The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper

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"Now what is the necessary consequence of this, but a mighty, a
fearfully influential premium on crime? And what is its radical cause,
but the absurd indulgence wherewith our law greets the favoured,
_because_ the atrocious criminal? Upon what principle of propriety, or
of natural justice, should a seeming murderer not be--we will not say
sternly, but even kindly--catechised, and for his very soul's sake
counselled to confess his guilt? Why should the _morale_ of evidence be
so thoroughly lost sight of, and a malefactor, who is ready to
acknowledge crime, or unable, when questioned, to conceal it, on no
account be listened to, lest he may do his precious life irreparable
harm? It is not agonized repentance, or incidental disclosure, that
makes the culprit his own executioner, but his crime that has preceded;
it is not the weak, avowing tongue, but the bold and bloody hand.

"We are unwilling to allude specifically to the name of any recent
malefactor in connexion with these plain remarks; for, in the absence
alike of hindered voluntary confession and of incomplete legal evidence,
we would not prejudge, that is, prejudice a case. But we do desire to
exclaim against any further exhibition of that morbid tenderness
wherewith all persons are sure to be treated, if only they are accused
of enormities more than usually disgusting; and we specially protest
against that foolish, however ancient, rule in our criminal law, which
discourages and rejects the slenderest approach to a confession, while
it has sacrificed many an innocent victim to the uncertainty of
evidence, supported by nothing more safe than outward circumstantials."

At length, and after much gesticulation and protestation, Mr. Sharp has
succeeded; he had apparently innoculated the miserable man with hopes;
for the miscreant now said firmly, "I plead not guilty."

* * * * *

The briefless one looked happy--nay, triumphant: Jennings was a wealthy
man, all knew; and, any how, he should bag a bouncing fee. How far such
money was likely to do him any good, he never stopped to ask. "Money is
money," said Philip Sharp and the Emperor Vespasian.

We need not trouble ourselves to print Mr. Sharp's very flashy, flippant
speech. Suffice it to say, that, not content with asserting vehemently
on his conscience as a Christian, on his honour as a man, that Simon
Jennings was an innocent, maligned, persecuted individual; labouring,
perhaps, under mono-mania, but pure and gentle as the babe new-born--not
satisfied with traducing honest Ben Burke as a most suspicious witness,
probably a murderer--ay, _the_ murderer himself, a mere riotous ruffian
[Ben here chucked his cap at him, and thereby countenanced the charge],
a mere scoundrel, not to say scamp, whom no one should believe upon his
oath; he again, with all the semblance of sincerity, accused, however
vainly, Roger Acton: and lastly, to the disgust and astonishment of the
whole court, added, with all acted appearances of fervent zeal for
justice, "And I charge his pious daughter, too, that far too pretty
piece of goods, Grace Acton, with being accessory to this atrocious
crime after the fact!"

There was a storm of shames and hisses; but the judge allayed it,
quietly saying,

"Mr. Sharp, be so good as to confine your attention to your client; he
appears to be quite worthy of you."

Then Mr. Sharp, like the firm just man immortalized by Flaccus, stood
stout against the visage of the judge, sneered at the wrath of citizens
commanding things unjust, turned to Ben Burke minaciously, calling him
"_Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae_" [as Burke had heard this quotation, he
thought it was about the "ducks" he had been decoying], and altogether
seemed not about to be put down, though the huge globe crack about his
ears. After this, he calmly worded on, seeming to regard the judge's
stinging observation with the same sort of indifference as the lion
would a dew-drop on his mane; and having poured out all manner of
voluminous bombast, he gradually ran down, and came to a conclusion;
then, jumping up refreshed, like the bounding of a tennis-ball, he
proceeded to call witnesses; and, judging from what happened at the
inquest, as well as because he wished to overwhelm a suspected and
suspecting witness, he pounced, somewhat infelicitously, on Jonathan
Floyd.

"So, my fine young fellow, you are a footman, eh, at Hurstley?"

"Yes, sir, an' it please you--or rather, an' it please my master."

"You remember what happened on the night of the late Mrs. Quarles's
decease?"

"Oh, many things happened; Mr. Jennings was lost, he wasn't to be found,
he was hid somewhere, nobody saw him till next morning."

"Stop, sirrah! not quite so quick, if you please; you are on your oath,
be careful what you say. I have it in evidence, sirrah, before the
coroner;" and he looked triumphantly about him at this clencher to all
Jonathan's testimony; "that you saw him yourself that night speaking to
the dog; what do you mean by swearing that nobody saw him till next
morning?"

