338
With the apparent intention of showing to the Court and jury that Keane was not biassed towards his former master, Mr. Jones addressed several questions to him; but instead of eliciting the fact, they called forth from the witness a burst of gratitude and love for him that actually shook the building by the applause it excited, and called for the interference of the Bench to repress.
“You may go down, sir,” said Jones, with the fretful impatience of a man worsted in a controversy; and the witness descended from the table amid the scarcely suppressed plaudits of the crowd. As he passed the dock, Cashel leaned forward and extended his hand towards him. The fellow drew back, and they who were next him perceived that a sallow sickly color spread itself over his face, and that his lips became bloodless.
“Give me your hand, man!” said Cashel.
“Oh, Mr. Cashel! oh, sir!” said he, with that whining affectation of modesty the peasant can so easily assume.
“Give me your hand, I say,” said Cashel, firmly. “Its honest grasp will make me think better of the world than I have done for many a day.”
The fellow made the effort, but with such signs of inward terror and trepidation that he seemed like one ready to faint; and when his cold, nerveless hand quitted Cashel's, it fell powerless to his side. He moved now quickly forward, and was soon lost to sight in the dense throng.
The next witnesses examined were the group who, headed by the Chief Justice, had entered Cashel's room. If they all spoke guardedly, and with great reserve, as to the manner of the prisoner, and the construction they would feel disposed to put upon the mode in which he received them, they agreed as to every detail and every word spoken with an accuracy that profoundly impressed the jury.
The magistrate, Mr. Goring, as having taken the most active part in the proceedings, was subjected to a long and searching cross-examination by Jones, who appeared to imply that some private source of dislike to Cashel had been the animating cause of his zeal in this instance.
Although not a single fact arose to give a shade of color to this suspicion, the lawyer clung to it with the peculiar pertinacity that often establishes by persistence when it fails in proof; and so pointedly and directly at last, that the learned judge felt bound to interfere, and observe, that nothing in the testimony of the respected witness could lay any ground for the insinuation thrown out by the counsel.
Upon this there ensued one of those sharp altercations between Bench and Bar which seem the “complement” of every eventful trial in Ireland; and which, after a brief contest, usually leave both the combatants excessively in the wrong.
The present case was no exception to this rule. The Judge was heated and imperious; the counsel flippant in all the insolence of mock respect, and ended by the stereotyped panegyric on the “glorious sanctity that invests the counsel of a defence in a criminal action—the inviolability of a pledge which no member of the Bar could suffer to be sullied in his person”—and a great many similar fine things, which, if not “briefed” by the attorney, are generally paid for by the client! The scrimmage ended, as it ever does, by a salute of honor; in which each, while averring that he was incontestably right, bore testimony to the conscientious scruples and delicate motives of the other; and at last they bethought them of the business for which they were there, and of him whose fate for life or death was on the issue. The examination of Mr. Goring was renewed.
“You have told us, sir,” said Jones, “that immediately after the terrible tidings had reached Tubbermore of Mr. Kennyfeck's death, suspicion seemed at once to turn on Mr. Cashel. Will you explain this, or at least let us hear how you can account for a circumstance so strange?”
“I did not say as much as you have inferred,” replied Goring. “I merely observed that Mr. Cashel's name became most singularly mixed up with the event, and rumors of a difference between him and his agent were buzzed about.”
“Might not this mention of Mr. Cashel's name have proceeded from an anxious feeling on the part of his friends to know of his safety?”
“It might.”
“Are you not certain that it was so?”
“In one instance, certainly. I remember that a gentleman at once drew our attention to the necessity of seeing after him.”
“Who was this gentleman?”
“Mr. Linton,—a near and intimate friend of Mr. Cashel.”
“And he suggested that it would be proper to take steps for Mr. Cashers safety?”
“He did so.”
“Was anything done in consequence of that advice?”
“Nothing, I believe. The state of confusion that prevailed; the terror that pervaded every side, the dreadful scenes enacting around us,—prevented our following up the matter with all the foresight which might be desired.”
“And, in fact, you sought relief from the unsettled distraction of your thoughts, by fixing the crime upon some one—even though he should prove, of all assembled there, the least likely.”
“We did not attach anything to Mr. Cashel's disfavor until we discovered that he was in his dressing-room, and in the manner already stated.”
“But you certainly jumped to your conclusion by a sudden bound?”
“It would be fairer to say that our thoughts converged to the same impression at the same time.”
“Where is this Mr. Linton? Is he among the list of your witnesses, Mr. Attorney?”
“No, we have not called him.”
“I thought as much!” said Jones, sneeringly; “and yet the omission is singular, of one whose name is so frequently mixed up in these proceedings. He might prove an inconvenient witness.”
A slight murmur here ran through the court; and a gentleman, advancing to the bar, whispered some words to the Attorney-General, who, rising, said:—
“My Lord, I am just this instant informed that Mr. Linton is dangerously ill of fever at his house near Dublin. My informant adds, that no hopes are entertained of his recovery.”
“Was he indisposed at the period in which my learned friend drew up this case? or was there any intention of summoning him here for examination?” asked Jones.
“We did not require Mr. Linton's testimony,” replied the Attorney-General.
“It can scarcely be inferred that we feared it,” said a junior barrister, “since the first palpable evidences that implicated the prisoner were discovered by Mr. Linton: the wadding of the pistol; part of a letter in Mr. Cashel's own handwriting; and the tracks corresponding with his boots.”
“This is all most irregular, my Lord,” broke in Jones, eagerly. “Here are statements thrown out in all the loose carelessness of conversation, totally unsupported by evidence. I submit that it is impossible to offer a defence to a cause conducted in this manner.”
“You are quite right, Mr. Jones; this is not evidence.”
