As rapidly as post-horses and postilions would permit, Beauchamp's courier returned from London, bringing with him the officers who had been in Paris already on the same business, both of whom paid the young gentleman a great many compliments on his skill and proficiency in their particular branch of science; but, as Beauchamp would very well have dispensed with such a flattering testimony of his abilities in thief-catching, we shall not give the somewhat circumlocutory praises of the officers at length.
By this time the operation of extracting the ball had been performed upon the young sailor; and although there appeared no chance of his being able to bear a long journey for some time, yet he was already so far convalescent that no doubt was entertained of his ultimate recovery.
Harding, Smithson, and the woman, Sarah Ings, confined apart, had all already shown the difference of the characters in the different manner in which they had borne their situation. The woman wept continually, declaring with loud lamentations that she would tell all she knew, if they would but spare her life. Smithson alternately stormed and raved, or gave way to brutal jests and wild merriment. Harding remained calm, cool, and silent, quite disposed to philosophize upon his situation with any one who would philosophize with him, or to sneer at any who offered him one word of compassion or admonition; but, at the same time, a great deal too wary to utter a syllable that might endanger the slight hope of escape which still remained.
After a brief interview with Beauchamp, the officers, with very natural impatience, hastened to visit their prisoners; and R----, who held the principal post, immediately addressed Harding with a great deal of civility. "Oh, Mr. Harding," he said, "I am sorry to see you here!"
"You mistake, sir," said Harding. "I do not remember you at all."
"What! not when you were secretary to Mr.----, the banker who failed?" said the officer. "Poo! poo! that cock won't fight, Master Harding. Don't you remember going up with me to Mr. Tims's, at Clement's Inn; and how, after a great piece of work, he promised not only to drop proceedings against you, but to get you a good place into the bargain, if you would tell all about the embezzlement of the money; and a good place he did get you, I find--pity you didn't keep it when you had got it. Howsoever, that is no business of mine--but you must take part of a shay with me over to England, Master Harding; and I dare say we shall be very good friends on the road."
"Perhaps so!" replied the prisoner; and, after a few more words, the officers proceeded to visit the other male culprit. To him, however, their manner was totally different. "Ha! Tony, my lad!" cried the head officer; "How do you do this many a day? Why! how the devil were you such a soft chap as to get taken in for such a bad job as this--but you had nearly bilked us all, by jingo!"
"Oh, R----," he replied. "Oh, it is a bad job indeed! But I knew well enough that I was wellnigh up to my weight; and that d--d fellow, Harding, persuaded me, you see! But I say, R----, tell me, is that young Harrison like to die? Harding gave him a h--ll of a shot--and, d--n him, if he would die, if I would not take to talking, and plead the king's pardon, do you see!"
"No, no!" answered the officer. "No chance of his dying! No, no, Tony. It's all up with you! They must hang two of you; and if any one gets off, in course it will be the woman."
At this hopeless picture of his situation, the ruffian first swore and blasphemed for two or three minutes, and then, relapsing into the other extreme, cast himself down and wept like a child.
"Fie, fie, Tony!" cried the officer. "Die game, any how--why, I thought you were more varment than that comes to--a man must die somehow, you know--and you have had a long pull at it, my lad--besides, it's all nonsense when one knows that it must be so."
"Ay, that's the job!" said the prisoner. "If one could but think of some way of getting off"----
"Don't you fancy that," replied the officer. "Why, look ye now, Tony, if you could get off for this last job, I'll tell you as a friend, they'd hang you for that burning business; for they've got proof enough against you for that."
This last argument seemed completely to dispel all Mr. Anthony Smithson's objections to being hanged; and after two or three exhortations to those virtues that Bow Street officers expect from thieves, the two children of Mercury went on to visit the female prisoner. As, however, we have fully as great a disgust to scenes of low vice and misery as our readers can have, and only introduce them, where compelled to do so in accordance with truth, we shall leave the officers to conduct their prisoners to England, and proceed to notice the events which occurred to Henry Beauchamp, in whose favour we have already kept our promise, of giving up to him the greater part of this volume.
That gentleman then set off from Paris with all speed, as soon as he had seen the prisoners safely consigned to the Bow Street officers. He well knew, that such adventures as those in which he had lately been engaged, could not fail to find their way into the mouth of Rumour; and for many reasons he wished to reach London, ere that lady was ready to go trumpeting before him, like the man with the box on his back, who walks before Punch.
He succeeded tolerably well; so that the fact of Henry Beauchamp being living instead of dead, upon dry land instead of under the sea, was not known to above fifty thousand people when he arrived in London. Out of this number about a thousand had congratulated Lord Ashborough on the resuscitation of his nephew; but the noble lord had so impressed upon his mind that his nephew was dead, that he would not believe a word of the story, gravely saying, that he would give it implicit credence, as soon as he heard it from any one who would say, that they had seen Henry Beauchamp with their own eyes.
As none of those could be met with, and as the story could be traced to no authentic source, Lord Ashborough held fast his conviction; and up to the hour of Beauchamp's arrival continued in the same belief.
It was late at night, or rather early in the morning, when Beauchamp did once more reach the capital; and as he imagined that he was not likely to find anything prepared for his accommodation in the house of a dead man, he directed the postboys to drive to a hotel, rather than his own dwelling. It was later the next morning when he rose, than he had purposed over night; but nevertheless, as soon as he was up, he set forth for Lord Ashborough's, and walked immediately into the drawing-room, where, although the earl himself had breakfasted and gone out, Beauchamp had soon the pleasure of holding his sister in his arms.
Although Maria Beauchamp was not in the least surprised to see him, as she had long before received convincing assurances of his safety; and though she was as light a hearted girl as ever danced through life, unconscious of its sorrows--yet when she first met her brother, after all the dangers he had encountered, the tears rose up in her eyes, from the more vivid impression which his presence produced upon her mind, of the loss she would have suffered, had the report of his death been true.
The conversation between Henry and Maria Beauchamp was long, and to them highly interesting; and had the world ever been known to forgive those who write dialogues between brothers and sisters, it should have been here transcribed for general edification. In the course of it, Maria made herself acquainted with a great many of the secrets of her brother's heart, and, in return, gave him a far more clear and minute insight into all the views and designs of Lord Ashborough and his worthy agent, Mr. Peter Tims, than Beauchamp had imagined so gay and careless a girl, could have been shrewd enough to obtain. From her quick-sightedness in all those particulars, however, in which the interests of William Delaware were concerned, Beauchamp concluded--a result, which his sister certainly neither wished nor anticipated--that the surmise of his good lawyer, Mr. Wilkinson, was not so far wrong as he had at first imagined; and he paused, musing with a smile over all the events that yet might be in the wheel of fortune.
The anatomy of a smile is sometimes a curious thing, and that which then played upon Beauchamp's lip was not without its several parts and divisions. In the first place, the idea of his gay, smart, and dashing sister, falling in love with a frank, straightforward, simple-hearted sailor, who had neither rank nor fortune to offer her, made him smile. In the next place, he felt the slightest possible shade of disappointment, at the idea of Maria Beauchamp not marrying the Marquis of this, or the Earl of that; and the very absurdity of such a feeling inhisbosom, of all the bosoms in the world, made him smile at himself; and the two smiles blended together. The third part of the smile, and which was the purest part too, proceeded from many a sweet feeling and bland hope which rose up, when he suffered his mind's eye to gaze on into futurity, and thought of the varied sorts of happiness it might be in the power of him and his to bestow on a noble and generous race, weighed down by long misfortunes.
