Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 - Various - Страница 2

Some time ago, business of an important character carried me to the beautiful and populous city of ——. I remember to have visited it when I was a child, in the company of a doating mother, who breathed her last there; and the place, associated with that circumstance, had ever afterwards been the gloomiest spot in the county of my birth. A calamity such as that to which I have alluded leaves no half impressions. It stamps itself deep, deep in the human heart; and a change, scarcely less than organic, for good or ill, is wrought there. Agreeably with this fact, the scene itself of the event becomes at once, to the survivor, either hallowed and beloved, or hated and avoided. Not that natural beauty or deformity has any thing to do in the production of such feelings. They have a mysterious origin, and are, in truth, not to be accounted for or explained. A father sees the hope and joy of his manhood deposited amongst the gardens of the soil, and from that moment the fruitful fields and unobstructed sky are things he cannot gaze upon; whilst the brother, who has lived in the court or alley of a crowded city with the sister of his infancy, and has buried her, with his burning tears, in the dense churchyard of the denser street, clings to the neighbourhood, close and unhealthy though it be, with a love that renders it for him the brightest and the dearest nook of earth. He cannot quit it, and be at peace. Causes that seem alike, are not always so in their effects. For my own part, for years after the first bitter lesson of my life became connected with that city, I could not think of it without pain, or hear its name spoken without suffering a depression of spirits, as difficult to throw off as are the heavy clouds that follow in the track, and hide the little light of a December sun. At school, I remember well how grievously I wept upon the map on which I first saw the word written, and how completely I expunged the characters from the paper, forbidding my eyes to glance even to the county from which I had erased them. Time passes, hardening the heart as it rolls over it, and we afford to laugh at the strong feelings and extravagant views of our youth. It is well, perhaps, that we do so; and yet on that subject a word or two of profitable matter might be offered, which shall be withholden now. For many years I have battled through the world, an orphan, on my own account; and it is not surprising that the vehemence of my early days should have gradually sobered down before the stern realities that have at every step encountered me. Long before I received the unwelcome intelligence, that it was literally incumbent upon me to revisit the spot of my beloved mother's dissolution, the mention of its name had ceased to evoke any violent emotion, or to affect me as of old. I say unwelcome, because, notwithstanding the stoicism of which I boast, I felt quite uncomfortable enough to write to my correspondent by the return of post, urging him to make one more endeavour to complete my business without my aid, and to spare, if possible, my personal attendance. I gave no reason for this wish. I did not choose to tell a falsehood, and I had hardly honesty to acknowledge, even to myself—the truth. I failed, however, in my application, and with any but a cheerful mind, I quitted London on my journey. Thirty years before I had travelled to —— in a stupendous machine, of which now I recollect only that it seemed to take years out of my little life in arriving at its destination, and that, on its broad, substantial rear, it bore the effigy of "an ancient Briton." Locomotion then, like me, was in a state of infancy. On the occasion of my second visit to the city, I had hardly time to wonder at the velocity with which I was borne along. Distance was annihilated. The two hundred miles over which the ancient Briton had wearisomely laboured, were reduced to twenty, and before I could satisfy myself that our journey was more than begun, my horseless coach, and fifty more besides, had actually gone over them. I experienced a nervous palpitation at the heart as I proceeded from the outskirts of the city, and grew more and more fidgety the nearer I approached the din and noise of the prosperous seat of business. I could not account for the feeling, until I detected myself walking as briskly as I could, with my eyes fixed hard upon the ground, as though afraid to glance upon a street, a house, an object which could recall the past, or carry me back to the first dark days of life. Then it was that I summoned courage, and, with a desperate effort to crush the morbid sensibility, raised myself to my full height, gazed around me, and awoke, effectually and for ever, from my dream. The city was not the same. The well-remembered thoroughfares were gone; their names extinct, and superseded by others more euphonic; the buildings, which I had carried in my mind as in a book—the thought of meeting which had given me so much pain, had been removed—destroyed, and not a brick remained which I could call a friend, or offer one warm tear, in testimony of old acquaintance. A noble street, a line of palaces—merchants' palaces—had taken to itself the room of twenty narrow ways, that, in the good old times, had met and crossed in close, but questionable, friendship. Bright stone, that in the sunlight shone brighter than itself, flanked every broad and stately avenue, denoting wealth and high commercial dignity. Every venerable association was swept away, and nothing remained of the long-cherished and always unsightly picture, but the faint shadow in my own brain—growing fainter now with every moment, and which the unexpected scene and new excitement were not slow to obliterate altogether. I breathed more freely as I went my way, and reached my agent's house at length, lighter of heart than I had been for hours before. Mr Treherne was a man of business, and a prosperous one too, or surely he had no right to place before the dozen corpulent gentlemen whom I met on my arrival—a dinner, towards which the viscera of princes might have turned without ruffling a fold of their intestinal dignity. I partook of the feast—that is to say, I sat at the groaning table, and, like a cautious and dyspeptic man, I eat roast beef—toujours roast beef, and nothing else—appeased my thirst with grateful claret, and retired at last to wholesome sleep and quiet dreams. Not so the corpulent guests. It may be to my dyspeptic habit, which enables me to be virtuous at a trifling cost, and to nothing loftier, that I am bound to attribute the feeling with which I invariably sit down to feasting; be this the fact or not, I confess that a sense of shame, uneasiness, and dislike, renders an affair of this kind to me the most irksome and unpleasant of enjoyments. The eagerness of appetite that one can fairly see in the watery and sensual eyes of men to whom eating has become the aim and joy of their existence—the absorption of every faculty in the gluttonous pursuit—the animal indulgence and delight—these are sickening; then the deliberate and cold-blooded torture of the creatures whose marrowy bones are crunched by the epicure, without a thought of the suffering that preceded his intensely pleasurable emotions, and the bare mention of which, in this narrative, is almost more than sufficient, then, worst of all, the wilful prodigality and waste—the wickedness of casting to the dogs the healthy food for which whole families, widows, and beggared orphans are pining in the neighbouring street—the guilty indifference of him who finds the wealth for the profusion, and the impudent recklessness of the underling who abuses it. Such are a few of the causes which concur in giving to the finest banquet I have seen an aspect not more odious than humiliating; and here I dwell upon the fact, because the incident which I shall shortly bring before the reader's eye, served to confirm the feelings which I entertain on this subject, and presented an instructive contrast to the splendid entertainment which greeted my immediate arrival.

