The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney by Samuel Warren (page 3)

few minutes before her decease. Until then, under one pretence or another, either Elizabeth Wareing, one of Thorndyke’s daughters, or Thorndyke himself, was always present in the sick-chamber. It was evening: darkness had for some time fallen: no light had yet been taken into the dying woman’s apartment; and the pale starlight which faintly illumined the room served, as Mary Woodley softly approached on tiptoe to the bedside of her, as she supposed, sleeping parent, but to deepen by defining the shadows thrown by the full, heavy hangings, and the old massive furniture. Gently, and with a beating heart, Mary Woodley drew back the bed-curtain nearest the window. The feeble, uncertain light flickered upon the countenance, distinct in its mortal paleness, of her parent: the eyes recognized her, and a glance of infinite tenderness gleamed for an instant in the rapidly-darkening orbs: the right arm essayed to lift itself, as for one fast, last embrace. Vainly! Love, love only, was strong, stronger than death, in the expiring mother’s heart, and the arm fell feebly back on the bedclothes. Mary Woodley bent down in eager grief, for she felt instinctively that the bitter hour at last was come: their lips met, and the last accents of the mother murmured, “Beloved Mary, I–I have been true to you–no will–no”–A slight tremor shook her frame: the spirit that looked in love from the windows of the eyes departed on its heavenward journey, and the unconscious shell only of what had once been her mother remained in the sobbing daughter’s arms.

I will not deny that this narrative, which I feel I have but coldly and feebly rendered from its earnest, tearful tenderness, as related by Mary Woodley, affected me considerably–case-hardened, as, to use an old bar-pun, we barristers are supposed to be; nor will the reader be surprised to hear that suspicions, graver even than those which pointed to forgery, were evoked by the sad history. Much musing upon the strange circumstances thus disclosed, and profoundly cogitative on the best mode of action to be pursued, the “small hours,” the first of them at least, surprised me in my arm-chair. I started up, and hastened to bed, well knowing from experience that a sleepless vigil is a wretched preparative for a morrow of active exertion, whether of mind or body.

I was betimes in court the next morning, and Mr. Barnes, proud as a peacock of figuring as an attorney in an important civil suit, was soon at my side. The case had excited more interest than I had supposed, and the court was very early filled, Mary Woodley and her grandfather soon arrived; and a murmur of commiseration ran through the auditory as they took their seats by the side of Barnes. There was a strong bar arrayed against us; and Mr. Silas Thorndyke, I noticed, was extremely busy and important with whisperings and suggestions to his solicitor and counsel–received, of course, as such meaningless familiarities usually are, with barely civil indifference.

Twelve common jurors were called and sworn well and truly to try the issue, and I arose amidst breathless silence to address them. I at once frankly stated the circumstances under which the brief had come into my hands, and observed, that if, for lack of advised preparation, the plaintiff’s case failed on that day, another trial, under favor of the court above, would, I doubt not, at no distant period of time reverse the possibly at present unfavorable decision. “My learned friends on the other side,” I continued, “smile at this qualified admission of mine: let them do so. If they apparently establish to-day the validity of a will which strips an only child of the inheritance bequeathed by her father, they will, I tell them emphatically, have obtained but a temporary triumph for a person who–if I, if you, gentlemen of the jury, are to believe the case intended to be set up as a bar to the plantiff’s claim–has succeeded by the grossest brutality, the most atrocious devices, in bending the mind of the deceased Mrs. Thorndyke to his selfish purposes. My learned friend need not interrupt me; I shall pursue these observations for the present no further–merely adding that I, that his lordship, that you, gentlemen of the jury, will require of him the strictest proof–proof clear as light–that the instrument upon which he relies to defeat the equitable, the righteous claim of the young and amiable person by my side, is genuine, and not, as I verily believe “–I looked, as I spoke, full in the face of Thorndyke–“FORGED.”

“My lord,” exclaimed the opposing counsel, “this is really insufferable!”

His lordship, however, did not interpose; and I went on to relate, in the most telling manner of which I was capable, the history of the deceased Mrs. Thorndyke’s first and second marriages; the harmony and happiness of the first–the wretchedness and cruelty which characterized the second. I narrated also the dying words of Mrs. Thorndyke to her daughter, though repeatedly interrupted by the defendant’s counsel, who manifested great indignation that a statement unsusceptible of legal proof should be addressed to the court and jury. My address concluded, I put in James Woodley’s will; and, as the opposing counsel did not dispute its validity, nor require proof of Mary Woodley’s identity, I intimated that the plaintiff’s case was closed.

The speech for the defendant was calm and guarded. It threw, or rather attempted to throw, discredit on the death-bed “fiction,” got up, Mr. P —- said, simply with a view to effect; and he concluded by averring that he should be able to establish the genuineness of the will of Ellen Thorndyke, now produced, by irresistible evidence. That done, however much the jury might wish the property had been otherwise disposed of, they would of course return a verdict in accordance with their oaths and the law of the land.

The first witness called was Thomas Headley, a smith, residing near Dale Farm. He swore positively that the late Mrs. Thorndyke, whom he knew well, had cheerfully signed the will now produced, after it had been deliberately read over to her by her husband about a fortnight before her death. Silas Thorndyke, John Cummins, Elizabeth Wareing, and witness, were the only persons present. Mrs. Thorndyke expressed confidence that her husband would provide for Mary Woodley.

“And so I will,” said sleek Silas, rising up and looking round upon the auditory. “If she will return, I will be a father to her.”

No look, no sound of sympathy or approval, greeted this generous declaration, and he sat down again not a little disconcerted.

I asked this burly, half-drunken witness but one question–“When is your marriage with Rebecca Thorndyke, the defendant’s eldest daughter, to be celebrated?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Lawyer; perhaps never.”

“That will do; you can go down.”

Mr. P —- now rose to state that his client was unable to produce Elizabeth Wareing, another of the attesting witnesses to the will, in court. No suspicion that any opposition to the solemn testament made by the deceased Mrs. Thorndyke would be attempted, had been entertained; and the woman, unaware that her testimony would be required, had left that part of the country. Every effort had been made by the defendant to discover her abode without effect. It was believed she had gone to America, where she had relatives. The defendant had filed an affidavit setting forth these facts, and it was now prayed that secondary evidence to establish the genuineness of Elizabeth Wareing’s attesting signature should be admitted.

I of course vehemently opposed this demand, and broadly hinted that the witness was purposely kept out of the way.

“Will my learned friend,” said Mr. P —- with one of his sliest sneers, “inform us what motive the defendant could possibly have to keep back a witness so necessary to him?”

“Elizabeth Wareing,” I curtly replied, “may not, upon reflection, be deemed a safe witness to subject to the ordeal of a cross-examination. But to settle the matter, my lord,” I exclaimed, “I have here an affidavit of the plaintiff’s attorney, in which he states that he has no doubt of being able to find this important witness if time be allowed him for the purpose; the defendant of course undertaking to call her when produced.”

A tremendous clamor of counsel hereupon ensued, and fierce and angry grew the war of words. The hubbub was at last terminated by the judge recommending that, under the circumstances, “a juror should be withdrawn.” This suggestion, after some demur, was agreed to. One of the jurors was whispered to come out of the box; then the clerk of the court exclaimed, “My lord, there are only eleven men on the jury;” and by the aid of this venerable, if clumsy expedient, the cause of Woodley _versus_ Thorndyke was _de facto_ adjourned to a future day.

I had not long returned to the hotel, when I was waited upon by Mr. Wilford, senior, the father of the young man who had been forbidden to visit Dale Farm by Thorndyke. His son, he informed me, was ill from chagrin and anxiety–confined to his bed indeed; and Mary Woodley had refused, it seemed, to accept pecuniary aid from either the father or the son. Would I endeavor to terminate the estrangement which had for some time unhappily existed, and persuade her to accept his, Wilford senior’s, freely-offered purse and services? I instantly accepted both the mission and the large sum which the excellent man tendered. A part of the money I gave Barnes to stimulate his exertions, and the rest I placed in the hand of Mary Woodley’s grandpapa, with a friendly admonition to him not to allow his grandchild to make a fool of herself; an exhortation which produced its effect in due season.

Summer passed away, autumn had come and gone, and the winter assizes were once more upon us. Regular proceedings had been taken, and the action in ejectment of Woodley versus Thorndyke was once more on the cause list of the Chester circuit court, marked this time as a special jury case. Indefatigable as Mr. Barnes had been in his search for Elizabeth Wareing, not the slightest trace of her could he discover; and I went into court, therefore, with but slight expectation of invalidating the, as I fully believed, fictitious will. We had, however, obtained a good deal of information relative to the former history not only of the absent Mrs. Wareing, but of Thorndyke himself; and it was quite within the range of probabilities that something might come out, enabling me to use that knowledge to good purpose. The plaintiff and old Mr. Ward were seated in court beside Mr. Barnes, as on the former abortive trial; but Mary Woodley had, fortunately for herself, lost much of the interest which attaches to female comeliness and grace when associated in the mind of the spectator with undeserved calamity and sorrow. The black dress which she still wore–the orthodox twelve months of mourning for a parent had not yet quite elapsed–was now fresh, and of fine quality, and the pale lilies of her face were interspersed with delicate roses; whilst by her side sat Mr. John Wilford, as happy-looking as if no such things as perjurers, forgers, or adverse verdicts existed to disturb the peace of the glad world. Altogether, we were decidedly less interesting than on the former occasion. Edward Wareing, I must not omit to add, was, greatly to our surprise, present. He sat, in great apparent amity, by the side of Thorndyke.

It was late in the afternoon, and twilight was gradually stealing over the dingy court, when the case was called. The special jury answered to their names, were duly sworn, and then nearly the same preliminary speeches and admissions were made and put in as on the previous occasion. Thomas Headley, the first witness called in support of the pretended will, underwent a rigorous cross-examination; but I was unable to extract anything of importance from him.

“And now,” said the defendant’s leading counsel, “let me ask my learned friend if he has succeeded in obtaining the attendance of Elizabeth Wareing?”

I was of course obliged to confess that we had been unable to find her; and the judge remarked that in that ease he could receive secondary evidence in proof of her attestation of the will.

A whispered but manifestly eager conference here took place between the defendant and his counsel, occasionally joined in by Edward Wareing. There appeared to be indecision or hesitation in their deliberations; but at last Mr. P —- rose, and with some ostentation of manner addressed the court.

“In the discharge of my duty to the defendant in this action, my lord, upon whose fair fame much undeserved obloquy has been cast by the speeches of the plaintiff’s counsel–speeches insupported by a shadow of evidence–I have to state that, anxious above all things to stand perfectly justified before his neighbors and society, he has, at great trouble and expense, obtained the presence here to-day of the witness Elizabeth Wareing. She had gone to reside in France with a respectable English family in the situation of housekeeper. We shall now place her in the witness-box, and having done so, I trust we shall hear no more of the slanderous imputations so freely lavished upon my client. Call Elizabeth Wareing into court.”

A movement of surprise and curiosity agitated the entire auditory at this announcement. Mr. Silas Thorndyke’s naturally cadaverous countenance assumed an ashy hue, spite of his efforts to appear easy and jubilant; and for the first time since the commencement of the proceedings I entertained the hope of a successful issue.

Mrs. Wareing appeared in answer to the call, and was duly sworn “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” She was a good-looking woman, of perhaps forty years of age, and bore a striking resemblance to her son. She rapidly, smoothly, and unhesitatingly confirmed the evidence of Headley to a tittle. She trembled, I observed, excessively; and on the examining counsel intimating that he had no more questions to ask, turned hastily to leave the box.

“Stay–stay, my good woman,” I exclaimed; “you and I must have some talk together before we part.”

She started, and looked at me with frightened earnestness; and then her nervous glances stole towards Mr. Silas Thorndyke. There was no comfort there: in his countenance she only saw the reflex of the agitation and anxiety which marked her own. Sleek Silas, I could see, already repented of the rash move he had made, and would have given a good deal to get his witness safely and quietly out of court.