As soon as all these feelings had had their moment and were gone, and he had given his sister an account of his wondrous accidents by flood and field--Beauchamp wrote a brief note to his uncle, informing him of his return, and then
"Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum."
He set forth with all speed to his lawyer's chambers, in order to carry on the whole proceedings, in exculpation of William Delaware, as rapidly as possible.
In regard to his conversation with Mr. Wilkinson, it may be only necessary to notice, that Beauchamp found, that with prompt and judicious zeal, that gentleman, on discovering that some thoughts were really entertained at the Admiralty of inflicting a signal disgrace upon Captain Delaware for his evasion, had waited personally on the First Lord, and had laid before him that part of his client's deposition, which admitted, in the clearest manner, that the money had been placed by Beauchamp himself in the young officer's room; thus showing, that the chief circumstance of suspicion was taken from the evidence. He farther informed him that Beauchamp had discovered the real murderers, and was at that moment in pursuit of them; and he ended by beseeching him to pause ere he took any step in the proceedings which rumour declared to be in agitation.
He was met, in every respect, with frank and gentlemanly courtesy, and was assured that nothing could be more gratifying to his Majesty than to find just cause for suspending that expression of his indignation against any officer in his service, which the stern voice of justice could alone compel him to publish.
So far every thing was satisfactory. "And now," said Beauchamp, "all that remains to be done for the present, is to open the eyes of my uncle to the conduct of this base attorney of his."
"Spare us! Spare us! Mr. Beauchamp, I beg," said Mr. Wilkinson. "But, without attempting to defend attorneys, who, as a body, have got a bad name, not so much, I believe from having more rogues amongst them than are to be found in other professions, but from having greater opportunities of roguery, allow me to say that I am afraid you will find it a difficult thing to open your uncle's eyes."
"Why, why, my dear sir?" demanded Beauchamp. "We can prove the facts.--Tell me why?"
"Oh, for many reasons," answered Mr. Wilkinson musing, and perhaps not exactly liking to state the real basis of his opinion. "The fact is, it is like eating garlic, Mr. Beauchamp, or drinking spirits, or taking any other of those things which a man nauseates at first, but gets very fond of by degrees--when a person grows fond of a rogue, he gradually gets to like him beyond any one else, and soon finds he cannot do without him."
Burrel smiled, though there was a slight sort of mistiness about the conclusion of Mr. Wilkinson's illustration, which he did not exactly like. However, he pressed him no farther; and having learned that Lord Ashborough was carrying on a suit against Sir Sidney Delaware, in regard to the annuity, with somewhat sharper measures than the generality of the profession considered reputable, he obtained the bill for ten thousand pounds which Mr. Tims had presented in lieu of the money due from the earl, and then returned to his uncle's dwelling.
Lord Ashborough was now at home; and although Miss Beauchamp had broke the news of her brother's return, and added a number of reasons and apologies for his not having sooner communicated the fact of his safety, the earl was still both agitated and offended, and his reception of Beauchamp showed a strange mixture of pride, and irritation, and pleasure.
"And pray, Henry, may I ask--" he said, after their first salutations were over--"May I ask, I say--for your movements and their causes may both require the same diplomatic secrecy which you have of late so skilfully displayed--May I ask, I say, why you were pleased to conceal your existence from your nearest relations? Your sister has indeed already favoured me with so many reasons, that I confess I have become puzzled and bewildered by the number, and would fain hear your own motives from your own lips."
Beauchamp was not a man to make any excuse to any one, if he had not a true one ready at his hand. In the present instance, he thought it best to tell Lord Ashborough the simple truth, and then leave him to receive it as an excuse or not, as he might think best; taking care, at the same time, to word it with all due respect and kindness, in deference to the affection which he knew his uncle felt towards him.
"The fact is, my dear sir," he answered, "for the first fortnight or three weeks after you had fancied me drowned, I was not at all aware of such a report. I was first detained at a cottage with a dislocated ancle, and next ill of a fever at Hartford Bridge; and at the time I learned the rumour of my own death, I was under the absolute necessity of going to Paris, in order to pursue the miscreants who committed the horrid murder of which you have heard, at Ryebury. As I was the only person who could prove the facts against them, or lead to their apprehension, the rumour of my death I knew would throw them off their guard; and therefore it was necessary to leave it uncontradicted. Besides"----
"But surely," interrupted Lord Ashborough, who, though strongly inclined to enquire farther concerning the murderers, was resolved to press Beauchamp home in the first instance. "But surely you could have trusted to my discretion in the business.
"Undoubtedly, my lord!" replied Beauchamp; "and I need not tell you that, under any ordinary circumstances, you would have been the very first person to whom I should have communicated my situation, and whom I should have consulted in what I was undertaking."
Lord Ashborough bowed his head with a placable smile, and Beauchamp continued:--"But I could only have done so by writing to you, or by coming to see you. The latter, of course, was out of the question; for I was not willing to trust my secret to your host of servants, and to write was equally impossible, as there were circumstances to explain which could only be done personally."
"How so? Why so?" demanded the earl.
"That is what I was about to explain," answered Beauchamp. "The fact is, that the man of all others whose greatest interest it was to foil me in endeavouring to bring the murderers to justice--with the exception, of course, of the murderers themselves--is your confidential man of business and lawyer, Mr. Peter Tims."
Lord Ashborough started; for though this carried him back again to the subject of the murderers, it was not exactly in the way he best liked. "You are mistaken, Henry," he said; "quite mistaken! No man has been more anxious in thought, or more strenuous in exertion, than Mr. Tims, to bring the murderers of his uncle to justice--You forget their near relationship, and he is a great deal too--too--too"----
Lord Ashborough would fain have added "Too honest a man!" but the words stuck in his throat, and, as he paused, Beauchamp finished the sentence for him--"Too great a rogue, my lord, he most certainly is, ever to think of relationship where interest is concerned. I found that out some time ago, ere I took the step of removing my affairs from his hands, to those of Messrs. Steelyard and Wilkinson."
Lord Ashborough drew himself up, "I believe, sir," he said, "that I have not acquired the character in the world, of a man who is likely to employ a rogue, either from folly or knavery. But, as you have brought a serious accusation against my ordinary man of business, I shall of course expect you to substantiate it fully."
"That I will do completely to your lordship's satisfaction," replied Beauchamp; "and indeed, I trust you will believe me, my dear uncle, when I assure you, that the certainty of this man having, by a gross misrepresentation of facts, involved you, in circumstances, which will be very painful to you when you learn all the details, is the great inducement which makes me accuse your agent at once to yourself, before I take such measures as must expose him to the world."
Beauchamp paused; but his intimate acquaintance with his uncle's character had given him a sort of intuitive insight into what was passing in his mind, and had revealed a great many secrets which, as his nephew, he would rather not have learned, but which of course he acted upon in his transactions with the noble earl. In the present instance, he clearly perceived that Lord Ashborough's vanity was getting irritable at the very idea of having been cheated, and that, at the same time, curiosity and anxiety were both striving hard to keep vanity down till they were satisfied; but that vanity being the strongest, was likely to have her own way. Under these circumstances. Beauchamp thought it would be best to throw in a little soothing matter to quiet the more restive animal of the three, and keep her from kicking. He therefore added, after a very brief pause, "I know, my lord, that the plans of this man, which could deceive even your sagacity, must have been very deeply and artfully laid; and unless"--he added, anxious not to assume superior wisdom--"and unless accident and his own imprudence had thrown into my hands the means of establishing his knavery beyond a doubt, I should not have ventured to make such a charge as I have brought against him. I know, however, that you are too candid not to yield to conviction; and my purpose is to request that you would call him to your presence, and suffer me to ask him a question or two before you."
