this court who heard it. We knew to what base purpose you had used the comeliness and youth and good address with which nature had endowed you; and now we have learned how evilly you have misused your talents—with what perverted ingenuity you have striven, at so early an age, to set at naught those precautions by which your country has lately endeavored to secure for itself efficient public servants."
"That's neat," whispered a learned friend to Mr. Balais, reverently shutting his eyes, as though in rapt admiration.
"Very," returned that gentleman. "He's bidding for the Lord ChiefJusticeship."
"In the whole course of my legal experience, young man," continued the judge, "I have never seen a case which seems to me to call for more exemplary punishment than yours. The promise of your future is dark indeed—bad for yourself, and bad for that society which, though so fitted to adorn and benefit it, you have chosen to outrage. I will not, however, reproach you further; I will rather express a hope that when you return to the world after your long probation—and it will be as long as I am able to make it—you may be a wiser and better, as well as a much older man. The sentence of the court is, that you be kept in penal servitude for the space of twenty years."
Not a syllable of the judge's exhortation was lost upon the prisoner at the bar. He listened to it as attentively as one who is waiting for the thunder listens to the muffled menace that precedes it, and the fall of each big drop of rain. When the words of doom smote upon his ear a solemn hush succeeded them; and then one piteous, agonized shriek, and a dull fall in the gallery above.
"This way," said a warder, sharply; and Richard was seized by the arm, and hurried through the trap-door, and down the stairs, by the way he had come. It seemed to him like descending into hell itself.
Twenty years' penal servitude! It was almost an eternity of torment! worse than death! and yet not so. He already beheld himself, at the end of his term of punishment, setting about the great work which alone was left him to do on earth—the accomplishment of his revenge. He had recognized his mother's voice in that agonized wail, and knew that her iron will had given way; that the weight of this unexpected calamity had deprived even her elastic and vigorous mind of consciousness—had crushed out of her, perhaps, even life itself. Better so, thought he, in his bitterness, if it had; there would then be not a single human creature left to soften, by her attachment, his heart toward his fellows—none to counsel moderation, mercy, prudence.
If the view taken by the judge had even been a correct one, as to "motive," Richard had been hardly dealt with, most severely sentenced; but in his own eyes he was an almost innocent man—the victim of an infamous conspiracy, in which she who, was his nearest and dearest had treacherously joined. After flattering him with false hopes, she had deserted him at the eleventh hour, and in a manner even more atrocious than the desertion itself. He knew, of course, that it was mainly owing to her evidence, to which he had looked for his preservation, that his ruin had been so complete and overwhelming; but what he hated her worst for was for that smile she had bestowed upon him as she entered the witness-box, and which had bade him hope where no hope was. He could not be mistaken as to that. She had known that she was about to doom him by her silence to years of misery, and yet she had had the devilish cruelty to smile upon him, as she had often smiled, when they had sat, cheek to cheek, together! Since they had done so, he could never lift his hand against her (he felt that even now)—never strike her, slay her, nor even poison her; but he would have revenge upon her for all that. He would smite her, as she had smitten him, no matter how long the blow might be in falling: if her affections should be entwined in any human creatures, against them should his rage be directed; he would make her desolate, as she had rendered him; he would turn their love for her to hate, if it were possible, and, if not, he would destroy them. As for her father—as for that stone devil Trevethick—it choked him to think that nature herself might preserve him from his wrath, that the old man might die before his hour of expiation could arrive. But Solomon Coe would live to feel his vengeance. His hatred was at white heat now; what would it be after twenty years of unmerited torture? To think that this terrible punishment had befallen him through such contemptible agencies—through such dull brains and vulgar hands—was maddening; and yet he must needs feed upon that thought for twenty years, and keep his senses too, that at the end they might work out his purpose to the uttermost. There was plenty of time to plan and scheme and plot before him, and henceforth that should be his occupation. Revenge should be his latest thought and his earliest, and all night long he would dream of nothing else. His wrath against judge and jury, and the rest of them—though if he could have slain them all with a word he would have uttered it—was slight compared with the vehemence of his fury against those three at Gethin. Rage possessed him wholly, and, though without numbing him to the painful sense of his miserable doom, rendered him almost unconscious of what was going on about him.
When he found himself in his cell again he had no recollection of how he had got there; and the warder had to repeat his sharp command, "Put on these clothes," before he could get him to understand that he was to exchange his garments for the prison suit that lay before him. It was a small matter, but it brought home to him the reality of his situation more than any thing that had yet occurred. With the deprivation of his clothes he seemed to be deprived of his individuality, and, in adopting that shameful dress, to become an atom in a congeries of outcasts. From henceforth he was not even to bear a name, but must become a number—a unit of that great sum of scoundrels which the world was so willing to forget. That he was to suffer under a system which had authority and right for its basis made his case no less intolerable to him; he felt like one suddenly seized and sold into slavery. That his master and tyrant was called the Law was no mitigation of his calamity; nay, it was an aggravation, since he could not cut its throat.
"It is no use, young fellow," said the warder, coolly, as Richard looked at him like some hunted beast at bay. "If you was to kill me and a dozen more it would do you not a morsel of good; the law has got you tight, and it's better to be quiet."
Richard uttered a low moan, more woeful than any cry of physical anguish. It touched his jailer, used as he was to the contemplation of human misery. "Look here," said he; "you keep up a good heart, and get as manyV G's as you can. Then you'll get out on ticket-of-leave in fifteen years: it ain't as if you were a lifer."
He meant it for consolation; but this unvarnished statement of thevery bestthat could by possibility befall poor Richard seemed only to deepen his despondency.