I slept at the house of Mr Treherne, and, on the following morning, was an early riser. I strolled through the city, and, returning home, found my active friend seated at his breakfast-table, with a host of papers, and a packet of newly-arrived letters before him. The dinner was no more like the breakfast, than was my friend in the midst of his guests like my friend alone with his papers. His meal consisted of one slice of dry toast, and one cup of tea, already cold. The face that was all smile and relaxation of muscle on the preceding evening, was solemn and composed. You might have ventured to assert that tea and toast were that man's most stimulating diet, and that the pleasures of the counting-house were the highest this world could afford him. I, however, had passed the evening with him, and was better informed. Mr Treherne requested me to ring the bell. I did so, and his servant speedily appeared with a tray of garnished dainties, of which I was invited to partake, with many expressions of kindness uttered by my man-of-business, without a look at me, or a movement of his mind and eye from the pile of paper with which he was busy. In the course of half an hour, I had brought my repast to a close, and Mr Treherne was primed for the conflict of the day. His engagements did not permit him to give me his assistance in my own matters until the following morning. He begged me to excuse him until dinner-time—to make myself perfectly at home—to wile away an hour or so in his library—and, when I got tired of that, to take what amusement I could amongst the lions of the town—offering which advice, he quitted me and his house with a head much more heavily laden, I am sure, than any that ever groaned beneath the hard and aching knot. Would that the labourer could be taught to think so!

After having passed an unsatisfactory hour in Mr Treherne's library, in which the only books which I cared to look at were very wisely locked up, on account of their rich binding, too beautiful to be touched, I sauntered once more through the broad streets of the city, and, in my solitary walk, philosophized upon the busy spirit of trade which pervaded them. It is at such a time and place that the quiet and observant mind is startled by the stern and settled appearance of reality and continuance which all things take. If the world were the abiding-place of man, and life eternity, such earnestness, such vigour, such intensity of purpose and of action as I saw stamped upon the harassed brows of men, would be in harmony with such a scene and destination. HERE such concentration of the glorious energies of man is mockery, delusion, and robs the human soul of—who shall say how much? Look at the stream of life pouring through the streets of commerce, from morn till night, and mark the young and old—yes, the youngest and the oldest—and discover, if you can, the expression of any thought but that of traffic and of gain, as if the aim and end of living were summed up in these. And are they? Yes, if we may trust the evidence of age, of him who creeps and totters on his way, who has told his threescore years and ten, and on the threshold of eternity has found the vanity of all things. Oh, look at him, and learn how hard it is, even at the door of death, to FEEL the mutability and nothingness of earth! Palsied he is, yet to the Exchange he daily hies, and his dull eye glistens on the mart—his ear is greedy for the sounds that come too tardily—his quick and treble voice is loud amongst the loudest. He is as quick to apprehend, as eager now to learn, as ravenous for gain, as when he trusted first an untried world. If life be truly but a shadow, and mortals but the actors in the vision, is it not marvellous that age, and wisdom, and experience build and fasten there as on a rock? Such thoughts as these engaged my mind, as I pursued my way alone, unoccupied, amongst the labouring multitude, and cast a melancholy hue on things that, to the eye external, looked bright, beautiful, and enduring. I was arrested in my meditations at length by a crowd of persons—men, women, and children—who thronged about the entrance of a spacious, well-built edifice. They were for the most part in rags, and their looks betrayed them for poor and reckless creatures all. They presented so singular a feature of the scene, contrasted so disagreeably with the solid richness and perfect finish of the building, that I stopped involuntarily, and enquired into the cause of their attendance. Before I could obtain an answer, a well-dressed and better-fed official came suddenly to the door, and bawled the name of one poor wretch, who answered it immediately, stepped from the crowd, and followed the appellant, as the latter vanished quickly from the door again. A remark which, at the same moment, escaped another of the group, told me that I stood before the sessions'-house, and that a man, well known to most of them, was now upon trial for his life. He was a murderer—and the questionable-looking gentleman who had been invited to appear in court, had travelled many miles on foot, to give the criminal the benefit of his good word. He was the witness for the defence, and came to speak to character! My curiosity was excited, and I was determined to see the end of the proceeding. It is the custom to pay for every thing in happy England. I was charged box-price for my admittance, and was provided with as good a seat as I could wish, amongst the élite of the assembly. Quick as I had been, I was already too late. There was a bustle and buzz in the court, that denoted the trial to be at an end. Indeed, it had been so previously to the appearance of the devoted witness, whose presence had served only to confirm the evidence, which had been most damnatory and conclusive. The judge still sat upon the bench, and, having once perceived him, it was not easy to withdraw my gaze again. "The man is surely guilty," said I to myself, "who is pronounced so, when that judge has summed up the evidence against him." I had never in my life beheld so much benignity and gentleness—so much of truth, ingenuousness, and pure humanity, stamped on a face before. There was the fascination of the serpent there; and the longer I looked, the more pleasing became the countenance, and the longer I wished to protract my observation and delight. He was a middle-aged man—for a judge, he might be called young. His form was manly—his head massive—his forehead glorious and intellectual. His features were finely formed; but it was not these that seized my admiration, and, if I dare so express myself, my actual love, with the first brief glance. The EXPRESSION of the face, which I have already attempted faintly to describe, was its charm. Such an utter, such a refreshing absence of all earthiness—such purity and calmness of soul—such mental sweetness as it bespoke! When I first directed my eye to him, it seemed as if his thoughts were abstracted from the comparatively noisy scene over which he presided—busy it might be, in reviewing the charge which he had delivered to the jury, and upon the credit of which the miserable culprit had been doomed to die. I do not exaggerate when I assert, that at this moment—during this short reverie—his face, which I had never seen before, seemed, by a miracle, as familiar to me as my own—a fact which I afterwards explained, by discovering the closest resemblance between it and a painting of our Saviour, one of the finest works of art, the production of the greatest genius of his time, and a portrait which is imprinted on my memory and heart by its beauty, and by repeated and repeated examination. The touching expressiveness of the countenance would not have accorded with the stern office of the judge, had not its softness been relieved by a bold outline of feature, and exalted by the massy formation of the head itself. These were sufficient to command respect—that made its way quickly to the heart. An opportunity was soon afforded me to obtain some information in respect of him. I was not surprised to hear that his name and blood were closely connected with those of a brilliant poet and philosopher, and that his own genius and attainments were of the highest character. I was hardly prepared to find that his knowledge as a lawyer was profound, and that he was esteemed erudite amongst the most learned of his order. My attention was called reluctantly from the judge to the second case of the day, which now came for adjudication. The court was hushed as a ruffian and monster walked sullenly into the dock, charged with the perpetration of the most horrible offences. I turned instinctively from the prisoner to the judge again. The latter sat with his attention fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by his hand. Nothing could be finer than the sight. Oh! I would have given much for the ability to convey to paper a lasting copy of that countenance—a memorial for my life, to cling to in my hours of weakness and despondency, and to take strength and consolation from the spectacle of that intelligence, that meekness and chastity of soul, thus allied and linked to our humanity.