"Of course, Henry," replied the earl. "I am not only willing, but anxious in the highest degree to give up my mind entirely to truth; for, besides the great personal interest which I have in the honesty of a man to whom I confide so much as to this Mr. Tims, the abstract love of severe and impartial justice also, requires that I should hear any evidence that can be brought in support of so grave a charge so boldly made. But tell me," he continued, feeling that there were particular points on which he would not particularly like to have his agent questioned in his presence; "tell me, do the questions you intend to put refer to any affairs of mine, or to affairs of your own?--for I know you have several times employed this Mr. Tims. If to mine, I must say, nay, most decidedly; for I can permit no one either to investigate or to interfere with business which I am competent to manage myself."
"My questions will refer entirely to business of my own, my lord," replied Beauchamp. "With yours I should never presume to meddle, though I feel perfectly convinced that you would not have proceeded at law against Sir Sidney Delaware for a sum that had been already paid to your agent, had you not been persuaded by an infamous villain that the money received did not constitute a legal payment, inasmuch as he affirmed that it was the fruits of a robbery."
Lord Ashborough turned a little pale; but he had canvassed the matter so often with Mr. Tims, and considered all the contingencies so accurately, that he was prepared at every point for defence. "Nay, Henry, nay," he said, assuming a benignant smile. "Nay; I see which way your prejudices lead you. The most connected evidence would not convince either yourself or your sister of that unhappy young man's guilt--but even taking the converse of the matter, and supposing that he has been accused erroneously, still you do great injustice to the poor little lawyer, who surely commits no great crime in believing a man to be guilty, against whom a coroner's jury, after calm investigation and mature deliberation, have given a verdict of wilful murder."
"In the first place, my lord," replied Beauchamp coolly, "in regard to William Delaware, as I know your lordship would be as much delighted to see his innocence clearly established as any one"----
"Oh, certainly, certainly!" interrupted the earl, with all the energy that a man adds to a falsehood in order to make it weigh as much as truth. "Certainly--let justice be done, and let the innocent be cleared!"
"Well, then," added Beauchamp, with the slightest possible touch of causticity in his manner. "You will be delighted to hear, that there remains not the slightest doubt of William Delaware's innocence. In the first place, I myself was encountered by the murderers at the very door of the dead man's house; was carried off by them after being knocked down and stunned; which facts I can distinctly prove against at least two of them. In the next place, I have the confession of one in my writing-desk; and, in the third place, three of them are by this time at Dover, on their way to trial. The fourth is in Paris, but in safe hands too, and will come over to give his testimony as king's evidence."
Lord Ashborough again turned pale; and while he declared that he trusted most sincerely it would prove as his nephew anticipated, he rang the bell, and, in an under tone, bade the servant bring him some of the drops to which we have before seen him apply.
Beauchamp's next sentences, however, were in some degree a relief, for they afforded a fair hope of being able to cast all the blame upon Mr. Tims, should it be rendered necessary by any after disclosures. "So much for that matter, my lord," added his nephew; "and of course I cannot blame Mr. Tims for not divining all the evidence that might ultimately be collected to exculpate Captain Delaware. But what I intend to establish is, that at the very time that he, Mr. Tims, was retaining--under the pretence that the money was a part of his uncle's property--a sum which of right belonged to you, having been paid in redemption of the Emberton annuity--that at the very time he was urging you on, to proceed severely against a family which he taught you to believe was criminal--that while he was doing all this, he was perfectly well aware that the money did not belong to his uncle; that it had never been the fruits of robbery; and that I must have placed it in the chamber of Captain Delaware, as that gentleman himself asserted."
"If you can prove that, Henry," replied his uncle, "I will admit that I have been most grossly deceived, and will abandon the fellow for ever; but I should like to hear what evidence you can bring forward in corroboration of these assertions."
"You shall hear my lord to-morrow, if you will order him to be here after breakfast," replied Beauchamp. "You must confront the accused and the accuser, before you judge--and in the mean time, as I intend to dine with you, I will go and dress, for it is growing late."
The Earl of Ashborough was a good deal disturbed, as the reader who remembers all the transactions which had before occurred, may easily imagine. His nephew's return had certainly been a very joyful event; but it was not unaccompanied by many drawbacks. There was the probable overthrow of all his schemes against the Delawares, a considerable loss of money, which was painful to the noble earl just in proportion as his fortune was immense; and, last not least, there was a chance--a strong chance--of certain unpleasant imputations lighting on his character, and of certain disclosures being made in regard to his plans, which he would rather have died to avoid than live to see.
The hatred which had rooted itself so deeply in his heart against Sir Sidney Delaware, had lost none of its freshness--the spirit of revenge kindled long ago, and fed with a thousand slight circumstances through a long lapse of years, had lost none of its intensity; but still, for the time, the fear of shame and dishonour was paramount, and the earl cursed the day in which he had been tempted to risk one rash step in pursuit of vengeance.
He determined, however, to lay the whole blame upon Mr. Tims, and if Beauchamp could prove that the lawyer had reason to know that Captain Delaware was innocent, to affect vast indignation at his conduct; and to cast him off with all those signs of abhorrence and contempt which would exculpate himself in the eyes of the world from any participation in his evil designs. Of the pecuniary loss, too, which he was likely to suffer by the whole affair, he resolved to make the most, as a proof that he had been himself deceived and plundered; and by exclaiming loudly against the perfidy of his agent, to cast a dark shade of suspicion upon every assertion that Mr. Tims might make, as springing from the mere malice of a discharged agent. There was one subject of self-gratulation in Lord Ashborough's breast which was doubly sweet, as it flattered his ideas of his own wisdom, and afforded the best point in his situation, with regard to Mr. Tims. This was the fact of never having committed himself on paper, in regard to the family of Sir Sidney Delaware, or his purposes of revenge against them, and he resolved to make the most of that also.
After long consideration of all these particulars, he believed that he could luckily act towards his lawyer, exactly as if he himself had been perfectly pure and spotless in the whole transaction. He accordingly sent off a note to Mr. Tims, requesting his presence at eleven o'clock on the following day, having determined that, in the first instance, he would give the attorney every sort of gentlemanly support in his encounter with Beauchamp; but that, if he found Beauchamp's charge could be made good against the lawyer, he would instantly throw him off, dismiss him from his employment, and to treat him with proud and indignant contempt.
All these thoughts occupied him some time, and it was late before he entered the drawing-room, where his nephew and niece were already waiting; but the space thus employed had fully restored his equanimity, and the dinner passed over with a degree of cheerfulness and ease on his part, which Beauchamp had almost doubted that his uncle would be able to maintain. The evening was equally tranquil; his wandering nephew's adventures seemed to afford Lord Ashborough fully as much matter of interest and amusement as it did to Miss Beauchamp, and their party broke up late, after a pleasant and a tranquil night.
