CHAPTER XXXV.

Why is it that at moments there creeps over us an awe, a terror,

overpowering but undefined? Why is it that we shudder without a

cause, and feel the warm life-blood stand still in its courses?

Are the dead too near?

FALKLAND

Ha! sayest thou! Hideous thought, I feel it twine

O'er my iced heart, as curls around his prey

The sure and deadly serpent!

............

What! in the hush and in the solitude

Passed that dread soul away?

Love and Hatred.

The evening prior to that morning in which the above conversation

occurred, Brandon passed alone in his lodging at --------. He had

felt himself too unwell to attend the customary wassail, and he sat

indolently musing in the solitude of the old-fashioned chamber to which

he was consigned. There, two wax-candles on the smooth, quaint table

dimly struggled against the gloom of heavy panels, which were relieved

at unfrequent intervals by portraits in oaken frames, dingy, harsh,

and important with the pomp of laced garments and flowing wigs. The

predilection of the landlady for modern tastes had, indeed, on each

side of the huge fireplace suspended more novel masterpieces of the fine

arts. In emblematic gorgeousness hung the pictures of the four Seasons,

buxom wenches all, save Winter, who was deformedly bodied forth in the

likeness of an aged carle. These were interspersed by an engraving of

Lord Mauleverer, the lieutenant of the neighbouring county, looking

extremely majestical in his peer's robes; and by three typifications of

Faith, Hope, and Charity,--ladies with whom it may be doubted if the

gay earl ever before cultivated so close an intimacy. Curtains, of that

antique chintz in which fasces of stripes are alternated by rows of

flowers, filled the interstices of three windows; a heavy sideboard

occupied the greater portion of one side of the room; and on the

opposite side, in the rear of Brandon, a vast screen stretched its

slow length along, and relieved the unpopulated and as it were desolate

comfort of the apartment.

Pale and imperfectly streamed the light upon Brandon's face, as he sat

in his large chair, leaning his cheek on one hand, and gazing with the

unconscious earnestness of abstraction on the clear fire. At that moment

a whole phalanx of gloomy thought was sweeping in successive array

across his mind. His early ambition, his ill-omened marriage, the causes

of his after-rise in the wrong-judging world, the first dawn of his

reputation, his rapid and flattering successes, his present elevation,

his aspiring hope of far higher office, and more patrician honours,--all

these phantoms passed before him in checkered shadow and light; but ever

with each stalked one disquieting and dark remembrance,--the loss of his

only son.

Weaving his ambition with the wish to revive the pride of his hereditary

name, every acquisition of fortune or of fame rendered him yet

more anxious to find the only one who could perpetuate these hollow

distinctions to his race.

“I shall recover him yet!” he broke out suddenly and aloud. As he spoke,

a quick, darting, spasmodic pain ran shivering through his whole frame,

and then fixed for one instant on his heart with a gripe like the

talons of a bird; it passed away, and was followed by a deadly sickness.

Brandon rose, and filling himself a large tumbler of water, drank

with avidity. The sickness passed off like the preceding pain; but the

sensation had of late been often felt by Brandon, and disregarded,--for

few persons were less afflicted with the self-torture of hypochondria;

but now, that night, whether it was more keen than usual, or whether

his thought had touched on the string that jars naturally on the most

startling of human anticipations, we know not, but, as he resumed his

seat, the idea of his approaching dissolution shot like an ice-bolt

through his breast.

So intent was this scheming man upon the living objects of the world,

and so little were his thoughts accustomed to turn toward the ultimate

goal of all things, that this idea obtruding itself abruptly upon him,

startled him with a ghastly awe. He felt the colour rush from his cheek,

and a tingling and involuntary pain ran wandering through the channels

of his blood, even from the roots of the hair to the soles of his feet.

But the stern soul of Brandon was not one which shadows could long

affright. He nerved himself to meet the grim thought thus forced upon

his mental eye, and he gazed on it with a steady and enduring look.

“Well,” thought he, “is my hour coming, or have I yet the ordinary term

of mortal nature to expect? It is true, I have lately suffered these

strange revulsions of the frame with somewhat of an alarming frequency;

perhaps this medicine, which healed the anguish of one infirmity, has

produced another more immediately deadly. Yet why should I think this?

My sleep is sound and calm, my habits temperate, my mind active and

clear as in its best days. In my youth I never played the traitor with

my constitution; why should it desert me at the very threshold of my

age? Nay, nay, these are but passing twitches, chills of the blood

that begins to wax thin. Shall I learn to be less rigorous in my diet?

Perhaps wine may reward my abstinence in avoiding it for my luxuries,

by becoming a cordial to my necessities! Ay, I will consult,--I will

consult, I must not die yet. I have--let me see, three--four grades

to gain before the ladder is scaled. And, above all, I must regain my

child! Lucy married to Mauleverer, myself a peer, my son wedded to-whom?

Pray God he be not married already! My nephews and my children nobles!

the house of Brandon restored, my power high in the upward gaze of

men, my fame set on a more lasting basis than a skill in the quirks of

law,--these are yet to come; these I will not die till I have enjoyed!

Men die not till their destinies are fulfilled. The spirit that swells

and soars within me says that the destiny of William Brandon is but half

begun!”

With this conclusion, Brandon sought his pillow. What were the

reflections of the prisoner whom he was to judge? Need we ask? Let

us picture to ourselves his shattered health, the languor of sickness

heightening the gloom which makes the very air of a jail; his certainty

of the doom to be passed against him; his knowledge that the uncle of

Lucy Brandon was to be his judge, that Mauleverer was to be his accuser,

and that in all human probability the only woman he had ever loved must

sooner or later learn the criminality of his life and the ignominy of

his death; let us but glance at the above blackness of circumstances

that surrounded him, and it would seem that there is but little doubt

as to the complexion of his thoughts! Perhaps, indeed, even in that

terrible and desolate hour one sweet face shone on him, “and dashed the

darkness all away.” Perhaps, too, whatever might be the stings of his

conscience, one thought, one remembrance of a temptation mastered and

a sin escaped, brought to his eyes tears that were sweet and healing in

their source. But the heart of a man in Clifford's awful situation is

dark and inscrutable; and often when the wildest and gloomiest external

circumstances surround us, their reflection sleeps like a shadow, calm

and still upon the mind.