It was now nearly dark, and observing that it was necessary the court and jury should see as well as hear the witness whilst under examination, I requested that lights should be brought in. This was done. Two candles were placed in front of the witness-box, one on each side of Mrs. Wareing; a few others were disposed about the bench and jury desks. The effect of this partial lighting of the gloomy old court was, that the witness stood out in strong and bright relief from the surrounding shadows, rendering the minutest change or play of her features distinctly visible. Mr. Silas Thorndyke was, from his position, thrown entirely into the shade, and any telegraphing between him and the witness was thus rendered impossible. This preparation, as if for some extraordinary and solemn purpose, together with the profound silence which reigned in the court, told fearfully, as I expected, upon the nerves of Mrs. Elizabeth Wareing. She already seemed as if about to swoon with agitation and ill-defined alarm.

“Pray, madam,” said I, “is your name Wareing or Tucker?”

She did not answer, and I repeated the question. “Tucker,” she at last replied in a tremulous whisper.

“I thought so. And pray, Mrs. Tucker, were you ever ‘in trouble’ in London for robbing your lodgings?”

I thought she attempted to answer, but no sound passed her lips. One of the ushers of the court handed her a glass of water at my suggestion, and she seemed to recover somewhat. I pressed my question; and at last she replied in the same low, agitated voice, “Yes, I have been.”

“I know you have. Mr. Silas Thorndyke, I believe, was your bail on that occasion, and the matter was, I understand, compromised–arranged–at all events the prosecution was not pressed. Is not that so?”

“Yes–no–yes.”

“Very well: either answer will do. You lived also, I believe, with Mr. Thorndyke, as his housekeeper of course, when he was in business as a concocter and vender of infallible drugs and pills?”

“Yes.”

“He was held to be skilful in the preparation of drugs, was he not–well-versed in their properties?”

“Yes–I believe so–I do not know. Why am I asked such questions?”

“You will know presently. And now, woman, answer the question I am about to put to you, as you will be compelled to answer it to God at the last great day–What was the nature of the drug which you or he mixed with the medicine prescribed for the late Mrs. Thorndyke?”

A spasmodic shriek, checked by a desperate effort, partially escaped her, and she stood fixedly gazing with starting eyes in my face.

The profoundest silence reigned in the court as I iterated the question.

“You must answer, woman,” said the judge sternly, “unless you know your answer will criminate yourself.”

The witness looked wildly round the court, as if in search of counsel or sympathy; but encountering none but frowning and eager faces–Thorndyke she could not discern in the darkness–she became giddy and panic-stricken, and seemed to lose all presence of mind.

“He–he–he,” she at last gasped–“he mixed it. I do not know–But how,” she added, pushing back her hair, and pressing her hands against her hot temples, “can this be? What can it mean?”

A movement amongst the bystanders just at this moment attracted the notice of the judge, and he immediately exclaimed, “The defendant must not leave the court!” An officer placed himself beside the wretched murderer as well as forger, and I resumed the cross-examination of the witness.

“Now, Mrs. Tucker, please to look at this letter.” (It was that which had been addressed to Mary Woodley by her son.) “That, I believe, is your son’s handwriting?”

“Yes.”

“The body of this will has been written by the same hand. Now, woman, answer. Was it your son–this young man who, you perceive, if guilty, cannot escape from justice–was it he who forged the names of the deceased Mrs. Thorndyke, and of John Cummins attached to it?”

“Not he–not he!” shrieked the wretched woman. “It was Thorndyke–Thorndyke himself.” And then with a sudden revulsion of feeling, as the consequences of what she had uttered flashed upon her, she exclaimed, “Oh, Silas, what have I said?–what have I done?”

“Hanged me, that’s all, you accursed devil!” replied Thorndyke with gloomy ferocity. “But I deserve it for trusting in such an idiot: dolt and fool that I was for doing so.”

The woman sank down in strong convulsions, and was, by direction of the judge, carried out of the hall.

The anxious silence which pervaded the court during this scene, in which the reader will have observed I played a bold, tentative, and happily-successful game, was broken as the witness was borne off by a loud murmur of indignation, followed by congratulatory exclamations on the fortunate termination of the suit. The defendant’s counsel threw up their briefs, and a verdict was at once returned for the plaintiff.

All the inculpated parties were speedily in custody; and the body of Mrs. Thorndyke having been disinterred, it was discovered that she had been destroyed by bichloride of mercury, of which a considerable quantity was detected in the body. I was not present at the trial of Thorndyke and his accomplices–he for murder, and Headley for perjury–but I saw by the public prints that he was found guilty, and executed: Headley was transported: the woman was, if I remember rightly, admitted evidence for the crown.

Mary Woodley was of course put into immediate possession of her paternal inheritance; and is now–at least she was about four months ago, when I dined with her and her husband at Dale Farm–a comely, prosperous matron; and as happy as a woman with a numerous progeny and an easy-tempered partner can in this, according to romance writers, vale of grief and tears expect to be. The service I was fortunately enabled to render her forms one of the most pleasing recollections of my life.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

In the second year of my connection with the Northern Circuit, when even _junior_ briefs were much less numerous than acceptable, I was agreeably surprised, as I sat musing on the evening of my arrival in the ancient city of York upon the capricious mode in which those powerful personages the attorneys distributed their valuable favors, by the entrance of one of the most eminent of the race practising in that part of the country, and the forthwith tender of a bulky brief in the Crown Court, on which, as my glance instinctively fell on the interesting figures, I perceived that the large fee, in criminal cases, of fifty guineas was marked. The local newspapers, from which I had occasionally seen extracts, had been for some time busy with the case; and I knew it therefore to be, relatively to the condition in life of the principal person implicated, an important one. Rumor had assigned the conduct of the defence to an eminent leader on the circuit–since, one of our ablest judges; and on looking more closely at the brief, I perceived that that gentleman’s name had been crossed out, and mine substituted. The fee also–a much less agreeable alteration–had been, I saw, considerably reduced; in accordance, doubtless, with the attorney’s appreciation of the difference of value between a silk and a stuff gown.

“You are not, sir, I believe, retained for the prosecution in the crown against Everett?” said Mr. Sharpe in his brief, business manner.

“I am not, Mr. Sharpe.”

“In that case, I beg to tender you the leading-brief for the defence. It was intended, as you perceive, to place it in the hands of our great _nisi prius_ leader, but he will be so completely occupied in that court, that he has been compelled to decline it. He mentioned you; and from what I have myself seen of you in several cases, I have no doubt my unfortunate client will have ample justice done him. Mr. Kingston will be with you.”

I thanked Mr. Sharpe for his compliment, and accepted his brief. As the commission would be opened on the following morning, I at once applied myself to a perusal of the bulky paper, aided as I read by the verbal explanations and commentaries of Mr. Sharpe. Our conference lasted several hours; and it was arranged that another should be held early the next morning at Mr. Sharpe’s office, at which Mr. Kingston would assist.

Dark, intricate, compassed with fearful mystery, was the case so suddenly submitted to my guidance; and the few faint gleams of light derived from the attorney’s research, prescience, and sagacity, served but to render dimly visible a still profounder and blacker abyss of crime than that disclosed by the evidence for the crown. Young as I then was in the profession, no marvel that I felt oppressed by the weight of the responsibility cast upon me; or that, when wearied with thinking, and dizzy with profitless conjecture, I threw myself into bed, perplexing images and shapes of guilt and terror pursued me through my troubled sleep! Happily the next day was not that of trial; for I awoke with a throbbing pulse and burning brain, and should have been but poorly prepared for a struggle involving the issues of life and death. Extremely sensitive, as, under the circumstances, I must necessarily have been, to the arduous nature of the grave duties so unexpectedly devolved upon me; the following _resume_ of the chief incidents of the case, as confided to me by Mr. Sharpe, will, I think, fully account to the reader for the nervous irritability under which I for the moment, labored:–

Mr. Frederick Everett, the prisoner about to be arraigned before a jury of his countrymen for the frightful crime of murder, had, with his father, Captain Anthony Everett, resided for several years past at Woodlands Manor-House, the seat of Mrs. Eleanor Fitzhugh, a rich, elderly maiden lady, aunt to the first, and sister by marriage to the last-named gentleman. A generous, pious, high-minded person Mrs. Fitzhugh was represented to have been, but extremely sensitive withal on the score of “family.” The Fitzhughs of Yorkshire, she was wont to boast, “came in with the Conqueror;” and any branch of the glorious tree then firmly planted in the soil of England that degraded itself by an alliance with wealth, beauty, or worth, dwelling without the pale of her narrow prejudices, was inexorably cut off from her affections, and, as far as she was able, from her memory. One–the principal of these offenders–had been Mary Fitzhugh, her young, fair, gentle, and only sister. In utter disdain and slight of the dignity of ancestry, she had chosen to unite herself to a gentleman of the name of Mordaunt, who, though possessed of great talents, an unspotted name, and, for his age, high rank in the civil service of the East India Company, had–inexpiable misfortune–a trader for his grandfather! This crime against her “house” Mrs. Eleanor Fitzhugh resolved never to forgive; and she steadily returned, unopened, the frequent letters addressed to her by her sister, who pined in her distant Indian home for a renewal of the old sisterly love which had watched over and gladdened her life from infancy to womanhood. A long silence–a silence of many years–succeeded; broken at last by the sad announcement that the unforgiven one had long since found an early grave in a foreign land. The letter which brought the intelligence bore the London post-mark, and was written by Captain Everett; to whom, it was stated, Mrs. Eleanor Fitzhugh’s sister, early widowed, had been united in second nuptials, and by whom she had borne a son, Frederick Everett, now nearly twenty years of age. The long-pent-up affection of Mrs. Fitzhugh for her once idolized sister burst forth at this announcement of her death with uncontrollable violence; and, as some atonement for her past sinful obduracy, she immediately invited the husband and son of her long-lost Mary to Woodlands Manor-House, to be henceforth, she said, she hoped their home. Soon after their arrival, Mrs. Fitzhugh made a will–the family property was entirely at her disposal–revoking a former one, which bequeathed the whole of the real and personal property to a distant relative whom she had never seen, and by which all was devised to her nephew, who was immediately proclaimed sole heir to the Fitzhugh estates, yielding a yearly rental of at least L12,000. Nay, so thoroughly was she softened towards the memory of her deceased sister, that the will–of which, as I have stated, no secret was made–provided, in the event of Frederick dying childless, that the property should pass to his father, Mary Fitzhugh’s second husband.

No two persons could be more unlike than were the father and son–mentally, morally, physically. Frederick Everett was a fair-haired, blue-eyed young man, of amiable, caressing manners, gentle disposition, and ardent, poetic temperament. His father, on the contrary, was a dark-featured, cold, haughty, repulsive man, ever apparently wrapped up in selfish and moody reveries. Between him and his son there appeared to exist but little of cordial intercourse, although the highly-sensitive and religious tone of mind of Frederick Everett caused him to treat his parent with unvarying deference and respect.

The poetic temperament of Frederick Everett brought him at last, as poetic temperaments are apt to do, into trouble. Youth, beauty, innocence, and grace, united in the person of Lucy Carrington–the only child of Mr. Stephen Carrington, a respectable retired merchant of moderate means, residing within a few miles of Woodlands Manor-House–crossed his path; and spite of his shield of many quarterings, he was vanquished in an instant, and almost without resistance. The at least tacit consent and approval of Mr. Carrington and his fair daughter secured, Mr. Everett, junior–hasty, headstrong lover that he was–immediately disclosed his matrimonial projects to his father and aunt. Captain Everett received the announcement with a sarcastic smile, coldly remarking, that if Mrs. Fitzhugh was satisfied, he had no objection to offer. But, alas! no sooner did her nephew, with much periphrastic eloquence, in part his passion for the daughter of a _mere_ merchant to his aunt, than a vehement torrent of indignant rebuke broke from her lips. She would die rather than consent to so degrading a _mesalliance_; and should he persist in yielding to such gross infatuation, she would not only disinherit, but banish him her house, and cast him forth a beggar on the world. Language like this, one can easily understand, provoked language from the indignant young man which in less heated moments he would have disdained to utter; and the aunt and nephew parted in fierce anger, and after mutual denunciation of each other–he as a disobedient ingrate, she as an imperious, ungenerous tyrant. The quarrel was with some difficulty patched up by Captain Everett; and with the exception of the change which took place in the disappointed lover’s demeanor–from light-hearted gaiety to gloom and sullenness–things, after a few days, went on pretty nearly as before.

