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, skillfully treated and carefully attended, was soon able to undertake the journey to England; and as the fixed determination he had shown to further the ends of justice, at all risks, left no doubt of his sincerity, he was permitted to act without restraint, and proceeded steadily toward 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 favor, 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 upon 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 preying 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 crowded 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 endeavor 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 offense, and the certainty that his conviction would follow, had lost all self-command, and approached the bar pale, trembling, and agitated. Next approached 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 on 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. The _ci-devant_ smuggler, 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 ankle 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 skillfully those questions which might tend to exculpate himself with those which he thought would annoy the witness.
"Allow me 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 endeavored to cheat or over-charge you, point out to you the fact?"
"You certainly did," replied his former master.
"So far, then, your evidence is favorable 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 afterward 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, purposing 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 neighborhood; but luckily it happened that you neither knew the one fact nor 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 questions 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 recognized me among the persons coming out of the miser's house?" demanded the prisoner.
"I did not say that I recognized you in the slightest degree," replied his former master, "till I found myself in the boat upon the water."
"Then you positively did riot recognize 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 recognize 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 toward 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 gentleman 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 defense. 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 any thing, 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 defense, 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 acknowledgment 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 any thing; 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, whither 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 a 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, favored 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 defense, 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 favor."
"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 not hurt a fly, if it were not when he is alongside of 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 forever!"
Harding had been really eloquent; for from the adaptation of his story to the evidence produced immediately before, it was beyond doubt that he had poured forth his long address upon the spur of the occasion. Walter Harrison, however, was not eloquent; and, if there had been any thing like eloquence in his speech, it was the eloquence of passionate sincerity. Still his tale produced the deep impression; Harding's alone the transient one. In the case of the latter, the jury and the spectators had felt that the account was plausible, and might be true; but when Walter Harrison concluded his rough oration, there was not a man in all the court that doubted his assertions. There was a momentary pause, and then more than one person murmured, "Poor fellow!"
At length the judge summed up the evidence, with that clear, straightforward, noble impartiality, that dignified and equitable firmness, which is so universally characteristic of an English judge. He noticed Harding's defense, and gave him the full credit of every probability that existed in favor of the story he had told, but he noticed also the singular conduct of Walter Harrison, pointed out the minute resemblance between the declaration he had made in Paris, and that which he had made in England, and the harmony of the whole of it with both his conduct toward Beauchamp and the conversation he had held with the smuggler. Nevertheless, he said, there was a peculiar feature in the case which greatly affected it, and he begged the jury to give the prisoners the advantage of any doubt that might thence arise in their minds. This peculiar feature was, that Walter Harrison having refused to become king's evidence, the prisoners had not had an opportunity of cross-examine him, as they might have done any other witness. At the same time, his declaration could not fail to have a considerable effect upon the minds of the jury in regard to the other prisoners, as well as to himself, and therefore it was to be received cautiously, from the peculiarity adverted to.
The judge's exposition of the law, and his classification of the evidence adduced, was clear, judicious, and impartial; and, on dismissing the jury to deliberate, he called upon them to cast away from their minds the remembrance of every thing but what they had heard in that court, and never to forget, that the duty they were then called upon to perform, involved the most awful responsibility which it is possible for a human being to undertake.
The eyes of each of the prisoners were fixed upon the jury-box while the judge addressed the jurors; and it was remarked, that at one particular point of the summing up, where the declaration of the young sailor, and his conduct throughout the whole transaction, were clearly stated, Harding turned extremely pale, and, casting down his eyes, remained in deep thought.
In a very few minutes the jury re-appeared in court, and the foreman announced their verdict of guilty against Smithson, Harding, and his paramour; not guilty in regard to the young sailor, except on the count referring to the robbery.
As the fatal words rang in her ear, the unhappy woman dropped down on the floor of the dock, as if she had been shot. Smithson alone muttered a few words in his peculiar slang, consigning the judge and jury to the place for which his own deeds qualified him much better. Harding remained profoundly silent, and heard not only the announcement of his condemnation, but the awful sentence that followed it, with a calm but steadfast composure.
While sentence of death was passing on Harding, Smithson, and Sarah Ings, the head of a woman, dressed in deep mourning, pale, haggard, and agitated, but with the traces of former beauty shining through all, was seen gazing eagerly upon the judge; till at length he turned to Walter Harrison, and informed him that, at the suggestion of the king's counsel on the occasion; his sentence should be reserved for farther consideration. At those words a passionate flood of tears were seen to burst from the poor woman's eyes, which had been dry as the desert before; and she hurried eagerly from the court ere the crowd made their way toward the door.