"Well, mister, I mean this; whether or no poor old Mrs. Quarles saw her
affectionate nephew that night before the clock struck twelve, there's
none alive to tell; but no one else did--for Sarah and I sat up for him
till past midnight. He was hidden away somewhere, snug enough; and as I
verily believe, in the poor old 'ooman's own--"

"Silence, silence! sir, I say; we want none of your impertinent guesses
here, if you please: to the point, sirrah, to the point; you swore
before the coroner, that you had seen Mr. Jennings, in his courage and
his kindness, quieting the dog that very night, and now--"

"Oh," interrupted Jonathan in his turn, "for the matter of that, when I
saw him with the dog, it was hard upon five in the morning. And here,
gentlemen," added Floyd, with a promiscuous and comprehensive bow all
round, "if I may speak my mind about the business--"

"Go down, sir!" said Mr. Sharp, who began to be afraid of truths.

"Pardon me, this may be of importance," remarked Roger Acton's friend;
"say what you have to say, young man."

"Well, then, gentlemen and my lord, I mean to say thus much. Jennings
there, the prisoner (and I'm glad to see him standing at the bar), swore
at the inquest that he went to quiet Don, going round through the front
door; now, none could get through that door without my hearing of him;
and certainly a little puny Simon like him could never do so without I
came to help him; for the lock was stiff with rust, and the bolt out of
his reach."

"Stop, young man; my respected client, Mr. Jennings, got upon a chair."

"Indeed, sir? then he must ha' created the chair for that special
purpose: there wasn't one in the hall then; no, nor for two days after,
when they came down bran-new from Dowbiggins in London, with the rest o'
the added furnitur' just before my honoured master."

This was conclusive, certainly; and Floyd proceeded.

"Now, gentlemen and my lord, if Jennings did not go that way, nor the
kitchen-way neither--for he always was too proud for scullery-door and
kitchen--and if he did not give himself the trouble to unfasten the
dining-room or study windows, or to unscrew the iron bars of his own
pantry, none of which is likely, gentlemen--there was but one other way
out, and that way was through Bridget Quarles's own room. Now--"

"Ah--that room, that bed, that corpse, that crock!--It is no use, no
use," the wretched miscreant added slowly, after his first hurried
exclamations; "I did the deed, I did it! guilty, guilty." And,
notwithstanding all Mr. Sharp's benevolent interferences, and appeals to
judge and jury on the score of mono-mania, and shruggings-up of
shoulders at his client's folly, and virtuous indignation at the evident
leaning of the court--the murderer detailed what he had done. He spoke
quietly and firmly, in his usually stern and tyrannical style, as if
severe upon himself, for being what?--a man of blood, a thief, a
perjured false accuser? No, no; lower in the scale of Mammon's judgment,
worse in the estimate of him whose god is gold; he was now a pauper, a
mere moneyless forked animal; a beggared, emptied, worthless, penniless
creature: therefore was he stern against his ill-starred soul, and took
vengeance on himself for being poor.

It was a consistent feeling, and common with the mercantile of this
world; to whom the accidents of fortune are every thing, and the
qualities of mind nothing; whose affections ebb and flow towards
friends, relations--yea, their own flesh and blood, with the varying
tide of wealth: whom a luckless speculation in cotton makes an enemy,
and gambling gains in corn restore a friend; men who fall down mentally
before the golden calf, and offer up their souls to Nebuchadnezzar's
idol: men who never saw harm nor shame in the craftiest usurer or
meanest pimp, provided he has thousands in the three per cents.; and
whose indulgent notions of iniquity reach their climax in the
phrase--the man is poor.

So then, with unhallowed self-revenge, Simon rigidly detailed his
crimes: he led the whole court step by step, as I have led the reader,
through the length and breadth of that terrible night: of the facts he
concealed nothing, and the crowded hall of judgment shuddered as one
man, when he came to his awful disclosure, hitherto unsuspected,
unimagined, of that second strangulation: as to feelings, he might as
well have been a galvanized mummy, an automaton lay-figure enunciating
all with bellows and clapper, for any sense he seemed to have of shame,
or fear, or pity; he admitted his lie about the door, complimented Burke
on the accuracy of his evidence, and declared Roger Acton not merely
innocent, but ignorant of the murder.

This done, without any start or trepidation in his manner as formerly,
he turned his head over his left shoulder, and said, in a deep whisper,
heard all over the court, "And now, Aunt Quarles, I am coming; look out,
woman, I will have my revenge for all your hauntings: again shall we
wrestle, again shall we battle, again shall I throttle you, again,
again!"