The sudden rupture of the hopes Mrs. Eleanor Fitzhugh had reposed in her nephew as the restorer of the glories of her ancient “house,” tarnished by Mary Fitzhugh’s marriage, affected dangerously, it soon appeared, that lady’s already failing health. A fortnight after the quarrel with her nephew, she became alarmingly ill. Unusual and baffling symptoms showed themselves; and after suffering during eight days from alternate acute pain, and heavy, unconquerable drowsiness, she expired in her nephew’s arms. This sudden and fatal illness of his relative appeared to reawaken all Frederick Everett’s tenderness and affection for her. He was incessant in his close attendance in the sick-chamber, permitting no one else to administer to his aunt either aliment or medicine. On this latter point, indeed, he insisted, with strange fierceness, taking the medicine with his own hand from the man who brought it; and after administering the prescribed quantity, carefully locking up the remainder in a cabinet in his bed-room.

On the morning of the day that Mrs. Fitzhugh died, her ordinary medical attendant, Mr. Smith, terrified and perplexed by the urgency of the symptoms exhibited by his patient, called in the aid of a locally-eminent physician, Dr. Archer, or Archford–the name is not very distinctly written in my memoranda of these occurrences; but we will call him Archer–who at once changed the treatment till then pursued, and ordered powerful emetics to be administered, without, however, as we have seen, producing any saving or sensible effect. The grief of Frederick Everett, when all hope was over, was unbounded. He threw himself, in a paroxysm of remorse or frenzy, upon the bed, accusing himself of having murdered her, with other strange and incoherent expressions, upon which an intimation soon afterwards made by Dr. Archer threw startling light. That gentleman, conjointly with Mr. Smith, requested an immediate interview with Captain Everett, and Mr. Hardyman, the deceased lady’s land-steward and solicitor, who happened to be in the house at the time. The request was of course complied with, and Dr. Archer at once bluntly stated that, in his opinion, _poison_ had been administered to the deceased lady, though of what precise kind he was somewhat at a loss to conjecture–opium essentially, he thought, though certainly not in any of its ordinary preparations–one of the alkaloids probably which chemical science had recently discovered. Be this as it may, a _post-mortem_ examination of the body would clear up all doubts, and should take place as speedily as possible. Captain Everett at once acceded to Dr. Archer’s proposal, at the same time observing that he was quite sure the result would entirely disprove that gentleman’s assumption. Mr. Hardyman also fully concurred in the necessity of a rigid investigation; and the _post-mortem_ examination should, it was arranged, take place early on the following morning.

“I have another and very painful duty to perform,” continued Dr. Archer, addressing Captain Everett. “I find that your son, Mr. Frederick Everett, alone administered medicine and aliment to Mrs. Fitzhugh during her illness. Strange, possibly wholly frenzied expressions, but which sounded vastly like cries of remorse, irrepressible by a person unused to crime, escaped him in my hearing just after the close of the final scene; and–But perhaps, Captain Everett, you had better retire: this is scarcely a subject”–

“Go on, sir,” said the captain, over whose countenance a strange expression–to use Dr. Archer’s own words–had _flashed_; “go on: I am better now.”

“We all know,” resumed Dr. Archer, “how greatly Mr. Frederick Everett gains in wealth by his aunt’s death; and that her decease, moreover, will enable him to conclude the marriage to which she was so determinedly opposed. I think, therefore, that, under all the circumstances, we shall be fully justified in placing the young gentleman under such–I will not say custody, but _surveillance_ as will prevent him either from leaving the house, should he imagine himself suspected, or of destroying any evidence which may possibly exist of his guilt, if indeed he be guilty.”

“I entirely agree with you, Dr. Archer,” exclaimed Mr. Hardyman, who had listened with much excitement to the doctor’s narrative; “and will, upon my own responsibility, take the necessary steps for effecting the object you have in view.”

“Gentlemen,” said Captain Everett, rising from his chair, “you will of course do your duty; but I can take no part, nor offer any counsel, in such a case; I must leave you to your own devices.” He then left the apartment.

He had been gone but a few minutes, when Frederick Everett, still in a state of terrible excitement, entered the room, strode fiercely up to Dr. Archer, and demanded how he dared propose, as the butler had just informed him he had done, a dissection of his aunt’s body.

“I will not permit it,” continued the agitated young man: “I am master here, and I say it shall not be done. What new horror would you evoke? Is it not enough that one of the kindest, best of God’s creatures, has perished, but _another_ sacrifice must–What do I say? Enough that I will not permit it. I have seen similar cases-very similar cases in–in India!”

The gentleman so strangely addressed had exchanged significant glances during the delivery of this incoherent speech; and, quite confirmed in their previous impression, Mr. Hardyman, as their spokesman, interrupted the speaker, to inform him that _he_ was the suspected assassin of his aunt! The accusing sentences had hardly passed the solicitor’s lips, when the furious young man sprang towards him with the bound of a tiger, and at one blow prostrated him on the floor. He was immediately seized by the two medical gentlemen, and help having been summoned, he was with much difficulty secured, and placed in strict confinement, to await the result of the next day’s inquiry.

The examination of the body disclosed the terrible fact, that the deceased lady had perished by _acetate of morphine_; thus verifying the sagacious guess of Dr. Archer. A minute search was immediately made throughout Mr. Frederick Everett’s apartments, and behind one of the drawers of a cabinet in his bedroom–at the back of the shelf or partition upon which the drawer rested, and of course completely hidden by the drawer itself when in its place–was found a flat tin flask, fluted on the outside, and closed with a screw stopper: it was loosely enveloped in a sheet of brown paper, directed “–Everett, Esq., Woodlands Manor-House, Yorkshire;” and upon close examination, a small quantity of white powder, which proved to be _acetate of morphine_, was found in the flask. Suspicion of young Everett’s guilt now became conviction; and, as if to confirm beyond all doubt the soundness of the chain of circumstantial evidence in which he was immeshed, the butler, John Darby, an aged and trusty servant of the late Mrs. Fitzhugh, made on the next day the following deposition before the magistrates:–

“He had taken in, two days before his late mistress was seized with her fatal illness, a small brown paper parcel which had been brought by coach from London, and for which 2s. 10d carriage was charged and paid. The paper found in Mr. Frederick Everett’s cabinet was, he could positively swear, from the date and figures marked on it, and the handwriting, the paper wrapper of that parcel. He had given it to young Mr. Everett, who happened to be in the library at the time. About five minutes afterwards, he had occasion to return to the library, to inform him that some fishing-tackle he had ordered was sent home. The door was ajar; and Mr. Frederick did not at first perceive his entrance, as he was standing with his back to the door. The paper parcel he, the butler, had just before delivered was lying open on the table, and Mr. Everett held in one hand a flat tin flask–the witness had no doubt the same found in the cabinet–and in the other a note, which he was reading. He, the witness, coughed, to attract Mr. Everett’s attention, who hurriedly turned round, clapped down the flask and the note, shuffling them under the paper wrapper, as if to conceal them, and then, in a very confused manner, and his face as red as flame, asked witness what he wanted there? Witness thought this behavior very strange at the time; but the incident soon passed from his mind, and he had thought no more of it till the finding of the paper and flask as described by the other witnesses.”

Mr. Frederick Everett, who had manifested the strangest impassability, a calmness as of despair, throughout the inquiry, which perplexed and disheartened Mr. Sharpe, whose services had been retained by Captain Everett, allowed even this mischievous evidence to pass without a word of comment or explanation; and he was, as a matter of course, fully committed for the wilful murder of his relative. The chain of circumstantial evidence, motive included, was, it was felt, complete–not a link was wanting.

These were the chief incidents disclosed to me by Mr. Sharpe during our long and painful consultation. Of the precise nature of the terrible suspicions which haunted and disturbed me, I shall only in this place say that neither Mr. Sharpe, nor, consequently, myself, would in all probability have guessed or glanced at them, but for the persistent assertions of Miss Carrington, that her lover was madly sacrificing himself from some chimerical motive of honor or duty.

“You do not know, Mr. Sharpe, as I do,” she would frequently exclaim with tearful vehemence, “the generous, child-like simplicity, the chivalric enthusiasm, of his character, his utter abnegation of self, and readiness on all occasions to sacrifice his own ease, his own wishes, to forward the happiness of others; and, above all, his fantastic notions of honor–duty, if you will–which would, I feel assured, prompt him to incur any peril, death itself, to shield from danger any one who had claims upon him either of blood or of affection. You know to whom my suspicions point; and how dreadful to think that one so young, so brave, so pious, and so true, should be sacrificed for such a monster as I believe that man to be!”

To all these passionate expostulations the attorney could only reply that vague suspicions were not judicial proofs; and that if Mr. Frederick Everett would persist in his obstinate reserve, a fatal result was inevitable. But Mr. Sharpe readily consented to gratify the wishes of Mr. Carrington and his daughter on one point: he returned the money, not a very large sum, which Captain Everett had sent him, and agreed that Mr. Carrington should supply the funds necessary for the defence of the prisoner.

Our consultation the next day at Mr. Sharpe’s was a sad and hopeless one. Nowhere did a gleam of cheerful light break in. The case was overwhelmingly complete against the prisoner. The vague suspicions we entertained pointed to a crime so monstrous, so incredible, that we felt it could not be so much as hinted at upon such, legally considered, slight grounds. The prisoner was said to be an eloquent speaker, and I undertook to draw up the outline of a defence, impugning, with all the dialectic skill I was master of, the conclusiveness of the evidence for the crown. To this, and a host of testimony to character which we proposed to call, rested our faint hopes of “a good deliverance!”

Business was over, and we were taking a glass of wine with Mr. Sharpe, when his chief clerk entered to say that Sergeant Edwards, an old soldier–who had spoken to them some time before relative to a large claim which he asserted he had against Captain Everett, arising out of a legacy bequeathed to him in India, and the best mode of assuring its payment by an annuity, as proposed by the captain–had now called to say that the terms were at last finally arranged, and that he wished to know when Mr. Sharpe would be at leisure to draw up the bond. “He need not fear for his money!” exclaimed Sharpe tartly, “the captain will, I fear, be rich enough before another week has passed over our heads. Tell him to call to-morrow evening; I will see him after I return from court.” A few minutes afterwards, I and Mr. Kingston took our leave.

The Crown Court was thronged to suffocation on the following morning, and the excitement of the auditory appeared to be of the intensest kind. Miss Carrington, closely veiled, sat beside her father on one of the side-benches. A true bill against the prisoner had been found on the previous afternoon; and the trial, it had been arranged, to suit the convenience of counsel, should be first proceeded with. The court was presided over by Mr. Justice Grose; and Mr. Gurney–afterwards Mr. Baron Gurney–with another gentleman appeared for the prosecution. As soon as the judge had taken his seat, the prisoner was ordered to be brought in, and a hush of expectation pervaded the assembly. In a few minutes he made his appearance in the dock. His aspect–calm, mournful, and full of patient resignation–spoke strongly to the feelings of the audience, and a low murmur of sympathy ran through the court. He bowed respectfully to the bench, and then his sad, proud eye wandered round the auditory, till it rested on the form of Lucy Carrington, who, overcome by sudden emotion, had hidden her weeping face in her father’s bosom. Strong feeling, which he with difficulty mastered, shook his frame, and blanched to a still deeper pallor his fine intellectual countenance. He slowly withdrew his gaze from the agitating spectacle, and his troubled glance meeting that of Mr. Sharpe, seemed to ask why proceedings, which _could_ only have one termination, were delayed. He had not long to wait. The jury were sworn, and Mr. Gurney rose to address them for the crown. Clear, terse, logical, powerful without the slightest pretence to what is called eloquence, his speech produced a tremendous impression upon all who heard it; and few persons mentally withheld their assent to his assertion, as he concluded what was evidently a painful task, “that should he produce evidence substantiating the statement he had made, the man who could then refuse to believe in the prisoner’s guilt, would equally refuse credence to actions witnessed by his own bodily eyes.”