It was instructive to look alternately at the criminal and at him who must award his punishment. There they were, both men—both the children of a universal Father—both sons of immortality. Yet one so unlike his species, so deeply sunken in his state, so hideous and hateful as to be disowned by man, and ranked with fiercest brutes; the other, as far removed, by excellence, from the majority of mankind, and as near the angels and their ineffable joy as the dull earth will let him. Say what we will, the gifts of Heaven are inscrutable as mysterious, and education gives no clue to them. The business of the hour went on, and my attention was soon wholly taken up in the development of the gigantic guilt of the wretched culprit before me. I could not have conceived of such atrocity as I heard brought home to him, and to which, miserable man! he listened, now with a smile, now with perfect unconcern, as crime after crime was exhibited and proved. His history was a fearful one even from his boyhood; but of many offences of which he was publicly known to be guilty, one of the latest and most shocking was selected, and on this he was arraigned. It appeared that for the last few years he had cohabited with a female of the most disreputable character. The issue of this connexion was a weakly child, who, at the age of two years, was removed from her dissolute parents through the kindness of a benevolent lady in the neighbourhood, and placed in the care of humble but honest villagers at some distance from them. The child improved in health and, it is unnecessary to add, in morals. No enquiry or application was made for her by the pair until she had entered her fifth year, and then suddenly the prisoner demanded her instant restoration. The charitable lady was alarmed for the safety of her protegée, and, with a liberal price, bought off the father's natural desire. He duly gave a receipt for the sum thus paid him, and engaged to see the child no more. The next morning he stole the girl from the labourer's cottage. He was seen loitering about the hut before day-break, and the shrieks of the victim were heard plainly at a considerable distance from the spot where he had first seized her. Constables were dispatched to his den. It was shut up, and, being forced open, was found deserted, and stripped of every thing. He was hunted over the county, but not discovered. He had retired to haunts which baffled the detective skill of the most experienced and alert. This is the first act of the tragedy. It will be necessary to stain these pages by a description of the last. The child became more and more unhappy under the roof of her persecutors, as they soon proved themselves to be. She was taught to beg and to steal, and was taken into the highways by her mother, who watched near her, whilst, with streaming eyes, the unhappy creature now lied for alms, now pilfered from the village. Constant tramping, ill treatment, and the wear and tear of spirit which the new mode of existence effected, soon reduced the child to its former state of ill health and helplessness. She pined, and with her sickness came want and hunger to the hut. The father, affecting to disbelieve, and not listening to the sad creature's complaint, still dismissed her abroad, and when she could not walk, compelled the mother to carry her to the public road, and there to leave her in her agony, the more effectually to secure the sympathy of passengers. Even this opportunity was not long afforded him. The child grew weaker, and was at length unable to move. He plied her with menaces and oaths, and, last of all, deliberately threatened to murder her, if she did not rise and procure bread for all of them. She had, alas! no longer power to comply with his request, and—merciful Heaven!—the fiend, in a moment of unbridled passion, made good his fearful promise. With one blow of a hatchet—alas! it needed not a hard one—he destroyed her. I caught the judge's eye as this announcement was made. It quivered, and his countenance was pale. I wished to see the monster too, but my heart failed me, and my blood boiled with indignation, and I could not turn to him. The short account which I have given here does bare justice to the evidence which came thick and full against the prisoner, leaving upon the minds of none the remotest doubt of his fearful criminality. The mother, and a beggar who had passed the night in the hut when the murder was perpetrated, were the principal witnesses against the infanticide, and their depositions could not be shaken. I waited with anxiety and great irritability for the sentence which should remove the prisoner from the bar. The earth seemed polluted as long as he breathed upon it; he could not be too quickly withdrawn, and hidden for ever in the grave. The case for the prosecution being closed, a young barrister arose, and there was a perfect stillness in the court. My curiosity to know what this gentleman could possibly urge on behalf of his client was extreme. To me "the probation bore no hinge, nor loop to ban a doubt on." But the smoothfaced counsellor, whose modesty had no reference to his years, seemed in no way burdened by the weight of his responsibility, nor to view his position as one of difficulty and risk. He stood, cool and erect, in the silence of the assembly, and with a self-satisfied smile he proceeded to address the judge. Yes, he laughed, and he had heard that heart-breaking recital; and the life of the man for whom he pleaded was hardly worth a pin's fee. The words of the poet rushed involuntarily to my mind. "Heaven!" I mentally exclaimed, "Has this fellow no feeling of his business—he sings at grave-making!" He made no allusion to the evidence which had been adduced, but he spoke of INFORMALITY. I trembled with alarm and anger. I had often heard and read of justice defeated by such a trick of trade; but I prayed that such dishonour and public shame might not await her now. Informality! Surely we had heard of the cold-blooded cruelty, the slow and exquisite torture, the final deathblow; there was no informality in these; the man had not denied his guilt, his defender did not seek to palliate it. Away with the juggle, it cannot avail you here! But in spite of my feverish security, the shrewd lawyer—well might he smile and chuckle at his skill—proceeded calmly to assert the prisoner's right to his immediate discharge! There was a flaw in the declaration, and the indictment was invalid. And thus he proved it. The man was charged with murdering his child—described as his, and bearing his own name. Now, the deceased was illegitimate, and should have borne its mother's name. He appealed to his lordship on the bench, and demanded for his client the benefit which law allowed him. You might have heard the faintest whisper in the court, so suspended and so kept back was every drop of human breath, whilst every eye was fixed upon the judge. The latter spoke. "The exception was conclusive; the prisoner must be discharged." I could not conceive it possible. What were truth, equity, morality—Nothing? And was