"Why, when you've done it," pursued the warder, "you'll be quite a young man still—younger than I am. There's Balfour, now; he's got some call to be down in the mouth, for he'll get it as hot as you, and he's an old un, yet he's cheery enough up yonder"—and he jerked his head in the direction of the court-house—"you may take your 'davey he is. You getV G's."
"What are those?" said Richard, wearily.
"Why, the best marks that can be got; and remember that every one of 'em goes to shorten your time. You must be handier with your room, to begin with. You might be reported by some officers for the way in which that hammock is folded, and then away go your marks at once; and you must learn to sweep your room out cleaner. We couldn't standthatin one of our regulars, you know;" and he pointed to some specks of dust upon the shining floor. "As for the oakum pickings which will be set you to-morrow, I'll show you the great secret of that art. Your fingers will suffer a bit at first, no doubt, but you'll be a clever one at it before long. Only buckle to, and keep a civil tongue in your head, young fellow, and you'll do."
"Thank you," said Richard, mechanically.
"If you'll take my advice, you'll set about something at once; sweepin', or polishin', or readin' your Bible. Don't brood. But you will do as you like for this afternoon, since you won't begin regular business till to-morrow."
The warder looked keenly round the cell, probably to make sure that it afforded no facilities for suicide; but the gas was not yet turned on, and if it had been, his prisoner was unaware that by blowing it out, and placing the jet in his mouth, more than one in a similar strait to his own has found escape from his prison woes forever.
"I'll bring you some supper presently," he added; and with a familiar nod, good-naturedly intended for encouragement, he slammed the iron door behind him.
That he should have become an object of pity and patronage to a man like this would in itself have wounded Richard to the quick had he not been devoured by far more biting cares, and even now it galled him. His twenty years might possibly, then, by extremity of good luck, be curtailed by five. By diligent execution of menial drudgery; by performing to some overlooker's satisfaction his daily toil; by careful obedience and subservience to these Jacks in office, themselves but servants, and yet whose malice or ill-humor might cause them to report him for the most trifling faults, or for none at all, and thereby destroy eventhishope—he might be a free man in fifteen years! He would, even then, he was told, be still a young man. But that he would never be young again Richard was well aware. Within these last three weeks—nay, within that last hour, he had already lived a life, and one that had aged him beyond the power of years. High spirits, pleasure, hopefulness, love, and all the attributes of youth, were dead within him for evermore. For the future he was only to be strong and vigorous in a will that could not have its way for fifteen years at earliest.
Through the grating of his narrow window a few rays of the setting sun were streaming in, and fell upon the bare brown wall behind him. What a flood of glory they were pouring on the woods of Crompton, now in their autumn splendor—on the cliffs at Gethin—on the copse that hid the Wishing Well—on the tower where he had first clasped Harry in his arms! He saw them all, and the sunset hues upon them became suddenly blood-red. He was once more at Gethin, and in imagination taking his revenge upon old Trevethick, and for the moment he was almost happy. "Pity on his gray hairs?" No, not he—though the gallows loomed before him, though hell yawned for him, he would slake his thirst in the life-blood of that perjured villain; and as for her, he would drag her by the hair to look upon her father's corpse. Where was she? Ah, with Solomon upon the castled rock; and see!—he had pushed him from the edge, and there he hung exactly as he himself had hung when Harry had preserved him! How long would a man hold on like that, even a strong man like Coe, on such a narrow ledge, with the gulls screaming about him? Not twenty years—no, nor fifteen!
The clatter of the trap in the door of his cell, as it fell in and formed a table, awoke him from this gloating dream. "Supper," said the warder, looking in at him through this orifice. "What! you're still brooding, are you?—that's bad;" then marched on to the next cell.
Some gruel and bread stood upon this little improvised side-board. If they had been the greatest luxuries imaginable, he could not have swallowed a morsel. The sunlight had faded away; his dream of retribution was over; he seemed to be touching the utmost verge of human wretchedness. Was it possible to kill himself? His neckerchief had been taken away; but he had his braces. The gas-pipe was the only thing to which he could attach them, and it would never bear his weight. He had read somewhere of some poor wretch who had suffocated himself by turning his tongue inward. Had he determination enough for such a device as that? Plenty. His will was iron; he felt that; but it was set on something else than suicide—that afterward, or death or life of any kind, he cared not what; but in the first place, and above all things, Vengeance! In the mean time, there were twenty years in which to think upon it! Twenty years!
The bar dined with the judge that night at Cross Key, and talked, among other things, "shop."
"A curious case that of that young fellow, Yorke," said one. "I wonder whether he has been playing his game long with these competitive examinations? That Chandos must be a queer one, too—son of Lord Fitzbacon's, is he not?"
"I dare say," answered another, carelessly. "It is only vicariously that the juvenile aristocracy ever get an appointment in these days, having no wits of their own. This conviction will be a great blow to them."
"Very good, Sharpshins! but you'd better not let old Bantam hear you, for he dearly loves the Swells. By-the-by, what a pretty girl that witness for the defense was, who turned out to be for the prosecution, eh?"
"Yes, she upset her lover's coach for him nicely. Is it true, I wonder, that the little traitress is going to marry that dull, heavy fellow whom Smoothbore had such work to pump? Gad! if I had been she, I'd have stuck to the other."
"Yes; but kissing goes by favor. She marries him next week, I hear. Is there any thing of interest at Bodmin?"
"Nothing of interest tome, at all events. Smoothbore and Balais get all there is between them, confound them! I say, just pass that claret."
Not another word about Richard. The judge himself had forgotten him except as a case in his notes. The jury forgot him in a week. A murder of a shipwrecked sailor happened soon afterward on that coast, and became the talk of the country-side in his place. The world went on its way, and never missed him; the rank closed up where he had used to march, and left no gap.
Richard Yorke was out of the world.