The next morning, the whole town of (a town in which, we regret to say,

an accident once detained ourself for three wretched days, and which

we can, speaking therefore from profound experience, assert to be in

ordinary times the most melancholy and peopleless-looking congregation

of houses that a sober imagination can conceive) exhibited a scene of

such bustle, animation, and jovial anxiety as the trial for life or

death to a fellow-creature can alone excite in the phlegmatic breasts

of the English. Around the court the crowd thickened with every moment,

until the whole marketplace in which the townhall was situated became

one living mass. The windows of the houses were filled with women, some

of whom had taken that opportunity to make parties to breakfast; and

little round tables, with tea and toast on them, caught the eyes of the

grinning mobists as they gaped impatiently upwards.

“Ben,” said a stout yeoman, tossing up a halfpenny, and catching the

said coin in his right hand, which he immediately covered with the

left,--“Ben, heads or tails that Lovett is hanged; heads hanged, tails

not, for a crown.”

“Petticoats, to be sure,” quoth Ben, eating an apple; and it was heads!

“Damme, you've lost!” cried the yeoman, rubbing his rough hands with

glee.

It would have been a fine sight for Asmodeus, could he have perched on

one of the house tops of the market-place of --------, and looked on the

murmuring and heaving sea of mortality below. Oh! the sight of a crowd

round a court of law or a gibbet ought to make the devil split himself

with laughter.

While the mob was fretting, and pushing, and swearing, and grinning, and

betting, and picking pockets, and trampling feet, and tearing gowns,

and scrambling nearer and nearer to the doors and windows of the court,

Brandon was slowly concluding his abstemious repast, preparatory to

attendance on his judicial duties. His footman entered with a letter.

Sir William glanced rapidly over the seal (one of those immense

sacrifices of wax used at that day), adorned with a huge coat-of-arms,

surmounted with an earl's coronet, and decorated on either side with

those supporters so dear to heraldic taste. He then tore open the

letter, and read as follows:--

MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM,--You know that in the last conversation I had

the Honour to hold with you I alluded, though perhaps somewhat

distantly, to the esteem which his Majesty had personally expressed

for your principles and talents, and his wish to testify it at the

earliest opportunity. There will be, as you are doubtless aware, an

immediate creation of four peerages. Your name stands second on the

list. The choice of title his Majesty graciously leaves to you; but

he has hinted that the respectable antiquity of your family would

make him best pleased were you to select the name of your own

family-seat, which, if I mistake not, is Warlock. You will instruct

me at your leisure as to the manner in which the patent should be

made out, touching the succession, etc. Perhaps (excuse the license

of an old friend) this event may induce you to forsake your long-

cherished celibacy. I need not add that this accession of rank will

be accompanied by professional elevation. You will see by the

papers that the death of --------leaves vacant the dignity of Chief

Baron; and I am at length empowered to offer you a station

proportioned to your character and talents.

With great consideration, believe me, my dear Sir, Very truly yours,

Private and Confidential.

Brandon's dark eye glanced quickly from the signature of the premier,

affixed to this communication, towards the mirror opposite him. He

strode to it, and examined his own countenance with a long and wistful

gaze. Never, we think, did youthful gallant about to repair to the

trysting-spot, in which fair looks make the greatest of earthly

advantages, gaze more anxiously on the impartial glass than now did the

ascetic and scornful judge; and never, we ween, did the eye of the said

gallant retire with a more satisfied and triumphant expression.

“Yes, yes!” muttered the judge, “no sign of infirmity is yet written

here; the blood flows clear and warm enough; the cheek looks firm too,

and passing full, for one who was always of the lean kine. Aha! this

letter is a cordial, an elixir vitro. I feel as if a new lease were

granted to the reluctant tenant. Lord Warlock, the first Baron of

Warlock, Lord Chief Baron,--what next?”

As he spoke, he strode unconsciously away, folding his arms with that

sort of joyous and complacent gesture which implies the idea of a man

hugging himself in a silent delight. Assuredly had the most skilful

physician then looked upon the ardent and all-lighted face, the firm

step, the elastic and muscular frame, the vigorous air of Brandon, as

he mentally continued his soliloquy, he would have predicted for him as

fair a grasp on longevity as the chances of mortal life will allow. He

was interrupted by the servant entering.

“It is twenty-five minutes after nine, sir,” said he, respectfully.

“Sir,--sir!” repeated Brandon. “Ah, well! so late!”

“Yes, sir, and the sheriff's carriage is almost at the door.”

“Humph! Minister,--Peer,--Warlock,--succession. My son, my son! would to

God that I could find thee!”

Such were Brandon's last thoughts as he left the room. It was with

great difficulty, so dense was the crowd, that the judge drove up to

the court. As the carriage slowly passed, the spectators pressed to

the windows of the vehicle, and stood on tiptoe to catch a view of

the celebrated lawyer. Brandon's face, never long indicative of his

feelings, had now settled into its usual gravity; and the severe

loftiness of his look chilled, while it satisfied, the curiosity of the

vulgar. It had been ordered that no person should be admitted until the

judge had taken his seat on the bench; and this order occasioned so much

delay, owing to the accumulated pressure of the vast and miscellaneous

group, that it was more than half an hour before the court was able to

obtain that decent order suiting the solemnity of the occasion. At five

minutes before ten a universal and indescribable movement announced that

the prisoner was put to the bar. We read in one of the journals of that

day, that “on being put to the bar, the prisoner looked round with a

long and anxious gaze, which at length settled on the judge, and then

dropped, while the prisoner was observed to change countenance slightly.

Lovett was dressed in a plain dark suit; he seemed to be about six feet

high; and though thin and worn, probably from the effect of his wound

and imprisonment, he is remarkably well made, and exhibits the outward

appearance of that great personal strength which he is said to possess,

and which is not unfrequently the characteristic of daring criminals.

His face is handsome and prepossessing, his eyes and hair dark, and his

complexion pale, possibly from the effects of his confinement; there was

a certain sternness in his countenance during the greater part of the

trial. His behaviour was remarkably collected and composed. The prisoner

listened with the greatest attention to the indictment, which the reader

will find in another part of our paper, charging him with the highway

robbery of Lord Mauleverer, on the night of the ------ of ------ last.