murder innocence, if a quibble made it so? The jailer approached the monster, and whispered into his ear that he was now at liberty. He held down his head stupidly to receive the words, and he drew it back again, incredulous and astounded. Oh, what a secret he had learned for future government and conduct! What a friend and abettor, in his fight against mankind, had he found in the law of his land! I was maddened when I saw him depart from the well-secured bar in which he had been placed for trial. There he had looked the thing he was—a tiger caught, and fastened in his den. Could it do less than chill the blood, and make the heart grow sick and faint, to see the bolts drawn back—the monster loosed again, and turned unchained, untamed, fiercer than ever, into life again? Legislators, be merciful to humanity, and cease to embolden and incite these beasts of prey! Melancholy as the above recital is, it is to be considered rather as an episode in this narration, than as the proper subject of it. Had my morning's adventure finished with this disgraceful acquittal, the reader would not have been troubled with the perusal of these pages. My vexation would have been confined to my own breast, and I should have nourished my discontent in silence. The scene which immediately followed the dismissal of the murderer, is that to which I have chiefly to beg attention. It led to an acquaintance, for which I was unprepared—enabled me to do an act of charity, for which I shall ever thank God who gave me the power—and disclosed a character and a history to which the intelligent and kind-hearted may well afford the tribute of their sympathy. It was by way of contrast and relief, I presume, that the authorities had contrived that the next trial should hardly call upon the time and trouble of the court. It was a case, in fact, which ought to have been months before summarily disposed of by the committing magistrate, and one of those too frequently visited with undue severity, whilst offences of a deeper dye escape unpunished, or, worse still, are washed away in gold. A poor man had stolen from a baker's shop a loaf of bread. The clerk of the arraigns, as I believe he is called, involved this simple charge in many words, and took much time to state it but when he had finished his oration, I could discover nothing more or less than the bare fact. A few minutes before the appearance of the delinquent, I remarked a great bustle in the neighbourhood of the young barrister already spoken of. A stout fresh-coloured man had taken a seat behind him with two thinner men, his companions, and they were all in earnest conversation. The stout man was the prosecutor—his companions were his witnesses—and the youthful counsellor was, on this occasion, retained against the prisoner. I must confess that, for the moment, I had a fiendish delight in finding the legal gentleman in his present position. "It well becomes the man," thought I, "through whose instrumentality that monster has been set free, to fall with all his weight of eloquence and legal subtlety upon this poor criminal." If he smiled before, he was in earnest now. He frowned, and closed his lips with much solemnity, and every look bespoke the importance of the interests committed to his charge.—A beggar!—and to steal a loaf of bread! Ay, ay! society must be protected—our houses and our homes must be defended. Anarchy must be strangled in its birth. Such thoughts as these I read upon the brow of youthful wisdom. Ever and anon, a good point in the case struck forcibly the lusty prosecutor, who communicated it forthwith to his adviser. He listened most attentively, and shook his head, as who should say "Leave that to me—we have him on the hip." The witnesses grew busy in comparing notes, and nothing now was wanting but the great offender—the fly who must be crushed upon the wheel—and he appeared. Reader, you have seen many such. You have not lived in the crowded thoroughfares of an overgrown city, where every grade of poverty and wealth, of vice and virtue, meet the eye, mingling as they pass along—where splendid royalty is carried quicker than the clouds adown the road which palsied hunger scarce can cross for lack of strength—where lovely forms, and faces pure as angels' in their innocent expression, are met and tainted on the path by unwomanly immodesty and bare licentiousness—amongst such common sights you have not dwelt, and not observed some face pale and wasted from disease, and want, and sorrow, not one, but all, and all uniting to assail the weakly citadel of flesh, and to reduce it to the earth from which it sprung. Such a countenance was here—forlorn—emaciated—careworn—every vestige of human joy long since removed from it, and every indication of real misery too deeply marked to admit a thought of simulation or pretence. The eye of the man was vacant. He obeyed the turnkey listlessly, when that functionary, with a patronizing air, directed him to the situation in the dock in which he was required to stand, and did not raise his head to look around him. A sadder picture of the subdued, crushed heart, had never been. Punishment! alack, what punishment could be inflicted now on him, who, in the school of suffering, had grown insensible to torture? Notwithstanding his rags, and the prejudice arising from his degraded condition, there was something in his look and movements which struck me, and secured my pity. He was very ill, and had not been placed many minutes before the judge, when he tottered and grew faint. The turnkey assisted the poor fellow to a chair, and placed in his hands, with a rough but natural kindness, which I shall not easily forget, a bunch of sweet-smelling marjoram. The acknowledgement which the miserable creature attempted to make for the seasonable aid, convinced me that he was something better than he seemed. A shy and half-formed bow—the impulse of a heart and mind once cultivated, though covered now with weeds and noxious growths—redeemed him from the common herd of thieves. In the calendar his age was stated to be thirty-five. Double it, and that face will warrant you in your belief. Desirous as I was to know the circumstances which had led the man to the commission of his offence, it was not without intense satisfaction that I heard him, at the commencement of the proceedings, in his thin tremulous voice, plead guilty to the charge. There was such rage painted on the broad face of the prosecutor, such disappointment written in the thinner visage of the counsellor, such indignation and astonishment in those of the witnesses, that you might have supposed those gentlemen were interested only in the establishment of the prisoner's innocence, and were anxious only for his acquittal. For their sakes was gratified at what I hoped would prove the abrupt conclusion of the case. The prisoner had spoken; his head again hung down despondingly—his eyes, gazing at nothing, were fixed upon the ground; the turnkey whispered to him that it was time to retire—he was about to obey, when the judge's voice was heard, and it detained him.

