Part 34

"Vain were my pantomimic supplications: she would listen to nothing but immediate abdication; and I could not well be angry with her, for she had put faith in me, and perhaps run the risk of losing a valuable customer by indulging me with the luxuries of ease and rest which, under no other circumstances, she could have afforded me. I implicitly obeyed her commands; and, as soon as she had retired to dress herself, collected my wearing apparel, and slunk downstairs to prepare for my departure, which seemed inevitable. As I passed along the passages, I heard multifarious snorings in all directions, which convinced me of the truth of my landlady's assertions as to the influx of company, and made me repent more sorely than before, that I could not for once in my life act with discretion and decorum.

"I had scarcely finished dressing myself when my landlady made her appearance in the parlour.

"'I really am surprised, sir,' said she, 'at your conduct. I thought, as a gentleman, you might have been trusted, considering the circumstances under which I ventured to put you into that room.'

"'Really,' said I, 'I thought you were playing me a trick, and I could not bear your having the laugh against me, and so I certainly _did_ venture just to ascertain----'

"'Ascertain!' cried the landlady; 'that's just the very thing you ought upon no consideration whatever to have done. Did I not tell you the lady was an invalid? Oh! Mr. Daly, Mr. Daly! I believe you are the d----'

"'----evil be, ma'am,' said I, interrupting her, 'to him who evil thinks. I meant no harm, and----'

"'You might have ruined me, sir,' said mine hostess.

"'Might I?' said I; 'when?'

"'This very night, sir,' said she; 'this very hour. Why, what would have been thought of me and my house, if it had been known that I had allowed you to sleep in that room? Nobody would have believed that I did it out of pure regard for your comfort, tired and knocked up as you were, and because I had not a hole or corner besides into which you could have poked yourself: however, it will be a lesson for me another time; and now, Mr. Daly, if you will take my advice,--the lads are getting up in the yard,--you will let me order out a chaise and pair, and go on to Guildford, where, I have no doubt, they have plenty of beds, and where you may get some comfortable rest; and as the brother of the lady in No. 3 is sleeping here to-night, something unpleasant to all parties might happen in the morning, and you would do me a very great favour if you would go.'

"I felt considerably inclined, for many reasons, to accede to what appeared the very reasonable desire of mine hostess: first of all, I might do her a mischief by staying; in the second place, the lady might complain to her brother; in the third place, the White Hart at Guildford was a remarkably good inn; and a well-made bed, and a well-warmed bed-room, would be extremely comfortable by comparison with the chilly atmosphere and the chair-slumber of the parlour behind the bar at Ripley. To Guildford I must eventually proceed,--and why not now? So, with the best possible grace, I told mine hostess that I was at her command, and begged of her to dispose of me as she thought fit.

"I paid her liberally for the horses, the repast, and the portion of my night's rest which I ought to have had; and when I stepped into the 'yellow and two,' I shook hands with her, and she gave me a look as much as to say, again and again, 'Daly, Daly! you are not to be trusted.'

"Well, sir, away I went, glasses rattling, and wind whistling (a short stage, you know); and, before four, we reached the White Hart. I had forestalled my Guildford sleep in the chaise; however, we soon made them hear at the inn, and in less than three quarters of an hour I was again rolled up in the sheets, having before I went to bed written a note to my servant at Wrigglesworth, which I desired might be sent off early in the morning, directing him, after leaving word with Sir Marmaduke's man that I was alive, if not merry, to come to me with my clothes and other requisites for dressing by ten o'clock; and certainly, I must say, I never did enjoy my rest and quietness so entirely and completely as upon that particular occasion. Instead of ten o'clock--having desired that I might not be disturbed--I did not awake until past noon, and then regretted that my balmy comfort had been broken in upon.