The different witnesses were then called, and testified to the various facts I have before related. Vainly did Mr. Kingston and I exert ourselves to invalidate the irresistible proofs of guilt so dispassionately detailed. “It is useless,” whispered Mr. Sharpe, as I sat down after the cross-examination of the aged butler. “You have done all that could be done; but he is a doomed man, spite of his innocence, of which I feel, every moment that I look at him, the more and more convinced. God help us; we are poor, fallible creatures, with all our scientific machinery for getting at truth!”

The case for the crown was over, and the prisoner was told that now was the time for him to address the jury in answer to the charge preferred against him. He bowed courteously to the intimation, and drawing a paper from his pocket, spoke, after a few preliminary words of course, nearly as follows:–

“I hold in my hand a very acute and eloquent address prepared for me by one of the able and zealous gentlemen who appears to-day as my counsel, and which, but for the iniquitous law which prohibits the advocate of a presumed felon, but possibly quite innocent person, from addressing the jury, upon whose verdict his client’s fate depends, would no doubt have formed the subject-matter of an appeal to you not to yield credence to the apparently irrefragable testimony arrayed against me. The substance of this defence you must have gathered from the tenor of the cross-examinations; but so little effect did it produce, I saw, in that form, however ably done, and so satisfied am I that though it were rendered with an angel’s eloquence, it would prove utterly impotent to shake the strong conclusions of my guilt, which you, short-sighted, fallible mortals–short-sighted and fallible _because_ mortal!–I mean no disrespect–must have drawn from the body of evidence you have heard, that I will not weary you or myself by reading it. I will only observe that it points especially to the _over_-roof, so to speak, arrayed against me–to the folly of supposing that an intentional murderer would ostentatiously persist in administering the fatal potion to the victim with his own hands, carefully excluding all others from a chance of incurring suspicion. There are other points, but this is by far the most powerful one; and as I cannot believe _that_ will induce you to return a verdict rescuing me from what the foolish world, judging from appearances, will call a shameful death, but which I, knowing my own heart, feel to be sanctified by the highest motives which can influence man–it would be merely waste of time to repeat them. From the first moment, gentlemen, that this accusation was preferred against me, I felt that I had done with this world; and, young as I am, but for one beloved being whose presence lighted up and irradiated this else cold and barren earth, I should, with little reluctance, have accepted this gift of an apparently severe, but perhaps merciful fate. This life, gentlemen,” he continued after a short pause, “it has been well said, is but a battle and a march. I have been struck down early in the combat; but of what moment is that, if it be found by Him who witnesses the world-unnoticed deeds of _all_ his soldiers, that I have earned the victor’s crown? Let it be your consolation, gentlemen, if hereafter you should discover that you have sent me to an undeserved death, that you at least will not have hurried a soul spotted with the awful crime of murder before its Maker. And oh,” he exclaimed in conclusion, with solemn earnestness, “may _all_ who have the guilt of blood upon them hasten, whilst life is still granted them, to cleanse themselves by repentance of that foul sin, so that not only the sacrifice of one poor life, but that most holy and tremendous one offered in the world’s consummate hour, may not for them have been made in vain! My lord and gentlemen, I have no more to say. You will doubtless do your duty: I _have_ done mine.”

I was about, a few minutes after the conclusion of this strange and unexpected address, to call our witnesses to character, when, to the surprise of the whole court, and the consternation of the prisoner, Miss Carrington started up, threw aside her veil, and addressing the judge, demanded to be heard.

Queenly, graceful, and of touching loveliness did she look in her vehemence of sorrow–radiant as sunlight in her days of joy she must have been–as she stood up, affection-prompted, regardless of self, of the world, to make one last effort to save her affianced husband.

“What would you say, young lady?” said Mr. Justice Grose, kindly. “If you have anything to testify in favor of the prisoner, you had better communicate with his counsel.”

“Not that–not that,” she hurriedly replied, as if fearful that her strength would fail before she had enunciated her purpose. “Put, my lord, put Frederick–the prisoner, I mean–on his oath. Bid him declare, as he shall answer at the bar of Almighty God, who is the murderer for whom he is about to madly sacrifice himself, and you will then find”–

“Your request is an absurd one,” interrupted the judge with some asperity. “I have no power to question a prisoner.”

“Then,” shrieked the unfortunate lady, sinking back fainting and helpless in her father’s arms, “he is lost–lost!”

She was immediately carried out of court; and as soon as the sensation caused by so extraordinary and painful an incident had subsided, the trial proceeded. A cloud of witnesses to character were called; the judge summed up; the jury deliberated for a few minutes; and a verdict of “guilty” was returned. Sentence to die on the day after the next followed, and all was over!

Yes; all was, we deemed, over; but happily a decree, reversing that of Mr. Justice Grose, had gone forth in Heaven. I was sitting at home about an hour after the court had closed, painfully musing on the events of the day, when the door of the apartment suddenly flew open, and in rushed Mr. Sharpe in a state of great excitement, accompanied by Sergeant Edwards, whom the reader will remember had called the previous day at that gentleman’s house. In a few minutes I was in possession of the following important information, elicited by Mr. Sharpe from the half-willing, half-reluctant sergeant, whom he had found waiting for him at his office:–

In the first place, Captain Everett was _not_ the father of the prisoner! The young man was the son of Mary Fitzhugh by her _first_ marriage; and his name, consequently, was Mordaunt, not Everett. His mother had survived her second marriage barely six months. Everett, calculating doubtless upon the great pecuniary advantages which would be likely to result to himself as the reputed father of the heir to a splendid English estate, should the quarrel with Mrs. Eleanor Fitzhugh–as he nothing doubted–be ultimately made up, had brought his deceased wife’s infant son up as his own. This was the secret of Edwards and his wife; and to purchase their silence, Captain Everett had agreed to give the bond for an annuity which Mr. Sharpe was to draw up. The story of the legacy was a mere pretence. When Edwards was in Yorkshire before, Everett pacified him for the time with a sum of money, and a promise to do more for him as soon as his reputed son came into the property. He then hurried the _cidevant_ sergeant back to London; and at the last interview he had with him, gave him a note addressed to a person living in one of the streets–I forget which–leading out of the Haymarket, together with a five-pound note, which he was to pay the person to whom the letter was addressed for some very rare and valuable powder, which the captain wanted for scientific purposes, and which Edwards was to forward by coach to Woodlands Manor-House. Edwards obeyed his instructions, and delivered the message to the queer bushy-bearded foreigner to whom it was addressed, who told him that, if he brought him the sum of money mentioned in the note on the following day, he should have the article required. He also bade him bring a well-stoppered bottle to put it in. As the bottle was to be sent by coach, Edwards purchased a tin flask, as affording a better security against breakage; and having obtained the powder, packed it nicely up, and told his niece, who was staying with him at the time, to direct it, as he was in a hurry to go out, to Squire Everett, Woodlands Manor-House, Yorkshire, and then take it to the booking-office. He thought, of course, though he said _Squire_ in a jocular way, that she would have directed it _Captain_ Everett, as she knew him well; but it seemed she had not. Edwards had returned to Yorkshire only two days since, to get his annuity settled, and fortunately was present in court at the trial of Frederick Mordaunt, _alias_ Everett, and at once recognized the tin flask as the one he had purchased and forwarded to Woodlands, where it must in due course have arrived on the day stated by the butler. Terrified and bewildered at the consequences of what he had done, or helped to do, Edwards hastened to Mr. Sharpe, who, by dint of exhortations, threats, and promises, judiciously blended, induced him to make a clean breast of it.

As much astounded as elated by this unlooked-for information, it was some minutes before I could sufficiently concentrate my thoughts upon the proper course to be pursued. I was not, however, long in deciding. Leaving Mr. Sharpe to draw up an affidavit of the facts disclosed, I hastened off to the jail, in order to obtain a thorough elucidation of all the mysteries.

The revulsion of feeling in the prisoner’s mind when he learned that the man for whom he had so recklessly sacrificed himself was not only _not_ his father, but a cold-blooded villain, who, according to the testimony of Sergeant Edwards, had embittered, perhaps shortened, his mother’s last hours, was immediate and excessive. “I should have taken Lucy’s advice!” he bitterly exclaimed, as he strode to and fro in his cell; “have told the truth at all hazards, and have left the rest to God.” His explanation of the incidents that had so puzzled us all, was as simple as satisfactory. He had always, from his earliest days, stood much in awe of his father, who in the, to young Mordaunt, sacred character of parent, exercised an irresistible control over him; and when the butler entered the library, he believed for an instant it was his father who had surprised him in the act of reading his correspondence; an act which, however unintentional, would, he knew, excite Captain Everett’s fiercest wrath. Hence arose the dismay and confusion which the butler had described. He re-sealed the parcel, and placed it in his reputed father’s dressing-room; and thought little more of the matter, till, on entering his aunt’s bedroom on the first evening of her illness, he beheld Everett pour a small portion of white powder from the tin flask into the bottle containing his aunt’s medicine. The terrible truth at once flashed upon him. A fierce altercation immediately ensued in the father’s dressing-room, whither Frederick followed him. Everett persisted that the powder was a celebrated Eastern medicament, which would save, if anything could, his aunt’s life. The young man was not of course deceived by this shallow falsehood, and from that moment administered the medicine to the patient with his own hands, and kept the bottles which contained it locked up in his cabinet. “On the very morning of my aunt’s death, I surprised him shutting and locking one of my cabinet drawers. So dumbfounded was I with horror and dismay at the sight, that he left the room by a side-door without observing me. You have now the key to my conduct. I loathed to look upon the murderer; but I would have died a thousand deaths rather than attempt to save my own life by the sacrifice of a father’s–how guilty soever he might be.”

Furnished with this explanation, and the affidavit of Edwards, I waited upon the judge, and obtained not only a respite for the prisoner, but a warrant for the arrest of Captain Everett.

It was a busy evening. Edwards was despatched to London in the friendly custody of an intelligent officer, to secure the person of the foreign-looking vender of subtle poisons; and Mr. Sharpe, with two constables, set off in a postchaise for Woodlands Manor-House. It was late when they arrived there, and the servants informed them that Captain Everett had already retired. They of course insisted upon seeing him; and he presently appeared, wrapped in a dressing-gown, and haughtily demanded their business with him at such an hour. The answer smote him as with a thunderbolt, and he staggered backwards, till arrested by the wall of the apartment, and then sank feebly, nervelessly, into a chair. Eagerly, after a pause, he questioned the intruders upon the nature of the evidence against him. Mr. Sharpe briefly replied that Edwards was in custody, and had revealed everything.

“Is it indeed so?” rejoined Everett, seeming to derive resolution and fortitude from the very extremity of despair. “Then the game is unquestionably lost. It was, however, boldly and skilfully played, and I am not a man to whimper over a fatal turn of the dice. In a few minutes, gentlemen,” he added, “I shall have changed my dress, and be ready to accompany you.”

“We cannot lose sight of you for an instant,” replied Mr. Sharpe. “One of the officers must accompany you.”

“Be it so: I shall not detain either him or you long.”

Captain Everett, followed by the officer, passed into his dressing-room. He pulled off his gown; and pointing to a coat suspended on a peg at the further extremity of the apartment, requested the constable to reach it for him. The man hastened to comply with his wish. Swiftly, Everett opened a dressing-case which stood on a table near him: the officer heard the sharp clicking of a pistol-lock, and turned swiftly round. Too late! A loud report rang through the house; the room was filled with smoke; and the wretched assassin and suicide lay extended on the floor a mangled corpse!

It would be useless minutely to recapitulate, the final winding-up of this eventful drama. Suffice it to record, that Mr. Frederick Mordaunt was, after a slight delay, restored to freedom and a splendid position in society. After the lapse of a decent interval, he espoused Lucy Carrington. Their eldest son represents in this present parliament one of the English boroughs, and is by no means an undistinguished member of the Commons House.