“But this is, my Lord!” said the Attorney-General, in a heated manner; “and for motives of delicacy we might not have used it, if not driven to this course by the insinuations of counsel. Here is a note in pencil, dated from the 'Pass of Ennismore,' and running thus: 'It looks badly; but I fear you have no other course than to arrest him. In fact, it is too late for anything else. Consult Malone and Meek.' And this can be proved to be in Mr. Linton's handwriting.”
Mr. Clare Jones did not speak a word as the note was handed up to the Bench, and then to the jury-box; he even affected to think it of no importance, and did not deign to examine it for himself.
“You may go down, Mr. Goring,” said he, after a slight pause, in which he appeared deliberating what course to follow.
Making his way to the side of the dock, Jones addressed himself to Cashel in a low, cautious voice:—
“It now remains with you, Mr. Cashel, to decide whether you will intrust me with the facts on which you ground your innocence, or prefer to see yourself overwhelmed by adverse testimony.”
Cashel made no reply, but leaned his head on his hand in deep thought
“Have you any witnesses to call?” whispered Jones. “Shall we try analibi?”
Cashel did not answer.
“What is your defence, sir, in one word?” asked Jones, shortly.
“I am not guilty,” said Cashel, slowly; “but I do not expect others to believe me so.”
“Is your defence to rest upon that bare assertion?” asked the lawyer; but Roland did not seem to heed the question, as, folding his arms, he stood erect in the dock, his attention to all appearance bestowed upon the ceremonial of the court.
Jones, at once turning to the Bench, expressed his regret that, neither being able, from the shortness of the time, to obtain proper information on the case, nor being honored by the confidence of the accused, he must decline the task of commenting on the evidence; and would only entreat the jury to weigh the testimony they had heard with a merciful disposition, and wherever discrepancies and doubts occurred, to give the full benefit of such to the prisoner.
“You have no witnesses to call?” asked the judge.
“I am told there are none, my Lord,” said Jones, with an accent of resignation.
A brief colloquy, in a low voice, ensued between the Crown lawyers and Clare Jones, when, at length, a well-known barrister rose to address the jury for the prosecution. The gentleman who now claimed the attention of the Court was one who, not possessing either the patient habits of study, or that minute attention to technical detail which constitute the legal mind, was a fluent, easy speaker, with an excellent memory, and a thorough knowledge of the stamp and temperament of the men that usually fill a jury-box. He was eminently popular with that class, on whom he had often bestowed all the flatteries of his craft; assuring them that their “order” was the bone and sinew of the land, and that “our proudest boast as a nation was in the untitled nobility of commerce.”
His whole address on the present occasion tended to show that the murder of Mr. Kennyfeck was one among the many instances of the unbridled license and tyranny assumed by the aristocracy over the middle ranks.
Mr. Kennyfeck was no bad subject for such eulogium as he desired to bestow. He was the father of a family; a well-known citizen of Dublin; a grave, white-cravated, pompous man of respectable exterior, always seen at vestries, and usually heading the lists of public charities. Cashel was the very antithesis to all this: the reckless squanderer of accidentally acquired wealth; the wayward and spoiled child of fortune, with the tastes of a buccaneer and the means of a prince, suddenly thrown into the world of fashion. What a terrible ordeal to a mind so untrained—to a temper so unbridled! and how fearfully had it told upon him! After commenting upon the evidence, and showing in what a continuous chain each event was linked with the other,—how consistent were all,—how easily explicable every circumstance, he remarked that the whole case had but one solitary difficulty; and although that was one which weighed more in a moral than a legal sense, it required that he should dwell a few moments upon it.
“The criminal law of our land, gentlemen of the jury, is satisfied with the facts which establish guilt or innocence, without requiring that the motives of accused parties should be too closely scrutinized. Crime consists, of course, of the spirit in which a guilty action is done; but the law wisely infers that a guilty act is the evidence of a guilty spirit; and therefore, although there may be circumstances to extenuate the criminality of an act, the offence before the law is the same; and the fact, the great fact, that a man has killed his fellow-man, is what constitutes murder.
“I have said that this case has but one difficulty; and that is, the possible motive which could have led to the fatal act Now, this would present itself as a considerable obstacle if the relations between the parties were such as we happily witness them in every county of this island, where the proprietor and his agent are persons linked, by the sacred obligation of duty, and the frequent intercourse of social life, into the closest friendship.
“That blood should stain the bonds of such brotherhood would be scarcely credible—and even when credible, inexplicable; it would be repugnant to all our senses to conceive an act so unnatural. But was the present a similar case? or rather, was it one exactly the opposite? You have heard that repeated differences occurred between the parties, amounting even to altercations. Mr. Hoare's evidence has shown you that Mr. Cashel's extravagance had placed him in difficulties of no common kind; his demands for money were incessant, and the utter disregard of the cost of obtaining it is almost beyond belief. The exigence on one side, the manly resistance on the other, must have led to constant misunderstanding. But these were not the only circumstances that contributed to a feeling of estrangement, soon to become something still more perilous. And here I pause to ask myself how far I am warranted in disclosing facts of a private nature, although in their bearing they have an important relation to the case before us! It is a question of great delicacy; and were it not that the eternal interests of truth and justice transcend all others, I might shrink from the performance of a task which, considered in a merely personal point of view, is deeply distressing. But it is not of one so humble as myself of whom there is a question here: the issue is, whether a man's blood should be spilled, and no expiation be made for it?”
The counsel after this entered into a discursive kind of narrative of Cashel's intimacy with the Kennyfeck family, with whom he had been for a time domesticated; and after a mass of plausible generalities, wound up by an imputed charge that he had won the affections of the younger daughter, who, with the consent of her parents, was to become his wife.
“It will not seem strange to you, gentlemen,” said he, “that I have not called to that table as a witness either the widow or the orphan to prove these facts, or that I have not subjected their sacred sorrows to the rude assaults of a cross-examination. You will not think the worse of me for this reserve, nor shall I ask of you to give my statements the value of sworn evidence; you will hear them, and decide what value they possess in leading you to a true understanding of this case.