"From my servant, when I saw him, I learned that my friends at Wrigglesworth had really expressed great anxiety on my account, which did not displease me,--I rather like to create an effect,--but I did not hear that my dear Lady Wrigglesworth had either absented herself from dinner or disappeared for the evening in consequence of my absence, which I confess mortified my vanity a little. I dressed, and having ensconced myself in the drawing-room of the White Hart, the walls of which apartment were most constitutionally decorated with loyal and orthodox prints, and which immediately faces the Gothic House, I delighted myself by watching the movements of two uncommonly pretty girls in the said antiquated edifice, who appeared to be in full possession, in the absence, as I surmised, of some greater, and probably graver, personages.

"After breakfast I strolled out. I like Guildford: it is a nice, clean, handsome, healthy town; the hill in the street I admit to be a nuisance; the alternation between climbing up and sliding down is tiresome, and even dangerous. These little objections did not affect me--nothing affects me when I am on the hunt for subjects--so away I went--smack bang into a Quaker's shop to buy myself a pair of gloves--and there--there I saw what I had never before seen--two Quaker children playing about the place, thee'ing and thou'ing each other with perfect French familiarity. Now, do _you_ know," continued Daly, "it is quite worthy of remark,--that nobody--always, I presume, excepting Quakers themselves--has ever seen a Quaker baby in arms, a Quaker lady _enceinte_, or a Quaker gentleman with a _wooden_ leg--eh? I like these statistical speculations. So, having bought my gloves, I returned to 'mine inn,' about one, intending forthwith to proceed to Wrigglesworth.

"Just as I reached the door of the White Hart, and just as my man was bringing out my horses, my eye was attracted by a funeral procession, consisting merely of a hearse, one mourning coach, and a private carriage, which had halted before the door; two persons who had occupied the coach having entered the house while fresh horses were put to the three vehicles. A natural and not very blameable curiosity prompted me to ask a jolly, merry-looking undertaker, whose funeral it was, whither they were going, and whence they had come?

"'Why, sir,' said the man, 'what you see here isn't the regular job as I hopes to turn it out at Chichester next Tuesday, which is the day fixed for the interment of the corpse. Short notice, you see, sir; could not do everything in a minute, sir.'

"'What is the name of the----?' I hesitatingly asked.

"'Miss Barmingfield, sir,' said the man, 'is the name of the corpse. Poor young lady, it was as well as you and me three days ago, and was a coming down to Chichester to spend a month with its mother; when, just in a minute, it was taken ill at Ripley, and out it went for all the world like the snuff of a candle.'

"'At Ripley!' said I; 'did she live at Ripley?'

"'No, sir, she didn't,' said the undertaker; 'you'll excuse _me_--she died there.'

"'But she must have lived there first, I presume,' said I, rather angrily; for a joker hates to be joked upon.

"'A very short time indeed,' said the jolly undertaker. 'She arrived at the Talbot the day before yesterday, about twelve o'clock, in high health, and by six at night, as I said afore, she was a corpse.'

"'At the Talbot!' said I. 'And are you bringing the body from the Talbot now?'

"'Yes, sir,' said the man; 'on our way to Chichester. We could not move her, poor dear young lady, afore, because I couldn't get things ready till this morning.'

"'Pray,' said I, with a degree of agitation which evidently astonished my companion in the crape, 'where--in what part of the Talbot at Ripley did the young lady die?'

"'In Number 3; that 'ere double-bedded room right over the gateway,' said the man. 'We only packed her up this morning.'

"My dear Gurney, you may easily imagine what my feelings were. Only conceive the idea of having been turned into a double-bedded room in the dark with a dead woman! It was lucky that the horses were pronounced ready, and that Major Barmingfield, whose residence at Ripley mine hostess had so truly announced, made his appearance just at the moment that the undertaker had enlightened me on the subject. I felt a mingled sensation of horror at the event, of joy at my escape from the place where it occurred, and of repentance for my misconduct towards my landlady, who had so good-naturedly strained a point for my accommodation, which nearly overset me; and I have not a notion what I should have done, had it not been that the coldness of the weather afforded me an excuse for drinking off a glass of brandy, and the lateness of the hour forced me to mount my nag and begin my canter to Wrigglesworth forthwith."