The next morning, the earl perhaps felt a little nervous; but he had that most blessed quality, which was very probably the subject of the Scotch pedlar's aspirations, when he added to his prayers, "God send us a good conceit of ourselves;" and being very far from ever thinking that he could, by any chance, have acted grossly amiss, he soon recovered from his more serious apprehensions of the world's censure, though he admitted that occasionally mankind did put a misconstruction on the most virtuous conduct; but he trusted that his own character was too well established to permit of such a result.
With this proud consciousness--we cannot say of virtue--but at least, of an established reputation, which often does quite as well, the earl proceeded after breakfast to his library, accompanied by his nephew, and, ringing the bell, desired to know whether Mr. Tims had arrived. The servant replied in the negative; and, after having ordered the lawyer to be admitted when he did appear, he turned to Beauchamp, observing that the fellow had grown somewhat negligent of late, since he had succeeded to his uncle's fortune.
The earl had scarcely concluded his sentence, when Mr. Tims himself appeared at the door, bowing low, with habitual reverence for turkey carpets and ormolu, even before he was completely in the room. On seeing Beauchamp, which he did the very next moment--as that gentleman had placed himself at the bay-window, and turned round on hearing the door open--Mr. Tims had nearly fallen prostrate on the floor; and pale, pale, pale, did he become, with the exception of the red climax to his nose, which remained of its own ruby hue, while all around grew white. His impudence, however, which was a very phœnix, and was ever renewed from its own ashes, came instantly to his aid; and, advancing with a smile of simpering joy, he exclaimed, "Goodness, Mr. Beauchamp! I am surprised, sir, and delighted to see you. We all thought you drowned!"
"Of your surprise, Mr. Tims," replied Beauchamp, "I have no doubt; of your delight, I am not quite so sure; and as to my being drowned, I know every one believed it, and no one more thoroughly than yourself, Mr. Tims."
"I beg pardon, sir!--I beg pardon!--but you seem offended," said Mr. Tims, assuming the aspect of injured innocence. "I meant no offence, sir--My lord, have I said any thing offensive?"
"No, Mr. Tims! No!" replied Lord Ashborough, "Be so good as take a seat, sir; I am inclined to believe that my nephew misconceives you; but he will explain himself; for it is on his business I sent for you."
"Oh, is that the case!" exclaimed the lawyer, who began to feel somewhat perplexed at his situation. "If your lordship had let me know that such was your purpose, I might have come prepared."
"I acted, Mr. Tims, as I thought best," answered the peer coldly; "and I confess I do not see what need you could have for preparation."
"Why, I do think, sir, all things considered," replied the lawyer--"I do think your lordship might have given me intimation; as the business in which I am engaged on your lordship's account"----
"Has nothing on earth to do with my nephew, nor my nephew with it, Mr. Tims!" replied Lord Ashborough sternly. "We will keep to the point, sir, if you please. Henry, you said you had some questions to ask this person; you had better ask them."
"Person!" muttered Mr. Tims, fidgeting on his chair. "Person!" but he had soon more serious matter to think of; for Beauchamp, approaching the table, sat down at the side next the window, and taking out his pocket-book, spoke in a calm, mild tone, which had grown infinitely more moderate than at first, as he saw the terrible agitation under which the unhappy man laboured.
"Now, Mr. Tims," he said, "I neither want to puzzle you, nor to annoy you, by what I am going to ask; but there are certain matters on which you must give a full explanation, both for my satisfaction, and my uncle's"----
"No, no, Henry, pardon me!" interrupted the earl; "the business is yours alone--I am perfectly satisfied for my part--I have heard a charge, but no proof; and, consequently, I should be doing injustice to Mr. Tims were I to be dissatisfied."
"My lord, the business is certainly mine," replied Beauchamp, "but it is also yours to the extent of at least ten thousand pounds, if not more--but to the point. My first question is, Mr. Tims, how you came to detain, upon the pretence that it had been stolen from your uncle, the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds, paid by Sir Sidney Delaware to you, as Lord Ashborough's agent, when, at the time you detained it upon that pretext, you perfectly well knew that it had not been stolen, and that it had been put in Captain Delaware's room by me."
"But I never knew any such thing, sir!" replied Mr. Tims. "I believed, as every body else believed, that Captain Delaware, when he murdered my poor unhappy uncle, had stolen those notes; and permit me to say, sir," he added, assuming a slight touch of bluster--"permit me to say, I had better cause to believe such to be the case, than you have to accuse me of actions I should despise, sir. What reason had I to suppose you placed the money there?"
"Nay, nay, Mr. Tims," said Beauchamp calmly, "do not lose your temper; remember, sir, passion may throw you off your guard, and you will yet have occasion for all your wit in your exculpation.--You ask what reason you had to suppose I placed the money in Captain Delaware's room; I will tell you, Mr. Tims. First, because, amongst your uncle's papers, you found an acquittance in my handwriting for the sum of fifteen thousand pounds, received by him on my account from Messrs. Steelyard and Wilkinson"----
"But, sir! But, sir!" cried Mr. Tims.
"Do not interrupt me, sir," said Beauchamp. "Next, I say, because you found a note of hand signed by me for the sum of ten thousand pounds, advanced to me by your uncle, and dated on the very day on which he was murdered, poor man!"
"But listen to me, Henry," said Lord Ashborough. "All this does not show that Mr. Tims knew that these several sums had been appropriated by you in the somewhat Quixotical manner that, as it proves, they were employed."
"It is, at least, a strong presumption that he might have known it if he had liked," replied Beauchamp, adding with a smile, "especially when he knew me to be of a Quixotical disposition, and when William Delaware himself pointed me out as the only person likely to have placed them there--but you must remember, also, that the sum was precisely the same, and that, knowing I had received it"----
"I must once more interrupt you, Mr. Beauchamp," said the lawyer, with a dignified air; "but you are, and have been assuming as facts what are not facts. I did not know that you had received that sum--I found no document--at least, I have as yet found no document, amongst my late uncle's papers, which refers to the sum of fifteen thousand pounds received on your account, and handed over to you in due course; and therefore, sir, the basis of your argument is erroneous, although--as my noble patron declares, with his usual candour and perspicuity--even were it all true--had I discovered, by the papers of which you speak, that my uncle had paid you the precise sum, still I had no proof that there was any connexion between that fact and the payment made to me at Emberton Park."
"There was a strong presumption at least, Mr. Tims," replied Beauchamp, who had listened with the utmost calmness; "and I certainly cannot prove that you have found the document referring to the fifteen thousand pounds,as yet. Allow me to compliment you on the introduction of those two words--I certainly cannot prove that you have found my acquittance to your uncle."
"Well then, Henry," said the earl, with a benign smile to Mr. Tims, "I think your evidence halts."
"Your pardon, my lord," replied Beauchamp, "I am only disposing of one part of the subject first--You may not have found it, Mr. Tims,as yet; but let me tell you, sir, that you must find it, or account to my solicitors for fifteen thousand pounds received by your late uncle on my account."
Mr. Tims turned very red; for he saw that he was nearer to the horns of that ugly beast, a dilemma, than he had imagined. Still, however, he thought that he had triumphantly opposed Beauchamp's charge, and therefore he replied, with a very tolerable degree of coolness, "I will search for the papers, sir, and of course act according to the best of my judgment afterwards."