“I have said, that if a regular pledge and promise of marriage did not bind the parties, something which is considered equivalent among persons of honor did exist, and that by their mutual acquaintances they were regarded as contracted to each other. Mr. Cashel made her splendid and expensive presents, which had never been accepted save for the relations between them; he distinguished her on all occasions by exclusive attention, and among his friends he spoke of his approaching marriage as a matter fixed and determined on. In this state of things a discovery took place, which at once served to display the character of the young gentleman, and to rescue the family from one of the very deepest, because one of the most irremediable, of all calamities. Information reached them, accompanied by such circumstances as left no doubt of its veracity, that this Mr. Cashel had been married already, and that his wife, a young Spanish lady, was still living, and residing at the Havannah.
“I leave you to imagine the misery which this sad announcement produced in that circle, where, until he entered it, happiness had never been disturbed. It is not necessary that I should dwell upon the distress this cruel treachery produced: with its consequences alone we have any concern here; and these were a gradual estrangement,—a refusal, calm but firm, to receive Mr. Cashel as before; an intimation that they knew of circumstances which, from delicacy to him, they would never advert to openly, but which must at once bar all the contemplated relations: and to this sad, humiliating alternative he submitted!
“To avoid the slanderous stories which gossip would be certain to put in circulation, they did not decline the invitation they had before accepted to visit Tubbermore; they came, however, under the express stipulation that no close intimacy was ever to be resumed between Mr. Cashel and themselves; he was not even to use the common privilege of a host,—to visit them in their own apartments. That this degree of cold distance was maintained between them, on every occasion, all the guests assembled at the house can testify; and he neither joined the party in carriage nor on horseback. Perhaps this interdiction was carried out with too rigid a discipline; perhaps the cold reserve they maintained had assumed a character of insult, to one whose blood still glowed with the fire of southern associations; perhaps some circumstance with which we are unacquainted contributed to render this estrangement significant, and consequently painful to a man who could not brook the semblance of a check. It is needless to ask how or whence originating, since we can see in the fact itself cause sufficient for indignant reproof on one side, for a wounded self-love and tarnished honor on the other.
“Are we at a loss for such motives, then, in the presence of facts like these? Ask yourselves, Is a man, bred and trained up in all the riotous freedom of a service scarcely above the rank of piracy,—accustomed to the lawless license of a land where each makes the law with his own right hand,—is such a man one to bear a slight with patient submission, or to submit to an open shame in tame obedience? Can you not easily imagine how all the petty differences of opinion they might have had were merely skirmishes in front of that line where deeper and graver feelings stood in battle array? Can you suppose that, however ruled over by the ordinary courtesies of life, this youth nourished his plans of ultimate revenge, not only upon those who refused with indignation his traitorous alliance, but who were the depository of a secret that must interdict all views of marriage in any other quarter?”
Equal to either fortune.—Eugene Aram.
As the Crown counsel sat down, a low murmur ran through the Court, whose meaning it would be difficult to define; for if the greater number present were carried away by the indignant eloquence of the pleader to believe Cashel a hardened criminal, some few still seemed to cling to his side, and bent their eyes towards the dock with looks of sympathy and comfort. And oh, how little know they, whose eyes are beaming with the bright spark that warms their generous hearts, what loadstars are they to him who stands alone, forsaken, and accused in the criminal dock! What a resting-place does the weary and tired soul feel that glance of kindly meaning! How does it speak to his bruised and wounded spirit of hope and charity! What energy will it impart to the fast-failing courage! what self-respect and self-reliance to him who, a few moments back, was sinking beneath the abasement of despair!
Such was the effect now produced upon Roland Cashel. The array of circumstances, so formidably marshalled by his accuser, had completely overwhelmed him; the consciousness of innocence failed to support him against the feeling which he saw spreading like a mist around him. Against the accusation—against its fearful penalty—his own stout heart could sustain him; but how bear up against the contempt and the abhorrence of his fellow-men! Under the crushing weight of this shame he was sinking fast, when a stray glance—a chance expression of interest, like sunlight piercing a dark cloud—gave promise that all was not lost. He felt that there were yet some who wished to believe him guiltless, and that all sympathy for him had not yet died out.
“Does the prisoner desire to avail himself of the privilege he possesses to call witnesses to character?” asked the judge.
“No, my Lord,” said Cashel, firmly, but respectfully. “Since my accession to fortune, my life has been passed for the most part in what is called the 'fashionable world;' and from what I have seen of it, the society does not seem rich in those persons whose commendations, were they to give them, would weigh heavily with your Lordship. Besides, they could say little to my praise, which the learned counsel has not already said to my disparagement,—that I had the command of wealth, and squandered it without taste and without credit.”
Few and insignificant as were these words, the easy and fearless mode of their delivery, the manly energy of him who spoke them, seemed to produce a most favorable impression throughout the court, which as rapidly reacted upon Cashel; for now the embers of hope were fanned, and already glowed into a slight flicker.
“The prisoner having waived his privilege, my Lord,” said the Attorney-General, “I beg to observe that the case is now closed.”
“Is it too late, then, my Lord, for me to address a few words to the jury?” asked Roland, calmly.
“What say you, Mr. Attorney-General?” asked the judge.
“Your Lordship knows far better than I, that to address the Court at this stage of the proceedings, would be to concede the right of reply—and, in fact, of speaking twice; since the prisoner's not having availed himself of the fitting occasion to comment on the evidence, gives him not the slightest pretension to usurp another one.”
“Such is the law of the case,” said the judge, solemnly.
