The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper

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But, if his body was comparatively sound, the inner man was bruised all
over: he crept back, and retreated to his room, in as broken and
despondent a frame of mind, as any could have wished to bless him
wherewithal. However, he still had one thing left to live for: his
hoard--that precious hoard within his iron box, and then--the crock of
gold. He took Sir John's threat about detaining, and so forth, as
merely future, and calculated on rendering it nugatory, by decamping
forthwith, chattels and all; but he little expected to find that the
idea had already been acted upon!

On that identical afternoon, when Simon had gone forth to insult Grace
Acton with his villanous proposals, Sir John, on returning from a ride,
had commanded his own seal to be placed on all Mr. Jennings's effects,
and the boxes to be forthwith removed to a place of safety: induced
thereto by innumerable proofs from every quarter that the bailiff had
been cheating him on a most liberal scale, and plundering his tenants
systematically. Therefore, when Jennings hastened to his chamber to
console himself for all things by looking at his gold, and counting out
a bag or two--it was gone, gone, irrevocably gone! safely stored away
for rigid scrutiny in the grated muniment-room of Hurstley. Oh, what a
howl the caitiff gave, when he saw that his treasure had been taken! he
was a wild bull in a net; a crocodile caught upon the hooks; a hyena at
bay. What could he do? which way should he turn? how help himself, or
get his gold again? Unluckily--Oh, confusion, confusion!--his
account-books were along with all his hoard, those tell-tale legers,
wherein he had duly noted down, for his own private and triumphant
glance, the curious difference between his lawful and unlawful gains;
there, was every overcharge recorded, every matter of extortion
systematically ranged, that he might take all the tenants in their turn;
there, were filed the receipts of many honest men, whom the guardians
and Sir John had long believed to be greatly in arrear; there, was
recorded at length the catalogue of dues from tradesmen; there, the list
of bribes for the custom of the Hall. It would amply authorize Sir John
in appropriating the whole store; and Jennings thought of this with
terror. Every thing was now obviously lost, lost! Oh, sickening little
word, all lost! all he had ever lived for--all which had made him live
the life he did--all which made him fear to die. "Fear to die--ha! who
said that? I will not fear to die; yes, there is one escape left, I will
hazard the blind leap; this misery shall have an end--this sleepless,
haunted, cheated, hated wretch shall live no longer--ha! ha! ha! ha!
I'll do it! I'll do it!"

Then did that wretched man strive in vain to kill himself, for his hour
was not yet come. His first idea was laudanum--that only mean of any
thing like rest to him for many weeks; and pouring out all he had, a
little phial, nearly half a wine-glass full, he quickly drank it off: no
use--no use; the agitation of his mind was too intense, and the habit
of a continually increasing dose had made him proof against the poison;
it would not even lull him, but seemed to stretch and rack his nerves,
exciting him to deeds of bloody daring. Should he rush out, like a Malay
running a muck, with a carving-knife in each hand, and kill right and
left:--vengeance! vengeance! on Jonathan Floyd, and John Vincent? No,
no; for some of them at last would overcome him, think him mad, and, O
terror!--his doom for life, without the means of death, would be
solitary confinement. "Stay! with this knife in my hand--means of
death--yes, it shall be so." And he hurriedly drew the knife across his
throat; no use, nothing done; his cowardly skin shrank away from
cutting--he dared not cut again; a little bloody scratch was all.

But the heart, the heart--that should be easier! And the miscreant, not
quite a Cato, gave a feeble stab, that made a little puncture. Not yet,
Simon Jennings; no, not yet; you shall not cheat the gallows. "Ha!
hanging, hanging! why had I not thought of that before?"

He mounted on a chair with a gimlet in his hand, and screwed it tightly
into the wainscotting as high as he could reach; then he took a cord
from the sacking of his bed, secured it to the gimlet, made a noose, put
his head in, kicked the chair away--and swung by his wounded neck; in
vain, all in vain; as he struggled in the agonies of self-protecting
nature, the handle of the gimlet came away, and he fell heavily to the
ground.

"Bless us!" said Sarah to one of the house-maids, as they were arranging
their curl-papers to go to bed: "what can that noise be in Mr.
Jennings's room? his tall chest of drawers has fallen, I shouldn't
wonder: it was always unsafe to my mind. Listen, Jenny, will you?"

Jenny crept out, and, as laudable females sometimes do, listened at
Simon's key-hole.

"Lack-a-daisy, Sall, such a groaning and moaning; p'raps he's a-dying:
put on your cap again, and tell Jonathan to go and see."