"Is the prisoner known?" enquired his lordship.

The counsellor rose instanter.

"Oh, very well, my lud—an old hand, my lud—one of the pests of his parish."

"Is this his first offence?"

The barrister poked his ear close to the mouth of the prosecutor before he answered.

"By no means, my lud—he has been frequently convicted."

"For the like offence?" enquired the Judge.

Again the ear and mouth were in juxtaposition.

"We believe so, my lud—we believe so," replied the smart barrister; "but we cannot speak positively."

The culprit raised his leaden eye, and turned his sad look towards the judge, his best friend there.

"For BEGGARY, my lord," he uttered, almost solemnly.

"Does any body know you, prisoner?" asked my lord. "Can any one speak to your previous character?"

The deserted one looked around the court languidly enough, and shook his head, but, at the same instant there was a rustling amongst the crowd of auditors, and a general movement, such as follows the breaking up of a compact mass of men when one is striving to pass through it.

"Si-lence!" exclaimed a sonorous voice, belonging to a punchy body, a tall wand, and a black bombasin gown; and immediately afterwards, "a friend of the prisoner's, my lord. Get into that box—speak loud—look at his lordship. Si-lence!"

The individual who caused this little excitement, and who now ascended the witness's tribune, was a labouring man. He held a paper cap in his hand, and wore a jacket of flannel. The prisoner glanced at him without seeming to recognize his friend, whilst the eyes of the young lawyer actually glistened at the opportunity which had come at last for the display of his skill.

"What are you, my man?" said the judge in a tone of kindness.

"A journeyman carpenter, please your worship."

"You must say my lord—say my lord," interposed the bombasin gown.

"Speak out. Si-lence!"

"Where do you live?"

"Friar's Place—please you, my lord." The bombasin smiled pitifully at the ignorance of the witness, and said no more.

"Do you know the prisoner at the bar?"

"About ten weeks ago—please you, my lord, I was hired by the landlord—"

"Answer his lordship, sir," exclaimed the counsel for the prosecution in a tone of thunder. "Never mind the landlord. Do you know the prisoner?"

"Why, I was a saying, please you, my lord, about ten weeks ago I was hired by the landlord—"

"Answer directly, sir," continued the animated barrister—"or take the consequences. Do you know the prisoner?"

"Let him tell his story his own way, Mr Nailhim," interposed his lordship blandly. "We shall sooner get to the end of it."

Mr Nailhim bowed to the opinion of the court, and sat down.

"Now, my man," said his lordship, "as quickly as you can, tell me whatever you know of the prisoner."

"About ten weeks ago—please you, my lord," began the journey-man de novo, "I was hired by the landlord of them houses as is sitiwated where Mr Warton lives—" (The bombasin looked at the witness with profound contempt, and well he might! The idea of calling a prisoner at the bar Mr—stupendous ignorance!) "and I see'd him day arter day, and nobody was put to it as bad as he was. He has got a wife and three children, and I know he worked as hard as he could whilst he was able; but when he got ill he couldn't, and he was druv to it. I have often taken a loaf of bread to him, and all I wish is, he had stolen one of mine behind my back instead of the baker's. I shouldn't have come agin him, poor fellow! and I am sure he wouldn't have done it if his young uns hadn't been starving. I never see'd him before that time, but I could take my affidavy he's an industrious and honest man, and as sober, please you, my lord, as a judge."

At this last piece of irreverence, the man with the staff stood perfectly still, lost as it seemed, in wonder at the hardihood of him who could so speak.