"And in the mean time, Mr. Tims," continued Beauchamp, "we will speak of the ten thousand pounds which I received from your uncle, I think you acknowledge, or at least tacitly admit, that you found my note of hand for that amount amongst your uncle's papers--indeed, it was only extraordinary that you should overlook the acquittance, which was pinned to the note, and which you must have separated from it, before you got it stamped, and presented it to my solicitors, in payment of the sum of ten thousand pounds due to me by Lord Ashborough, as the balance of our guardianship account."
Mr. Tims's face grew red, and white, and yellow, and blue, by turns. Never was there such a prismatic complexion as Beauchamp's last speech produced.
Lord Ashborough watched them all, and then demanded, "Did you presume, sir, to stop money which I commissioned you to pay, in the way to which Mr. Beauchamp alludes?"
Mr. Tims wasaux abois, and consequently he turned upon the weakest of his pursuers. "I did indeed, my lord," he said, in a significant tone--"I did it for the best, both in accordance with your lordship's views and interests, and my own poor judgment; and I am perfectly ready to explain my motives either to your lordship alone, or in the presence of your nephew."
Lord Ashborough changed colour also; and, bowing his head haughtily, he said, "That is unnecessary, Mr. Tims, We will speak of all that concerns myself hereafter."
"Oh, just as your lordship pleases!" said the lawyer--"I have nothing to conceal."
"I am glad to hear it," said Beauchamp, willing to spare his uncle any unpleasant discussion; "I am glad to hear it, sir; for now we come to the most inexplicable part of the whole transaction. I say inexplicable, because it is quite so to me, how a man of your sagacity could commit such an oversight as, at the very time he was accusing an innocent person of murder--at the very time he was retaining in his hands twenty-five thousand pounds unjustly, on the plea that they had been stolen--at the very time he was carrying on two ruinous suits at law against an honourable man for money which had been already paid--I say, that it is inexplicable to me, how, at the very time he was doing all this, he should commit such an oversight as to present to my solicitors this note of hand, on the back of which is written, in my own writing, the numbers and dates of all the notes I received from his uncle, and which are the numbers and dates of the very notes that he was at that time attempting to show were stolen. Look at it, my lord, and read--'Numbers and dates of notes, received from Mr. Tims of Ryebury'--and conceive, how avarice must have taken hold of a man, ere he could commit such an egregious blunder. Why, Mr. Tims, could you not wait a few days--a week, a fortnight, even a month--to make sure that the fishes had me safe, before you presented this note? By heaven, I should have thought such a thing impossible, had I not often, or rather always seen, that, by what would seem a law of Providence, the most egregious rogues are always sure to leave some door open to detection."
Mr. Tims had remained as one struck dumb--not that he had overlooked the fact which Beauchamp now brought forward; for he had remarked it from the first, and knew that it might speak strongly against him; but the desire of retaining the ten thousand pounds, had blinded his eyes to one half of the consequences, and diminished his estimation of the other--had made him confidently believe that Beauchamp was really drowned, and that if he were not, he would never remember the memorandum he had made on the night which gave birth to so many events. The folly of his conduct, however, now appeared to him in the most forcible manner, and for the moment completely overpowered him. Quirks, quibbles, evasions, impudence itself, all deserted him, till, by the most fortunate chance in the world, Beauchamp pronounced the word rogue, which instantly called anger to his aid.
"Rogue, sir! Rogue!" he exclaimed, starting up, while the whiteness of consternation was succeeded in his countenance by the rubicundity of wrath, "Rogue, sir! The word is actionable! Did you call me a rogue?"
It was too much for human patience. "Yes, sir!" replied Beauchamp, "I did! and I do! I call you a rogue, because I have proved you one! I look upon you as a contemptible blackguard, as I have long done; and if you stare in my face with that air one moment more, I will kick you from that door into Grosvenor Square--and the passage is a long one!"
Mr. Tims instantly dropped his eyes to the ground, and Lord Ashborough interfered. "You are too warm, Henry!" he said, seeing evidently that Mr. Tims must be given up, and therefore that he might as well assume the character of the dignified unimpassioned judge. "You are too warm; but you have made out your charge most completely. Mr. Tims, you are no longer my solicitor. You must have known, sir, that this Captain Delaware, whatever faults he may have, and whatever crimes he may have committed, had not obtained the notes in question by robbing your uncle--you must have known it, sir--you could not help knowing it; and I conceive, that your having deceived me into taking a great many steps which might bring my character into disrepute, if it were not, thank God, pretty well established--I say, I conceive your having done so, to be more base and criminal than even the sort of frauds you have committed in regard to the different sums of money--which, depend upon it, shall be strictly investigated."
Loud insolence not having proved at all successful, Mr. Tims now resorted to dogged impudence. "Your lordship may find cause, upon a little reflection," he said, moving gradually towards the door, "to make your measures towards me somewhat more lenient than you propose. I should be sorry to injure your lordship's wellestablished character; but, of course, if I am attacked, I must defend myself; and I will take care that my defence shall be public enough. There are two or three little transactions which your lordship will think over, and determine upon having laid open or not, as you please."
"Do you hear the fellow's insolence?" demanded the earl, turning with a half smile towards his nephew. "Mr. Tims," he added, "you are scarcely worthy of contempt. I fear no true statement of anything I have done; and I shall take care, if you make any false one, that you shall be severely punished. You have deceived me, sir, grossly; you have represented people to me as criminal who were really innocent; and you have laboured to stir up my indignation against them for your own base purposes. Do not answer me, sir, but quit the room and the house; and I shall take care that your accounts be called for, and examined by one who will look into them thoroughly."
Thus saying, the earl, with a proud and dignified wave of the hand, pointed to the door. Mr. Tims would fain have added a few words more; but Lord Ashborough waved him forth again; and there was also a cloud lowering upon Henry Beauchamp's brow, which boded no very pleasant results from farther insolence; so that, upon second thoughts, Mr. Tims judged it best to make his exit tranquilly. This he was suffered to do; and the door closed upon him for ever.
We must now for a time leave Henry Beauchamp and the Earl of Ashborough, and turn to the small neat country town of ----, in the jail of which place, Harding, Smithson, and Sarah Ings, were at length safely lodged, within a few days after Beauchamp's return to his native country. Walter Harrison, skilfully treated and carefully attended, was soon able to undertake the journey to England; and as the fixed determination he had shown to farther the ends of justice, at all risks, left no doubt of his sincerity, he was permitted to act without restraint, and proceeded steadily towards his destination--indeed more rapidly than his feeble state properly admitted. Presenting himself uncalled before the magistrates of the town, he informed them at once of his name, required them to receive his voluntary confession, and in consequence to commit him to prison. The first part of his demand was of course acceded to; but it was intimated to him that, in consequence of his firm and determined conduct, throughout at least the latter part of the dark business in which he had unfortunately been engaged, he would not be deprived of his liberty.
To the surprise of the magistrates, however, he replied that he knew nothing of their forms and manner of proceeding in these matters, but that he had made up his mind to the line of conduct he was to pursue. On no consideration whatever, he said, would he be king's evidence--a term for which he seemed to entertain the most extraordinary aversion. His confession, he said, was clear and ample, made without any promises of pardon or favour, demanded or given; he would therefore go to prison like the others, and be brought to trial like them; but as he was guilty, he would plead guilty in regard to the robbery, though not in regard to the murder. This he said was his firm determination, though he would be found ready at any time to give every sort of information that might be required to make out the case against his accomplices and himself.