“I have nothing to observe against it, my Lord,” said Cashel. “If I have not availed myself of the privilege accorded to men placed as I am, I must only submit to the penalty my pride has brought upon me,—for it was pride, my Lord. Since that, however, another, and I hope a higher pride has animated me, to vindicate my character and my fame; so that, at some future day—a long future, it may be—when the true facts of this dark mystery shall be brought to light, a more cautious spirit will pervade men's minds as to the guilt of him assailed by circumstantial evidence. It might be, my Lord, that all I could adduce in my own behalf would weigh little against the weight of accusations which even to myself appear terribly consistent. I know, for I feel, how hard it would be to accept the cold unsupported narrative of a prisoner, in which many passages might occur of doubtful probability, some of even less credit, and some again of an obscurity to which even he himself could not afford the clew; and yet, with all these difficulties, enhanced tenfold by my little knowledge of the forms of a court, and my slender capacity, I regret, my Lord, that I am unable to address the few words I had intended to the jury,—less, believe me, to avert the shipwreck that awaits myself, than to be a beacon to some other who may be as solitary and unfriended as I am.”
These words, delivered with much feeling, but in a spirit of calm determination, seemed to thrill through the entire assemblage; and even the senior judge stopped to confer for some minutes with his brother on the bench, in evident hesitation what course to adopt. At length he said,—
“However we may regret the course you have followed in thus depriving yourself of that legitimate defence the constitution of our country provides, we see no sufficient reason to deviate from the common order of proceeding in like cases. I will now, therefore, address the jury, who have already heard your words, and will accord them any consideration they may merit.”
“It may be, my Lord,” said Cashel, “that evidence so strongly imbued with probability may induce the gentlemen in that box to believe me guilty; in which case, I understand, your Lordship would address to me the formal question, 'If I had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon me.' Now, if I am rightly informed, any observations of a prisoner at such a moment are regarded rather in the light of petitions for mercy, than as explanations or corrections of falsehood. I have, therefore, only now to say, that, whatever decision you may come to, the Court shall not be troubled further with interference of mine.”
The Judge bowed slightly, as if in reply to this, and began his charge; but the foreman of the jury, leaning forward, said that his fellow-jurors had desired him to ask, as a favor to themselves, that the prisoner might be heard. A short conference ensued between the Bench and the Crown counsel, which ended by the permission being accorded; and now Cashel rose to address the Court.
“I will not,” said he, “abuse the time of this Court by any irrelevant matter, nor will I advert to a single circumstance foreign to the substance of the charge against me. I purpose simply to give a narrative of the last day I passed with my poor friend, and to leave on record this detail as the solemn protestation of innocence of one who has too little to live for to fear death.”
With this brief preface he began a regular history of that eventful day, from the hour he had started from Tubbermore in company with Mr. Kennyfeck.
The reader is already familiar with every step and circumstance of that period, so that it is not necessary we should weary him by any recapitulation; enough if we say that Cashel proceeded with a minuteness devoid of all prolixity, to mention each fact as it occurred, commenting as he went on upon the evidence already given, and explaining its import without impugning its truth. Juries are ever disposed to listen favorably to a speaker who brings to his aid no other allies than candor and frankness, and who, without pretensions to legal acuteness, narrates facts with clear and distinctive precision. Leaving him, therefore, still speaking, and in the irresistible force of truth gradually winning upon his hearers, let us quit the court for a brief time, and passing through the crowded space before the doors, traverse the town, densely thronged by curious and eager visitors. We do not mean to linger with them, nor overhear the comments they passed upon the eventful scene beside them; our business is about a mile off, at a small public-house at a short distance from the roadside, usually frequented by cattle-dealers and the customers at the weekly markets. Here, in a meanly-furnished room, where, for it was now evening, a common dip candle shed its lugubrious yellow light upon the rude appliances of vulgar life, sat a man, whose eager expectancy was marked in every line of his figure. Every now and then he would arise from his chair, and, screening the candle from the wind, open the window to look out.
The night was dark and gusty; drifting rain beat at intervals against the glass, and seemed the forerunner of a great storm. The individual we have spoken of did not seem to care for, if he even noticed, the inclemency; he brushed the wet from his bushy beard and mustaches with indifference, and bent his ear to listen to the sounds upon the road in deepest earnestness. At last the sound of horses' feet and wheels was heard rapidly approaching, and a car drove up to the door, from which a man, wrapped up in a loose frieze coat, descended, and quickly mounted the stairs. As he reached the landing, the door of the room was thrown vide, and the other man, in a low, but distinct, voice said, “Well, what news?”
“All right,” said he of the frieze coat, as, throwing off the wet garment, he discovered the person of Mr. Clare Jones. “Nothing could possibly go better; my cross-examination clinched Keane's evidence completely, and no jury could get over it.”
“I almost wish you had let him alone,” said the other, gruffly, and in evident discontent; “I foresee that the sympathy the scoundrel affected will be troublesome to us yet.”
“I have no fears on that head,” replied the other, confidently. “The facts are there, and Crankle's speech to evidence ripped him up in a terrific manner.”
“Did he allude to the Spanish girl?”
“He did, and with great effect.”
“And the Kilgoff affair—did he bring 'My Lady' up for judgment?”
“No. The Attorney-General positively forbade all allusion to that business.”
“Oh, indeed!” said the other, with a savage sneer. “'The Court' was too sacred for such profanation.”
“I think he was right, too,” said Jones. “The statement could never have been brought to bear upon the case before the Court. It would have been a mere episode outside of the general history, and just as likely impress the Jury with the opinion that all the charges were trumped up to gain a conviction in any way.”
The other paused, and seemed to reflect for some minutes, when he said, “Well, what are they about now?”
“When I left, the Court had just refused Cashel's demand to address the jury. The Chief Baron had ruled against him, and, of course, the charge is now being pronounced. As I know how this must run, I took the opportunity of coming over here to see you.”
“Myname was but once mentioned, you tell me,” said the other, in an abrupt manner.