"Have you any thing more to say?" asked his lordship.

The carpenter hesitated for a second or two, and then acknowledged that he had not; and, such being the case, it seemed hardly necessary for Mr Nailhim to prolong his examination. But that gentleman thought otherwise. He rose, adjusted his gown, and looked not only at the witness, but through and through him.

"Now, young man," said he, "what is your name?"

"John Mallett, sir," replied the carpenter.

"John Mallett. Very well. Now, John Mallett, who advised you to come here to-day? Take care what you are about, John Mallett."

The carpenter, without a moment's hesitation, answered that his "old woman had advised him; and very good advice it was, he thought."

"Never mind your thoughts, sir. You don't come here to think. Where do you live?"

The witness answered.

"You have not lived long there, I believe?"

"Not quite a fortnight, sir."

"You left your last lodging in a hurry too, I think, John Mallett?"

"Rather so, sir," answered Innocence itself, little dreaming of effects and consequences.

"A little trouble, eh, John Mallett?"

"Mighty deal your lordship, ah, ah, ah!" replied the witness quite jocosely, and beginning to enjoy the sport.

"Don't laugh here, sir, but can you tell us what you were doing, sir, last Christmas four years?"

Of course he could not—and Mr Nailhim knew it, or he never would have put the question; and the unlucky witness grew so confused in his attempt to find the matter out, and, in his guesses, so confounded one Christmas with another, that first he blushed, and then he spoke, and then he checked himself, and spoke again, just contradicting what he said before, and looked at length as like a guilty man as any in the jail. Lest the effect upon the court might still be incomplete, the wily Nailhim, in the height of Mallett's trouble, threw, furtively and knowingly, a glance towards the jury, and smiled upon them so familiarly, that any lingering doubt must instantly have given way. They agreed unanimously with Nailhim. A greater scoundrel never lived than this John Mallett. The counsellor perceived his victory, and spoke.

"Go down, sir, instantly," said he, "and take care how you show your face up there again. I have nothing more to say, my lud."

And down John Mallett went, his friend and he much worse for his intentions.

"And now this mighty case is closed!" thought I. "What will they do to such a wretch!" I was disappointed. The good judge was determined not to forsake the man, and he once more addressed him.

"Prisoner," said he, "what induced you to commit this act?"

The prisoner again turned his desponding eye upwards, and answered, as before—

"Beggary, my lord."

"What are you?"

"Nothing, my lord—any thing."

"Have you no trade?"

"No, my lord."

"What do your wife and children do?"

"They are helpless, my lord, and they starve with me."

"Does no one know you in your neighbourhood?"

"No one, my lord. I am a stranger there. We are all low people there, my lord."

There was something so truly humble and plaintive in the tone with which these words were spoken, and the eyes of the afflicted man filled so suddenly with tears as he uttered them, that I became affected in a manner which I now find it difficult to describe. My blood seemed to chill, and my heart to rush into my throat. I am ashamed to say that my own eyes were as moist as the prisoner's. I resolved from that moment to become his friend, and to enquire into his circumstances and character, as soon as the present proceedings were at an end.

"How long has the prisoner been confined already?"

"Something like three months, my lud," answered the barrister cavalierly as if months were minutes.

"It is punishment enough," said the judge—"let him be discharged now. Prisoner, you are discharged—you must endeavour to get employment. If you are ill, apply to your parish; there is no excuse for stealing—none whatever. You are at liberty now."

The information did not seem to carry much delight to the heart of him whom it was intended to benefit. He rose from his chair, bowed to his lordship, and then followed the turnkey, in whose expression of countenance and attentions there was certainly a marked alteration since the wind had set in favourably from the bench. The man departed. Moved by a natural impulse, I likewise quitted the court the instant afterwards, enquired of one of the officials the way of egress for discharged prisoners, and betook myself there without delay. What my object was I cannot now, as I could not then, define. I certainly did not intend to accost the poor fellow, or to commit myself in any way with him, for the present, at all events. Yet there I was, and I could not move from the spot, however useless or absurd my presence there might be. It was a small low door, with broad nails beaten into it, through which the liberated passed, as they stepped from gloom and despair, into freedom and the unshackled light of heaven. I was not then in a mood to trust myself to the consideration of the various and mingled feelings with which men from time to time, and after months of hopelessness and pain, must have bounded from that barrier, into the joy of liberty and life. My feelings had become in some way mastered by what I had seen, and all about my heart was disturbance and unseemly effeminacy. There was only one individual, besides myself, walking in the narrow court-yard, which, but for our footsteps, would have been as silent as a grave. This was a woman—a beggar—carrying, as usual, a child, that drew less sustenance than sorrow from the mother's breast. She was in rags, but she looked clean, and she might once have been beautiful; but settled trouble and privation had pressed upon her hollow eye—had feasted on her bloomy skin. I could not tell her age. With a glance I saw that she was old in suffering. And what was her business here? For whom did she wait? Was it for the father of that child?—and was she so satisfied of her partner's innocence, and the justice of mankind, that here she lingered to receive him, assured of meeting him again? What was his crime?—his character?—her history? I would have given much to know, indeed, I was about to question her, when I was startled and detained by the drawing of a bolt—the opening of the door—and the appearance of the very man whom I had come to see. He did not perceive me. He perceived nothing but the mother and the child—his wife and his child. She ran to him, and sobbed on his bosom. He said nothing. He was calm—composed; but he took the child gently from her arms, carried the little thing himself to give her ease, and walked on. She at his side, weeping ever; but he silent, and not suffering himself to speak, save when a word of tenderness could lull the hungry child, who cried for what the mother might not yield her. Still without a specific object, I followed the pair, and passed with them into the most ancient and least reputable quarter of the city. They trudged from street to street, through squalid courts and lanes, until I questioned the propriety of proceeding, and the likelihood of my ever getting home again. At length, however, they stopped. It was a close, narrow, densely peopled lane in which they halted. The road was thick with mud and filth; the pavement and the doorways of the houses were filled with ill-clad sickly children, the houses themselves looked forbidding and unclean. The bread-stealer and his wife were recognised by half a dozen coarse women, who, half intoxicated, thronged the entrance to the house opposite to that in which they lodged, and a significant laugh and nod of the head were the greetings with which they received the released one back again. There was little heart or sympathy in the movement, and the wretched couple understood it so. The woman had dried her tears—both held down their heads—even there—for shame, and both crawled into the hole in which, for their children's sake, they lived, and were content to find their home. Now, then, it was time to retrace my steps. It was, but I could not move from the spot—that is, not retreat from it, as yet. There was something to do. My conscience cried aloud to me, and, thank God, was clamorous till I grew human and obedient. I entered the house. A child was sitting at the foot of the stairs, her face and arms begrimed—her black hair hanging to her back foul with disease and dirt. She was about nine years old; but evil knowledge, cunning duplicity, and the rest, were glaring in her precocious face. She clasped her knees with her extended hands, and swinging backwards and forwards, sang, in a loud and impudent voice, the burden of an obscene song. I asked this creature if a man named Warton dwelt there. She ceased her song, and commenced whistling—then stared me full in the face and burst into loud laughter.