“THE ACCOMMODATION BILL.”

Such of the incidents of the following narrative as did not fall within my own personal observation, were communicated to me by the late Mr. Ralph Symonds, and the dying confessions of James Hornby, one of the persons killed by the falling in of the iron roof of the Brunswick Theatre. A conversation the other day with a son of Mr. Symonds, who has been long settled in London, recalled the entire chain of circumstances to my memory with all the vivid distinctness of a first impression.

One evening towards the close of the year 1806, the Leeds coach brought Mr. James Hornby to the village of Pool, on the Wharf, in the West-Riding of Yorkshire. A small but respectable house on the confines of the place had been prepared for his reception, and a few minutes after his descent from the top of the coach, the pale, withered-looking man disappeared within it. Except for occasional trips to Otley, a small market-town distant about three miles from Pool, he rarely afterwards emerged from its seclusion. It was not _Time_, we shall presently see–he was indeed but four-and-forty years of age–that had bowed his figure, thinned his whitening hair, and banished from his countenance all signs of healthy, cheerful life. This, too, appeared to be the opinion of the gossips of the village, who, congregated, as usual, to witness the arrival and departure of the coach, indulged, thought Mr. Symonds, who was an inside passenger proceeding on to Otley, in remarkably free-and-easy commentaries upon the past, present, and future of the new-comer.

“I mind him well,” quavered an old white-haired man. “It’s just three-and-twenty years ago last Michaelmas. I remember it because of the hard frost two years before, that young Jim Hornby left Otley to go to Lunnon: just the place, I’m told, to give the finishing polish to such a miscreant as he seemed likely to be. He was just out of his time to old Hornby, his uncle, the grocer.”

“He that’s left him such heaps of money?”

“Ay, boy, the very same, though he wouldn’t have given him or any one else a cheese-paring whilst he lived. This one is a true chip of the old block, I’ll warrant. You noticed that he rode outside, bitter cold as it is?”.

“Surely, Gaffer Hicks. But do ye mind what it was he went off in such a skurry for? Tom Harris was saying last night at the Horse-Shoe, it was something concerning a horse-race or a young woman; he warn’t quite sensible which.”

“I can’t say,” rejoined the more ancient oracle, “that I quite mind all the ups and downs of it. Henry Burton horse-whipped him on the Doncaster race-course, _that_ I know; but whether it was about Cinderella that had, they said, been tampered with the night before the race, or Miss Elizabeth Grainsford, whom Burton married a few weeks afterwards, I can’t, as Tom Harris says, quite clearly remember.”

“Old Hornby had a heavy grip of Burton’s farm for a long time before he died, they were saying yesterday at Otley. The sheepskins will now no doubt be in the nephew’s strong box.”

“True, lad; and let’s hope Master Burton will be regular with his payments; for if not, there’s Jail and Ruin for him written in capital letters on yon fellow’s cast-iron phiz, I can see.”

The random hits of these Pool gossips, which were here interrupted by the departure of the coach, were not very wide of the mark. James Hornby, it was quite true, had been publicly horsewhipped twenty-three years before by Henry Burton on the Doncaster race-course, ostensibly on account of the sudden withdrawal of a horse that should have started, a transaction with which young Hornby was in some measure mixed up; but especially and really for having dared, upon the strength of presumptive heirship to his uncle’s wealth, to advance pretensions to the fair hand of Elizabeth Gainsford, the eldest daughter of Mr. Robert Gainsford, surgeon, of Otley–pretensions indirectly favored, it was said, by the father, but contemptuously repudiated by the lady. Be this as it may, three weeks after the races, Elizabeth Gainsford became Mrs. Burton, and James Hornby hurried off to London, grudgingly furnished for the journey by his uncle. He obtained a situation as shopman in one of the large grocer establishments of the metropolis; and twenty-three years afterwards, the attorney’s letter, informing him that he had succeeded to all his deceased uncle’s property, found him in the same place, and in the same capacity.

A perfect yell of delight broke from the lips of the taciturn man as his glance devoured the welcome intelligence. “At last!” he shouted with maniacal glee; and fiercely crumpling the letter in his hand, as if he held a living foe in his grasp, whilst a flash of fiendish passion broke from the deep caverns of his sunken eyes–“at last I have thee on the hip! Ah, mine enemy!–it is the dead–the dead alone that never return to hurl back on the head of the wrong-doer the shame, the misery, the ruin he inflicted in his hour of triumph!” The violence of passions suddenly unreined after years of jealous curb and watchfulness for a moment overcame him, and he reeled as if fainting, into a chair. The fierce, stern nature of the man soon mastered the unwonted excitement, and in a few minutes he was cold, silent, impassable as ever. The letter which he despatched the same evening gave calm, business orders as to his uncle’s funeral, and other pressing matters upon which the attorney had demanded instructions, and concluded by intimating that he should be in Yorkshire before many days elapsed. He arrived, as we have seen, and took up his abode at one of the houses bequeathed to him in Pool, which happened to be unlet.

Yes, for more than twenty bitter years James Hornby had savagely brooded over the shame and wrong inflicted on him before the mocking eyes of a brutal crowd by Henry Burton. Ever as the day’s routine business closed, and he retired to the dull solitude of his chamber, the last mind-picture which faded on his waking sense was the scene on the crowded race-course, with all its exasperating accessories–the merciless exultation of the triumphant adversary–the jibes and laughter of his companions–the hootings of the mob–to be again repeated with fantastic exaggeration in the dreams which troubled and perplexed his broken sleep. No wonder that the demons of Revenge and Hate, by whom he was thus goaded, should have withered by their poisonous breath the healthful life which God had given–have blasted with premature old age a body rocker with curses to unblessed repose! It seemed, by his after-confessions, that he had really loved Elizabeth Gainsford with all the energy of his violent, moody nature, and that her image, fresh, lustrous, radiant, as in the dawn of life, unceasingly haunted his imagination with visions of tenderness and beauty, lost to him, as he believed, through the wiles, the calumnies, and violence of his detested, successful rival.

The matronly person who, a few days after the Christmas following Hornby’s arrival at Pool, was conversing with her husband in the parlor of Grange farmhouse, scarcely realized the air-drawn image which dwelt in the memory of the unforgiving, unforgetting man. Mrs. Burton was at this time a comely dame, whose _embonpoint_ contour, however indicative of florid health and serenity of temper, exhibited little of the airy elegance and grace said to have distinguished the girlhood of Elizabeth Gainsford. Her soft brown eyes were gentle and kind as ever, but the brilliant lights of youth no longer sparkled in their quiet depths, and time had not only “thinned her flowing hair”–necessitating caps–but had brushed the roses from her cheeks, and swept away, with his searing hand, the pale lilies from the furtive coverts whence they had glanced in tremulous beauty, in life’s sweet prime; yet for all that, and a great deal more, Mrs. Burton, I have no manner of doubt, looked charmingly in the bright fire-blaze which gleamed in chequered light and shade upon the walls, pictures, curtains of the room, and the green leaves and scarlet berries of the Christmas holly with which it was profusely decorated. Three of her children–the eldest, Elizabeth, a resuscitation of her own youth–were by her side, and opposite sat her husband, whose frank, hearty countenance seemed to sparkle with careless mirth.

“Hornby will be here presently, Elizabeth,” said he. “What a disappointment awaits the rascally curmudgeon! His uncle was a prince compared to him.”

“Disappointment, Henry! to receive four hundred pounds he did not expect?”

“Ay, truly, dame. Lawyer Symonds’ son Frank, a fine, good-hearted young fellow as ever stepped in shoe-leather–Lizzy, girl, if that candle were nearer your face it would light without a match”–

“Nonsense, father!”

“Very likely. Frank Symonds, I was saying, believes, and so does his father, that Hornby would rejoice at an opportunity of returning with interest the smart score I marked upon his back three-and-twenty years ago”

“It was a thoughtless, cruel act, Henry,” rejoined his wife, “and the less said of it the better. I hope the fright we have had will induce you to practice a better economy than heretofore; so that, instead of allowing two years’ interest to accumulate upon us, we may gradually reduce the mortgage.”

“That we will, dear, depend upon it. We shall be pushed a little at first: Kirkshaw, who lent me the two hundred and fifty, can only spare it for a month; but no doubt the bank will do a bill for part of it by that time. But sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Here is the money for Hornby at all events: and here at last comes the shrivelled atomy; I hear his horse. Fanny, light the candles.”

If Mrs. Burton had consciously or unconsciously entertained the self-flattering notion that the still unwedded bachelor who had unsuccessfully wooed her nearly a quarter of a century before, still retained a feeling of regretful tenderness for her, she must have been grievously surprised by the cold, unrecognizing glance which Hornby threw on her as he entered, and curtly replied to her civil greeting. _That_ was not the image stamped upon his heart and brain! But when her eldest daughter approached the lights to place paper and pens upon the table, the flashing glance and white quivering lip of the grave visitor revealed the tempest of emotion which for an instant shook him. He quickly suppressed all outward manifestation of feeling, and in a dry, business tone, demanded if Mr. Burton was ready to pay the interest of the mortgage.

“Yes, thank God,” replied Burton, “I am: here is the money in notes of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. Count them!”

Hornby bent down over the notes, shading his face with his hand, as if more accurately to examine them, and the glance of baffled rage which swept across his features was not observed.

“They are quite right,” he said, rising from his chair; “and here is your receipt.”

“Very Good! And now, Hornby, let us have a glass of wine together for the sake of old times. Well, well; you need not look so fierce about it. Let bygones be bygones, I say. Oh, if you _will_ go–go in God’s name! Good-night!”

“Good-night!”

“Baffled–foiled!” muttered Hornby as he rode homeward. “Where could he get the money? Borrowed it, doubtless, but of whom? Well, patience–patience! I shall grip thee yet, Henry Burton!” And the possessed man turned round in his saddle, and shook his clenched hand in the direction of the house he had quitted. He then steadily pursued his way, and soon regained his hermitage.

The month for which Burton had borrowed the two hundred and fifty pounds passed rapidly–as months always do to borrowers–and expedient after expedient for raising the money was tried in vain. This money must be repaid, Kirkshaw had emphatically told him, on the day stipulated. Burton applied to the bank at Leeds, with which he usually did business, to discount an acceptance, guaranteed by one or two persons whose names he mentioned. The answer was the usual civil refusal to accept the proffered security for repayment–“the bank was just then full of discounts.” Burton ventured, as a last resource, to call on Hornby with a request that, as the rapid advance in the market-value of land consequent on the high war-prices obtained for its produce, had greatly increased the worth of Grange Farm, he would add the required sum to the already-existing mortgage. He was met by a prompt refusal. Mr. Hornby intended to foreclose as speedily as possible the mortgages he already held, and invest his capital in more profitable securities. “Well, then–would he lend the amount at any interest he chose?”

“The usury laws,” replied Hornby, with his usual saturnine sneer, “would prevent my acceptance of your obliging offer, even if I had the present means, which I have not. My spare cash happens just now to be temporarily locked up.”

Burton, half-crazed with anxiety, went the following day to the Leeds bank with the proffer of a fresh name agreed to be lent him by its owner. Useless! “They did not know the party.” The applicant mused a few moments, and then said, “Would you discount the note of Mr. James Hornby of Pool?”

“Certainly; with a great deal of pleasure.” Burton hurried away; had his horse instantly saddled, and gallopped off to Pool. Hornby was at home.

“You hinted the other day,” said Burton, “that if you had not been short of present means you might have obliged me with the loan I required”

“Did I?”

“At least I so understood you. I am of course not ignorant, Mr. Hornby, that there is no good blood between us two; but I also know that you are fond of money, and that you are fully aware that I am quite safe for a few hundred pounds. I am come, therefore, to offer you ten pounds _bonus_ for your acceptance at one month for two hundred and fifty pounds.”

“What?” exclaimed Hornby with strange vehemence. “What”

Burton repeated his offer, and Hornby turned away towards the window without speaking.

When he again faced Burton, his countenance wore its usual color; but the expression of his eyes, the applicant afterwards remembered, was wild and exulting.

“Have you a bill stamp?”