He occasionally inclined his body forward, and turned his ear towards

the court; and he was observed, as the jury were sworn, to look steadily

in the face of each. He breathed thick and hard when the various aliases

he had assumed--Howard, Cavendish, Jackson, etc.,--were read; but smiled

with an unaccountable expression when the list was completed, as if

exulting at the varieties of his ingenuity. At twenty-five minutes past

ten Mr. Dyebright, the counsel for the crown, stated the case to the

jury.”

Mr. Dyebright was a lawyer of great eminence; he had been a Whig all

his life, but had latterly become remarkable for his insincerity,

and subservience to the wishes of the higher powers. His talents were

peculiar and effective. If he had little eloquence, he had much power;

and his legal knowledge, was sound and extensive. Many of his brethren

excelled him in display; but no one, like him, possessed the secret of

addressing a jury. Winningly familiar; seemingly candid to a degree that

scarcely did justice to his cause, as if he were in an agony lest he

should persuade you to lean a hair-breadth more on his side of the

case than justice would allow; apparently all made up of good, homely,

virtuous feeling, a disinterested regard for truth, a blunt yet tender

honesty, seasoned with a few amiable fireside prejudices, which always

come home to the hearts of your fathers of families and thorough-bred

Britons; versed in all the niceties of language, and the magic of

names; if he were defending crime, carefully calling it misfortune; if

attacking misfortune, constantly calling it crime,--Mr. Dyebright was

exactly the man born to pervert justice, to tickle jurors, to cozen

truth with a friendly smile, and to obtain a vast reputation as an

excellent advocate. He began with a long preliminary flourish on the

importance of the case. He said that he should with the most scrupulous

delicacy avoid every remark calculated to raise unnecessary prejudice

against the prisoner. He should not allude to his unhappy notoriety, his

associations with the lowest dregs. (Here up jumped the counsel for the

prisoner, and Mr. Dyebright was called to order.) “God knows,” resumed

the learned gentleman, looking wistfully at the jury, “that my learned

friend might have spared himself this warning. God knows that I would

rather fifty of the wretched inmates of this county jail were to escape

unharmed than that a hair of the prisoner you behold at the bar should

be unjustly touched. The life of a human being is at stake; we should be

guilty ourselves of a crime which on our deathbeds we should tremble to

recall, were we to suffer any consideration, whether of interest or of

prejudice, or of undue fear for our own properties and lives, to bias

us even to the turning of a straw against the unfortunate prisoner.

Gentlemen, if you find me travelling a single inch from my case,--if

you find me saying a single word calculated to harm the prisoner in your

eyes, and unsupported by the evidence I shall call,--then I implore you

not to depend upon the vigilance of my learned friend, but to treasure

these my errors in your recollection, and to consider them as so many

arguments in favour of the prisoner. If, gentlemen, I could by any

possibility imagine that your verdict would be favourable to the

prisoner, I can, unaffectedly and from the bottom of my heart,

declare to you that I should rejoice; a case might be lost, but a

fellow-creature would be saved! Callous as we of the legal profession

are believed, we have feelings like you; and I ask any one of you,

gentlemen of the jury, any one who has ever felt the pleasures of social

intercourse, the joy of charity, the heart's reward of benevolence,--I

ask any one of you, whether, if he were placed in the arduous situation

I now hold, all the persuasions of vanity would not vanish at once from

his mind, and whether his defeat as an advocate would not be rendered

dear to him by the common and fleshly sympathies of a man. But,

gentlemen” (Mr. Dyebright's voice at once deepened and faltered), “there

is a duty, a painful duty, we owe to our country; and never, in the long

course of my professional experience, do I remember an instance in which

it was more called forth than in the present. Mercy, gentlemen, is dear,

very dear to us all; but it is the deadliest injury we can inflict on

mankind when it is bought at the expense of justice.”

The learned gentleman then, after a few further prefatory observations,

proceeded to state how, on the night of ------- last, Lord Mauleverer

was stopped and robbed by three men masked, of a sum of money amounting

to above L350, a diamond snuff-box, rings, watch, and a case of most

valuable jewels,--how Lord Mauleverer, in endeavouring to defend

himself, had passed a bullet through the clothes of one of the

robbers,--how it would be proved that the garments of the prisoner,

found in a cave in Oxfordshire, and positively sworn to by a witness he

should produce, exhibited a rent similar to such a one as a bullet would

produce,--how, moreover, it would be positively sworn to by the same

witness, that the prisoner Lovett had come to the cavern with two

accomplices not since taken up, since their rescue by the prisoner, and

boasted of the robbery he had just committed; that in the clothes

and sleeping apartment of the robber the articles stolen from Lord

Mauleverer were found; and that the purse containing the notes for L300,

the only thing the prisoner could probably have obtained time to carry

off with him, on the morning on which the cave was entered by the

policemen, was found on his person on the day on which he had attempted

the rescue of his comrades, and had been apprehended in that attempt.

He stated, moreover, that the dress found in the cavern, and sworn to

by one witness he should produce as belonging to the prisoner, answered

exactly to the description of the clothes worn by the principal robber,

and sworn to by Lord Mauleverer, his servant, and the postilions.

In like manner the colour of one of the horses found in the cavern

corresponded with that rode by the highwayman. On these circumstantial

proofs, aided by the immediate testimony of the king's evidence (that

witness whom he should produce) he rested a case which could, he

averred, leave no doubt on the minds of an impartial jury. Such, briefly

and plainly alleged, made the substance of the details entered into

by the learned counsel, who then proceeded to call his witnesses. The

evidence of Lord Mauleverer (who was staying at Mauleverer Park, which

was within a few miles of--) was short and clear (it was noticed as

a singular circumstance, that at the end of the evidence the prisoner

bowed respectfully to his lordship). The witness of the postilions

and of the valet was no less concise; nor could all the ingenuity

of Clifford's counsel shake any part of their evidence in his

cross-examination. The main witness depended on by the crown was now

summoned, and the solemn countenance of Peter MacGrawler rose on the

eyes of the jury. One look of cold and blighting contempt fell on him

from the eye of the prisoner, who did not again deign to regard him

during the whole of his examination.

The witness of MacGrawler was delivered with a pomposity worthy of

the ex-editor of the “Asinaeum.” Nevertheless, by the skill of Mr.

Dyebright, it was rendered sufficiently clear a story to leave an

impression on the jury damnatory to the interests of the prisoner.