O, most fearful thought! who knoweth but it may be true? that spirits of
wickedness and enmity may execute each other's punishment, as those of
righteousness and love minister each other's happiness! that--damned
among the damned--the spirit of a Nero may still delight in torturing,
and that those who in this world were mutual workers of iniquity, may
find themselves in the next, sworn retributors of wrath? No idle threat
was that of the demoniac Simon, and possibly with no vain fears did the
ghost of the murdered speed away.

When the sensation of horror, which for a minute delayed the
court-business, and has given us occasion to think that fearful thought,
when this had gradually subsided, the foreman of the jury, turning to
the judge, said,

"My lord, we will not trouble your lordship to sum up; we are all
agreed--Guilty."

One word about Mr. Sharp: he was entirely chagrined; his fortunes were
at stake; he questioned whether any one in Newgate would think of him
again. To make matters worse, when he whispered for a fee to Mr.
Jennings (for he did whisper, however contrary to professional
etiquette), that worthy gentleman replied by a significant sneer, to the
effect that he had not a penny to give him, and would not if he had:
whereupon Mr. Sharp began to coincide with the rest of the world in
regarding so impoverished a murderer as an atrocious criminal; then,
turning from his client with contempt, he went to the length of
congratulating Roger on his escape, and actually offered his hand to Ben
Burke. The poacher's reply was characteristic: "As you means it kindly,
Master Horsehair, I won't take it for an insult: howsomdever, either
your hand or mine, I won't say which, is too dirty for shaking. Let me
do you a good turn, Master: there's a blue-bottle on your wig; I think
as it's Beelzebub a-whispering in your ear: allow me to drive him away."
And the poacher dealt him such a cuff that this barrister reeled again;
and instantly afterwards took advantage of the cloud of hair-powder to
leave the court unseen.

[A] It has been stated as a fact, that a certain Lady L----
S----, in her last interview with a young man, condemned to death for
the brutal murder of his sweetheart, presented him with a white
camellia, as a token of eternal peace, which the gallant gentleman
actually wore at the gallows in his button-hole.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

SENTENCE AND DEATH.

Silence, silence! shouted the indignant crier, and the
episodical cause of Burke, _v._ Sharp, was speedily hushed.

The eyes of all now concentred on the miserable criminal; for the time,
every thing else seemed forgotten. Roger, Grace, and Ben, grouped
together in the midst of many friends, who had crowded round them to
congratulate, leaned forward like the rest of that dense hall, as simply
thralled spectators. Mr. Grantly lifted up a pair of very moistened eyes
behind his spectacles, and looked earnestly on, with his wig, from
agitation, wriggled tails in front. The judge (it was good old Baron
Parker) put on the black cap to pronounce sentence. There was a pause.

But we have forgotten Simon Jennings--what was he about? did that
"cynosure of neighbouring eyes" appear alarmed at his position, anxious
at his fate, or even attentive to what was going on? No: he not only
appeared, but was, the most unconcerned individual in the whole court:
he even tried to elude utter vacancy of thought by amusing himself with
external things about him: and, on Wordsworth's principle of inducing
sleep by counting

"A flock of sheep, that leisurely pass by,
One after one,"

he was trying to reckon, for pleasant peace of mind's sake, how many
folks were looking at him. Only see--he is turning his white stareful
face in every direction, and his lips are going a thousand and
forty-one, a thousand and forty-two, a thousand and forty-three; he will
not hurry it over, by leaving out the "thousand:" alas! this holiday of
idiotic occupation is all the respite now his soul can know.

And the judge broke that awful silence, saying,

"Prisoner at the bar, you are convicted on your own confession, as well
as upon other evidence, of crimes too horrible to speak of. The
deliberate repetition of that fearful murder, classes you among the
worst of wretches whom it has been my duty to condemn: and when to this
is added your perjured accusation of an innocent man, whom nothing but a
miracle has rescued, your guilt becomes appalling--too hideous for human
contemplation. Miserable man, prepare for death, and after that the
judgment; yet, even for you, if you repent, there may be pardon; it is
my privilege to tell even you, that life and hope are never to be
separated, so long as God is merciful, or man may be contrite. The
Sacrifice of Him who died for us all, for you, poor fellow-creature
[here the good judge wept for a minute like a child]--for you, no less
than for me, is available even to the chief of sinners. It is my duty
and my comfort to direct your blood-stained, but immortal soul, eagerly
to fly to that only refuge from eternal misery. As to this world, your
career of wickedness is at an end: covetousness has conceived and
generated murder; and murder has even over-stept its common bounds, to
repeat the terrible crime, and then to throw its guilt upon the
innocent. Entertain no hope whatever of a respite; mercy in your case
would be sin.