“Yes.”

“Then draw the bill at once, and I will accept it.”

Burton did not require to be twice told. The bill was quickly drawn; Hornby took it to another table at the further end of the apartment, slowly wrote his name across it, folded, and returned it to Burton, who tendered the ten pounds he had offered, and a written acknowledgment that the bill had been drawn and accepted for his (Burton’s) accommodation.

“I don’t want your money, Henry Burton,” said Hornby, putting back the note and the memorandum. “I am not afraid of losing by this transaction. You do not know me yet.”

“A queer stick,” thought Burton, as he gained the street; “but Old Nick is seldom so black as he’s painted! He was a plaguy while, I thought, signing his name; but I wish I could sign mine to such good purpose.”

Burton laid the accepted bill, face downwards, on the bank counter, took a pen, indorsed, and passed it to the managing clerk. The gray-headed man glanced sharply at the signature, and then at Burton, “Why, surely this is not Mr. Hornby’s signature? It does not at all resemble it!”

“Not his signature!” exclaimed Burton; “what do you mean by that?”

“Reynolds, look here,” continued the clerk, addressing another of the bank _employes_. Reynolds looked, and his immediate glance of surprise and horror at Burton revealed the impression he had formed.

“Please to step this way, Mr. Burton, to a private apartment,” said the manager.

“No–no, I won’t,” stammered the unfortunate man, over whose mind a dreadful suspicion had glanced with the suddenness of lightning. “I will go back to Hornby;” and he made a desperate but vain effort to snatch the fatal instrument. Then, pale and staggering with a confused terror and bewilderment, he attempted to rush into the street. He was stopped, with the help of the bystanders, by one of the clerks, who had jumped over the counter for the purpose.

The messenger despatched by the bankers to Hornby returned with an answer that the alleged acceptance was a forgery. It was stated on the part of Mr. Hornby that Mr. Burton had indeed requested him to lend two hundred and fifty pounds, but he had refused. The frantic asseverations of poor Burton were of course disregarded, and he was conveyed to jail. An examination took place the next day before the magistrates, and the result was, that the prisoner was fully committed on the then capital charge for trial at the ensuing assize.

It were useless, as painful, to dwell upon the consternation and agony which fell upon the dwellers at Grange Farm when the terrible news reached them. A confident belief in the perfect innocence of the prisoner, participated by most persons who knew his character and that of Hornby, and that it would be triumphantly vindicated on the day of trial, which rapidly approached, alone enabled them to bear up against the blow, and to await with trembling hope the verdict of a jury.

It was at this crisis of the drama that I became an actor in it. I was retained for the defence by my long-known and esteemed friend Symonds, whose zeal for his client, stimulated by strong personal friendship, knew no bounds. The acceptance, he informed me, so little resembled Hornby’s handwriting, that if Burton had unfolded the bill when given back to him by the villain, he could hardly have failed to suspect the nature of the diabolical snare set for his life.

In those days, and until Mr., now Sir, Robert Peel’s amendment of the criminal law and practice of this country, the acceptor of a bill of exchange, on the principle that he was _interested_ in denying the genuineness of the signature, could not, according to the English law of evidence, be called, on the part of the prosecution, to prove the forgery; and of course, after what had taken place, we did not propose to call Hornby for the defence. The evidence for the crown consisted, therefore, on the day of trial, of the testimony of persons acquainted with Hornby’s signature, that the acceptance across the inculpated bill was not in his handwriting. Burton’s behavior at the bank, in endeavoring to repossess himself of the bill by violence, was of course detailed, and told heavily against him.

All the time this testimony was being given, Hornby sat on one of the front seats of the crowded court, exulting in the visible accomplishment of his Satanic device. We could see but little of his face, which, supported on his elbow, was partially concealed by a handkerchief he held in his hand; but I, who narrowly observed him, could occasionally discern flashes from under his pent brows–revealments of the fierce struggle which raged within.

The moment at last arrived for the prisoner, whose eyes had been for some time fixed on Hornby, to speak or read his defence, and a breathless silence pervaded the court.

Burton started at the summons, like a man unexpectedly recalled to a sense of an imperious, but for the moment forgotten, duty.

“James Hornby!” he suddenly cried with a voice which rang through the assembly like a trumpet, “stand up, and if you can face an innocent man”–

Hornby, surprised out of his self-possession, mechanically obeyed the strange order, sprang involuntarily to his feet, let fall the handkerchief that had partially concealed his features, and nervously confronted the prisoner.

“Look at me, I say,” continued Burton with increasing excitement; “and as you hope to escape the terrors of the last judgment, answer truly: did you not, with your own hand, and in my presence, sign that bill?”–

“This cannot be permitted,” interrupted the judge.

“If you do not speak,” proceeded the prisoner, heedless of the intimation from the bench; “or if you deny the truth, my life, as sure as there is a God in heaven, will be required at your hands. If, in consequence of your devilish plotting, these men consign me to a felon’s grave, I shall not be cold in it when you will be calling upon the mountains to fall and cover you from the vengeance of the Judge of heaven and earth! Speak, man–save me: save your own soul from mortal peril whilst there is yet time for mercy and repentance!”

Hornby’s expression of surprise and confusion had gradually changed during this appeal to its usual character of dogged impassibility. He turned calmly and appealingly towards the bench.

“You need not answer these wild adjurations, Mr. Hornby,” said the judge, as soon as he could make himself heard.

A smile curled the fellow’s lip as he bowed deferentially to his lordship, and he sat down without uttering a syllable.

“May the Lord, then, have mercy on my soul!” exclaimed the prisoner solemnly. Then glancing at the bench and jury-box, he added, “And you, my lord and gentlemen, work your will with my body as quickly as you may: I am a lost man!”

The calling of witnesses to character, the opening of the judge’s charge, pointing from its first sentence to a conviction, elicited no further manifestation of feeling from the prisoner: he was as calm as despair.

The judge had been speaking for perhaps ten minutes, when a bustle was heard at the hall, as if persons were striving to force their way into the body of the court in spite of the resistance of the officers.

“Who is that disturbing the court?” demanded the judge angrily.

“For the love of Heaven let me pass!” we heard uttered in passionate tones by a female voice. “I must and will see the judge!”

“Who can this be?” T inquired, addressing Mr. Symonds.

“I cannot conceive,” he replied; “surely not Mrs. Burton?”

I had kept my eye, as I spoke, upon Hornby, and noticed that he exhibited extraordinary emotion at the sound of the voice, to whomsoever it belonged, and was now endeavoring to force his way through the crowded and anxious auditory.

“My lord,” said I, “I have to request on the part of the prisoner that the person desirous of admittance may be heard.”

“What has she to say? Or if a material witness, why have you not called her at the proper time?” replied his lordship with some irritation.

“My lord, I do not even now know her name; but in a case involving the life of the prisoner, it is imperative that no chance be neglected”–

“Let the woman pass into the witness-box,” interrupted the judge.

The order brought before our eyes a pale, stunted woman, of about fifty years of age, whose excited and by no means unintellectual features, and hurried, earnest manner, seemed to betoken great and unusual feeling.

“As I’m alive, Hornby’s deformed housekeeper!” whispered Symonds. “This poor devil’s knot will be unraveled yet.”

The woman, whose countenance and demeanor, as she gave her evidence, exhibited a serious, almost solemn intelligence, deposed to the following effect:–

“Her name was Mary McGrath, and she was the daughter of Irish parents, but born and brought up in England. She had been Mr. Hornby’s housekeeper, and remembered well the 4th of February last, when Mr. Burton, the prisoner, called at the house. Witness was dusting in an apartment close to her master’s business-room, from which it was only separated by a thin wooden partition. The door was partly open, and she could see as well as hear what was going on without being seen herself. She heard the conversation between the prisoner and her master; heard Mr. Hornby agree to sign the paper–bill she ought to say–for two hundred and fifty pounds; saw him do it, and then deliver it folded up to Mr. Burton.”

A shout of execration burst from the auditory as these words were uttered, and every eye was turned to the spot where Hornby had been seated. He had disappeared during the previous confusion.

“Silence!” exclaimed the judge sternly. “Why, woman,” he added, “have you never spoken of this before?”

“Because, my lord,” replied the witness with downcast looks, and in a low, broken voice–“because I am a sinful, wicked creature. When my master, the day after Mr. Burton had been taken up, discovered that I knew his secret, he bribed me with money and great promises of more to silence. I had been nearly all my life, gentlemen, poor and miserable, almost an outcast, and the temptation was too strong for me. He mistrusted me, however–for my mind, he saw, was sore troubled–and he sent me off to London yesterday, to be out of the way till all was over. The coach stopped at Leeds, and, as it was heavy upon me, I thought, especially as it was the blessed Easter-time, that I would step to the chapel. His holy name be praised that I did! The scales seemed to fall from my eyes, and I saw clearer than I had before the terrible wickedness I was committing. I told all to the priest, and he has brought me here to make what amends I can for the sin and cruelty of which I have been guilty. There–there is all that is left of the wages of crime,” she added, throwing a purse of money on the floor of the court; and then bursting into a flood of tears, she exclaimed with passionate earnestness, “for which may the Almighty of his infinite mercy pardon and absolve me!”

“Amen!” responded the deep husky voice of the prisoner, snatched back, as it were, from the very verge of the grave to liberty and life. “Amen, with all my soul!”

The counsel for the crown, cross-examined the witness, but his efforts only brought out her evidence in, if possible, a still clearer and more trustworthy light. Not a thought of doubt was entertained by any person in the court, and the jury, with the alacrity of men relieved of a grievous burthen, and without troubling the judge to resume his interrupted charge, returned a verdict of acquittal.

The return of Burton to his home figured as an ovation in the Pool and Otley annals. The greetings which met him on all sides were boisterous and hearty, as English greetings usually are; and it was with some difficulty the rustic constabulary could muster a sufficient force to save Hornby’s domicile from sack and destruction. All the windows were, however, smashed, and that the mob felt was something at all events.

Burton profited by the painful ordeal to which he had, primarily through his own thoughtlessness, been exposed, and came in a few years to be regarded as one of the most prosperous yeomen-farmers of Yorkshire. Mr. Frank Symonds’ union with Elizabeth Burton was in due time solemnized; Mr. Wilberforce, the then popular member for the West Riding, I remember hearing, stood sponsor to their eldest born; and Mary McGrath passed the remainder of her life in the service of the family her testimony had saved from disgrace and ruin.

Mr. James Hornby disappeared from Yorkshire immediately after the trial, and, except through his business agents, was not again heard of till the catastrophe at the Brunswick Theatre, where he perished. He died penitent, after expressing to Mr. Frank Symonds, for whom he had sent, his deep sorrow for the evil deed he had planned, and, but for a merciful interposition, would have accomplished. As a proof of the sincerity of his repentance, he bequeathed the bulk of his property to Mrs. Symonds, the daughter of the man he had pursued with such savage and relentless hate!

THE REFUGEE.

The events which I am about to relate occurred towards the close of the last century, some time before I was called to the bar, and do not therefore in strictness fall within my own experiences as a barrister. Still, as they came to my knowledge with much greater completeness than if I had been only professionally engaged to assist in the catastrophe of the drama through which they are evolved, and, as I conceive, throw a strong light upon the practical working of our criminal jurisprudence, a brief page of these slight leaves may not inappropriately record them.

About the time I have indicated, a Mrs. Rushton, the widow of a gentleman of commercial opulence, resided in Upper Harley Street, Cavendish Square. She was a woman of “family,” and by her marriage had greatly lowered herself, in her relatives’ opinion, by a union with a person who, however wealthy and otherwise honorable, was so entirely the architect of his own fortunes–owed all that he possessed so immediately to his own skill, sagacity, and perseverance–that there was an unpleasant rumor abroad about his widowed mother being indebted to her son’s success in business for having passed the last ten years of her life in ease and competence. Mr. Rushton had left his widow a handsome annuity, and to his and her only son a well-invested income of upwards of seven thousand a year. Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Rushton, who inherited quite her full share of family pride, if nothing else, had sought by every method she could devise to re-enter the charmed circle from which her union with a city merchant had excluded her. The most effectual mode of accomplishing her purpose was, she knew, to bring about a marriage between her son and a lady who would not be indisposed to accept of wealth and a well-appointed establishment in Mayfair as a set-off against birth and high connection.