A VISIT TO THE OLD BAILEY.

As I entered the Court, a case of some importance had terminated, and the judge just concluded his summing up, when the clerk of the arraigns put the customary question to the jury, "How say ye, gentlemen--is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?" Upon which the jurymen laid their heads together, and I heard something in a whisper from their foreman, who immediately pronounced the agreeable verdict, "Not guilty." The prisoner bowed gracefully--he was a pickpocket--and retired.

The prompt decision of the jury convinced me that it must have been a clear case; and I rejoiced at the departure of the now exonerated sufferer.

"That's a reg'lar rascal," said the sheriff to me in a whisper; "never was such a case heard on, to be sure--seventeen watches, thirty-two pocket handkerchiefs, four pair of spectacles, and five snuff-boxes, all found upon his person!"

"Yet," said I, "the evidence could not have been very strong against him--the jury acquitted him after a minute's consultation."

"Evidence, Mr. Gurney!" said the sheriff, "how little do you know of the Old Bailey!--why, if these London juries were to wait to consider evidence, we never should get through the business--the way we do here is to make a zig-zag of it."

I did not exactly comprehend the term as it was now applied, although Daly had often used it in my society with reference to a pin and a card universally employed at the interesting game of _rouge et noir_; and I therefore made no scruple of expressing my ignorance.

"Don't you understand, sir?" said the sheriff--"why, the next prisoner will be found guilty--the last was acquitted--the one after the next will be acquitted too--it comes alternate like--save half, convict half--that's what we call a zig-zag; and taking the haggregate, it comes to the same pint, and I think justice is done as fair here as in any court in Christendom."

This explanation rendered the next prisoner who made his appearance an object of considerable interest to me. He was a little dirty boy, who stood charged with having stolen a pound of bacon and a peg-top from a boy somewhat his junior. The young prosecutor produced a witness, who, as far as appearances went, might, without any great injustice, have taken the place of the prisoner, and who gave his evidence with considerable fluency and flippancy. His manner attracted the notice of one of the leading barristers of the court, Mr. Flappertrap, who, in cross-examining him, inquired whether he knew the nature of an oath.

"Yes, I does," said the boy.

"Explain it," said Flappertrap.

"You may be d----d," replied the lad; "that's a hoath, arn't it?"

"What does he say?" said the judge--who, as I about this period discovered, was as deaf as a post.

"He says, 'You may be d----d,' my lord," said Flappertrap, who appeared particularly glad of an opportunity to borrow a phrase, which he might use for the occasion.

"What does he mean by that?" said the judge. That is the way, my lord, he exhibits his knowledge of the nature of an oath."

"Pah! pah!" said the judge--"Boy, d'ye hear me?"

"Yes," said the boy, "I hears."

"Have you ever been to school?"

"Yes," said the boy, "in St. Giles's parish for three years."

"Do you know your catechism?"

The boy muttered something which was not audible to the court generally, and was utterly lost upon the judge personally.

"What does he say?" said his lordship.

"Speak up, sir," said Mr. Flappertrap.

The boy muttered again, looking down and seeming embarrassed.

"Speak louder, sir," said another barrister, whose name I did not know, but who was remarkable for a most unequivocal obliquity of vision--"speak to his lordship--look at him--look as I do, sir."

"I can't," said the boy, "you squints!"

A laugh followed this bit of _naïvete_, which greatly abashed the counsellor, and somewhat puzzled the judge.

"What does he say?" said his lordship.

"He says he knows his catechism, my lord."

"Oh--does not know his catechism--why then, what--"

"_Does_ know, my lord," whispered the lord mayor, who was in the chair.

"Oh--ah--_does_ know--I know--here, boy," said his lordship, "you know your catechism, do you?"

"Yes," replied he, sullenly.