The counsel on the opposite side was not slow in perceiving the ground

acquired by the adverse party; so, clearing his throat, he rose with a

sneering air to the cross-examination.

“So, so,” began Mr. Botheram, putting on a pair of remarkably large

spectacles, wherewith he truculently regarded the witness,--“so, so,

Mr. MacGrawler,--is that your name, eh, eh? Ah, it is, is it? A very

respectable name it is too, I warrant. Well, sir, look at me. Now,

on your oath, remember, were you ever the editor of a certain

thing published every Wednesday, and called the 'Athenaeum,' or the

'Asinaeum,' or some such name?”

Commencing with this insidious and self-damnatory question, the learned

counsel then proceeded, as artfully as he was able, through a series

of interrogatories calculated to injure the character, the respectable

character, of MacGrawler, and weaken his testimony in the eyes of the

jury. He succeeded in exciting in the audience that feeling of merriment

wherewith the vulgar are always so delighted to intersperse the dull

seriousness of hanging a human being. But though the jury themselves

grinned, they were not convinced. The Scotsman retired from the

witness-box “scotched,” perhaps, in reputation, but not “killed” as

to testimony. It was just before this witness concluded, that Lord

Mauleverer caused to be handed to the judge a small slip of paper,

containing merely these words in pencil:--

DEAR BRANDON,--A dinner waits you at Mauleverer Park, only three

miles hence. Lord--and the Bishop of--meet you. Plenty of news

from London, and a letter about you, which I will show to no one

till we meet. Make haste and hang this poor fellow, that I may see

you the sooner; and it is bad for both of us to wait long for a

regular meal like dinner. I can't stay longer, it is so hot, and my

nerves were always susceptible.

Yours, MAULEVERER.

If you will come, give me a nod. You know my hour,--it is always

the same.

The judge, glancing over the note, inclined his head gravely to the

earl, who withdrew; and in one minute afterwards, a heavy and breathless

silence fell over the whole court. The prisoner was called upon for his

defence: it was singular what a different sensation to that existing in

their breasts the moment before crept thrillingly through the audience.

Hushed was every whisper, vanished was every smile that the late

cross-examination had excited; a sudden and chilling sense of the dread

importance of the tribunal made itself abruptly felt in the minds of

every one present.

Perhaps, as in the gloomy satire of Hogarth (the moral Mephistopheles of

painters), the close neighbourhood of pain to mirth made the former

come with the homelier shock to the heart; be that as it may, a freezing

anxiety, numbing the pulse and stirring through the air, made every

man in that various crowd feel a sympathy of awe with his neighbour,

excepting only the hardened judge and the hackneyed lawyers, and one

spectator,--an idiot who had thrust himself in with the general press,

and stood, within a few paces of the prisoner, grinning unconsciously,

and every now and then winking with a glassy eye at some one at a

distance, whose vigilance he had probably eluded.

The face and aspect, even the attitude, of the prisoner were well fitted

to heighten the effect which would naturally have been created by any

man under the same fearful doom. He stood at the very front of the bar,

and his tall and noble figure was drawn up to its full height; a glow of

excitement spread itself gradually over features at all times striking,

and lighted an eye naturally eloquent, and to which various emotions at

that time gave a more than commonly deep and impressive expression. He

began thus:--

“My lord, I have little to say, and I may at once relieve the anxiety

of my counsel, who now looks wistfully upon me, and add that that little

will scarcely embrace the object of defence. Why should I defend myself?

Why should I endeavour to protract a life that a few days, more or less,

will terminate, according to the ordinary calculations of chance? Such

as it is and has been, my life is vowed to the law, and the law will

have the offering. Could I escape from this indictment, I know that

seven others await me, and that by one or the other of these my

conviction and my sentence must come. Life may be sweet to all of us, my

lord; and were it possible that mine could be spared yet a while, that

continued life might make a better atonement for past actions than a

death which, abrupt and premature, calls for repentance while it forbids

redress.

“But when the dark side of things is our only choice, it is useless

to regard the bright; idle to fix our eyes upon life, when death is at

hand; useless to speak of contrition, when we are denied its proof. It

is the usual policy of prisoners in my situation to address the feelings

and flatter the prejudices of the jury; to descant on the excellence of

our laws, while they endeavour to disarm them; to praise justice, yet

demand mercy; to talk of expecting acquittal, yet boast of submitting

without a murmur to condemnation. For me, to whom all earthly interests

are dead, this policy is idle and superfluous. I hesitate not to tell

you, my lord judge,--to proclaim to you, gentlemen of the jury,--that

the laws which I have broken through my life I despise in death! Your

laws are but of two classes; the one makes criminals, the other punishes

them. I have suffered by the one; I am about to perish by the other.

“My lord, it was the turn of a straw which made me what I am. Seven

years ago I was sent to the house of correction for an offence which I

did not commit. I went thither, a boy who had never infringed a single

law; I came forth, in a few weeks, a man who was prepared to break all

laws! Whence was this change? Was it my fault, or that of my condemners?

You had first wronged me by a punishment which I did not deserve; you

wronged me yet more deeply when (even had I been guilty of the first

offence) I was sentenced to herd with hardened offenders, and graduates

in vice and vice's methods of support. The laws themselves caused me

to break the laws: first, by implanting within me the goading sense

of injustice; secondly, by submitting me to the corruption of example.