“It was stated that you were dangerously ill, without hope of recovery,” said Jones, faltering, and with evident awkwardness.
“And not alluded to again?” asked the other, whom there is no need of calling Mr. Linton.
“Yes, once passingly,” said Jones, still faltering.
“How do you mean, passingly?” asked Linton, in anger.
“The Crown lawyers brought forward that note of yours from Ennismore.”
Linton dashed his closed fist against the table, and uttered a horrible and blasphemous oath.
“Some bungling of yours, I'll be sworn, brought this about,” said he, savagely; “some piece of that adroit chicanery that always recoils upon its projector.”
“I 'll not endure this language, sir,” said Jones. “I have done more to serve you than any man would have stooped to in my profession. Unsay those words.”
“I do unsay them. I ask pardon for them, my dear Jones. I never meant them seriously,” said Linton, in that fawning tone he could so well assume. “You ought to know me better than to think thatI, who have sworn solemnly to make your fortune, could entertain such an opinion of you. Tell me now of this. Did Cashel say anything as the note was read?”
“Not a syllable.”
“How did he look?”
“He smiled slightly.”
“Ah, he smiled,” said Linton, growing pale; “he smiled! He can do that when he is most determined.”
“What avails all his determination now? No narrative of his can shake the testimony which the examination has confirmed. It was a masterstroke of yours, Mr. Linton, to think of supplying him with counsel.”
Linton smiled superciliously, as though he was accustomed to higher flights of treachery than this. “So then,” said he, at length, “you say the case is strong against him?”
“It could scarcely be stronger.”
“And the feeling—how is the feeling of the Court?”
“Variable, I should say; in the galleries, and among the fashionably dressed part of the assemblage, inclined somewhat in his favor.”
“How? Did not the charge of attempted bigamy tell against him with his fair allies?”
“Not so much as I had hoped.”
“What creatures women are!” said Linton, holding up his hands. “And how are they betting? What says Frobisher?”
“He affects to think it no case for odds; he says there 's a little fellow in the jury-box never was known to say 'Guilty.'”
“A scheme to win money,—a stale trick, my Lord Charles!” muttered Linton, contemptuously; “but I've no objection to hedge a little, for all that.”
“I must be going,” said Jones, looking at his watch; “the charge will soon be over, and I must look to the proceedings.”
“Will they be long in deliberation, think you?” asked Linton.
“I suspect not; they are all weary and tired. It is now ten o'clock.”
“I thought it later,” said Linton, thoughtfully; “time lags heavily with him whose mind is in expectancy. Hark! there is some one below talking of the trial! What says he?”
“He speaks of Cashel as still addressing the Court. Can they have consented to hear him, after all?”
A fearful curse broke from Linton, and he closed the door noiselessly.
“See to this, Jones; see to it speedily. My mind misgives me that something will go wrong.”
“You say that you know him thoroughly, and that he never would—”
“No, no,” broke in Linton, passionately; “he'll not break one tittle of his word, even to save his life! When he promised me that all should be secret between us, he made no reservations, and you 'll see that he 'll not avail himself of such privileges now. I do know him thoroughly.”
“Then what, or whence, is your fear?”
Linton made no other answer than a gesture of his hand, implying some vague and indistinct dread. “But go,” said he, “and go quickly. You ought never to have left the court. Had you remained, perhaps this might have been prevented. If all goes right, you 'll be here by daybreak at furthest, and Keane along with you. Take care of that, Jones; don't lose sight of him. If—if—we are unfortunate—and do you think such possible?”
“Everything is possible with a jury.”
“True,” said he, thoughtfully; “it is an issue we should never have left it to. But away; hasten back. Great Heaven! only to think how much hangs upon the next half-hour!”
“To Cashel, you mean?” said Jones, as he prepared himself for the road.
“No; I mean tome, Idoknow him thoroughly; and well I know the earth would be too narrow to live upon, were that man once more free and at liberty.”
In his eagerness for Jones's departure, he almost pushed him from the room; and then, when he had closed and locked the door again, he sat down beside the low flickering fire, and as the fitful light played upon his features, all the appliances of disguise he wore could not hide the terrible ravages that long corroding anxiety had made in him. Far more did he resemble the arraigned criminal than he who now stood in the dock, and with a cheek blanched only by imprisonment, waited calm, collected, and erect—“Equal to either fortune.”
Linton had often felt all the terrible suspense which makes the paradise or the hell of the gambler: he had known what it was to have his whole fortune on the issue, at a moment when the rushing mob of horsemen and foot concealed the winning horse from view, and mingled in their mad cheers the names of those whose victory had been his ruin and disgrace. He had watched the rolling die, on whose surface, as it turned, all he owned in the world was staked; he had sat gazing on the unturned card, on which his destiny was already written;—and yet all these moments of agonizing suspense were as nothing compared to that he now suffered, as he sat with bent down head trying to catch the sounds which from time to time the wind bore along from the town.
As if to feed his mind with hope, he would recapitulate to himself all the weighty and damnatory details which environed Cashel, and which, by their singular consistency and coherence, seemed irrefutable. He would even reckon them upon his fingers, as “so many chances against him.” He would try to imagine himself one of the jury, listening to the evidence and the charge; and asked himself “were it possible to reject such proofs?” He pictured to his mind Cashel addressing the Court with all that rash and impetuous eloquence so characteristic of him, and which, to more trained and sober tempers, would indicate a nature little subject to the cold discipline of restraint; and from all these speculative dreams he would start suddenly up, to lean out of the window and listen. Other thoughts, too, would cross his mind, scarcely less distracting. What would become of himself should Cashel escape? Whither should he retire? If, at one moment, he half resolved to “stand his ground” in the world, and trust to his consummate skill in secret calumny to ruin him, another reflection showed that Cashel would not play out the game on these conditions. A duel, in which one at least must fall, would be inevitable; and although this was an ordeal he had braved oftener than most men, he had no courage to dare it now. Through all this tangled web of harassing hope and fear, regrets deep and poignant entered, that he had not worked his ruin by slower and safer steps. “I might have been both judge and jury—ay, and executioner too,” muttered he, “had I been patient.” And here he gave a low, sardonic laugh. “When the hour of confiscation came, I might have played the Crown's part also.” But so is it: there is no halting in the downward course of wickedness; the very pleadings of self-interest cannot save men from the commission ofcrimes, by which they are to hidefollies.
