Nevermore Part 15

'In the first place, they would remark that large numbers of horses had been and were at that very time being systematically stolen from the miners. There existed no doubt, in the minds of persons capable of forming an opinion on such matters, that a well-organised and widely-spread a.s.sociation had been formed, by means of which horses stolen in one colony were driven by unfrequented routes to another, for the purpose of sale. It was not as if an occasional animal here and there had been taken. That offence, criminal in itself, doubtless, deserved some punishment. But, considering the great value of horses at the diggings, their almost vital importance in the ordinary course of mining industry, and the difficulty of following up and punis.h.i.+ng marauders without ruinous loss of time and expense, he was there to tell the jury that a greater wrong, a more flagrant injustice, could not be inflicted on any mining community.

'With regard to the prisoners arrested and arraigned together, one had pleaded guilty and the other had denied all knowledge--all criminal knowledge--of the fact that the horse he was riding when arrested had been stolen. There had been evidence given that day before them which directly pointed to the prisoner Trevanion's general a.s.sociation with the Lawlesses, such evidence as, if believed by them, must lead to the conclusion that the mode of procuring and disposing of the large number of horses found in the elder Lawless's possession was not unknown to him.

'On the other hand, there had not been wanting evidence most favourable to the prisoner, Trevanion; favourable in its purport, and ent.i.tled to respect on account of the character and position of the witnesses. It was their province to p.r.o.nounce upon the credibility of the witnesses.

He would not detain them longer. They were the judges of fact. His Honour would in his charge direct them as to the law of the case.'

Then Mr. England arose, threw back his gown as if preparing for action in another arena, and faced the jury with an air of confident valour.

'His learned friend, the Crown Prosecutor, had most properly confined himself to a bare statement of facts--if facts they could be called. In the whole of his experience of alleged criminal cases it had never been his good fortune to be connected with a defence, the conduct of which was so childishly clear, the outcome of which was so ridiculously easy of solution. Putting aside for the present the utter want of all reasonable motive for the commission of a felony--the perpetration of a crime by a man of good fame, family, and fortune--this extraordinary purposeless deed, for which only the wildest condition of insanity could account, he would briefly run over the evidence for the defence.

'First, as to the character of the prisoner's witnesses, shame was it, and sorrow as well, that he should have to refer to this unfortunate gentleman--he would repeat the word--by such a designation. The jury would note, giving the case that attention which was its due, that every witness for the defence was a person of unblemished character. Beginning with Mr. Stirling--their tried and trusted friend--what man within a hundred miles of Ballarat would doubt his word, not to speak of his solemn oath! Then, John Polwarth and his wife--the former a hard-working legitimate miner, one of a cla.s.s that the country was proud of, and whose industry was rapidly lifting it to a lofty position among the nations. His fond and faithful wife. Charles Edward Hastings, a man of birth and culture, yet, like the majority of this population, an earnest, efficient toiler. Then their respected friend and benefactress, Mrs. Delf. He should like to see any one look into that lady's face and doubt her word. The two wages-men from the Hand-in-Hand claim, men who had no earthly interest but of upholding the truth; and last, but by no means the least in weight of testimony, Miss Esther Lawless--the witness of truth, even against her own sympathies, as any child could see.

'So much for the character of our witnesses and their reliability. Then as to the agreement of this testimony. Examined separately and without suspicion of collusion, what had been their evidence, differing only with those shades of discrepancy which before all practised tribunals absolved them from any hint of tutoring? Why, it amounted to triumphant proof beyond all question or challenge, that on Thursday, the 19th of September, Launcelot Trevanion was at the Joint-Stock Bank at Growlers'

Gully, and that he could not have started on his journey to Balooka earlier than Friday, 20th, the day he was a.s.serted to have been seen there. He held this important position to be proved, so much so that he should not again perhaps refer to it.