There are some men so highly gifted with fine and generous feelings, that they feel a sort of sympathetic excitement in the trials and behavior of murderers and highwaymen--prize the rope that hanged a noted criminal, and guard, as a relic, the implements with which some great crime was perpetrated. We own the narrowness of our own mind in these respects, and turn without reluctance for a time from the fierce and ruthless deeds of men in the last stage of human depravity, to scenes where the same passions, and perhaps the same vices, had to struggle with the bonds of education and circumstances, and were restrained to crooked and confined passages, by all the respects of rank, and station, and a well preserved name.
On the Saturday morning which succeeded the trial of Harding and his accomplices, the Earl of Ashborough sat waiting for his carriage, which was to be at his door at nine precisely, in order to whirl him and his niece down to one of his country seats, for the purpose of spending the Christmas holidays with true old English hospitality, as the newspapers term it, amidst his neighbors and tenants.
About three weeks had now elapsed since the return of his nephew and the dismissal of Mr. Tims, and agents had been appointed by the earl to examine into that worthy's accounts, in which they had hitherto made but small progress. The noble lord had in the mean while pursued his plan of speaking of his _ci-devant_ lawyer, and treating him in every respect with calm and supreme contempt. But Mr. Tims had at the same time proceeded upon his plan also; and scarcely a daily or a weekly newspaper appeared--from that which instructs and bullies the statesman, to that which sets the pot-house in a roar--that did not contain some galling allusion to the Earl of Ashborough and his private affairs.
His lordship took no notice, but still the same attack went on; and though he spoke not a word upon the business to anyone, yet it was evident that the annoyance he felt was sufficient seriously to affect his health. A physician's carriage was seen almost daily at his door; and in the end, it being discovered that the length of time he had spent that year in the dull and smoky atmosphere of London, had hurt his constitution, it was determined that he should set out for the country, and not return till his parliamentary duties absolutely compelled his attendance in the House of Peers. The carriage then was ordered, and his lordship, with his usual punctuality, was ready to the moment. The carriage, however, and his lordship's niece were any thing but ready to the moment; and the earl was sitting in attendance upon their will and pleasure, and in no very quiescent mood, when the loud clatter of a horse's feet beneath the windows broke the silence; and in a moment after, a letter, brought by express from the little county town of ----, was put into his hand, together with another, bearing his address in the handwriting of Henry Beauchamp.
The first was signed by the sheriff of the county, and went to inform him that a man of the name of Harding, having been that day, at twenty minutes after three o'clock, condemned to death for the murder at Ryebury, had expressed an earnest wish to see his lordship, and had intimated that, if he were so indulged, he would make disclosures of very great importance, and which, he believed, might even save his own life. These facts the sheriff had thought necessary to bring before his lordship, leaving him to judge whether it would be proper or not to comply with the desire of the prisoner. The letter from Beauchamp contained but a few lines, urging his uncle strongly to give immediate attention to the demand of the felon; and Lord Ashborough, in his first burst of angry impatience, threw both the epistles into the fire together.
Now, as Lord Ashborough was a man who seldom gave way to such unnecessary displays of vehemence, it was very easy to divine, from his violent demolition of the letters, that he would ultimately do what was required, whatever he might say to the contrary; for, had he not intended to go, there would not have been the slightest use of being angry about the matter.
"What could the fellow want with him?" he asked. "It was all nonsense! There could be no reason for his going down; nor could the rascal have any matter of import to relate!"
But the very fact that his lordship could by no means divine what Harding could want with him, served in the greatest degree to strengthen that principle, or passion, or folly--whichever curiosity may be termed by the learned--that now urged the earl to travel to the town of ----. By the time the carriage came up, he had got as far as to think, "Well, I suppose I must go!" and by the time Miss Beauchamp, be-cloaked and be-furred, entered the drawing-room, he had summoned resolution to say, "Had you and the carriage been ready at the time, Maria, I should have had a pleasant journey with you down to ----, instead of an unpleasant one by myself down to ----."
What convenient things blanks are!
He then explained to his niece the circumstances which called him in a different direction from that which he had proposed to follow, and left her the choice of taking the barouche and the old butler, and proceeding at once into the country, as they had intended at first, or of going with him in the chariot to the county town of ----.
"Oh, not I, my dear uncle, for the world!" cried Miss Beauchamp. "You surely do not expect me to go and dance at what they call the '_Size ball!_ No, indeed; I must be excused. The barouche, the old butler, and the country house for me; but remember, I shall expect your lordship to join me in two days, for the house is to be full of people, the newspapers tell me; and, of course, you can not expect me to act the landlady of the inn, when the landlord is away."
Lord Ashborough, as a matter of form, scolded his gay niece for her pertness, although he knew her to be incorrigible; and then leaving her to make her own arrangements, which, to say sooth, she had never any great difficulty in doing, he got into the chariot, and rolled away in a very different direction from that in which he had previously intended to turn his steps.