Arthur Rushton, at this time between two and three-and-twenty years of age, was a mild, retiring, rather shy person, and endowed with a tenderness of disposition, of which the tranquil depths had not as yet been ruffled by the faintest breath of passion. His mother possessed almost unbounded influence over him; and he ever listened with a smile, a languid, half-disdainful one, to her eager speculations upon the numerous eligible matches that would present themselves the instant the “season” and their new establishment in Mayfair–of which the decoration and furnishing engaged all her available time and attention–enabled them to open the campaign with effect. Arthur Rushton and myself had been college companions, and our friendly intimacy continued for several years afterwards. At this period especially we were very cordial and unreserved in our intercourse with each other.

London at this time was crowded with French exiles, escaped from the devouring sword of Robespierre and his helpers in the work of government by the guillotine, almost all of whom claimed to be members of, or closely connected with, the ancient nobility of France. Among these was an elderly gentleman of the name of De Tourville, who, with his daughter Eugenie, had for a considerable time occupied a first floor in King Street, Holborn. Him I never saw in life, but Mademoiselle de Tourville was one of the most accomplished, graceful, enchantingly-interesting persons I have ever seen or known. There was a dangerous fascination in the pensive tenderness through which her natural gaiety and archness of manner would at intervals flash, like April sunlight glancing through clouds and showers, which, the first time I saw her, painfully impressed as much as it charmed me–perceiving, as I quickly did, that with her the future peace, I could almost have said life, of Arthur Rushton was irrevocably bound up. The fountains of his heart were for the first time stirred to their inmost depths, and, situated as he and she were, what but disappointment, bitterness, and anguish could well-up from those troubled waters? Mademoiselle de Tourville, I could perceive, was fully aware of the impression she had made upon the sensitive and amiable Englishman; and I sometimes discovered an expression of pity–of sorrowful tenderness, as it were–pass over her features as some distincter revelation than usual of the nature of Arthur Rushton’s emotions flashed upon her. I also heard her express herself several times, as overtly as she could, upon the _impossibility_ there existed that she should, however much she might desire it, settle in England, or even remain in it for any considerable length of time. All this I understood, or thought I did, perfectly; but Rushton, bewildered, entranced by feelings altogether new to him, saw nothing, heard nothing but her presence, and felt, without reasoning upon it, that in that delirious dream it was his fate either to live or else to bear no life. Mrs. Rushton–and this greatly surprised me–absorbed in her matrimonial and furnishing schemes and projects, saw nothing of what was going on. Probably the notion that her son should for an instant think of allying himself with an obscure, portionless foreigner, was, to a mind like hers, too absurd to be for a moment entertained; or–But stay; borne along by a crowd of rushing thoughts, I have, I find, somewhat anticipated the regular march of my narrative.

M. and Mademoiselle de Tourville, according to the after-testimony of their landlord, Mr. Osborn, had, from the time of their arrival in England, a very constant visitor at their lodgings in King Street. He was a tall French gentleman, of perhaps thirty years of age, and distinguished appearance. His name was La Houssaye. He was very frequently with them indeed, and generally he and M. de Tourville would go out together in the evening, the latter gentleman not returning home till very late. This was more especially the case after Mademoiselle de Tourville ceased to reside with her father.

Among the fashionable articles with which Mrs. Rushton was anxious to surround herself, was a companion of accomplishments and high-breeding, who might help her to rub off the rust she feared to have contracted by her connection with the city. A Parisian lady of high lineage and perfect breeding might, she thought, be easily obtained; and an advertisement brought Mademoiselle de Tourville to her house. Mrs. Rushton was delighted with the air and manners of the charming applicant; and after a slight inquiry by letter to an address of reference given by the young lady, immediately engaged her, on exceedingly liberal terms, for six months–that being the longest period for which Mademoiselle de Tourville could undertake to remain. She also stipulated for permission to pass the greater part of one day in the week–that which might happen to be most convenient to Mrs. Rushton–with her father. One other condition testified alike to M. de Tourville’s present poverty and her own filial piety: it was, that her salary should be paid weekly–she would not accept it in advance–avowedly for her parent’s necessities, who, poor exile! and tears stood in Eugenie’s dark lustrous eyes as she spoke, was ever trembling on the brink of the grave from an affection of the heart with which he had been long afflicted. Mademoiselle de Tourville, I should state, spoke English exceedingly well as far as the rules of syntax and the meanings of words went, and with an accent charming in its very defectiveness.

She had resided with Mrs. Rushton, who on all occasions treated her with the greatest kindness and consideration, for rather more than two months, when an incident occurred which caused the scales to fall suddenly from the astonished mother’s eyes, and in a moment revealed to her the extent of the risk and mischief she had so heedlessly incurred. The carriage was at the door, and it struck Mrs. Rushton as she was descending the stairs that Mademoiselle de Tourville, who had complained of headache in the morning, would like to take an airing with her. The sound of the harp issuing from the drawing-room, and the faintly-distinguished tones of her voice in some plaintive silver melody perhaps suggested the invitation; and thither the mistress of the mansion at once proceeded. The folding-doors of the back drawing-room were partially open when Mrs. Rushton, on kind thoughts intent, entered the front apartment. Mademoiselle de Tourville was seated with her back towards her at the harp, pouring forth with her thrilling and delicious voice a French romaunt; and there, with his head supported on his elbow, which rested on the marble chimney-piece, stood her son, Arthur Rushton, gazing at the apparently-unconscious songstress with a look so full of devoted tenderness–so completely revealing the intensity of passion by which he was possessed–that Mrs. Rushton started with convulsive affright, and could not for several minutes give articulation to the dismay and rage which choked her utterance Presently, however, her emotions found expression, and a storm of vituperative abuse was showered upon the head of the astonished Eugenie, designated as an artful _intrigante_, a designing pauper, who had insinuated herself into the establishment for the sole purpose of entrapping Mr. Arthur Rushton–with a great deal more to the same effect. Mademoiselle de Tourville, who had first been too much surprised by the unexpected suddenness of the attack to quite comprehend the intent and direction of the blows, soon recovered her self-possession and hauteur. A smile of contempt curled her beautiful lip, as, taking advantage of a momentary pause in Mrs. Rushton’s breathless tirade, she said, “Permit me, madam, to observe that if, as you seem to apprehend, your son has contemplated honoring me by the offer of an alliance with his ancient House”–Her look at this moment glanced upon the dreadfully agitated young man; the expression of disdainful bitterness vanished in an instant from her voice and features; and after a few moments, she added, with sad eyes bent upon the floor, “That he could not have made a more unhappy choice–more unfortunate for him, more impossible for me!” She then hastily left the apartment, and before a quarter of an hour had elapsed, had left the house in a hackney-coach.

The scene which followed between the mother and son was a violent and distressing one. Mr. Rushton, goaded to fury by his mother’s attack upon Mademoiselle de Tourville, cast off the habit of deference and submission which he had always worn in her presence, and asserted with vehemence his right to wed with whom he pleased, and declared that no power on earth should prevent him marrying the lady just driven ignominiously from the house if she could be brought to accept the offer of his hand and fortune! Mrs. Rushton fell into passionate hysterics; and her son, having first summoned her maid, withdrew to ruminate on Mademoiselle de Tourville’s concluding sentence, which troubled him far more that what he deemed the injustice of his mother.

When Mrs. Rushton, by the aid of water, pungent essences, and the relief which even an hour of time seldom fails to yield in such cases, had partially recovered her equanimity, she determined, after careful consideration of the best course of action, to consult a solicitor of eminence, well acquainted with her late husband, upon the matter. She had a dim notion that the Alien Act, if it could be put in motion, might rid her of Mademoiselle de Tourville and her friends. Thus resolving, and ever scrupulous as to appearances, she carefully smoothed her ruffled plumage, changed her disordered dress, and directed the carriage, which had been dismissed, to be again brought round to the door. “Mary,” she added a few moments afterwards, “bring me my jewel-case–the small one: you will find it in Made–in that French person’s dressing-room.”

Mary Austin reappeared in answer to the violent ringing of her impatient lady’s bell, and stated that the jewel-case could nowhere be found in Mademoiselle’s dressing-room. “Her clothes, everything belonging to her, had been taken out of the wardrobe, and carried away, and perhaps that also in mistake no doubt.”

“Nonsense, woman!” replied Mrs. Rushton. “I left it not long ago on her toilet-glass. I intended to show her a purchase I had made, and not finding her, left it as I tell you.”

Another search was made with the same ill-success. Mary Austin afterwards said that when she returned to her mistress the second time, to say that the jewel-case was certainly gone, an expression of satisfaction instead of anger, it seemed to her, glanced across Mrs. Rushton’s face, who immediately left the room, and in a few minutes afterwards was driven off in the carriage.

About an hour after her departure I called in Harley Street for Arthur Rushton, with whom I had engaged to go this evening to the theatre to witness Mrs. Siddons’s Lady Macbeth, which neither of us had yet seen. I found him in a state of calmed excitement, if I may so express myself; and after listening with much interest to the minute account he gave me of what had passed, I, young and inexperienced as I was in such affairs, took upon myself to suggest that, as the lady he nothing doubted was as irreproachable in character as she was confessedly charming and attractive in person and manners, and as he was unquestionably his own master, Mrs. Rushton’s opposition was not likely to be of long continuance; and that as to Mademoiselle de Tourville’s somewhat discouraging expression, such sentences from the lips of ladies–

“That would be wooed, and not unsought be won”–

were seldom, if ever, I had understood, to be taken in a literal and positive sense. Under this mild and soothing treatment, Mr. Rushton gradually threw off a portion of the load that oppressed him, and we set off in tolerably cheerful mood for the theatre.

Mrs. Siddons’ magnificent and appalling impersonation over, we left the house; he, melancholy and sombre as I had found him in Harley Street, and I in by no means a gay or laughing mood. We parted at my door, and whether it was the effect of the tragedy, so wonderfully realized in its chief creation, or whether coming events _do_ sometimes cast their shadows before, I cannot say, but I know that an hour after Rushton’s departure I was still sitting alone, my brain throbbing with excitement, and so nervous and impressionable, that a sudden, vehement knocking at the street entrance caused me to spring up from my chair with a terrified start, and before I could master the impulsive emotion, the room-door was thrown furiously open, and in reeled Arthur Rushton–pale, haggard, wild–his eyes ablaze with horror and affright! Had the ghost of Duncan suddenly gleamed out of the viewless air I could not have been more startled–awed!

“She is dead!–poisoned!” he shrieked with maniacal fury; “killed!–murdered!–and by _her_!”

I gasped for breath, and could hardly articulate–“What! whom?”

“My mother!” he shouted with the same furious vehemence–“Killed! by _her_! Oh, horror!–horror!–horror!” and exhausted by the violence of his emotions, the unfortunate gentleman staggered, shuddered violently, as if shaken by an ague fit, and fell heavily–for I was too confounded to yield him timely aid–on the floor.

As soon as I could rally my scattered senses, I caused medical aid to be summoned, and got him to bed. Blood was freely taken from both arms, and he gradually recovered consciousness. Leaving him in kind and careful hands, I hurried off to ascertain what possible foundation there could be for the terrible tidings so strangely announced.