As the jail delivery was to be held in a few days, the penance of imprisonment which he thus imposed on himself, was not great; but even the short period of confinement to which he thus voluntarily subjected himself, seemed greatly to affect his health and spirits. In vain the governor of the prison, under the idea that apprehensions in regard to his ultimate fate were prying upon his mind, assured him that the King's pardon, promised by proclamation to any but the actual murderers, secured him from all danger. He replied, that he feared nothing but his own thoughts; for that, since he had come back to the country and the county in which the terrible crime wherein he had participated had been perpetrated, a heavy cloud had seemed to come over him, which he could not shake off. His bold, daring, and impetuous manner, was now all gone, and in its place there appeared a deep silent sternness, somewhat impatient of contradiction, but determined rather than violent. The great loss of blood he had sustained, had rendered him as pale as ashes, and anxiety and suffering had bowed his powerful frame, and left him merely the shadow of what he formerly was. Some apprehensions, indeed, appeared to be entertained by those who watched, lest he should become so ill as to be unable to undergo the business of the trial; but in this they were deceived; and his strength, on the contrary, appeared greater, and his energies more alive, on the day before that appointed for the assizes.
At length the day arrived; and all the usual formalities having taken place, the heavy list of crimes was adverted to, and lamented by the judge; the grand jury was exhorted and sworn, and proceeded to its functions. As every one expected, the first bill brought before them, which was that against Captain William Delaware, for the murder of Mr. Tims at Ryebury, was at once thrown out. Not so, however, that against Harding and his accomplices, which, being found a true bill, was immediately proceeded on.
All our readers are most probably acquainted with the solemn array of a court of justice, though an interesting, always a painful scene. On the present occasion, of course, from the blackness of the crime committed, and the many extraordinary circumstances that accompanied and followed it, the excitement produced was great, and the court crowed in every part. The preliminaries having been gone through, the four prisoners were put to the bar, and a good deal of confusion ensued, from the endeavour of the various spectators to obtain a full view of the accused--the class of women who frequent criminal courts, struggling forward to see the culprits with more than masculine boldness.
Harding, who was beyond doubt a handsome man, first advanced to the bar. He was dressed with scrupulous care; and, with his neck wrapped in a thick black cravat, his double-breasted waistcoat buttoned up to his chin, and his dark frock-coat thrown back from his chest, he looked very much like the private secretary of a German prince. His cool and tranquil air, and easy carriage, might have been construed into the expression of conscious innocence, but for a slight, very slight sneer, that curled the corner of his lip, entirely different from the indignant expansion of the nostril, with which innocence sometimes meets a false accusation. He gazed for a single instant round the court, and then withdrew his eyes, while all the reporters scribbled rapidly in their note-books, preparing to make him a newspaper wonder, and hand him down to posterity as one of the heroes of the gallows. The next that came up was the well-known Tony Smithson, who, though he had confronted more than one court of justice on previous occasions, now, from the magnitude of the offence, and the certainty that his conviction would follow, had lost all self-command, and approached the bar, pale, trembling, and agitated. Next appeared Sarah Ings, with the most persevering of all human passions, vanity, still uppermost. Dressed forth in all the gay and vulgar smartness of the Rue de Vivienne and the Palais Royal, with a touch or two of rouge upon her cheeks to hide the ravages of apprehension, she presented herself before the court that was to try her, and the judge who might have to doom her to death, with a simpering and coquetish smile, thinking fully as much of the impression of her charms and her finery upon the spectators, as of her awful situation and its probable result.
Last appeared Walter Harrison, with a bold, firm step, a bright red spot in each of his pale cheeks, and his eye sparkling from feverish excitement. He leaned his hand upon the bar, and after gazing rapidly and boldly round the court, fixed his eyes upon the clerk of the arraigns, as he proceeded to read the indictment.
That document was conceived in the usual tenor, and comprised all the various acts which the prisoners could or might have committed in the perpetration of their crime, with all the legal terms and expressions necessary to prevent dubiety.
Harding listened to every word with scrupulous attention; and it was observed that, at several of the counts in the indictment, which described the act that he had committed with much greater precision than he had expected, he set his teeth hard. On the question being put to each of the prisoners--"How say you, guilty or not guilty?"--the three first pleaded "not guilty," and what is termed put themselves upon their country, or in fact appealed to a jury. Walter Harrison, however, in a bold, firm voice, replied at once--"Guilty of the robbery, but not guilty of the murder;" and consequently it was found necessary to proceed on his trial also, upon several of the counts in the indictment.
The trial then went on; and as the reader is already aware of the greater part of the evidence that could be brought forward, it shall be but briefly recapitulated here. The footprints on the floor of the room where the murder had been committed, and the mark of the hand on the wall, were proved to correspond exactly with the feet of Harding and Smithson, and with the hand of the latter. The marks in the passage were also proved to have been caused by the feet of the young sailor; and evidence was given that Harding had paid the master of a cutter, hired to carry them to France, with one of the notes which could be traced to the possession of the miser of Ryebury a few days before his death. Theci-devantsmuggler, Billy Small, swore positively to the persons of Harding, Smithson, Harrison, and the woman, and detailed fully the particulars of their arrival at his house, with a gentleman whose ancle was dislocated, and who had evidently received a severe contusion on the forehead. The Bow Street officers proved the state of the prisoners' apartments in Paris, the considerable sums of money there found, and a variety of minor facts, which all aggravated the suspicions against them; and as the principal witness, Henry Beauchamp, was at length called, in order to establish the fact of the prisoners having been on the very night of the murder at the house of Mr. Tims, and having thence proceeded direct to the cottage of the smuggler. As he entered the witness-box, the cheek of Harding turned a shade paler, but at the same time his eye flashed with an expression rather of rage, than fear. As his former master went on, however, he recovered his composure, and listened calmly, while Beauchamp clearly and distinctly detailed all the events, from his second visit to Mr. Tims's house, on the night of the murder, till he was delivered over to the care of the old smuggler and his family.
Throughout the trial, Harding had acted as his own counsel, and now he proceeded with an air of cool determined effrontery to cross-examine his former master, mingling skilfully those questions which might tend to exculpate himself with those which he thought would annoy the witness.
"Allow me to ask you, Mr. Beauchamp," he said, "whether, while I was in your service, you ever detected me in any act of dishonesty."
"To speak but candidly," replied Beauchamp, "I never did."
"Did I not on more than one occasion," proceeded Harding, "when your tradesmen endeavoured to cheat or overcharge you, point out to you the fact."
"You certainly did," replied his former master.
"So far, then, your evidence is favourable to me," continued the culprit. "Now, pray tell me, Mr. Beauchamp, what was your own errand at the house of Mr. Tims on the night in question--or rather, what became of you between the first and second calls which you made at his dwelling during that evening?" and he fixed his eye upon the witness's countenance with a degree of sneering triumph at the pain he imagined the question would cause him. But Beauchamp answered with the utmost coolness.
"I do not know," he said, "that any law would oblige me to reply to a demand which does not seem to bear upon the case; but, nevertheless, I have not the slightest objection to do so. I had, on the first visit I paid to the unhappy man who was afterwards murdered, received from him the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds, which I had promised to advance on mortgage on the estate of my cousin. Sir Sidney Delaware. From the house of Mr. Tims I went straight to Emberton Park; and, having discovered that Captain Delaware was absent from home, I took the liberty, as a relation and intimate friend, of entering his room, and leaving the money enveloped in a packet upon his dressing-table, proposing to give him intimation of the fact next morning."