Thus, I repeat,--and I trust my words will sink solemnly into the hearts

of all present,--your legislation made me what I am; and it now destroys

me, as it has destroyed thousands, for being what it made me! But for

this, the first aggression on me, I might have been what the world terms

honest,--I might have advanced to old age and a peaceful grave through

the harmless cheateries of trade or the honoured falsehoods of a

profession. Nay, I might have supported the laws which I have now

braved; like the counsel opposed to me, I might have grown sleek on the

vices of others, and advanced to honour by my ingenuity in hanging

my fellow-creatures! The canting and prejudging part of the Press has

affected to set before you the merits of 'honest ability,' or 'laborious

trade,' in opposition to my offences. What, I beseech you, are the props

of your 'honest' exertion,--the profits of 'trade'? Are there no bribes

to menials? Is there no adulteration of goods? Are the rich never duped

in the price they pay? Are the poor never wronged in the quality they

receive? Is there honesty in the bread you eat, in a single necessity

which clothes or feeds or warms you? Let those whom the law protects

consider it a protector: when did it ever protect me? When did it ever

protect the poor man? The government of a State, the institutions

of law, profess to provide for all those who 'obey.' Mark! a man

hungers,--do you feed him? He is naked,--do you clothe him? If not, you

break your covenant, you drive him back to the first law of nature, and

you hang him, not because he is guilty, but because you have left him

naked and starving! [A murmur among the mob below, with great difficulty

silenced.] One thing only I will add, and that not to move your

mercy,--no, nor to invest my fate with an idle and momentary

interest,--but because there are some persons in this world who have not

known me as the criminal who stands before you, and whom the tidings of

my fate may hereafter reach; and I would not have those persons view

me in blacker colours than I deserve. Among all the rumours, gentlemen,

that have reached you, through all the tales and fables kindled from my

unhappy notoriety and my approaching doom, I put it to you, if you have

heard that I have committed one sanguinary action or one ruinous and

deliberate fraud. You have heard that I have lived by the plunder of

the rich,--I do not deny the charge. From the grinding of the poor, the

habitual overreaching, or the systematic pilfering of my neighbours, my

conscience is as free as it is from the charge of cruelty and bloodshed.

Those errors I leave to honest mediocrity or virtuous exertion! You

may perhaps find, too, that my life has not passed through a career of

outrage without scattering some few benefits on the road. In destroying

me, it is true that you will have the consolation to think that

among the benefits you derive from my sentence will be the salutary

encouragement you give to other offenders to offend to the last, degree,

and to divest outrage of no single aggravation! But if this does not

seem to you any very powerful inducement, you may pause before you

cut off from all amendment a man who seems neither wholly hardened

nor utterly beyond atonement. My lord, my counsel would have wished to

summon witnesses,--some to bear testimony to redeeming points in my own

character, others to invalidate the oath of the witness against me,--a

man whom I saved from destruction in order that he might destroy me. I

do not think either necessary. The public Press has already said of

me what little good does not shock the truth; and had I not possessed

something of those qualities which society does not disesteem, you would

not have beheld me here at this hour! If I had saved myself as well as

my companions, I should have left this country, perhaps forever, and

commenced a very different career abroad. I committed offences; I eluded

you; I committed what, in my case, was an act of duty: I am seized, and

I perish. But the weakness of my body destroys me, not the strength of

your malice. Had I” (and as the prisoner spake, the haughty and rapid

motion, the enlarging of the form, produced by the passion of the

moment, made impressively conspicuous to all the remarkable power of his

frame),--“had I but my wonted health, my wonted command over these limbs

and these veins, I would have asked no friend, no ally, to favour my

escape. I tell you, engines and guardians of the law, that I would have

mocked your chains and defied your walls, as ye know that I have mocked

and defied them before. But my blood creeps now only in drops through

its courses; and the heart that I had of old stirs feebly and heavily

within me.” The prisoner paused a moment, and resumed in an altered

tone: “Leaving, then, my own character to the ordeal of report, I cannot

perhaps do better than leave to the same criterion that of the witness

against me. I will candidly own that under other circumstances it might

have been otherwise. I will candidly avow that I might have then used

such means as your law awards me to procure an acquittal and to prolong

my existence,--though in a new scene; as it is, what matters the cause

in which I receive my sentence? Nay, it is even better to suffer by the

first than to linger to the last. It is some consolation not again to

stand where I now stand; to go through the humbling solemnities which I

have this day endured; to see the smile of some, and retort the frown of

others; to wrestle with the anxiety of the heart, and to depend on the

caprice of the excited nerves. It is something to feel one part of the

drama of disgrace is over, and that I may wait unmolested in my den

until, for one time only, I am again the butt of the unthinking and the

monster of the crowd. My lord, I have now done! To you, whom the law

deems the prisoner's counsel,--to you, gentlemen of the jury, to whom it

has delegated his fate,--I leave the chances of my life.”

The prisoner ceased; but the same heavy silence which, save when broken

by one solitary murmur, had lain over the court during his speech, still

continued even for several moments after that deep and firm voice had

died on the ear. So different had been the defence of the prisoner from

that which had been expected; so assuredly did the more hackneyed part

of the audience, even as he had proceeded, imagine that by some artful

turn he would at length wind into the usual courses of defence,--that

when his unfaltering and almost stern accents paused, men were

not prepared to feel that his speech was finished, and the pause

involuntarily jarred on them as untimeous and abrupt. At length, when

each of the audience slowly awoke to the conviction that the prisoner

had indeed concluded his harangue, a movement, eloquent of feelings

released from a suspense, which had been perhaps the more earnest and

the more blended with awe, from the boldness and novelty of the words on

which it hung, circled round the court. The jurors looked confusedly

at each other, but not one of them spoke, even by a whisper; their

feelings, which had been aroused by the speech of the prisoner, had not

from its shortness, its singularity, and the haughty impolicy of its

tone, been so far guided by its course as to settle into any state of

mind clearly favourable to him, or the reverse; so that each man waited

for his neighbour to speak first, in order that he might find, as it

were, in another, a kind of clew to the indistinct and excited feelings

which wanted utterance in himself.

The judge, who had been from the first attracted by the air and aspect

of the prisoner, had perhaps, notwithstanding the hardness of his mind,

more approvingly than any one present listened to the defence; for in

the scorn of the hollow institutions and the mock honesty of social

life, so defyingly manifested by the prisoner, Brandon recognized

elements of mind remarkably congenial to his own; and this sympathy

was heightened by the hardihood of physical nerve and moral intrepidity

displayed by the prisoner,--qualities which among men of a similar mould

often form the strongest motive of esteem, and sometimes (as we read of

in the Imperial Corsican and his chiefs) the only point of attraction!

Brandon was, however, soon recalled to his cold self by a murmur of

vague applause circling throughout the common crowd, among whom the

general impulse always manifests itself first, and to whom the

opinions of the prisoner, though but imperfectly understood, came more

immediately home than they did to the better and richer classes of the

audience. Ever alive to the decorums of form, Brandon instantly ordered

silence in the court; and when it was again restored, and it was fully

understood that the prisoner's defence had closed, the judge proceeded

to sum up.