There is nothing so dry and disgusting on earth as traveling on paper. It is a sort of algebraic locomotion, full of false positions and most uninteresting abbreviations; and therefore, instead of posting on by the side of the earl of Ashborough, we shall take the liberty of getting into the chaise with him, and while he leans back with his eyes half shut, will gently unbutton the two top buttons of his waistcoat, where the lapel folds over the black handkerchief, and, drawing it back, peep in through the window the old Roman wished for, and ascertain what is doing in his lordship's breast.
There was once, in the days of Cheops, an Egyptian who had a remarkably fine poultry-yard, in which were all the fowls of all the feathers that Egypt ever saw. One day it so happened, that, walking by the side of the Nile, the Egyptian espied an egg, which he immediately took up, and, putting it in his breast, he carried it home, and laid it carefully in the nest of a sitting hen. Twenty days after, on entering his poultry-yard, to his great surprise he found--nothing but feathers and a young crocodile, which instantly attacked him also. With great difficulty the Egyptian freed himself of the destroyer of his hens; and when he died, he directed in his will, that on the frontal bandage of his mummy, there should be written, both in the hieroglyphic and the vulgar character, "_Beware how you hatch a crocodile's egg in your poultry-yard!_" Cheops, when he heard it, laughed; but one day, when he was going to give way to his revenge, contrary to the best interests both of himself and his people--contrary to wisdom, and policy, and justice, and good faith--he caught himself saying, "Beware how you hatch a crocodile's egg in your poultry-yard!" and ever after that, when he found a violent passion springing up in his breast, his instant address to his own heart was, "_Beware how you hatch a crocodile's egg in your poultry-yard!_"
Now, the Earl of Ashborough had lately discovered, that in pursuit of his right honorable revenge against Sir Sidney Delaware, he had hatched a crocodile's egg in his poultry-yard; and though he certainly repented having done so, in exact proportion to the consequent evil it had brought upon himself, he, of course, felt his hatred toward Sir Sidney Delaware increased in the same degree. Lord Ashborough would not have given his right hand, or any, thing the least like it, to have had full vengeance on the Delaware family, for he was a man that valued both his hands highly, and would not have parted with either of them; but whereas he would, a month or two before, have given a considerable portion of his golden stores, which were the next things to drops of his blood, he would now have given double the sum to see the ruin of the race he hated. As he lay back, then, in the chariot, he thought over all the events, and could not help hoping that some circumstance might yet give him an opportunity of balancing the long account of those vexations and uncomforts which had fallen upon him, in, with, from, through, and by the affairs of Sir Sidney Delaware, and also of inflicting upon that gentleman and his family evils in a like proportion.
"At all events," he thought--and it was the most consolatory reflection that he had been able to find--"at all events, they have been forced to leave the country, and have most probably gone to America; so that all danger of such a degrading connection being formed by Beauchamp is now at an end. So far, therefore, my labor and anxiety has not been in vain, and I may flatter myself, at least, that one great object has been gained, if not the whole."
There was another slight gleam of hope or expectation, flickering over the dying lamp of the earl's former designs. If one may use the term, it was a hopeless hope--the stout swimmer's last gasp--yet without it Lord Ashborough would probably never have attended to Harding's request. Hating all the Delaware race as he did, he had not been able to persuade himself fully that Captain Delaware was entirely innocent, notwithstanding the convincing proofs that Beauchamp had laid before him; and he now thought it possible--barely possible--that the murderer Harding might have something to say which would in some way inculpate William Delaware.
All these ideas rolled in the earl's mind like the morning clouds of spring--misty, and vague, and varying in shape and size, though still keeping one general character--till night came, and he fell asleep.
He awoke about eight o'clock, as the carriage stopped in the county town of ----, and looking out, saw the bright lamp over the ever-open glass doors of the principal inn, and the waiters rushing forth to seize upon the inmate of the carriage-and-four. His lordship's agility not being what it had been, he entered the house of many tenants with slow and dignified steps, and taking possession of the best apartment, demanded whether Mr. Beauchamp were still there. The waiter replied in the affirmative, and in a few minutes the greeting of the uncle and nephew had taken place. As neither had dined, and Beauchamp's dinner was just upon the table, the earl became his guest, while a servant was dispatched to the prison, in order to notify his arrival, in compliance with the request of Harding.