'Having thus briefly, but he hoped clearly, presented to them the overwhelming weight of evidence, amounting to one of the most convincing _alibis_ ever proved before a court, he should pa.s.s on to the evidence for the Crown. There was an absence of direct proof, but he hesitated not to impugn the _bona fides_ of Sergeant Dayrell and Catharine Lawless. He owned to regarding it with considerable suspicion. He implored the jury, as they valued their oaths, to scrutinise this part of the case most heedfully. What the motives of these witnesses might be he was not prepared to a.s.sert, but as men of the world they would probably form their own opinion. Catharine Lawless had admittedly been on friendly, more than friendly terms with the accused, why had she so completely turned round and given damaging evidence against him? In the history of light o' loves of this nature were found fatal enmities, and hardly less fatal friends.h.i.+ps; was it not probable that jealousy, "cruel as the grave," was the motive power in this otherwise inconsequential action? Cool and high-couraged as this witness had shown herself, he could not avoid noticing signs of discomposure which pointed to unnatural feelings and untruthful statements. Was there then some relentless vengeance in the background, the secret of which was known only to the Lawless family and Sergeant Dayrell, to be wreaked upon this unfortunate victim of treachery? He was betrayed alike in love and in friends.h.i.+p, in business and in pleasure. This conspiracy, he could call it by no lighter name, was no accidental affair, but a carefully planned, cold-blooded, and deliberate crime. In all trials involving criminal action it was the habit of eminent judges to direct juries to examine carefully the probability or otherwise of the prisoner's _motive_ for committing the offence charged against him. In this case no motive could possibly be said to exist. Was it likely, as he had before inquired of them, that a man with a fortune, a large fortune to his credit in a bank, with a weekly income of most enviable magnitude, increasing rather than diminis.h.i.+ng, should lend himself to a paltry theft, such as was alleged against him? It was as though the leading country gentleman of a county in Britain should steal a donkey off a common, if they would pardon him the vulgarity of the simile. Gentlemen might smile, but was there anything to excite mirth in the haggard features and melancholy mien of the unhappy young man whom they saw in that dock? Let them imagine one of their own relatives placed in that position by no fault of his own, and they could understand his feelings.

He would not for an instant urge them to act inconsistently with their oath, but he implored them to avoid by their verdict that day the dread and terrible responsibility of convicting an innocent man.'

CHAPTER XIII

Then the judge, with a final glance at his notes, commenced to sum up on the evidence. He stood singular among his fellow-jurists for plain and unostentatious demeanour, both on and off the bench. In the matter of outward attire he could not be accused of extravagance. A studied plainness of habit distinguished him on all occasions. Careless, moreover, as to the fit of his garments as of their colour or quality.

As a lawyer he was proverbially keen, clear-headed, and deeply read; but he wasted no time upon his judgments, and never was known to 'improve the occasion' by the stern or pathetic harangues in which his fellow-judges, for the most part, enclosed their decisions--the wrapper of the pill, so to speak. So rapid and decisive were his Honour's findings that some of them had pa.s.sed into household words. When he arose from his seat, and after taking a short walk along the judicial dais, as if in mental conflict, resumed his position, the spectators knew that they would not have long to wait. '"Very honest man rides a stolen horse," would have been the gist of my charge, gentlemen of the jury,' he said; 'but this truly strange and complicated case demands the closest examination. The evidence presents exceptional features. On one side you have a young man of good character and means. His pecuniary circ.u.mstances should have removed all temptation to commit the offence charged. In a spirit of recklessness he a.s.sociates with the Lawless family. About their character--with the sole exception of Esther Lawless--the less said the better. He buys from Edward Lawless a horse proved to have been stolen--many an honest man during the turmoil of the gold period has done the same. He has occasionally gambled for large sums, which is highly imprudent, but not felony, in the eyes of the law.

The evidence for the defence proves fully--if believed--that he did not leave Growlers' Gully for Balooka until the 19th of September--competent witnesses swear positively to this fact. If you believe them, the case is at an end. On the other hand, as many swear to his having been seen at Balooka long before the day referred to, and also at Eumeralla, the old home of the Lawlesses, some of these witnesses must be in error, as the prisoner manifestly could not have been in two places at once.

Catharine Lawless had evidently an animus _spretae injuria formae_, he felt inclined to say, which might be freely translated into a lover's quarrel of some sort. As men of the world, the jury would largely discount her evidence. A still more remarkable feature of this truly remarkable case was that Esther Lawless--whose conscientious scruples did her honour--testified also to having seen the prisoner at Eumeralla in a.s.sociation with Edward Lawless. They had heard John Polwarth's evidence, and his wife's, regarding a s.h.i.+pmate curiously like Trevanion.

Such similarities, though rare, were not unknown. There was a possibility of mistaken ident.i.ty. These points, as well as the credibility of the witnesses, were for them to consider. They were the judges of fact. But it was their especial duty to give the prisoner the benefit of all reasonable doubt--a doubt which he should certainly share with them if they brought in a verdict of _not guilty_.'

When Mr. England heard the conclusion of the judge's charge, he scarcely doubted for a moment that after a short retirement of the jury his Honour's last words would be repeated by that responsible body. He therefore sat down, and calling over Charles Stirling, imparted to him confidentially his feeling on the subject. 'His Honour plainly and unmistakably was with them, and had summed up dead in favour of Trevanion. He was one of the best judges of the Victorian Bench, clear-headed and decisive, detesting all mere verbiage. A man, a gentleman, a sound lawyer--all these Judge Buckthorne was known to be.

Pity he could not borrow a little deportment from Sir Desmond, who had enough and to spare.'

Thus they talked while the business of the court went forward. Another jury had been impanelled; another case called on; another prisoner had been put in the dock and placed on the farther side with Ned Lawless.