"The sentence of the court is, that you, Simon Jennings, be taken from
that bar to the county jail, and thence on this day fortnight to be
conveyed to the place of execution within the prison, and there by the
hands of the common hangman be hanged by the neck--"

At the word "neck," in the slow and solemn enunciation of the judge,
issued a terrific scream from the mouth of Simon Jennings: was he mad
after all--mad indeed? or was he being strangled by some unseen
executioner? Look at him, convulsively doing battle with an invisible
foe! his eyes start; his face gets bluer and bluer; his hands, fixed
like griffin's talons, clutch at vacancy--he wrestles--struggles--falls.

All was now confusion: even the grave judge, who had necessarily stopped
at that frightful interruption, leaned eagerly over his desk, while
barristers and serjeants learned in the law crowded round the prisoner:
"He is dying! air, there--air! a glass of water, some one!"

About a thimbleful of water, after fifty spillings, arrived safely in a
tumbler; but as for air, no one in that court had breathed any thing but
nitrogen for four hours.

He was dying: and three several doctors, hoisted over the heads of an
admiring multitude, rushed to his relief with thirsty lancets:
apoplexy--oh, of course, apoplexy: and they nodded to each other
confidentially.

Yes, he was dying: they might not move him now: he must die in his sins,
at that dread season, upon that dread spot. Perjury, robbery, and
murder--all had fastened on his soul, and were feeding there like
harpies at a Strophadian feast, or vultures ravening on the liver of
Prometheus. Guilt, vengeance, death had got hold of him, and rent him,
as wild horses tearing him asunder different ways; he lay there
gurgling, strangling, gasping, panting: none could help him, none could
give him ease; he was going on the dark, dull path in the bottom of that
awful valley, where Death's cold shadow overclouds it like a canopy; he
was sinking in that deep black water, that must some day drown us
all--pray Heaven, with hope to cheer us then, and comfort in the fierce
extremity! His eye filmed, his lower jaw relaxed, his head dropped
back--he was dying--dying--dying--

On a sudden, he rallied! his blood had rushed back again from head to
heart, and all the doctors were deceived--again he battled, and fought,
and wrestled, and flung them from him; again he howled, and his eyes
glared lightning--mad? Yes, mad--stark mad! quick--quick--we cannot hold
him: save yourselves there!

But he only broke away from them to stand up free--then he gave one
scream, leaped high into the air, and fell down dead in the dock, with a
crimson stream of blood issuing from his mouth.

CHAPTER XLIX.

RIGHTEOUS MAMMON.

Thus the crock of gold had gained another victim. Is the curse of its
accumulation still unsatisfied? Must more misery be born of that
unhallowed store? Shall the poor man's wrongs, and his little ones' cry
for bread, and the widows' vain appeal for indulgence in necessity, and
the debtor's useless hope for time--more time--and the master's misused
bounty, and the murmuring dependants' ever-extorted dues--must the
frauds, falsehoods, meannesses, and hardnesses of half a century long,
concentrate in that small crock--must these plead still for bloody
judgments from on high against all who touch that gold?

No! the miasma is dispelled: the curse is gone: the crimes are expiated.
The devil in that jar is dispossessed, and with Simon's last gasp has
returned unto his own place. The murderer is dead, and has thereby laid
the ghost of his mate in sin, the murdered victim; while that victim has
long ago paid by blood for her many years of mean domestic pilfering.

And now I see a better angel hovering round the crock: it is purified,
sanctified, accepted. It is become a talent from the Lord, instead of a
temptation from the devil; and the same coin, which once has been but
dull, unrighteous mammon, through justice, thankfulness, and piety,
shineth as the shekel of the temple. Gratefully, as from God, the
rightful owner now may take the gift.

For, gold is a creature of God, representing many excellencies: the
sweat of honest Industry distils to gold; the hot-spring of Genius
congeals to gold; the blessing upon Faithfulness is often showered in
gold; and Charities not seldom are guerdoned back with gold. Let no man
affect to despise what Providence hath set so high in power. None do so
but the man who has it not, and who knows that he covets it in vain.
Sour grapes--sour grapes--for he may not touch the vintage. This is not
the verdict of the wise; the temptation he may fear, the cares he may
confess, the misuse he may condemn: yet will he acknowledge that,
received at God's hand, and spent in his service, there is scarce a
creature in this nether world of higher name than Money.