The slow hours of the night dragged heavily on; the fire had gone out, and the candle too—unnoticed, and Linton sat in the dark, brooding over his gloomy thoughts. At one moment he would start up, and wonder if the whole were not a terrible dream,—the nightmare of his own imagination; and it was only after an effort he remembered where he was, and with what object. He could not see his watch to tell the hour, but he knew it must be late, since the fire had long since died out, and the room was cold and chill. The agony of expectation became at last too great to endure; he felt his way to the door and passed out, and groping down the narrow stair, reached the outer door, and the road.
All was dark and lonely; not a sound of horseman or foot-traveller broke the dreary stillness of the hour, as Linton, urged on by an impulse he could not restrain, took his way towards the town. The distance was scarcely above a mile, but his progress was slow, for the road was wet and slippery, and the darkness very great. At last he reached the long straggling suburb, with its interminable streets of wretched hovels; but even here none were yet astir, and not a light was seen to glimmer. To this succeeded the narrow streets of the town itself,—where, at long intervals, a dusky yellow haze glimmered by way of lamplight. Stopping beneath one of these, Linton examined his watch, and found that it was near five o'clock. The lateness of the hour, and the unbroken stillness on every side, half induced him to believe that “all was over,” and Cashel's fate sealed for good or evil; but then Jones would have hastened back to bring the tidings! There could not be a doubt on this head. Urged onward to greater speed by emotions which now were scarcely supportable, he traversed street after street in frantic haste; when suddenly, on turning a corner, he came in front of a large building, from whose windows, dimmed by steam, a great blaze of light issued, and fell in long columns upon the “Square” in front. A dense, dark mass of human figures crowded the wide doorway, but they were silent and motionless all. Within the court, too, the stillness was unbroken; for as Linton listened he could now hear a cough, which resounded through the building.
“The jury are in deliberation,” thought he, and sat down upon the step of a door, his eyes riveted upon the court-house, and his heart beating so that he could count its strokes. Not far from him, as he sat there, scarcely a hundred paces off, within the building, there sat another man, waiting with a high throbbing heart for that word to be uttered which should either open the door of his prison, or close that of the grave upon him forever. The moments of expectancy were terrible to both! they were life-long agonies distilled to seconds; and he who could live through their pains must come forth from the trial a changed man forever after.
Free to go forth once more, but oh, How changed!Harold.
A slight movement in the crowd near the door—a kind of waving motion like the quiet surging of the sea—seemed to-indicate some commotion within the court; and although Linton saw this, and judged it rightly, as the evidence of something eventful about to happen, he sat still to await the result with the dogged firmness with which he would have awaited death itself.
As we are less interested spectators of the scene, let us press our way through the tired and exhausted crowd that fill the body of the building. And now we stand beneath the gallery, and immediately behind a group of about half a dozen, whose dress and demeanor at once proclaim them of the world of fashion. These are Lord Charles Frobisher and his friends, who, with memorandum-books and timepieces before them, sit in eager anxiety, for they have wagers on everything: on the verdict—how the judge will charge—if the prisoner will confess—if he will attempt a defence; and even the length of time the jury will sit in deliberation, is the subject of a bet!
This anxiety was now at its climax, for, directly in front of them, a small door had just opened, and a crowd of men entered, and took their seats in the gallery.
Their grave countenances, marked by watching and eager discussion, at once proclaimed that they were the jury.
There was a low murmur heard throughout the court as they took their seats; and instinctively many an eye was turned towards the dock, to watch howhebore himself in that trying moment With a steady gaze fixed upon the spot from which his doom was to be spoken, he stood erect, with arms folded and his head high. He was deathly pale; but not a trace of anything like fear in the calm lineaments of his manly features.
“The jury seem very grave,” whispered Upton to Frobisher.
“I wish that stupid old judge would bestir himself,” replied Lord Charles, looking at his watch; “it wants four minutes to five: he 'll scarcely be in court before it strikes, and I shall lose a pony through it.”
“Here he comes!—here he comes!” said another; and the Chief Baron entered the court, his face betraying that he had been aroused from sleep.
“Are you agreed, gentlemen of the jury?” asked the judge, in a low voice.
“Not perfectly, my Lord,” said the foreman. “We want your Lordship to decide a point for us; which is—If we should be of opinion that any grave provocation led to the death of Kennyfeck, whether our verdict could be modified, and our finding be, in consequence, for manslaughter, and not murder?”
“The indictment,” said the judge, “does not give you that option. It is framed without any count for the minor offence. I ought, perhaps, also to observe, that nothing has transpired in the evidence given here, this day, to warrant the impression you seem inclined to entertain. Your verdict must be one of Guilty or Not Guilty.”
“We are of opinion, my Lord,” said a juryman, “that great latitude in the expression of temper should be conceded to a young man reared and educated as the prisoner has been.”
“These sentiments, honorable to you as they are, cannot be indulged at the expense of justice, however they may find a fitting place in a recommendation to mercy; and even this must be accompanied by something more than sympathies.”
“Well said, old boy!” muttered Frobisher to himself. “My odds are looking up again.”
“In that case, my Lord, we must retire again,” said the foreman; and the jury once more quitted the court, whose occupants at once resumed all the lounging attitudes from which the late scene had aroused them. Exhaustion, indeed, had overcome all save the prisoner himself, who paced the narrow limits of the dock with slow and noiseless steps, raising his head at intervals, to watch the gallery where the jury were to appear.