It is worthy of remark that many of the qualities of mind which seem

most unamiable in private life often conduce with a singular felicity

to the ends of public; and thus the stony firmness characteristic of

Brandon was a main cause which made him admirable as a judge,--for men

in office err no less from their feelings than their interests.

Glancing over his notes, the judge inclined himself to the jury, and

began with that silver ringing voice which particularly distinguished

Brandon's eloquence, and carried with it in high stations so majestic

and candid a tone of persuasion. He pointed out, with a clear brevity,

the various points of the evidence; he dwelt for a moment on the attempt

to cast disrepute upon the testimony of MacGrawler, but called a proper

attention to the fact that the attempt had been unsupported by witnesses

or proof. As he proceeded, the impression made by the prisoner on the

minds of the jury slowly melted away; and perhaps, so much do men soften

when they behold clearly the face of a fellow-man dependent on them

for life, it acted disadvantageously on the interests of Clifford, that

during the summing up he leaned back in the dock, and prevented his

countenance from being seen. When the evidence had been gone through,

the judge concluded thus:--

“The prisoner, who in his defence (on the principles and opinions of

which I now forbear to comment) certainly exhibited the signs of a

superior education, and a high though perverted ability, has alluded

to the reports circulated by the public Press, and leaned some little

stress on the various anecdotes tending to his advantage, which he

supposes have reached your ears. I am by no means willing that the

prisoner should be deprived of whatever benefit may be derivable from

such a source; but it is not in this place, nor at this moment, that it

can avail him. All you have to consider is the evidence before you. All

on which you have to decide is, whether the prisoner be or be not guilty

of the robbery of which he is charged. You must not waste a thought on

what redeems or heightens a supposed crime,--you must only decide on

the crime itself. Put away from your minds, I beseech you, all that

interferes with the main case. Put away also from your motives of

decision all forethought of other possible indictments to which the

prisoner has alluded, but with which you are necessarily unacquainted.

If you doubt the evidence, whether of one witness or of all, the

prisoner must receive from you the benefit of that doubt. If not,

you are sworn to a solemn oath, which ordains you to forego all minor

considerations,--which compels you to watch narrowly that you be not

influenced by the infirmities natural to us all, but criminal in you, to

lean towards the side of a mercy that would be rendered by your oath a

perjury to God, and by your duty as impartial citizens a treason to your

country. I dismiss you to the grave consideration of the important case

you have heard; and I trust that He to whom all hearts are open and all

secrets are known, will grant you the temper and the judgment to form a

right decision!”

There was in the majestic aspect and thrilling voice of Brandon

something which made the commonest form of words solemn and impressive;

and the hypocrite, aware of this felicity of manner, generally, as

now, added weight to his concluding words by a religious allusion or a

Scriptural phraseology. He ceased; and the jury, recovering the effect

of his adjuration, consulted for a moment among themselves. The foreman

then, addressing the court on behalf of his fellow-jurors, requested

leave to retire for deliberation. An attendant bailiff being sworn in,

we read in the journals of the day, which noted the divisions of time

with that customary scrupulosity rendered terrible by the reflection how

soon all time and seasons may perish for the hero of the scene, that “it

was at twenty-five minutes to two that the jury withdrew.”

Perhaps in the whole course of a criminal trial there is no period more

awful than that occupied by the deliberation of the jury. In the present

case the prisoner, as if acutely sensible of his situation, remained in

the rear of the dock, and buried his face in his hands. They who stood

near him observed, however, that his breast did not seem to swell with

the convulsive emotion customary to persons in his state, and that not

even a sigh or agitated movement escaped him. The jury had been absent

about twenty minutes, when a confused noise was heard in the court.

The face of the judge turned in commanding severity towards the quarter

whence it proceeded. He perceived a man of a coarse garb and mean

appearance endeavouring rudely and violently to push his way through

the crowd towards the bench, and at the same instant he saw one of the

officers of the court approaching the disturber of its tranquillity

with no friendly intent. The man, aware of the purpose of the constable,

exclaimed with great vehemence, “I vill give this to my lord the judge,

blow me if I von't!” and as he spoke he raised high above his head a

soiled scrap of paper folded awkwardly in the shape of a letter. The

instant Brandon's eye caught the rugged features of the intrusive

stranger, he motioned with rather less than his usual slowness of

gesture to one of his official satellites. “Bring me that paper

instantly!” he whispered.

The officer bowed and obeyed. The man, who seemed a little intoxicated,

gave it with a look of ludicrous triumph and self-importance.

“Stand avay, man!” he added to the constable, who now laid hand on his

collar. “You'll see vot the judge says to that 'ere bit of paper; and so

vill the prisoner, poor fellow!”

This scene, so unworthy the dignity of the court, attracted the notice

and (immediately around the intruder) the merriment of the crowd; and

many an eye was directed towards Brandon, as with calm gravity he opened

the note and glanced over the contents. In a large school-boy hand-it

was the hand of Long Ned--were written these few words:

MY LORD JUDGE,--I make bold to beg you will do all you can for the

prisoner at the barre, as he is no other than the “Paul” I spoke to

your Worship about. You know what I mean.

DUMMIE DUNNAKER.

As he read this note, the judge's head was observed to droop suddenly,

as if by a sickness or a spasm; but he recovered himself instantly, and

whispering the officer who brought him the note, said, “See that that

madman be immediately removed from the court, and lock him up alone. He

is so deranged as to be dangerous!”

The officer lost not a moment in seeing the order executed. Three stout

constables dragged the astounded Dummie from the court in an instant,

yet the more ruthlessly for his ejaculating,--

“Eh, sirs, what's this? I tells you I have saved the judge's hown

flesh and blood! Vy, now, gently, there; you'll smart for this, my fine

fellow! Never you mind, Paul, my 'arty; I 'se done you a pure good--”

“Silence!” proclaimed the voice of the judge; and that voice came forth

with so commanding a tone of power that it awed Dummie, despite his

intoxication. In a moment more, and ere he had time to recover, he

was without the court. During this strange hubbub, which nevertheless

scarcely lasted above two or three minutes, the prisoner had not once

lifted his head, nor appeared aroused in any manner from his revery; and

scarcely had the intruder been withdrawn before the jury returned.

The verdict was, as all had foreseen, “Guilty;” but it was coupled with

a strong recommendation to mercy.

The prisoner was then asked, in the usual form, whether he had to say

anything why sentence of death should not be passed against him.