"Was not that rather a hazardous action, sir?" demanded Harding with cool insolence--"especially when there were so many thieves abroad?"
"Not more so, it would seem," replied Beauchamp, "than to carry it in my pocket from Ryebury to Emberton when you were in my neighbourhood; but luckily it happened that you neither knew the one fact or the other."
Harding was silent for a moment, finding that sarcasms were edged tools, which he had better not employ against Beauchamp, who had full strength to turn them back upon himself, with that sort of cold calmness which made them a thousand times more stinging. The pause was so long, that Beauchamp at length asked, "Have you any other question to put to me?"
"Yes--several!" replied the prisoner. "Several--Why did you not give the money into the hands of Sir Sidney Delaware himself, when you found that his son was absent?"
"Because it was not my pleasure to do so," replied Beauchamp. "I must submit to the court, whether these questions are relevant."
The judge at once supported the witness's objection; and the prisoner being told that he must absolutely confine himself to the matter before the court, proceeded, "Pray, Mr. Beauchamp, was the moon shining at the time of your return to Ryebury?"
"It was shining brightly," replied Beauchamp.
"Then it was by the light of the moon that you recognised me amongst the persons coming out of the miser's house?" demanded the prisoner.
"I did not say that I recognised you in the slightest degree," replied his former master, "till I found myself in the boat upon the water."
"Then you positively did not recognise me at all at the miser's house?" said Harding, with a smile of triumph.
"I did not," answered Beauchamp; "as I said before, all I saw, on the opening of the door, were the forms of three men and a woman standing in the passage. As the moon was not shining directly on that side of the house, I could not distinguish their features so perfectly as to swear to any one of them; but the foremost of the men was exactly of your height and appearance, and I have already sworn, that I saw you in the boat after I recovered my recollection."
"Pray, what space of time do you think had elapsed," Harding next demanded, "between the time of your return to Ryebury, and your finding yourself in the boat?"
Beauchamp replied, that of course he could not exactly tell, but he imagined that it must have been more than an hour.
"If such was the case," said the prisoner, "then the moon, which you say was shining on the western side of the miser's house when you reached the door, must have set before you recovered your senses; and I should like to know, how, without any light on a dark night, and with your thoughts confused, as they must have been, after such a blow as you describe, you could recognise me so as to swear to my identity, when, by your own account, you could not stand up in the boat even for a moment."
"In the first place," answered Beauchamp, "the moon had not set, though she was setting, and her very position at the moment I did attempt to rise, showed me your features more distinctly than if she had been higher in the sky; for she shone at that moment under your hat. I was confused, certainly, and in that confusion I had very nearly called you by your name; but luckily I recollected in time the attack made upon my own person, and the extraordinary circumstances in which I was placed, or probably the consequences might have been fatal to me also."
"He should not have touched a hair of your head!" said Walter Harrison aloud, and the eyes of the whole court were instantly turned upon him; but the young man paused, and looked towards Harding, adding--"I do not want to interrupt him! Let him say his say, and then I will say mine."
Harding had turned very pale; but he added eagerly--"One more question, sir, and I have done. Was this momentary and imperfect glance which you obtained of the countenance of one of the men in the boat with you, all which led you to believe that I was that person?"
"Although that glance would have been quite sufficient to satisfy me," replied Beauchamp; "what I had learned from that glance was confirmed by the sound of your voice, and by the fact of your having dropped this powder-flask out of your pocket upon the beach, when embarking for France, which powder-flask, you must well remember my giving to you some days before, because it did not measure the right charge for my guns."
"I never saw it before in my life," replied Harding solemnly, and then ceased his interrogatories. The jury had listened to this cross-examination more attentively than to any other part of the evidence; and it was clear that the cool and collected manner in which the prisoner had sifted the testimony of his former master, had produced no small effect on several of the jurors. When Harding ceased, Walter Harrison turned to Beauchamp, and the eyes not only of the whole spectators, but of his fellow-prisoners were fixed upon him.
"Mr. Beauchamp," he said, "I am not going to do what they call cross-examine you; because I am sure you will tell the truth like a gentleman. But once, when we were talking about catching these fellows, you told me as much as that you had overheard what I said on that bad night to old Billy Small--Will you have the goodness to let those gentlemen up there know what it all was?"
Beauchamp detailed the whole; and having suffered a brief cross-examination on the part of the other prisoners, he was allowed to retire. The evidence now given, together with the declaration of Walter Harrison, closed the case for the crown, and the prisoners entered on their defence. Smithson, who knew too well the proceedings of a court of justice to believe that he could mend his condition by his own oratory, declined saying anything, except that he was innocent; to which he added all those ordinary but vehement asseverations, which render the bar of a court of justice an altar to impiety, whence falsehood and blasphemy reek continually up in the sight of Heaven. The woman appeared strongly inclined to speak in her own defence, but her words were drowned in an hysterical burst of sobbing; and Harding, with the young sailor, were left to address the court for themselves.
The speech of the first was as consummate a piece of special pleading, as ever was drawn up in ancient or modern days. On the evidence against himself, he commented with the utmost acuteness; and pointed out that there was no direct proof that he had ever been in the house of the unhappy man who had been murdered, except that afforded by the declaration of the young man, Walter Harrison, whose acknowledgement of participation in the crime, and evident desire to escape the punishment, by laying the whole of it upon other people, he trusted that the jury would remember and consider, before they attached any weight to his testimony. Mr. Beauchamp, he continued, had never seen him in the house, or near the house. At least, though he threw out a suspicion, yet he had not attempted to swear that he had beheld him there; and although William Small--an acknowledged smuggler--had declared that he came to his cottage in the boat with Mr. Beauchamp and the rest, yet he did not state whether he was there as a voluntary agent or as under compulsion. In regard to the footmarks in the house, he argued, that they could not be held as proving anything; for, in the number of men who might be supposed to commit such a crime as that, how many would be found with a foot of nearly the same size as his? Had his clothes been found bloody? he asked. Had any of the implements of robbery and housebreaking been found upon him? No! And the whole case against him, he contended, rested alone upon the very doubtful testimony of the young sailor, and the fact of his having paid the freight of the cutter with a note which had been in the possession of Mr. Tims.