I found the establishment in Harley Street in a state of the wildest confusion and dismay. Mrs. Rushton _was_ dead; that, at all events, was no figment of sudden insanity, and incredible, impossible rumors were flying from mouth to mouth with bewildering rapidity and incoherence. The name of Mademoiselle de Tourville was repeated in every variety of abhorrent emphasis; but it was not till I obtained an interview with Mrs. Rushton’s solicitor that I could understand what really had occurred, or, to speak more properly, what was suspected. Mrs. Rushton had made a deposition, of which Mr. Twyte related to me the essential points. The deceased lady had gone out in her carriage with the express intention of calling on him, the solicitor, to ascertain if it would be possible to apply the Alien Act to Mademoiselle de Tourville and her father, in order to get them sent out of the country. Mr. Twyte did not happen to be at home, and Mrs. Rushton immediately drove to the De Tourvilles’ lodgings in King Street, Holborn, with the design, she admitted, of availing herself of what she was in her own mind satisfied was the purely accidental taking away of a jewel-case, to terrify Mademoiselle de Tourville, by the threat of a criminal charge, into leaving the country, or at least to bind herself not to admit, under any circumstances, of Mr. Arthur Rushton’s addresses. She found Eugenie in a state of extraordinary, and it seemed painful excitement; and the young lady entreated that whatever Mrs. Rushton had to say should be reserved for another opportunity, when she would calmly consider whatever Mrs. Rushton had to urge. The unfortunate lady became somewhat irritated at Mademoiselle de Tourville’s obstinacy, and the unruffled contempt with which she treated the charge of robbery, even after finding the missing jewel-case in a band-box, into which it had been thrust with some brushes and other articles in the hurry of leaving. Mrs. Rushton was iterating her threats in a loud tone of voice, and moved towards the bell to direct, she said, the landlord to send for a constable, but with no intention whatever of doing so, when Mademoiselle de Tourville caught her suddenly by the arm, and bade her step into the next room. Mrs. Rushton mechanically obeyed, and was led in silence to the side of a bed, of which Eugenie suddenly drew the curtain, and displayed to her, with a significant and reproachful gesture, the pale, rigid countenance of her father’s corpse, who had, it appears, suddenly expired. The shock was terrible. Mrs. Rushton staggered back into the sitting-room, sick and faint, sank into a chair, and presently asked for a glass of wine. “We have no wine,” replied Mademoiselle de Tourville; “but there is a cordial in the next room which may be better for you.” She was absent about a minute, and on returning, presented Mrs. Rushton with a large wine-glassful of liquid, which the deceased lady eagerly swallowed. The taste was strange, but not unpleasant; and instantly afterwards Mrs. Rushton left the house. When the carriage reached Harley Street, she was found to be in a state of great prostration: powerful stimulants were administered, but her life was beyond the reach of medicine. She survived just long enough to depose to the foregoing particulars; upon which statement Mademoiselle de Tourville had been arrested, and was now in custody.

“You seem to have been very precipitate,” I exclaimed as soon as the solicitor had ceased speaking: “there appears to be as yet no proof that the deceased lady died of other than natural causes.”

“You are mistaken,” rejoined Mr. Twyte. “There is no doubt on the subject in the minds of the medical gentlemen, although the _post-mortem_ examination has not yet taken place. And, as if to put aside all doubt, the bottle from which this Eugenie de Tourville admits she took the cordial proves to contain distilled laurel-water, a deadly poison, curiously colored and flavored.”

Greatly perturbed, shocked, astonished as I was, my mind refused to admit, even for a moment, the probability, hardly the possibility, of Eugenie de Tourville’s guilt. The reckless malignancy of spirit evinced by so atrocious an act dwelt not, I was sure, within that beauteous temple. The motives alleged to have actuated her–fear of a criminal charge, admitted to be absurd, and desire to rid herself of an obstacle to her marriage with Arthur Rushton–seemed to me altogether strained and inapplicable. The desperation of unreasoning hate could alone have prompted such a deed; for detection was inevitable, had, in truth, been courted rather than attempted to be avoided.

My reasoning made no change in the conclusions of Mr. Twyte the attorney for the prosecution, and I hastened home to administer such consolation to Arthur Rushton as might consist in the assurance of my firm conviction that his beloved mother’s life had not been wilfully taken away by Eugenie de Tourville. I found him still painfully agitated; and the medical attendant told me it was feared by Dr. —- that brain fever would supervene if the utmost care was not taken to keep him as quiet and composed as, under the circumstances, was possible. I was, however, permitted a few minutes’ conversation with him; and my reasoning, or, more correctly, my confidently-expressed belief–for his mind seemed incapable of following my argument, which it indeed grasped faintly at, but slipped from, as it were, in an instant–appeared to relieve him wonderfully. I also promised him that no legal or pecuniary assistance should be wanting in the endeavor to clear Mademoiselle de Tourville of the dreadful imputation preferred against her. I then left him. The anticipation of the physician was unfortunately realized: the next morning he was in a raging fever, and his life, I was informed, was in very imminent danger.

It was a distracting time; but I determinedly, and with much self-effort, kept down the nervous agitation which might have otherwise rendered me incapable of fulfilling the duties I had undertaken to perform. By eleven o’clock in the forenoon I had secured the active and zealous services of Mr. White, one of the most celebrated of the criminal attorneys of that day. By application in the proper quarter, we obtained immediate access to the prisoner, who was temporarily confined in a separate room in the Red-Lion Square Lock-up House. Mademoiselle de Tourville, although exceedingly pale, agitated, and nervous, still looked as lustrously pure, as radiantly innocent of evil thought or deed, as on the day that I first beheld her. The practiced eye of the attorney scanned her closely. “As innocent of this charge,” he whispered, “as you or I.” I tendered my services to the unfortunate young lady with an earnestness of manner which testified more than any words could have done how entirely my thoughts acquitted her of offence. Her looks thanked me; and when I hinted at the promise exacted of me by Arthur Rushton, a bright blush for an instant mantled the pale marble of her cheeks and forehead, indicating with the tears, which suddenly filled and trembled in her beautiful eyes, a higher sentiment, I thought, than mere gratitude. She gave us her unreserved confidence; by which, after careful sifting, we obtained only the following by no means entirely satisfactory results:–

Mademoiselle de Tourville and her father had escaped from the Terrorists of France by the aid of, and in company with, the Chevalier la Houssaye, with whom M. de Tourville had previously had but very slight acquaintance. The chevalier soon professed a violent admiration for Eugenie; and having contrived to lay M. de Tourville under heavy pecuniary obligations at play–many of them Mademoiselle de Tourville had only very lately discovered–prevailed upon his debtor to exert his influence with his daughter to accept La Houssaye’s hand in marriage. After much resistance, Mademoiselle de Tourville, overcome by the commands, entreaties, prayers of her father, consented, but only on condition that the marriage should not take place till their return to France, which it was thought need not be very long delayed, and that no more money obligations should in the meantime be incurred by her father. La Houssaye vehemently objected to delay; but finding Eugenie inexorable, sullenly acquiesced. It was precisely at this time that the engagement with Mrs. Rushton was accepted. On the previous afternoon Mademoiselle de Tourville, on leaving Harley Street after the scene with the deceased lady, went directly home, and there found both her father and the chevalier in hot contention and excitement. As soon as La Houssaye saw her, he seized his hat, and rushed out of the apartment and house. Her father, who was greatly excited, had barely time to say that he had fortunately discovered the chevalier to be a married man, whose wife, a woman of property, was still living in Languedoc, when what had always been predicted would follow any unusual agitation happened: M. de Tourville suddenly placed his hand on his side, uttered a broken exclamation, fell into a chair, and expired. It was about two hours after this melancholy event that Mrs. Rushton arrived. The account before given of the interview which followed was substantially confirmed by Mademoiselle de Tourville; who added, that the cordial she had given Mrs. Rushton was one her father was in the constant habit of taking when in the slightest degree excited, and that she was about to give him some when he suddenly fell dead.

We had no doubt, none whatever, that this was the whole, literal truth, as far as the knowledge of Mademoiselle de Tourville extended; but how could we impart that impression to an Old Bailey jury of those days, deprived as we should be of the aid of counsel to address the jury, when in reality a speech, pointing to the improbabilities arising from character, and the altogether _un_guilty-like mode of administering the fatal liquid, was the only possible defence? Cross-examination promised nothing; for the evidence would consist of the dying deposition of Mrs. Rushton, the finding of the laurel-water, and the medical testimony as to the cause of death. The only person upon whom suspicion glanced was La Houssaye, and that in a vague and indistinct manner. Still, it was necessary to find him without delay, and Mr. White at once sought him at his lodgings, of which Mademoiselle de Tourville furnished the address. He had left the house suddenly with all his luggage early in the morning, and our efforts to trace him proved fruitless. In the meantime the _post-mortem_ examination of the body had taken place, and a verdict of willful murder against Eugenie de Tourville been unhesitatingly returned. She was soon afterwards committed to Newgate for trial.

The Old Bailey session was close at hand, and Arthur Rushton, though immediate danger was over, was still in too delicate and precarious a state to be informed of the true position of affairs when the final day of trial arrived. The case had excited little public attention. It was not the fashion in those days to exaggerate the details of crime, and, _especially before trial_, give the wings of the morning to every fact or fiction that rumor with her busy tongue obscurely whispered. Twenty lines of the “Times” would contain the published record of the commitment of Eugenie de Tourville for poisoning her mistress, Caroline Rushton; and, alas! spite of the crippled but earnest efforts of the eminent counsel we had retained, and the eloquent innocence of her appearance and demeanor, her conviction and condemnation to death without hope of mercy! My brain swam as the measured tones of the recorder, commanding the almost immediate and violent destruction of that beauteous masterpiece of God, fell upon my ear; and had not Mr. White, who saw how greatly I was affected, fairly dragged me out of court into the open air, I should have fainted. I scarcely remember how I got home–in a coach, I believe; but face Rushton after that dreadful scene with a kindly-meant deception–_lie_–in my mouth, I could not, had a king’s crown been the reward. I retired to my chamber, and on the plea of indisposition directed that I should on no account be disturbed. Night had fallen, and it was growing somewhat late, when I was startled out of the painful reverie in which I was still absorbed by the sudden pulling up of a furiously-driven coach, followed by a thundering summons at the door, similar to that which aroused me on the evening of Mrs. Rushton’s death. I seized my hat, rushed down stairs, and opened the door. It was Mr. White!

“Well!–well!” I ejaculated.

“Quick–quick!” he exclaimed in reply. “La Houssaye–he is found–has sent for us–quick! for life–life is on our speed!”

I was in the vehicle in an instant. In less than ten minutes we had reached our destination–a house in Duke Street, Manchester Square.

“He is still alive,” replied a young man in answer to Mr. White’s hurried inquiry. We rapidly ascended the stairs, and in the front apartment of the first floor beheld one of the saddest, mournfulest spectacles which the world can offer–a fine, athletic man, still in the bloom of natural health and vigor, and whose pale features, but for the tracings there of fierce, ungoverned passions, were strikingly handsome and intellectual, stretched by his own act upon the bed of death! It was La Houssaye! Two gentlemen were with him–one a surgeon, and the other evidently a clergyman, and, as I subsequently found, a magistrate, who had been sent for by the surgeon. A faint smile gleamed over the face of the dying man as we entered, and he motioned feebly to a sheet of paper, which, closely written upon, was lying upon a table placed near the sofa upon which the unhappy suicide was reclining. Mr. White snatched, and eagerly perused it. I could see by the vivid lighting up of his keen gray eye that it was, in his opinion, satisfactory and sufficient.

“This,” said Mr. White, “is your solemn deposition, knowing yourself to be dying?”

“Yes, yes,” murmured La Houssaye; “the truth–the truth!”

“The declaration of a man,” said the clergyman with some asperity of tone, “who defyingly, unrepentingly, rushes into the presence of his Creator, can be of little value!”

“Ha!” said the dying man, rousing himself by a strong effort; “I repent–yes–yes–I repent! I believe–do you hear?–and repent–believe. Put that down,” he added, in tones momently feebler and more husky, as he pointed to the paper; “put that down, or–or perhaps–Eu–genie–perhaps”–

As he spoke, the faint light that had momently kindled his glazing eye was suddenly quenched; he remained for perhaps half a minute raised on his elbow, and with his outstretched finger pointing towards the paper, gazing blindly upon vacancy. Then the arm dropped, and he fell back dead!

We escaped as quickly as we could from this fearful death-room, and I found that the deposition which Mr. White brought away with him gave a full, detailed account, written in the French language, of the circumstances which led to the death of Mrs. Rushton.

La Houssaye, finding that M. de Tourville had by some means discovered the secret of his previous marriage, and that consequently all hope of