Sarah did as she was bid, and Jonathan did as he was bid; and there was
Mr. Jennings on the floor, blue in the face, with a halter round his
neck.

The house was soon informed of the interesting event, and the bailiff
was nursed as tenderly as if he had been a sucking babe; fomentations,
applications, hot potations: but he soon came to again, without any hope
or wish to repeat the dread attempt: he was kept in bed, closely
watched, and Stephen Cramp, together with his rival, Eager, remained
continually in alternate attendance: until a day or two recovered him as
strong as ever. I told you, Simon Jennings, that your time was not yet
come.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE TRIAL.

The trial now came on, and Roger Acton stood arraigned of
robbery and murder. I must hasten over lengthy legal technicalities,
which would only serve to swell this volume, without adding one iota to
its interest or usefulness. Nothing could be easier, nothing more worth
while, as a matter of mere book-making, than to tear a few pages out of
some musty record of Criminal Court Practice or other Newgate
Calendar-piece of authorship, and wade wearily through the length and
breadth of indictments, speeches, examinations, and all the other
learned clatter of six hours in the judgment-halls of law. If the reader
wishes for all this, let him pore over those unhealthy-looking books,
whose exterior is dove-coloured as the kirtle of innocence, but their
inwards black as the conscience of guilt; whitened sepulchres, all
spotless without; but within them are enshrined the quibbling knavery,
the distorted ingenuity, the mystifying learnedness, the warped and
warping views of truth, the lying, slandering, bad-excusing,
good-condemning principles and practices of those who cater for their
custom at the guiltiest felon's cell, and would glory in defending
Lucifer himself.

In the case of sheer innocence, indeed, as Roger's was--or in one of
much doubt and secresy, where the client denies all guilt, and the
counsel sees reason to believe him--let the advocate manfully battle out
his cause: but where crime has poured out his confessions in a
counsellor's ear--is not this man bought by gold to be a partaker and
abettor in his sins, when he strives with all his might to clear the
guilty, and not seldom throws the hideous charge on innocence? If the
advocate has no wish to entrap his own conscience, nor to damage the
tissue of his honour, let him reject the client criminal who confesses,
and only plead for those from whom he has had no assurance of their
guilt; or, better far, whose innocence he heartily believes in.

Such an advocate was Mr. Grantly, a barrister of talents and experience,
who, from motives of the purest benevolence, did all that in him lay for
Roger Acton. In one thing, however, and that of no small import, the
kindly cautious man of law had contrived to do more harm than good: for,
after having secretly made every effort, but in vain, to find Ben Burke
as a witness--and after having heard that the aforesaid Ben was a
notorious poacher, and only intimate at Hurstley with Acton and his
family--he strongly recommended Roger to say nothing about the man or
his adventure, as the acknowledgment of such an intimacy would only
damage his cause: all that need appear was, that he found the crock in
his garden, never mind how he "thought" it got there: poachers are not
much in the habit of flinging away pots of gold, and no jury would
believe but that the ill-reputed personage in question was an accomplice
in the murder, and had shared the spoil with his friend Roger Acton. All
this was very shrewd; and well meant; but was not so wise, for all that,
as simple truth would have been: nevertheless, Roger acquiesced in it,
for a better reason than Mr. Grantly's--namely, this: his feelings
toward poor Ben had undergone an amiable revulsion, and, well aware how
the whole neigbourhood were prejudiced against him for his freebooting
propensities, he feared to get his good rough friend into trouble if he
mentioned his nocturnal fishing at Pike island; especially when he
considered that little red Savings' Bank, which, though innocent as to
the getting, was questionable as to the rights of spending, and that,
really, if he involved the professed poacher in this mysterious affair,
he might put his liberty or life into very serious jeopardy. On this
account, then, which Grace could not entirely find fault with (though
she liked nothing that savoured of concealment), Roger Acton agreed to
abide by Mr. Grantly's advice; and thus he never alluded to his
connexion with the poacher.

Enlightened as we are, and intimate with all the hidden secrets of the
story, we may be astonished to hear that, notwithstanding all Mr.
Grantly's ingenuity, and all the siftings of cross-questioners, the case
was clear as light against poor Acton. No _alibi_, he lived upon the
spot. No witnesses to character; for Roger's late excesses had wiped
away all former good report: kind Mr. Evans himself, with tears in his
eyes, acknowledged sadly that Acton had once been a regular church-goer,
a frequent communicant: but had fallen off of late, poor fellow! And
then, in spite of protestations to the contrary, behold! the _corpus
delicti_--that unlucky crock of gold, actually in the man's possession,
and the fragment of shawl--was not that sufficient?