"We'll see, then--what is your name?" said his lordship.

"My name," said the intelligent lad--"what, in the catechism?"

"Yes, what is your name?"

"M. or N. as the case may be," said the boy.

"Go down, go down," said the judge, angrily, and down he went.

"Gentlemen of the jury," said his lordship, "this case will require very little of your attention--the only evidence against the prisoner at the bar which goes to fasten the crime upon him, is that which has been offered by the last witness, who evidently is ignorant of the nature and obligation of an oath. With respect to the pig's toes which the prisoner stands charged with stealing----"

"A peg-top, my lord!" said Flappertrap, standing up, turning round, and speaking over the bench into the judge's ears.

"Peg-top," said his lordship--"oh--ah--I see--very bad pen--it looks in my notes like pig's toes. Well--peg-top--of the peg-top which it is alleged he took from the prosecutor, there has not been one syllable mentioned by the prosecutor himself; nor do I see that the charge of taking the bacon is by any means proved. There is no point for me to direct your attention to, and you will say whether the prisoner at the bar is guilty or not; and a very trumpery case it is altogether, that I must admit."

His lordship ceased, and the jury again laid their heads together; again the foreman gave the little "hem" of conscious readiness for decision; again did the clerk of the arraigns ask the important question, "How say ye, gentlemen, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?" "Guilty," said the foreman to the clerk of the arraigns; and "I told you so," said the sheriff to me.

The next case was a short one. The prisoner a woman, the evidence clear and straightforward; but no great interest was excited, because it was known that the case, for the trial of which in point of fact the learned judge had, for particular reasons, given his attendance, and which accounted for his lordship's presence at the close of the session, was very speedily to come on. This extraordinary combination of circumstances afforded me the most favourable opportunity of seeing all the sights of this half awful, half amusing scene, even to the discharge of the grand jury, who had been specially kept together for the purpose of finding or ignoring the bill preferred against the eminent culprit, who was evidently the great attraction of the day--having found which, they had but three more to decide upon.

It was in the middle of the defence of the female prisoner, now "_coram nobis_," and just as she was making a beautiful but useless appeal to the "gentlemen of the jury," that a bustle in the court announced some coming event.

"I am," said the weeping prisoner, "an orphan--I lost my mother while I was yet a child--my father married again, and I was driven from what had been before a happy home--I have only to pray----"

Bang went a door--the scuffle of feet were heard--down went some benches--"Make way--make way!" cried some of the officers. "Stand back, sir, stand back--the gentlemen of the grand jury are coming into court." To what the moaning prisoner at the bar might have limited her supplications, I never had an opportunity of ascertaining, for the noise I have mentioned was succeeded by the appearance of eighteen or nineteen men, dressed up in something like the shabbiest dominoes I had seen at Lady Wolverhampton's masquerade, trimmed with very dirty fur--the leader, or foreman, carrying in his hand three bits of parchment. As these gentlemen advanced to a space reserved for them in the centre of the court, the judge kept exchanging bows with them until they had all reached their destination--the foreman then delivered to the clerk of arraigns the three bits of parchment, who, putting his glasses on his nose, read--James Hickson, larceny--not found.--John Hogg, felony--true bill.--Mary Ann Hodges, felony--not found. The clerk then informed his lordship, partly by words, and partly by signs, the result of the deliberations of the grand jury, and the fact that there were no more bills to set before them. Having thus far proceeded, that officer inquired if the gentlemen of the grand jury had any presentment to make; whereupon the foreman, one of the largest and dirtiest-looking persons imaginable, but whose countenance was indicative of love of power and command, and who appeared, at the moment he prepared himself to unburthen his great soul of a grievance, to feel as if the whole world were a football, made for him to play with,--

"My lord," said he, drawing himself up into an attitude, "I am sure I need not, at this time of day, enter into any discussion with your lordship on the vast importance of the rights and privileges of Englishmen--of the original establishment of the trial by jury in this country. It would be worse than idle to occupy your valuable time and that of this court, by dilating upon the merits of our constitution--the chiefest of which has, I may say--been always--and I will say--wisely, considerately, and prudently held to be that peculiar mode of administering justice between man and man. But, my lord, if in civil cases the deliberation and decision of a jury are considered adequate safeguards to the rights and property of the people, the law, still more careful of their lives and liberties, has interposed in criminal cases another and a higher tribunal, in the nature of a grand jury." [Hereabouts the judge, having bowed his head graciously, omitted to raise it again, having dropped into a sound slumber.]