He now paused for a moment; and, after having taken breath, and eyed the jury to see what effect his oratory had produced, he went on, in a solemn and serious manner:--"Gentlemen of the jury--having now commented upon the evidence against me, and stripped it of all those magnifying circumstances with which human malice is ever too prone to swell the charge against a person once suspected--having shown upon how slender a foundation rests the case in respect to myself--I will proceed to explain to you fully and honestly every circumstance that appears at all doubtful in my conduct, trusting that the confession of some errors which I deeply regret, will not prejudice you against me in the consideration of the present accusation. When I came down to Emberton with Mr. Beauchamp--against whom I do not pretend to say a word, although he was somewhat imaginative in his ways of acting and thinking--I had frequent occasion to go on his business to the house of the unhappy man who has been so cruelly murdered; and where I was always received with a degree of kindness, which certainly would never have prompted the base return which I am accused of having made. I there became acquainted with the young woman at the bar; an attachment grew up between us; and having--upon some speculative principles of general utility, which I now acknowledge to have been foolish and wrong--taken up a prejudice against marriage, I obtained her promise to elope with me without any ceremony of the church. In one service or another I had amassed a considerable sum, and her wages also were long in arrear. She with difficulty obtained payment from her master; and it was determined that we should go off together. Our plans, however, were hurried by Mr. Beauchamp's sudden departure from Emberton; and, hearing that there was a French vessel on the coast, we resolved to set off that ill-starred night. Just as I was about to proceed to Ryebury to meet her at the appointed hour, I found her in the streets of Emberton, whether she had been sent by her master to Lawyer Johnstone's for some stamps, and we were returning to Ryebury in order to procure her clothes, when we met three men dragging along Mr. Beauchamp, apparently dead. I did not well know what to do; and, in a scuffle with the men, I was of course overpowered. They treated me humanely, however, I must say, and told me that they neither wished to hurt me nor the gentleman they had got; and if I chose to go quietly along with them till they were safe in France, whither they were going, they would then set me at liberty; but they vowed with many imprecations, that they would not leave any one behind who could give information against them. I learned from this that they had committed some crime; but the impossibility of resistance, the desire of getting to France, and the hope of doing some good to my master, all induced me to yield quietly; and I accordingly got into the boat with them, and we went off. By the time we had reached the smuggler's cottage, however, I had learned enough to show me the horrid crime that had been committed; and, before I had been there quarter of an hour, this young man beside me, whom I have reason to believe was the principal actor in the Ryebury tragedy, whispered to me that I was in for it, as he termed it, and that, fair weather or foul, I must sail out the voyage with him and his companions. I asked him what he meant, and he then showed me that if I went back to London, or peached, as he called it, I should certainly be suspected as accessory to what had happened. I was overcome with the horror of my situation; and, on my remonstrating and begging him to allow me to depart, he threatened if I said another word to make it out so, that I should appear the principal in the murder. My courage and my resolution failed; and, weakly consenting to go with them, I suffered myself to be led on blindly, and do what they liked. The freight of the ship even I was compelled to pay, which I did with a pound note that Sarah there, had received from her poor master the night before, and had given me to keep. After our arrival in France, I gave myself up to despair; my hopes and prospects seemed utterly ruined, and, to keep away thought, I gambled deeply. Fortune, however, favoured me, and I won large sums. Suddenly the news that Bow Street officers were pursuing us in Paris, added new anxieties to my mind, and often I thought to give myself up, and tell all I knew. The apprehension that I would do so, it seems, induced the other prisoner beside me, to be beforehand with me; and, on the night that I was taken, when I heard his voice without, and saw Mr. Beauchamp enter the room, I certainly made a desperate defence, having no hope of being able to establish my innocence against the conspiracy that was evidently got up to make me the scapegoat. This, gentlemen, is the plain, straightforward story of what really happened. You must all see that I have had no time to make up such a tale, as I knew not what evidence would be produced against me. There stands the only witness I could bring forward to prove the truth of my story; but she, included in the same false charge, is prevented from giving evidence in my favour.
"It is all true! It is all true!" cried the unhappy girl, weeping bitterly; and Harding proceeded, "I have little more to add, gentlemen. Mr. Beauchamp's evidence is generally correct, though he was mistaken in one or two particulars; but I trust that you will allow the good character that he has himself given me, to counterbalance the assertions that he has erroneously made. In conclusion, I have only to say, that my very heart and soul revolts at the thought of the crime with which I am charged; and although I have been culpable in some things, let me trust that my sins have been sufficiently punished already by their consequences, and that a jury of my countrymen will not incur the awful responsibility of condemning an innocent man for a crime that never entered his thoughts."
With a fine person and graceful action, Harding delivered this address with so much effect, that a murmur of approbation filled the court when he concluded; and it was evident that the opinion of the jury was strongly affected by what he had said.
The gentlemen of the bar, however, whispered together with a significant smile, and one then remarked to another--"He brought in the girl devilish neatly. The fellow must have some good in him for that."
"Poo!" replied the more experienced counsel to whom he spoke. "He could not have made up his own story without it."
The judge now repressed the noise in the court, and the young sailor came nearer to the bar to address the jury.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I can't make you a fine speech like this man Harding, who, I begin to think, is the devil himself; for none but the father of lies could have got up such a string of them, do ye see! I told the whole truth in my declaration before the magistrates; and as you all know well enough, if what he has said were true, and I had wanted to betray him to screen myself, I might have been king's evidence as the folks wanted me. My lord the judge knows that, and every one else; and so I should have saved my life to a certainty, and pocketed the reward. No--no! I had no such thought in my head, do you see; and now, gentlemen, I will tell you truly how it all happened. It makes little odds to me whether you hang me or not; for I shall not live three months if you don't; and death is just as bitter to-morrow as to-day--though I never feared him much, somehow. The thing is this, gentlemen. I have a poor mother, a widow, living at Emberton; and to see her next to starving always has been a sore heart to me. Well, there were only three people in all the world that ever were very kind to me. The first was my mother, who forgave me all my faults, and loved me notwithstanding all the sorrows I brought her. The next was Captain William Delaware, who, when I got into a scrape about poaching, and might have been sent to the hulks, took me aboard his own ship, treated me as kindly as possible, and sent me back with a better character than ever I had before. The next was Mr. Henry Beauchamp--though I always took his name to be Burrel. He saved my life at the risk of his own; had me doctored and tended; was kind to me and my mother; gave me advice and encouragement which would have been a blessing if I had remembered it, and promised me help if I behaved well. But I did not behave well; for that cursed villain, his servant, Harding there, did me more harm than all his master could say did me good. He was always at me about what he called the unequal distribution of property; and it was very natural to get from thinking that other folks had no right to their property, to thinking that one should take it from them the best way one could; and so it turned out. I have told all about the robbery in my declaration; but I never could tell, gentlemen, what a turn it gave me, when I found they had murdered the old man. Ay, when first they came down, with their hands all bloody: I shall never forget it, sleeping or waking. However, that I got over, though it was always like a red-hot coal lying at my heart; but then I thought, that sometime it would go out of my head; till one day I went into a shop in Paris, to sell some of the things for them, that they had stolen, when they set fire to the lady's house upon the hill, and there I took up an English newspaper, and I saw all about the murder. That was bad enough; but when I found out that a set of rogues and fools had laid the blame of what we had done, upon the noblest gentleman in all the country, who would not hurt a fly, if it were not when he is alongside an enemy;--when I saw that, and thought how it would break his gallant heart, and that of his good father, and poor Miss Blanche's too; and remembered what Captain Delaware had done for me, and what his father and Miss Blanche had done for my poor mother--why, gentlemen, I thought I should have gone mad. Well, I believe I was mad; till, as good luck would have it, I found out Mr. Beauchamp, and told him all about it, and offered, if he would not take odds against the two fellows, but would go with me and face them singly--I offered, I say, to give them up, and myself too. Well, he told me of the king's proclamation, and promise of pardon, and all that; but I told him I would be tried too, like the rest; and away we went, and took them, though I got shot in the shoulder, and Mr. Beauchamp in the face. Now, gentlemen, you all know that I was left behind in Paris, and came over here of my own accord, and gave myself up without any one telling me; and so you may believe the rest of my story or not, as you like. All I want, is to clear Captain Delaware; for he is a noble gentleman, and a good officer, and a kind-hearted man--God bless him for ever!"