They seemed to know each other. Lance cast upon him a brief, indifferent glance, and resigned himself to silent endurance.

With respect to the issue, Charles Stirling was by no means so confident as his legal friend, veteran as he was, boasting the scars of a hundred battles. But in his character of banker he had the opportunity of hearing the general public, as represented by the 'legitimate miner,'

as he was fond of calling himself, which means every sort and condition of mankind, anxious to compel fortune by the primeval process, but wholly without capital to develop enterprises.

Now the jury was chiefly composed of ordinary miners. Of these it so happened that a large number had had their horses stolen. They were valuable animals at that period, most difficult to replace, and the owners, therefore, felt their loss acutely. They came to the trial with a fixed and settled intention of striking a blow at horse-stealers, to which end it was necessary that some one, they hardly cared who, should suffer.

They were determined that an example should be made. It would do good and prevent others from being so immoral and short-sighted as to rob honest miners.

'This Trevanion,' they reasoned, 'had really been mixed up with the Lawless crowd, and a worse lot, now it turned out, had never been seen near Ballarat.'

It was argued that the evidence went to show that he had been a known friend and an intimate of the family at the place with the native name, and had been seen there when horse-stealing on a large scale was being carried on.

'Kate Lawless swore point-blank to his having been away with her brothers long before the Lawless crowd had come to Growlers'. Trooper Donnellan had sworn to seeing him there. Hiram Edwards, the Yankee digger, had seen him there, and other miners. They had no call to have a down on him, even if Dayrell and the girl had.

'Besides these, Tessie Lawless, who every one knew was a straight girl, and wouldn't have said a word against him for the world if she could have helped it--even _she_ had to confess that she had seen him at Eumeralla.'

'What about this chap that was said to be the dead image of him?' asked a younger juror. 'It was hard lines to be lagged innocent through another cove's work.'

'Well, they might believe that if they liked; it was put up, some thought. Jack Polwarth and his wife, like all these Cousin Jacks, would swear anything for a Cornishman. Mr. Stirling was a nice chap, but he was a banker, and wasn't likely to go back on a man with a good account.

Mrs. Delf was a good sort, but Trevanion used her house regular and spent his money free. They knew what that meant. His mind was made up.

If Ned Lawless, as was waiting for his sentence, was in it, Trevanion was too. He must face the music. He'd be let off light, but it would be a lesson to him. If they didn't shop some one over this racket there wouldn't be a horse left on the field by Christmas.'

At different times, and from different speakers, such was the general tone and substance of the arguments advanced by the majority. The minority defended their position, and from time to time denied that sufficient evidence had been furnished to show guilty knowledge or partic.i.p.ation in crime on the part of the prisoner. But, after several hours spent in debate, the minority yielded, disinclination to be locked up all night lending force to the logic of their opponents.

When the jury marched into court, after notice by the sheriff's officer to the judge that they had agreed, a hush of anxious silence reigned throughout the building. Lance stood up fearless and erect, as a soldier faces the firing-party at his execution. Ned Lawless never changed his position, but seemed as careless and unenvious as the youngest lad in court.

'How say you, gentlemen of the jury?' said the judge's a.s.sociate, a very young gentleman, with discretion, however, beyond his years. 'Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?'

There was an air of solemnity pervading the jurors generally, from which Mr. England at once deduced an adverse verdict. The women fastened their eyes upon the foreman with eager expectation or painful anxiety; all save Kate Lawless. For all her emotion displayed, expressed in her countenance, the prisoners might have been Chinamen charged with stealing cabbages.

There was a slight pause, after which the foreman, a burly digger who had been a 'forty-niner' in California, and had seen the first rush at Turon, uttered the word 'Guilty!' The effect of the announcement was electrical. A tumult seemed imminent. The great crowd swayed and surged as if suddenly stirred to unwonted action. Groans mingled with hisses were heard; women's cries and sobs, above which rose a girl's hysterical shriek, thrilling and prolonged, temporarily in the ascendant. The deep murmur of indignation seemed about to swell into riotous shouting, when an additional force of police appeared at the outer entrance, by whom, after vigorous expostulation, order was restored.

The judge proceeded to pa.s.s sentence, contenting himself with telling the jury that 'they had proved themselves scrupulous guardians of the public welfare, and had not allowed themselves to be swayed by considerations of mercy. Their grasp of the facts of the case was doubtless most comprehensive. It was their verdict, not his. They had accepted the sole responsibility. Launcelot Trevanion, the sentence of the court is that you be imprisoned in Her Majesty's Gaol at Ballarat, and kept to hard labour for the term of two years. Edward Lawless, the sentence of the court is that you be imprisoned in Her Majesty's Gaol at Pentridge, and kept to hard labour for the term of five years. Let the prisoners be removed.'