As these dread words struck upon his ear, slowly the prisoner rose. He

directed first towards the jury a brief and keen glance, and his eyes

then rested full, and with a stern significance, on the face of his

judge.

“My lord,” he began, “I have but one reason to advance against the

sentence of the law. If you have interest to prevent or mitigate it,

that reason will, I think, suffice to enlist you on my behalf. I said

that the first cause of those offences against the law which brings me

to this bar was the committing me to prison on a charge of which I was

wholly innocent! My lord judge, you were the man who accused me of that

charge, and subjected me to that imprisonment! Look at me well, my lord,

and you may trace in the countenance of the hardened felon you are about

to adjudge to death the features of a boy whom, some seven years ago,

you accused before a London magistrate of the theft of your watch.

On the oath of a man who has one step on the threshold of death, the

accusation was unjust. And, fit minister of the laws you represent! you,

who will now pass my doom,--You were the cause of my crimes! My lord,

I have done. I am ready to add another to the long and dark list of

victims who are first polluted and then sacrificed by the blindness and

the injustice of human codes!”

While Clifford spoke, every eye turned from him to the judge, and every

one was appalled by the ghastly and fearful change which had fallen over

Brandon's face. Men said, afterwards, that they saw written there, in

terrible distinctness, the characters of death; and there certainly

seemed something awful and preternatural in the bloodless and haggard

calmness of his proud features. Yet his eye did not quail, nor the

muscles of his lip quiver; and with even more than his wonted loftiness,

he met the regard of the prisoner. But, as alone conspicuous throughout

the motionless and breathless crowd the judge and criminal gazed upon

each other, and as the eyes of the spectators wandered on each, a

thrilling and electric impression of a powerful likeness between the

doomed and the doomer, for the first time in the trial, struck upon the

audience, and increased, though they scarcely knew why, the sensation of

pain and dread which the prisoner's last words excited. Perhaps it might

have chiefly arisen from a common expression of fierce emotion conquered

by an iron and stern character of mind; or perhaps, now that the ashy

paleness of exhaustion had succeeded the excited flush on the prisoner's

face, the similarity of complexion thus obtained made the likeness more

obvious than before; or perhaps the spectators had not hitherto fixed so

searching, or, if we may so speak, so alternating a gaze upon the two.

However that be, the resemblance between the men, placed as they were in

such widely different circumstances,--that resemblance which, as we have

hinted, had at certain moments occurred startlingly to Lucy,--was plain

and unavoidably striking: the same the dark hue of their complexions;

the same the haughty and Roman outline of their faces; the same the

height of the forehead; the same even a displeasing and sarcastic

rigidity of mouth, which made the most conspicuous feature in Brandon,

and which was the only point that deteriorated from the singular beauty

of Clifford. But, above all, the same inflexible, defying, stubborn

spirit, though in Brandon it assumed the stately cast of majesty, and in

Clifford it seemed the desperate sternness of the bravo, stamped itself

in both. Though Clifford ceased, he did not resume his seat, but stood

in the same attitude as that in which he had reversed the order of

things, and merged the petitioner in the accuser; and Brandon himself,

without speaking or moving, continued still to survey him; so, with

erect fronts and marble countenances, in which what was defying and

resolute did not altogether quell the mortal leaven of pain and dread,

they looked as might have looked the two men in the Eastern story who

had the power of gazing each other unto death.

What at that moment was raging in Brandon's heart, it is in vain to

guess. He doubted not for a moment that he beheld before him his long

lost, his anxiously demanded son! Every fibre, every corner of his

complex and gloomy soul, that certainly reached, and blasted with a

hideous and irresistible glare. The earliest, perhaps the strongest,

though often the least acknowledged principle of his mind was the desire

to rebuild the fallen honours of his house; its last scion he now beheld

before him, covered with the darkest ignominies of the law! He had

coveted worldly honours; he beheld their legitimate successor in a

convicted felon! He had garnered the few affections he had spared from

the objects of pride and ambition, in his son. That son he was about

to adjudge to the gibbet and the hangman! Of late he had increased the

hopes of regaining his lost treasure, even to an exultant certainty. Lo!

the hopes were accomplished! How? With these thoughts warring, in what

manner we dare not even by an epithet express, within him, we may cast

one hasty glance on the horror of aggravation they endured, when he

heard the prisoner accuse Him as the cause of his present doom, and felt

himself at once the murderer and the judge of his son!

Minutes had elapsed since the voice of the prisoner ceased; and Brandon

now drew forth the black cap. As he placed it slowly over his brows, the

increasing and corpse-like whiteness of his face became more glaringly

visible, by the contrast which this dread head-gear presented. Twice as

he essayed to speak his voice failed him, and an indistinct murmur came

forth from his hueless lips, and died away like a fitful and feeble

wind. But with the third effort the resolution and long self-tyranny of

the man conquered, and his voice went clear and unfaltering through the

crowd, although the severe sweetness of its wonted tones was gone, and

it sounded strange and hollow on the ears that drank it.

“Prisoner at the bar! it has become my duty to announce to you the close

of your mortal career. You have been accused of a daring robbery, and

after an impartial trial a jury of your countrymen and the laws of your

country have decided against you. The recommendation to mercy” (here,

only throughout his speech, Brandon gasped convulsively for breath) “so

humanely added by the jury, shall be forwarded to the supreme power; but

I cannot flatter you with much hope of its success.” (The lawyers

looked with some surprise at each other; they had expected a far more

unqualified mandate, to abjure all hope from the jury's recommendation.)

“Prisoner, for the opinions you have expressed, you are now only

answerable to your God; I forbear to arraign them. For the charge you

have made against me, whether true or false, and for the anguish it has

given me, may you find pardon at another tribunal! It remains for me

only--under a reserve too slight, as I have said, to afford you a fair

promise of hope--only to--to” (all eyes were on Brandon; he felt it,

exerted himself for a last effort, and proceeded)--“to pronounce on

you the sharp sentence of the law! It is, that you be taken back to the

prison whence you came, and thence (when the supreme authority shall

appoint) to the place of execution, to be there hanged by the neck till

you are dead; and the Lord God Almighty have mercy on your soul!”