"What will you give if I tell you?" said she, with a bold grin. "Will you stand a glass of gin?"

I shuddered. At the same moment I heard a loud coughing, and the voice of the man himself overhead. I ascended the stairs, and, as I did so, the girl began her song again, as if she had suffered no interruption. I gathered from a crone whom I encountered at the top of the first flight of steps, that the person of whom I was in quest lived with his family in the back room of the highest floor; and thither, with unfailing courage, I proceeded. I arrived at the door, knocked at it briskly without a moment's hesitation, and recognized the deep and now well-known tones of Warton in the voice desiring men to enter. The room was very small, and had no article of furniture except a table and two chairs. Some straw was strewn in a corner of the room, and two children were lying asleep upon it, their only covering being a few patches of worn-out carpet. Another layer was in the opposite corner, similarly provided with clothing. This was the parents' bed. I was too confused, and too anxious to avoid giving offence, to make a closer observation. The man and his wife were sitting together when I entered. The former had still the infant in his arms, and he rose to receive me with an air of good breeding and politeness, that staggered me from the contrast it afforded with his miserable condition—his frightful poverty.

"I have to ask your pardon," said I, "for this intrusion, but your name is Warton, I believe?"

"It is, sir," he replied—and the eyes of the wife glistened again, as she gathered hope and comfort from my unexpected visit. She trembled as she looked at me, and the tears gushed forth again.

("These are not bad people, I will swear it," I said to myself, as I marked her, and I took confidence from the conviction, and went on.)

"I have come to you," said I, "straight from the sessions'-house, where, by accident, I was present during your short trial. I wish to be of a little service to you. I am not a rich man, and my means do not enable me to do as much as I would desire; but I can relieve your immediate want, and perhaps do something more for you hereafter, if I find you are deserving of assistance."

"You are very kind, sir," answered the man, "and I am very grateful to you. We are strangers to you, sir, but I trust these (pointing to his wife and children) may deserve your bounty. For myself—"

"Hush, dear!" said his wife, with a gentleness and accent that confounded me. Low people! why, with full stomachs, decent clothing, and a few pounds, they might with every propriety have been ushered at once into a drawing-room.

"Poor Warton is very ill, sir," continued the wife, "and much suffering has robbed him of his peace of mind. I am sure, sir, we shall be truly grateful for your help. We need it, sir, Heaven knows, and he is not undeserving—no, let them say what they will."

I believed it in my heart, but I would not say so without less partial evidence.

"Well," I continued, "we will talk of this by and by. I am determined to make a strict enquiry, for your own sakes as well as my own. But you are starving now, it seems, and I sha'n't enquire whether you deserve a loaf of bread. Here," said I, giving, them a sovereign, "get something to eat, for God's sake, and put a little colour, if you can, into those little faces when they wake again."

The man started suddenly from his chair, and walked quickly to the window. His wife followed him, alarmed, and took the infant from his arms, whilst he himself pressed his hand to his heart, as though he would prevent its bursting. His face grew deathly pale. The female watched him earnestly, and the hitherto silent and morose man, convulsed by excess of feeling, quivered in every limb, whilst he said with difficulty—

"Anna, I shall die—I am suffocated—air—air—my heart beats like a hammer."

I threw the window open, and the man drooped on the sill, and wept fearfully.

"What does this mean?" I asked, speaking in a low tone to the wife.

"Your sudden kindness, sir. He is not able to bear it. He is proof against cruelty and persecution—he has grown reckless to them, but constant illness has made him so weak, that any thing unusual quite overcomes him."

"Well, there, take the money, and get some food as quickly as you can. I will not wait to distress him now. I will call again to-morrow; he will be quieter then, and we'll see what can be done for you. Those children must be cold. Have you no blankets?"

"None, sir. We have nothing in the world. What, you see here, even to the straw, belongs, to the landlord of the house, who has been charitable enough to give us shelter."

"Well, never mind—don't despond—don't give way—keep the poor fellow's sprits up. Here's another crown. Let him have a glass of wine, it will strengthen him; and do you take a glass too. I shall see you again to-morrow. There, good-by."