In less than half an hour the creaking of a door awoke the drowsy court, and the jury were seen re-entering the box. They continued to talk among each other as they took their seats, and seemed like men still under the influence of warm discussion.
“Not agreed!” muttered Frobisher, looking at his book. “I stand to win, even on that.”
To the formal question of the Court, the foreman for an instant made no reply, for he was still in eager conversation with another juror.
“How say you, gentlemen of the jury? Are you agreed?”
“We are, my Lord,” said the foreman; “that is to say, some of the jury have conceded to the rest for the sake of a verdict.”
“This does not seem to me like agreement,” interposed the judge. “If you be not of the same mind, it will be your duty to retire once more, and strive by the use of argument and reason to bring the minority to your opinion; or, in failure of such result, to avow that you are not like-minded.”
“We have done all that is possible in that respect, my Lord; and we beg you will receive our verdict.”
“If it be your verdict, gentlemen,” said the judge, “I desire nothing more.”
“We say, Not Guilty, my Lord,” said the foreman.
There was a solemn pause followed the words, and then a low murmur arose, which gradually swelled till it burst forth into a very clamor, that only the grave rebuke of the Bench reduced to the wonted decorum of a court of justice.
“I am never disposed, gentlemen of the jury, to infringe upon the sacred prerogative which environs your office. You are responsible to God and your own consciences for the words you have uttered here, this day; but my duty requires that I should be satisfied that you have come to your conclusion by a due understanding of the facts laid before you in evidence, by just and natural inferences from those facts, and by weighing well and dispassionately all that you have heard here, to the utter exclusion of anything you may have listened to outside of this court. Is your verdict in accordance with these conditions?”
“So far, my Lord, as the mysterious circumstances of this crime admit, I believe it is. We say 'Not Guilty,' from a firm conviction on our minds that we are saying the truth.”
“Enough,” said the judge. “Clerk, record the verdict.” Then turning to the dock, towards which every eye was now bent, he continued: “Roland Cashel, a jury of your countrymen, solemnly sworn to try you on the charge of murder, have this day pronounced you 'Not Guilty.' You go, therefore, free from this dock, to resume that station you occupied in society, without stain upon your character or blemish upon your fame. The sworn verdict we have recorded obliterates the accusation. But, for the sake of justice, for the interests of the glorious prerogative we possess in trial by jury, for the sacred cause of truth itself, I implore you, before quitting this court, to unravel the thread of this dark mystery, so far as in you lies,—to fill up those blanks in the narrative you have already given us,—to confirm, to the extent in your power, the justice of that sentence by which you are restored once more to the society of your friends and family. This, I say, is now your duty; and the example you will give, in performing it, will reflect credit upon yourself, and do service to the cause of truth, when you and I and those around us shall be no more.”
It was with stronger show of emotion than Cashel had yet displayed that he leaned over the dock and said,—
“My Lord, when life, and something more than life, were in peril, I deemed it right to reserve certain details from the notoriety of this court. I did so, not to involve any other in the suspicion of this guilt, whose author I know not. I did not do so from any caprice, still less from that misanthropic affectation the counsel was ungenerous enough to ascribe to me. I believe that I had good and sufficient reasons for the course I adopted. I still think I have such. As to the rest, the discovery of this guilt is now become the duty of my life,—I owe it to those whose words have set me free, and I pledge myself to the duty.”
The Bench now conferred with the Crown lawyers as to the proceedings necessary for the discharge of the prisoner; and already the crowds, wearied and exhausted, began to withdraw. The interest of the scene was over; and in the various expressions of those that passed might be read the feelings with which they regarded the result. Many reprobated the verdict as against law and all the facts; some attributed the “finding” to the force of caprice; others even hinted the baser motive, that they didn't like “to hang a man who spent his income at home;” and others, again, surmised that bribery might have had “something to do with it.” Few believed in Cashel's innocence of the crime; and even they said nothing, for their convictions were more those of impulse than reason.
“Who could have thought it!” muttered Upton, as, with a knot of others, he stood waiting for the crowd to pass out.
Frobisher shrugged his shoulders, and went on totting a line of figures in his memorandum-book.
“Better off than I thought!” said he to himself; “seven to five taken that he would not plead—eight to three that he would not call Linton. Long odds upon time won: lost by verdict four hundred and fifty. Well, it might have been worse; and I 've got a lesson—never to trust a Jury.”
“I say, Charley,” whispered Upton, “what are you going to do?”
“How do you mean?”
“Will you go up and speak to him?” said he, with a motion of his head towards the dock.
Frobisher's sallow cheek grew scarlet. Lost and dead to every sense of honorable feeling for many a day, the well had not altogether dried up, and it was with a look of cutting insolence he said,—
“No, sir; if I did not stand by him before, I 'll not be the hound to crawl to his feet now.”
“By Jove! I don't see the thing in that light. He's all right now, and there 's no reason why we should n't know him as we used to do.”
“Are you so certain that he will knowyou?” was Fro-bisher's sharp reply as he turned away.
The vast moving throng pressed forward, and now all were speedily commingled,—spectators, lawyers, jurors, witnesses. The spectacle was over, and the empty court stood silent and noiseless, where a few moments back human hopes and passions had surged like the waves of a sea.
The great space in front of the court-house, filled for a few moments by the departing crowd, grew speedily silent and empty,—for day had not yet broken, and all were hastening homeward to seek repose. One figure alone was seen to stand in that spot, and then move slowly, and to all seeming irresolutely, onward. It was Cashel himself, who, undecided whither to turn, walked listlessly and carelessly on.
As he turned a corner of a street, a jaunting-car, around which some travellers stood, stopped the way, and he heard the words of the driver.
“There's another place to spare.”