"That tribunal of mediation in the first instance, is full of importance; and whatever subsequent proceedings may be taken in a case, I do say, for myself and my fellows, that the decision upon _ex-parte_ evidence requires more circumspection, more care, and more consideration than a verdict delivered after a case had been argued, and after witnesses have been heard on both sides.

"If, my lord, your lordship concedes this point, I will merely say, generally, that when the mind is occupied by any important object, more especially in matters of jurisprudence, it is absolutely necessary that nothing, if possible, should occur to irritate or exacerbate the feelings--all should be calm, and at rest."

Several people turned their eyes towards his lordship, and some smiled.

"No incidental annoyance should be permitted to interpose itself; nothing which could divert the judge from the point to which his intellectual faculties ought to be directed, and to which, my lord, under suitable circumstances, they would as they should naturally converge. But, my lord, we are finite beings--creatures of habit--subject to all the weaknesses of our nature, and liable to be acted upon by impulses almost unaccountable to ourselves. For myself and my fellows, I may, perhaps, hope for a favourable interpretation of our intentions, and a lenient judgment of our conduct. We have, my lord, struggled hard to do our duty, and I hope we have done it serviceably and effectually--conscientiously and faithfully, I am sure we have. But, my lord, we do think it necessary to call your lordship's most serious attention to a fact which is embodied in the presentment I hold in my hand. It is one which occurs to us to be of paramount importance, as far as the tempering of justice with mercy is involved: we have suffered grievously from the existence of the evil to which we point; and although at this time of the year its effects are of course not so heavily felt as in the winter season, we have considered it a duty we owe to this court, to our fellow-countrymen, and, we may say, to every man intimately or remotely connected with the administration of criminal justice, spread as they may be over the whole surface of the globe, to state that the chimney in the grand jury-room smokes so much and so continually, that it is impossible to endure its effects calmly or patiently; and we therefore think it right to bring the matter thus formally before your lordship, and to desire that measures may be taken to abate a nuisance which, by its effects, is calculated to thwart, impede, and even distort the course of justice, and produce evils, the magnitude of which it is scarcely possible to imagine, and certainly not to express."

A buzz of approbation from the gentlemen of the grand jury, who had been undergoing the process of smoke-drying for several days, created a stir in the court, in the midst of which the learned judge awoke; and the lord mayor having whispered into his lordship's wig, his lordship bowed, and the clerk took the parchment.

"Mr. Foreman, and gentlemen of the grand jury," said his lordship, "I am happy to say that your labours for the present are concluded; there are no more bills for your consideration. Your presentment shall be attended to, and I have to acknowledge your great zeal and attention, and to give you thanks for your services:--gentlemen, you are now discharged."

The bows, and scufflings, and cries of "Make way there for the gentlemen of the grand jury, who are coming out of court," were resumed, and the orator and his peers retired, leaving the poor girl at the bar, wondering what had happened, and what could be the reason that the worshipful community with the cat-skin tippets should have interposed themselves in the middle of her pathetic defence, in order to discuss the irritating characteristic of a smoky chimney.

I admit that the pompous oratory of the foreman, the "_mons parturiens_"--a splendid exhibition, and the "_ridiculus mus_," which eventually presented itself, were to me treats of no common order, and I regretted that Daly was not with me to participate with me in devouring the grave absurdities which we should have had before us.