And, fool and woman that I was, on I went, and stood for some minutes, ashamed of myself, in the passage below, because, forsooth, I had been talking and exciting myself until my eyes had filled uncomfortably with water.

It was impossible for me to go to sleep again until I had purchased blankets for these people, and so I resolved at once to get them. I was leaving the house for that purpose, when a porter with a bundle entered it.

"Whom do you want, my man?" said I.

"One Warton, sir", said he.

"Top of the house," said I again—"back room—to the right. What have you got there?"

"Some sheets and blankets, sir."

"From whom?"

"My master sir, here's his card."

It was the card of an upholsterer living within a short distance of where I stood. I directed the porter again, and forthwith sallied to the man of furniture. Here I learnt that I had been forestalled by an individual as zealous in the cause of poor Warton as myself. I was glad of this, for I knew very well, in doing any little piece of duty, how apt our dirty vanity is to puff us up, and to make us assume so much more than we have any title to; and it is nothing short of relief to be able to extinguish this said vanity in the broad light of other men's benevolence. The upholsterer, however, could not inform me who this generous man was, or how he had been made aware of Warton's indigence. It appears that he had called only a few minutes before I arrived, and had requested that the articles which he purchased should be sent, without a moment's delay, to the address which he gave. He waited in the shop until the porter quitted it, and then departed, having, at the request of the upholsterer, who was curious for the name of his customer, described himself in the day-book as Mr Jones. "He was not a gentleman," said the man of business, "certainly not, and he didn't look like a tradesman. I should say," he added, "that he was a gentleman's butler, for he was mighty consequential, ordered every body about, and wanted me to take off discount."

My mind being made easy in respect of the blankets, I had nothing to do but to return, as diligently as I could, to the house of my friend, Mr Treherne. I reached his dwelling in time to prepare for dinner, at which repast, as on the previous evening, I encountered a few select friends and opulent business men. These were a different set. Before joining them, Treherne had given me to understand that they were all very wealthy, and very liberal in their politics, and before quitting them I heartily believed him. There was a great deal of talk during dinner, and, as the newspapers say, after the cloth was removed, on the aspect of affairs in general. The corn-laws were discussed, the condition of the Irish was lamented, the landed gentry were abused, the Church was threatened, the Tories were alluded to as the enemies of mankind and the locusts of the earth; whilst the people, the poor, the labouring classes, the masses, and whatever was comprised within these terms, had their warmest sympathy and approbation. My habits are somewhat retired, and I mix now little with men. I can conscientiously affirm, that I never in my life heard finer sentiments or deeper philanthropy than I did on this occasion from the guests of my friend, and with what pleasure I need not say, when it suddenly occurred to me to call upon them for a subscription on behalf of the starving family whom I had met that day.

"You must take care, my dear sir," said a gentleman, before I had half finished my story, (he might be called the leader of the opposition from the precedence which he took in the company in opposing all existing institutions,)—"You must, indeed; you are a stranger here. You must not believe all you hear. These fellows will trump up any tale. I know them of old. Don't you be taken in. Take my word—it's a man's own fault if he comes to want. Depend upon it."

"So it is—so it is; that's very true," responded half-a-dozen gentlemen with large bellies, sipping claret as they spoke.

"I do not think, gentlemen," I answered, "that I am imposed upon in this case."

"Ah, ah!" said many Liberals at once, shaking their heads in pity at my simplicity.

"At all events," I added, "you'll not refuse a little aid."

"Certainly, I shall," replied the leader; "it's a rule, sir. I wouldn't break through it. I act entirely upon principle! I can't encourage robbery and vagrancy. It's Quixotic."

"Quite so—quite so!" murmured the bellies.

"Besides, there's the Union; we are paying for that. Why don't these people go in? Why, they tell me they may live in luxury there!"

"He has a wife and three children—it's hard to separate, perhaps—"

"Pooh, pooh, sir!"

"Pooh, pooh!" echoed the bellies.

"And, I'll tell you what, sir," said the gentleman emphatically in conclusion, "if you want to do good to society, you mustn't begin at the fag end of it; leave the thieves to the jailers, and the poor to the guardians. Repeal the corn-laws—give us free trade—universal suffrage—and religious liberty; that's what we want. I don't ask you to put a tax upon tallow—why do you want to put a tax upon corn? I don't ask you to pay my minister—why do you want me to pay your parson? I don't ask you—"

"Oh! don't let us hear all that over again, there's a good fellow," said Treherne, imploringly. "Curse politics. Who is for whist? The tables are ready."

The company rose to a man at the mention of whist, and took their places at the tables. I did not plead again for poor Warton; but his wretched apartment came often before my eyes in the glitter of the wax-lit room in which I stood, surrounded by profusion. His unhappy but faithful wife—his sleeping children—his own affecting expression of gratitude, occupied my mind, and soothed it. What a blessed thing it is to minister to the necessities of others! How happy I felt in the knowledge that they would sleep peacefully and well that night! I had been for some time musing in a corner of the room, when I was roused by the loud voice of the Liberal.

"Well, I tell you what, Treherne, I'll bet you five to one on the game."

"Done!" said Treherne.

"Crowns?" added the Liberal.

"Just as you like—go on—your play."

In a few minutes the game was settled. The Liberal lost his crowns, and Treherne took them. Madmen both! Half of that sum would have given a month's bread to the beggars. Did it enrich or serve the wealthy winner? No. What was it these men craved? They could part with their money freely when they chose. Was it excitement? And is none to be derived from appeasing the hunger, and securing the heartfelt prayers of the naked and the poor? I withdrew from the noisy party, and retired to my room, determined to investigate the affairs of my new acquaintances at an early hour in the morning, and effectually to help them if I could.