Then the disorder of the crowd, previously restrained, burst all bounds, and appeared to become ungovernable. Tessie Lawless fell forward in a faint and was carried out. Mrs. Polwarth shook her fist in the direction of the sacred judgment-seat, and declared in resonant tones that more would come of this if things were not mended. s.n.a.t.c.hing Tottie up, she and Mrs. Delf followed in the wake of Mr. Stirling and Hastings, continuing to impeach the existing order of things judicial, and declaring 'that an honest man and a gentleman had no show in a country like this, where straight folks' oaths counted for nought; where policemen and lying jades had power to shut up in prison a man whose shoes in England they wouldn't have been allowed to black.'

'End of first act of the melodrama,' said Hastings to Charlie Stirling, with grim pleasantry. 'Audience gone out for refreshment. "What may happen to a man in Victoria!" as the Port Phillip _Patriot_ said the other day. Poor Lance! it makes me feel revolutionary too.'

The end had come. With a hoa.r.s.e murmur, half-repressed but none the less sullen and resentful, the crowd surged outward from the court. A strong body of police escorted the prisoners to the van, in which, despite of threatened obstruction from some of the Growlers' Gully contingent, they were placed and driven towards the gaol, which, built on a lofty eminence, was nearly a mile from the court-house. Ned Lawless preserved his ordinary cheerful indifference, nodding to more than one acquaintance in the crowd, as who should say, 'They don't have me for no five years, you bet!'

But Lance moved like a man in a dream. The force of the blow seemed to have arrested the ordinary action of the brain. 'Guilty! _Two years'

imprisonment!_ Oh, G.o.d! Was it possible! and not some evil dream from which he would wake, as in the days of his boyhood, to find himself free and happy. It could not be. The Almighty could not be so cruel, so merciless, could not suffer a wrong so foul, so false to every principle of right, truth, justice! This hideous phantasmagoria would vanish, and he, Lance Trevanion, would find himself back at Number Six, hailing the dawn with joy, ready to sing aloud as he left his couch with pure elation of spirits.'

The actuality of changed conditions was brought home to him by the prompt alteration of treatment to which he was subjected on arriving at the gaol. Marched through a large yard in which a number of prisoners were sitting or standing aimlessly about, Lance became aware that a great change had taken place in his status and prestige. Before this he was only on committal; for all the prison authorities knew, he might be acquitted, and walk forth from court unstained in reputation.

But now things were different. He was a prisoner under sentence. Bound to conform to the regulations of the establishment, who must _obey orders_. Do, in plain words, what he was told, no matter in what tone or manner couched, must perform menial services, descend from his former position to be the servant of servants, nay more, their dumb and unresisting slave, unless he saw fit to defy the terrible and crus.h.i.+ng weight of prison authority. Should he submit? he asked himself, sitting down on the scanty bedding, neatly folded on a narrow board.

'Should he submit? or rather should he not give volcanic vent to his untamed temper, strangle the warder who next came to his cell, and "run amok," scattering the gaol guards, dying by a rifle bullet rather than by the slower but not less certain action of the prison atmosphere? Had it not killed so many another, born, like him, to a life of freedom?--and yet--he was young--so young! Life had joys in store--for a man of three-and-twenty, even if he had to waste two years in this thrice accursed living tomb! Disgrace! dishonour! Of course it was--would be all the days of his life. Still there were other countries--other worlds, almost, of which he had since his arrival in Australia heard more than all his schooling had taught him. The Pacific Slope; the South-Sea Islands; the Argentine Republic; New Mexico; Texas; Colorado! These were localities of which many a miner talked as familiarly as Jack Polwarth of Cornwall or Devon. Two years would pa.s.s somehow. How many weeks was it? A hundred and more! The Judge, however, had ordered the time he had spent under committal to be deducted from the whole term--that was something. Well, he would see it out. He had friends still who were staunch and true. He would change his name and go to one of those places in the New World where men were not too particular about their a.s.sociates' former lives--as long as they paid their way and lived a manly life. But home! Home to Wychwood! Home to his father and Estelle! Never! No! He could not look them in the face again.'

These reflections were brought to a close abruptly by the sudden opening of the cell door and the entrance of two warders, one of whom carried a suit of prison clothes. One was a tall powerful man with a hard expression of countenance and a cruel mouth. He looked at Lance with a cold, scrutinising air.

'Stand up, prisoner Trevanion,' he said, as if reading out of a book, 'and the next time you hear your cell door open comply with the regulations.'

'What regulations?' inquired Lance.

'They're on that board,' pointing to a small board placed in a corner of the cell. 'You can read, I expect? Now, strip, and dress yourself in this uniform.'

Disenc.u.mbering himself of his ordinary garments, Lance soon found himself attired in a striped suit of coa.r.s.e cloth, fitted also with rough blucher boots and a woollen cap.

'Follow Warder Jackson.'