With this address concluded that eventful trial; and while the crowd, in

rushing and noisy tumult, bore towards the door, Brandon, concealing

to the last with a Spartan bravery the anguish which was gnawing at his

entrails, retired from the awful pageant. For the next half-hour he was

locked up with the strange intruder on the proceedings of the court. At

the end of that time the stranger was dismissed; and in about double the

same period Brandon's servant re-admitted him, accompanied by another

man, with a slouched hat and in a carman's frock. The reader need not be

told that the new comer was the friendly Ned, whose testimony was indeed

a valuable corroborative to Dummie's, and whose regard for Clifford,

aided by an appetite for rewards, had induced him to venture to the

town of -----, although he tarried concealed in a safe suburb, until

reassured by a written promise from Brandon of safety to his person,

and a sum for which we might almost doubt whether he would not have

consented (so long had he been mistaking means for an end) to be hanged

himself. Brandon listened to the details of these confederates; and when

they had finished, he addressed them thus: “I have heard you, and am

convinced you are liars and impostors. There is the money I promised

you” (throwing down a pocket-book),--“take it; and, hark you, if ever

you dare whisper, ay, but a breath of the atrocious lie you have now

forged, be sure I will have you dragged from the recess or nook of

infamy in which you may hide your heads, and hanged for the crimes you

have already committed. I am not the man to break my word. Begone! quit

this town instantly! If in two hours hence you are found here, your

blood be on your own heads! Begone, I say!”

These words, aided by a countenance well adapted at all times to

expressions of a menacing and ruthless character, at once astounded and

appalled the accomplices. They left the room in hasty confusion; and

Brandon, now alone, walked with uneven steps (the alarming weakness and

vacillation of which he did not himself feel) to and fro the apartment.

The hell of his breast was stamped upon his features, but he uttered

only one thought aloud,--

“I may,--yes, yes,--I may yet conceal this disgrace to my name!”

His servant tapped at the door to say that the carriage was ready,

and that Lord Mauleverer had bid him remind his master that they dined

punctually at the hour appointed.

“I am coming!” said Brandon, with a slow and startling emphasis on each

word. But he first sat down and wrote a letter to the official quarter,

strongly aiding the recommendation of the Jury; and we may conceive how

pride clung to him to the last, when he urged the substitution for death

of transportation for life! As soon as he had sealed this letter,

he summoned an express, gave his orders coolly and distinctly, and

attempted with his usual stateliness of step to walk through a long

passage which led to the outer door. He found himself fail. “Come

hither,” he said to his servant, “give me your arm!”

All Brandon's domestics, save the one left with Lucy, stood in awe

of him; and it was with some hesitation that his servant ventured to

inquire if his master felt well.

Brandon looked at him, but made no reply. He entered his carriage

with slight difficulty, and telling the coachman to drive as fast as

possible, pulled down (a general custom with him) all the blinds of the

windows.

Meanwhile Lord Mauleverer, with six friends, was impatiently awaiting

the arrival of the seventh guest.

“Our August friend tarries!” quoth the Bishop of -------, with his hands

folded across his capacious stomach. “I fear the turbot your lordship

spoke of may not be the better for the length of the trial.”

“Poor fellow!” said the Earl of --------, slightly yawning.

“Whom do you mean?” asked Lord Mauleverer, with a smile,--“the bishop,

the judge, or the turbot?”

“Not one of the three, Mauleverer,--I spoke of the prisoner.”

“Ah, the fine dog! I forgot him,” said Mauleverer. “Really, now you

mention him, I must confess that he inspires me with great compassion;

but, indeed, it is very wrong in him to keep the judge so long!”

“Those hardened wretches have such a great deal to say,” mumbled the

bishop, sourly.

“True!” said Mauleverer; “a religious rogue would have had some bowels

for the state of the church esurient.”

“Is it really true, Mauleverer,” asked the Earl of ------, “that Brandon

is to succeed?”

“So I hear,” said Mauleverer. “Heavens, how hungry I am!”

A groan from the bishop echoed the complaint.

“I suppose it would be against all decorum to sit down to dinner without

him?” said Lord --------.

“Why, really, I fear so,” returned Mauleverer. “But our health--our

health is at stake; we will only wait five minutes more. By Jove,

there's the carriage! I beg your pardon for my heathen oath, my lord

bishop.”

“I forgive you!” said the good bishop, smiling.

The party thus engaged in colloquy were stationed at a window opening on

the gravel road, along which the judge's carriage was now seen rapidly

approaching; this window was but a few yards from the porch, and had

been partially opened for the better reconnoitring the approach of the

expected guest.

“He keeps the blinds down still! Absence of mind, or shame at

unpunctuality,--which is the cause, Mauleverer?” said one of the party.

“Not shame, I fear!” answered Mauleverer. “Even the indecent immorality

of delaying our dinner could scarcely bring a blush to the parchment

skin of my learned friend.”

Here the carriage stopped at the porch; the carriage door was opened.

“There seems a strange delay,” said Mauleverer, peevishly. “Why does not

he get out?”

As he spoke, a murmur among the attendants, who appeared somewhat

strangely to crowd around the carriage, smote the ears of the party.

“What do they say,--what?” said Mauleverer, putting his hand to his ear.

The bishop answered hastily; and Mauleverer, as he heard the reply,

forgot for once his susceptibility to cold, and hurried out to the

carriage door. His guests followed.

They found Brandon leaning against the farther corner of the

carriage,--a corpse. One hand held the check-string, as if he had

endeavoured involuntarily but ineffectually to pull it. The right side

of his face was partially distorted, as by convulsion or paralysis; but

not sufficiently so to destroy that remarkable expression of loftiness

and severity which had characterized the features in life. At the same

time the distortion which had drawn up on one side the muscles of the

mouth had deepened into a startling broadness the half sneer of derision

that usually lurked around the lower part of his face. Thus unwitnessed

and abrupt had been the disunion of the clay and spirit of a man who, if

he passed through life a bold, scheming, stubborn, unwavering

hypocrite, was not without something high even amidst his baseness, his

selfishness, and his vices; who seemed less to have loved sin than by

some strange perversion of reason to have disdained virtue, and who, by

a solemn and awful suddenness of fate (for who shall venture to indicate

the judgment of the arch and unseen Providence, even when it appears

to mortal eye the least obscured?), won the dreams, the objects, the

triumphs of hope, to be blasted by them at the moment of acquisition!