Jonathan Floyd in open court had been base enough to accuse Mr. Jennings
of the murder. Mr. Jennings indeed! a strict man of high character,
lately dismissed, after twenty years' service, in the most arbitrary
manner by young Sir John, who had taken a great liking to the Actons.
People could guess why, when they looked on Grace: and Grace, too, was
sufficient reason to account for Jonathan's wicked suspicions; of
course, it was the lover's interest to throw the charge on other people.
As to Mr. Jennings himself, just recovered from a fit of illness, it was
astonishing how liberally and indulgently he prayed the court to show
the prisoner mercy: his white and placid face looked quite benevolently
at him--and this respectable person was a murderer, eh, Mr. Jonathan?

So, when the judge summed up, and clearly could neither find nor make a
loop-hole for the prisoner, the matter seemed accomplished; all knew
what the verdict must be--poor Roger Acton had not the shadow of a
chance.

CHAPTER XLV.

ROGER'S DEFENCE.

Then, while the jury were consulting--they would not leave the
box, it seemed so clear--Roger broke the death-like silence; and he
said:

"Judge, I crave your worship's leave to speak: and hearken to me,
countrymen. Many evil things have I done in my time, both against God
and my neighbour: I am ashamed, as well I may be, when I think on 'em: I
have sworn, and drunk, and lied; I have murmured loudly--coveted
wickedly--ay, and once I stole. It was a little theft, I lost it on the
spot, and never stole again: pray God, I never may. Nevertheless,
countrymen, and sinful though I be in the sight of Him who made us,
according to man's judgment and man's innocency, I had lived among you
all blameless, until I found that crock of gold. I did find it,
countrymen, as God is my witness, and, therefore, though a sinner, I
appeal to Him: He knoweth that I found it in the sedge that skirts my
garden, at the end of my own celery trench. I did wickedly and foolishly
to hide my find, worse to deny it, and worst of all to spend it in the
low lewd way I did. But of robbery I am guiltless as you are. And as to
this black charge of murder, till Simon Jennings spoke the word, I never
knew it had been done. Folk of Hurstley, friends and neighbours, you all
know Roger Acton--the old-time honest Roger of these forty years,
before the devil made him mad by giving him much gold--did he ever
maliciously do harm to man or woman, to child or poor dumb brute?--No,
countrymen, I am no murderer. That the seemings are against me, I wot
well; they may excuse your judgment in condemning me to death--and I and
the good gentleman there who took my part (Heaven bless you, sir!)
cannot go against the facts: but they speak falsely, and I truly; Roger
Acton is an innocent man: may God defend the right!"

"Amen!" earnestly whispered a tremulous female voice, "and God will save
you, father."

The court was still as death, except for sobbing; the jury were doubting
and confounded; in vain Mr. Jennings, looking at the foreman, shook his
head and stroked his chin in an incredulous and knowing manner; clearly
they must retire, not at all agreed; and the judge himself, that masqued
man in flowing wig and ermine, but still warmed by human sympathies,
struck a tear from his wrinkled cheek; and all seemed to be
involuntarily waiting (for the jury, though unable to decide, had not
yet left their box), to see whether any sudden miracle would happen to
save a man whom evidence made so guilty, and yet he bore upon his open
brow the genuine signature of Innocence.

"Silence, there, silence! you can't get in; there's no room for'ards!"
But a couple of javelin-men at the door were knocked down right and
left, and through the dense and suffocating crowd, a black-whiskered
fellow, elbowing his way against their faces, spite of all obstruction,
struggled to the front behind the bar. Then, breathless with gigantic
exertion (it was like a mammoth treading down the cedars), he roared
out,

"Judge, swear me, I'm a witness; huzza! it's not too late."

And the irreverent gentleman tossed a fur cap right up to the skylight.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE WITNESS.

Mr. Grantly brightened up at once, Grace looked happily to
Heaven, and Roger Acton shouted out,

"Thank God! thank God!--there's Ben Burke!"

Yes, he had heard miles away of his friend's danger about an old shawl
and a honey-pot full of gold, and he had made all speed, with Tom in his
train, to come and bear witness to the innocence of Roger. The sensation
in court, as may be well conceived, was thrilling; but a vociferous
crier, and the deep anxiety to hear this sturdy witness, soon reduced
all again to silence.