Beauty fadeth; Health dieth; Talents--yea, and Graces--go to bloom in
other spheres--but when Benevolence would bless, and bless for ages,
his blessing is vain, but for money--when Wisdom would teach, and teach
for ages, the teacher must be fed, and the school built, and the scholar
helped upon his way by money--righteous money. There is a righteous
money as there is unrighteous mammon; but both have their ministrations
here limited to earth and time; the one, a fruit of heaven--the other, a
fungus from below: yet the fruit will bring no blessing, if the Grower
be forgotten; neither shall the fungus yield a poison, if warmed awhile
beneath the better sun. Like all other gifts, given to us sweet, but
spoilt in the using, gold may turn to good or ill: Health may kick, like
fat Jeshurun in his wantonness; Power may change from beneficence to
tyranny; Learning may grow critical in motes until it overlooks the
sunbeam; Love may be degraded to an instinct; Zaccheus may turn
Pharisee; Religion may cant into the hypocrite, or dogmatize to
theologic hate. Even so it is with money: its power of doing good has no
other equivalent in this world than its power of doing evil: it is like
fire--used for hospitable warmth, or wide-wasting ravages; like air--the
gentle zephyr, or the destroying hurricane. Nevertheless, all is for
this world--this world only; a matter extraneous to the spirit, always
foreign, often-times adversary: let a man beware of lading himself with
that thick clay.

I see a cygnet on the broad Pactolus, stemming the waters with its downy
breast; and anon, it would rise upon the wing, and soar to other skies;
so, taking down that snow-white sail, it seeks for a moment to rest its
foot on shore, and thence take flight: alas, poor bird! thou art sinking
in those golden sands, the heavy morsels clog thy flapping wing--in
vain--in vain thou triest to rise--Pactolus chains thee down.

Even such is wealth unto the wisest; wealth at its purest source,
exponent of labour and of mind. But, to the frequent fool, heaped with
foulest dross--for the cygnet of Pactolus and those golden sands,
read--the hippopotamus wallowing in the Niger, and smothered in a bay of
mud.

CHAPTER L.

THE CROCK A BLESSING.

There was no will found: it is likely Mrs. Quarles had never made one;
she feared death too much, and all that put her in mind of it. So the
next of kin, the only one to have the crock of gold, was Susan Scott, a
good, honest, hard-working woman, whom Jennings, by many arts, had kept
away from Hurstley: her husband, a poor thatcher, sadly out of work
except in ricking time, and crippled in both legs by having fallen from
a hay-stack: and as to the family, it was already as long a flight of
steps as would reach to an ordinary first floor, with a prospect (so the
gossips said) of more in the distance. Susan was a Wesleyan
Methodist--many may think, more the pity: but she neither disliked
church, nor called it steeple-house: only, forasmuch as Hagglesfield was
blessed with a sporting parson, the chief reminders of whose presence in
the parish were strifes perpetual about dues and tithes, it is little
blame or wonder, if the starving sheep went anywhither else for
pasturage and water. So, then, Susan was a good mother, a kind
neighbour, a religious, humble-minded Christian: is it not a comfort now
to know that the gold was poured into her lap, and that she hallowed her
good luck by prayers and praises?

I judge it worth while stepping over to Hagglesfield for a couple of
minutes, to find out how she used that gold, and made the crock a
blessing. Susan first thought of her debts: so, to every village shop
around, I fear they were not a few, which had kindly given her credit,
some for weeks, some for months, and more than one for a year, the happy
house-wife went to pay in full; and not this only, but with many
thanks, to press a little present upon each, for well-timed help in her
adversity.

The next thought was near akin to it: to take out of pawn divers valued
articles, two or three of which had been her mother's; for Reuben's
lameness, poor man, kept him much out of work, and the childer came so
quick, and ate so fast, and wore out such a sight of shoes, that, but
for an occasional appeal to Mrs. Quarles--it was her one fair feature
this--they must long ago have been upon the parish: now, however, all
the ancestral articles were redeemed, and honour no doubt with them.

Thirdly, Susan went to her minister in best bib and tucker, and humbly
begged leave to give a guinea to the school; and she hoped his reverence
wouldn't be above accepting a turkey and chine, as a small token of her
gratitude to him for many consolations: it pleased me much to hear that
the good man had insisted upon Susan and her husband coming to eat it
with him the next day at noon.