As far as possible, Lord Ashborough never disturbed his appetite in the exercise of its functions by any conversation which might become disagreeable; and, consequently, he abstained, with infinite forbearance, from touching upon the proceedings in regard to the Ryebury affair, till biscuits and wine stood upon the table by themselves. He then, however, asked his nephew how the events of the assizes had gone. Beauchamp, in reply, gave him a succinct account of all that had taken place, without forgetting to mention that the bill against Captain Delaware had been thrown out by the grand jury with every mark of indignant rejection; and, on seeing his uncle bite his lip, he added--"So now, every shade of doubt and suspicion has been removed from the character of William Delaware; and I trust very soon to see him and his family return to England, and resume that station in society for which they were born, and in which your lordship's liberal conduct, in regard to the annuity, will enable them to move with greater ease."
Lord Ashborough turned rather pale; but he replied at once, "I trust not, sir! I trust not!"
"And pray, why not?" demanded Beauchamp, with more surprise at the frank avowal of such a wish, than at the existence thereof.
"I will tell you, Henry Beauchamp," replied the earl; "I will tell you. It is on your account, I say, that I hope not. I have not chosen to speak to you, since your return, upon your previous conduct toward this family of Delawares, because I trusted that circumstances would have removed them forever from our neighborhood; but now, that there means a possibility of their returning, I must tell you that I have never been ignorant, from the first, of your masquerading visit to the country; and I must further say, that a report has reached me of your trifling with the old man's daughter. That you would ever dream of marrying the girl, of course I do not believe; but the very report is unpleasant, and might injure your views in a fitting alliance."
Beauchamp had a great deal of trouble to master the mixture of personal anger and indignation which his uncle's speech had created in his bosom, and to reduce his reply to terms of respect and moderation. He succeeded, however, in putting out a good deal of the fire ere he answered, "My lord, as far as a kindred interest in my affairs and prospects goes, I feel that your zeal on the present occasion must of course add to the gratitude and affection I entertain toward you, for a long train of kindnesses in the past; but you will pardon me, if I say that a certain line must be drawn between anxiety in regard to my welfare, and dictation in regard to my conduct--for beyond that line I can permit no one to trespass."
Lord Ashborough turned very red, and he replied hastily, "All these are mere fine words, Mr. Beauchamp. What I wish to know simply is, do you, or do you not, intend to marry this girl?"
"That, my lord, is a question," replied Beauchamp, still bridling his anger, "which no man on earth has any right to ask me, and to it I shall give you no reply. But that you may not at all deceive yourself, let me add, that if you desire to know whether I think Miss Delaware fitted by station and circumstances to become my wife, I will reply at once, that a man of much higher rank, and much greater fortune than myself, should think himself honored could he obtain her hand."
"Enough, sir! Enough!" cried Lord Ashborough. "You have said quite enough. In regard to my right to question you, I slightly differ with you in opinion, inasmuch as my conduct will of course be regulated toward you by the answers you have made; and now, Henry Beauchamp, I have to tell you, that you will do of course as you like; but if these Delawares ever return to England--and may the sea swallow the scheming beggars ere they reach the shore--but if ever they should come, and you pursue your foolish conduct toward that girl, I leave every farthing which I can by any means alienate from the estates attached to the title, to the most distant connection I have, rather than to yourself. Mark me, you throw away at least twenty thousand per annum; and, at the same time, I cast you off forever, and will never see you more!"
"My lord," replied Beauchamp, in a firm tone, "although you have yet shown me no right to ask the question you did ask, you have at least afforded me a good reason for answering it more pointedly than I have hitherto done; and therefore, that you may make any dispositions in regard to your property which you think fit without delay or uncertainty, I tell you plainly and positively, that if ever Miss Delaware does return to this country, I shall at once offer her my hand; that if she should not return immediately, I will seek her through every country in Europe for the same purpose! Now, my lord, having said this much, allow me to remind you, that I am not a man whom the loss even of twenty thousand pounds a year can awe into doing one single thing that he would not otherwise have done, nor leave one regret upon his mind for doing that which he thinks right. The loss of your lordship's affection and society cuts deeper, and will be painful under any circumstances; but I can not help thinking, that on this point, at least, you will see cause to change your determination."
"Never, sir! Never!" cried Lord Ashborough, whose passion had got into the white stage. "Never, while I live!" and ringing the bell violently, he threw open the door, and retired to his apartments. Beauchamp took two or three turns up and down the room; told his uncle's servant who appeared, that he would find him in his own room; and then sat down to contemplate all that had just occurred.
"At all events," he thought, after he had revolved the whole particulars for several minutes--"at all events, it is a very disagreeable business done and over. It must have come sooner or later; and however painful it may be to give such deep offense to a person toward whom I have many debts of gratitude, yet, of course, this was a point upon which I could yield nothing. His lordship, I think, _will yield_ something; and if he relent on the point of excommunication, he may enrich the first chimney-sweeper he meets, for aught I care!"