Then did they swear Benjamin Burke, who, to the scandal of his cause,
would insist upon stating his profession to be "poacher;" and at first,
poor simple fellow, seemed to have a notion that a sworn witness meant
one who swore continually; but he was soon convinced otherwise, and his
whole demeanour gradually became as polite and deferent as his coarse
nature would allow. And Ben told his adventure on Pike island, as we
have heard him tell it, pretty much in the same words, for the judge and
Mr. Grantly let him take his own courses; and then he added (with a
characteristic expletive, which we may as well omit, seeing it
occasioned a cry of "order" in the court), "There, if that there
white-livered little villain warn't the chap that brought the crocks, my
name an't Ben Burke."

"Good Heavens! Mr. Jennings, what's the matter?" said a briefless one,
starting up: this was Mr. Sharp, a personage on former occasions
distinguished highly as a thieves' advocate, but now, unfortunately, out
of work. "Loosen his cravat, some one there; the gentleman is in fits."

"Oh, Aunt--Aunt Quarles, don't throttle me; I'll tell all--all; let go,
let go!" and the wretched man slowly recovered, as Ben Burke said,

"Ay, my lord, ask him yourself, the little wretch can tell you all about
it."

"I submit, my lurd," interposed the briefless one, "that this
respectable gentleman is taken ill, and that his presence may now be
dispensed with, as a witness in the cause."

"No, sir, no;" deliberately answered Jennings; "I must stay: the time I
find is come; I have not slept for weeks; I am exhausted utterly; I have
lost my gold; I am haunted by her ghost; I can go no where but that face
follows me--I can do nothing but her fingers clutch my throat. It is
time to end this misery. In hope to lay her spirit, I would have offered
up a victim: but--but she will not have him. Mine was the hand that--"

"Pardon me," upstarted Mr. Sharp, "this poor gentleman is a mono-maniac;
pray, my lurd, let him be removed while the trial is proceeding."

"You horse-hair hypocrite, you!" roared Ben, "would you hang the
innocent, and save the guilty?"

Would he? would Mr. Philip Sharp? Ay, that he would; and glad of such a
famous opportunity. What! would not Newgate rejoice, and Horsemonger be
glad? Would not his bag be filled with briefs from the community of
burglars, and his purse be rich in gold subscribed by the brotherhood of
thieves? Great at once would be his name among the purlieus of iniquity:
and every rogue in London would retain but Philip Sharp. Would he? ask
him again.

But Jennings quietly proceeded like a speaking statue.

"I am not mad, most noble--" [the Bible-read villain was from habit
quoting Paul]--"my lord, I mean. My hand did the deed: I throttled her"
(here he gave a scared look over his shoulder): "yes--I did it once and
again: I took the crock of gold. You may hang me now, Aunt Quarles."

"My lurd, my lurd, this is a most irregular proceeding," urged Mr.
Sharp; "on the part of the prisoner--I, I crave pardon--on behalf of
this most respectable and deluded gentleman, Mr. Simon Jennings, I
contend that no one may criminate himself in this way, without the
shadow of evidence to support such suicidal testimony. Really, my
lurd--"

"Oh, sir, but my father may go free?" earnestly asked Grace. But Ben
Burke's voice--I had almost written woice--overwhelmed them all:

"Let me speak, judge, an't it please your honour, and take you notice,
Master Horsehair. You wan't ewidence, do you, beyond the man's
confession: here, I'll give it you. Look at this here wice:" and he
stretched forth his well-known huge and horny hand:

"When I caught that dridful little reptil by the arm, he wriggled like a
sniggled eel, so I was forced you see, to grasp him something tighter,
and could feel his little arm-bones crack like any chicken's: now then,
if his left elbow an't black and blue, though it's a month a-gone and
more, I'll eat it. Strip him and see."

No need to struggle with the man, or tear his coat off. Jennings
appeared only too glad to find that there was other evidence than his
own foul tongue, and that he might be hung at last without sacking-rope
or gimlet; so, he quietly bared his arm, and the elbow looked all manner
of colours--a mass of old bruises.

CHAPTER XLVII.

MR. SHARP'S ADVOCACY.

The whole court trembled with excitement: it was deep, still
silence; and the judge said,

"Prisoner at the bar, there is now no evidence against you: gentlemen of
the jury, of course you will acquit him."

The foreman: "All agreed, my lord, not guilty."

"Roger Acton," said the judge, "to God alone you owe this marvellous,
almost miraculous, interposition: you have had many wrongs innocently to
endure, and I trust that the right feelings of society will requite you
for them in this world, as, if you serve Him, God will in the next. You
are honourably acquitted, and may leave this bar."