“Where for?” asked Cashel.
“Limerick, sir,” said the man.
“Drive on, b———t you,” cried a deep voice from the other side of the vehicle; and the fellow's whip descended with a heavy slash, and the beast struck out into a gallop, and speedily was out of sight.
“Did n't you see who it was?” muttered the speaker to the man beside him.
“No.”
“It was Cashel himself,—I knew him at once; and I tell you, Jones, he would have knownme, too, for all this disguise, when a gleam of day came to shine.”
As for Cashel, he stood gazing after the departing vehicle, with a strange chaos of thought working within.
“Am I then infamous?” said he at last, “that these men will not travel in my company? Is it to this the mere accusation of crime has brought me!” And, slight as the incident was, it told upon him as some acrid substance would irritate and corrode an open wound,—festering the tender surface.
“Better thus dreaded than the 'dupe' I have been!” said he, boldly, and entered the inn, where now the preparations for the coming day had begun. He ordered his breakfast, and post-horses for Killaloe, resolved to see Tubbermore once again, ere he left it forever.
It was a bright morning in the early spring as Cashel drove through the wide-spreading park of Tubbermore. Dewdrops spangled the grass, amid which crocus and daffodil flowers were scattered. The trees were topped with fresh buds; the birds were chirping and twittering on the branches; the noiseless river, too, flowed past, its circling eddies looking like blossoms on the stream. All was joyous and redolent of promise, save him whose humbled spirit beheld in everything around him the signs of self-reproach.
“These,” thought he, “were the rich gifts of fortune that I have squandered. This was the paradise I have laid waste! Here, where I might have lived happy, honored, and respected, I see myself wretched and shunned! The defeats we meet with in hardy and hazardous enterprise are softened down by having dared danger fearlessly,—by having combated manfully with the enemy. But what solace is there for him whose reverses spring from childlike weakness and imbecility,—whose life becomes the plaything of parasites and flatterers! Could I ever have thought I would become this? What should I have once said of him who would have prophesied me such as I now am?”
These gloomy reveries grew deeper and darker as he wandered from place to place, and marked the stealthy glances and timid reverences of the peasants as they passed him. “It is only the jury have called me 'Not Guilty,'” said he to himself; “the world has pronounced another verdict. I have come from that dock as one might have risen from an unhonored grave, to be looked on with fear and sorrow. Be it so; mine must be a lonely existence.”
Every room he entered recalled some scene of his past life. Here was the spacious hall, where, in all the excesses of the banquet, laughter had rung and wit had sparkled, loud toasts were proffered, and high-spirited mirth had once held sway. Here was the drawing-room, where grace and female loveliness were blended, mingling their odors like flowers in a “bouquet.” Here, the little chamber he had often sought to visit Lady Kilgoff, and passed those hours of “sweet converse” wherein his whole nature became changed, and his rude spirit softened by the tender influences of a woman's mind. Here was his own favorite room,—the spot from which, in many an hour snatched from the cares of host, he had watched the wide-flowing river, and thought of the current of his own life, mingling with his reveries many a high hope and many a glorious promise. And now the whole scene was changed. The mirth, the laughter, the guests, the hopes, were fled, and he stood alone in those silent halls, that never again were to echo with the glad voice of pleasure.
The chief object of his return to Tubbermore was to regain possession of that document which he had concealed in the cleft of a beech-tree, before scaling the approach to the window. He found the spot without difficulty, and soon possessed himself of the paper, the contents of which, however, from being conveyed in a character he was not familiar with, he could not master.
He next proceeded to the gate-lodge, desirous to see Keane, and make some arrangement for his future support before he should leave Tubbermore. The man, however, was absent; his wife, whose manner betrayed considerable emotion, said that her husband had returned in company with another, who remained without, while he hastily packed a few articles of clothing in a bundle, and then left the house, whither to she knew not.
Roland's last visit was to Tiernay's house; but he, too, was from home. He had accompanied Corrigan to Dublin, intending to take leave of him there; but a few hurried lines told that he had resolved to proceed further with his friends, and darkly hinting that his return to the village was more than doubtful.
Wherever Cashel turned, desertion and desolation met him; and the cutting question that ever recurred to his mind was, “Is thismydoing? Are these the consequences ofmyfolly?” The looks of the villagers seemed to tally with the accusation, as in cold respect they touched their hats as he passed, but never spoke: “not one said God bless him.”
He twice set out for the cottage, and twice turned back,—his over-full heart almost choked with emotion. The very path that led thither reminded him too fully of the past, and he turned from it into the wood, to wander about for hours long, lost in thought.
He sought and found relief in planning out something for his future life. The discovery of the murderer—the clearing up of the terrible mystery that involved that crime—had become a duty, and he resolved to apply himself to it steadily and determinedly. His unacquitted debt of vengeance on Linton, too, was not forgotten. These accomplished, he resolved again to betake himself to the “new world beyond seas.” Wealth had become distasteful to him; it was associated with all that lowered and humiliated him. He felt that with poverty his manly reliance, his courageous daring to confront danger, would return,—that once more upon the wild prairie, or the blue waters of the Pacific, he would grow young of heart, and high in spirit, forgetting the puerile follies into which a life of affluence had led him. “Would that I could believe it all a dream!” thought he. “Would that this whole year were but a vision, and that I could go back to what I once was, even as 'the buccaneer,' they called me!”
His last hours in Tubbermore were spent in arrangements that showed he never intended to return there. His household was all discharged; his equipages and horses despatched to the capital to be sold; his books, his plate, and all that was valuable in furniture, were ordered to be packed up, and transmitted to Dublin. He felt a kind of malicious pleasure in erasing and effacing, as it were, every trace of the last few months.
“I will leave it,” muttered he, “to become the wreck I found it—would that I could be what I was ere I knew it!”
The following day he left Tubbermore forever, and set out for Dublin.