In vain the crier shouted, in vain the javelin-men helped the crier, the
court was in a tumult of joy; Grace sprang to her father's neck, and Sir
John Vincent, who had been in attendance sitting near the judge all the
trial through, came down to him, and shook his hand warmly.

Roger's eyes ran over, and he could only utter,

"Thank God! thank God! He does better for me than I deserved." But the
court was hushed at last: the jury resworn; certain legal forms and
technicalities speedily attended to, as counts of indictment, and so
forth: and the judge then quietly said,

"Simon Jennings, stand at that bar."

He stood there like an image.

"My lurd, I claim to be prisoner's counsel."

"Mr. Sharp--the prisoner shall have proper assistance by all means; but
I do not see how it will help your case, if you cannot get your client
to plead not guilty."

While Mr. Philip Sharp converses earnestly with the criminal in
confidential whispers, I will entertain the sagacious reader with a few
admirable lines I have just cut out of a newspaper: they are headed

"SUPPRESSION OF TRUTH AND EXCLUSION OF EVIDENCE.

"Lawyers abhor any short cut to the truth. The pursuit is the thing for
their pleasure and profit, and all their rules are framed for making the
most of it.

"Crime is to them precisely what the fox is to the sportsman: and the
object is not to pounce on it, and capture it at once, but to have a
good run for it, and to exhibit skill and address in the chase. Whether
the culprit or the fox escape or not, is a matter of indifference, the
run being the main thing.

"The punishment of crime is as foreign to the object of lawyers, as the
extirpation of the fox is to that of sportsmen. The sportsman, because
he hunts the fox, sees in the summary destruction of the fox by the hand
of a clown, an offence foul, strange, and unnatural, little short of
murder. The lawyer treats crime in the same way: his business is the
chase of it; but, that it may exist for the chase, he lays down rules
protecting it against surprises and capture by any methods but those of
the forensic field.

"One good turn deserves another, and as the lawyer owes his business to
crime, he naturally makes it his business to favour and spare it as much
as possible. To seize and destroy it wherever it can be got at, seems to
him as barbarous as shooting a bird sitting, or a hare in her form, does
to the sportsman. The phrase, to give _law_, for the allowance of a
start, or any chance of escape, expresses the methods of lawyers in the
pursuit of crime, and has doubtless been derived from their practice.

"Confession is the thing most hateful to law, for this stops its sport
at the outset. It is the surrender of the fox to the hounds. 'We don't
want your stinking body,' says the lawyer; 'we want the run after the
scent. Away with you, be off; retract your admission, take the benefit
of telling a lie, give us employment, and let us take our chance of
hunting out, in our roundabout ways, the truth, which we will not take
when it lies before us.'"

* * * * *

As I perceive that Mr. Sharp has not yet made much impression upon the
desponding prisoner, suffer me to recommend to your notice another
sensible leader: the abuse which it would combat calls loudly for
amendment. There is plenty of time to spare, for some preliminaries of
trial have yet to be arranged, and the judge has just stepped out to get
a sandwich, and every body stands at ease; moreover, gentle reader, the
paragraphs following are well worthy of your attention. Let us name
them,

"MORBID SYMPATHIES.

"We have often thought that the tenderness shown by our law to presumed
criminals is as injurious as it is inconsistent and excessive. A
miserable beggar, a petty rioter, the wretch who steals a loaf to
satisfy the gnawings of his hunger, is roughly seized, closely examined,
and severely punished; meanwhile, the plain common sense of our mobs, if
not of our magistracy, has pitied the offender, and perhaps acquitted
him. But let some apparent murderer be caught, almost in the flagrant
deed of his atrocity; let him, to the best of all human belief, have
killed, disembowelled, and dismembered; let him have united the coolness
of consummate craft to the boldest daring of iniquity, and straightway
(though the generous crowd may hoot and hunt the wretch with yelling
execration) he finds in law and lawyers, refuge, defenders, and
apologists. Tenderly and considerately is he cautioned on no account to
criminate himself: he is exhorted, even by judges, to withdraw the
honest and truthful plea of 'guilty,' now the only amends which such a
one can make to the outraged laws of God and man: he is defended, even
to the desperate length of malignant accusation of the innocent, by
learned men, whose aim it is to pervert justice and screen the guilty!
he is lodged and tended with more circumstances of outward comfort and
consideration than he probably has ever experienced in all his life
before; and if, notwithstanding the ingenuity of his advocates, and the
merciful glosses of his judge, a simple-minded British jury capitally
convict him, and he is handed over to the executioner, he still finds
pious gentlemen ready to weep over him in his cell, and titled dames to
send him white camellias, to wear upon his heart when he is hanging.[A]