The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney Part 21

"Quite a remarkable one," replied Mr. Flint, as he rang the bell. "Desire the gentlemen in the library to step up," he added to the footman who answered the summons. In about three minutes in marched Cunningham and Mullins, followed by two police-officers. An irrepressible exclamation of terror escaped Chilton, which was immediately echoed by Mr. Flint's direction to the police, as he pointed towards the trembling caitiff: "That is your man--secure him."

A storm of exclamations, questions, remonstrances, instantly broke forth, and it was several minutes before attention could be obtained for the statements of our two Irish witnesses and the reading of the happily-found letter. The effect of the evidence adduced was decisive, electrical. Lady Seyton, as its full significance flashed upon her, screamed with convulsive joy, and I thought must have fainted from excess of emotion. The Rev. John Hayley returned audible thanks to G.o.d in a voice quivering with rapture, and Miss Hayley ran out of the apartment, and presently returned with the children, who were immediately half-smothered with their mother's ecstatic kisses. All was for a few minutes bewilderment, joy, rapture! Flint persisted to his dying day, that Lady Seyton threw her arms round his neck, and kissed his bald old forehead. This, however, I cannot personally vouch for, as my attention was engaged at the moment by the adverse claimant, the Honorable James Kingston, who exhibited one of the most irresistibly comic, wo-begone, lackadaisical aspects it is possible to conceive. He made a hurried and most undignified exit, and was immediately followed by the discomfited "family" solicitors. Chilton was conveyed to a station-house, and the next day was fully committed for trial. He was convicted at the next sessions, and sentenced to seven years' transportation; and the "celebrated" firm of Flint and Sharp, derived considerable l.u.s.tre, and more profit, from this successful stroke of professional dexterity.

JANE ECCLES

The criminal business of the office was, during the first three or four years of our partners.h.i.+p, entirely superintended by Mr. Flint; he being more _an fait_, from early practice, than myself in the art and mystery of prosecuting and defending felons, and I was thus happily relieved of duties which, in the days when George III. was king, were frequently very oppressive and revolting. The criminal pract.i.tioner dwelt in an atmosphere tainted alike with cruelty and crime, and pulsating alternately with merciless decrees of death, and the shrieks and wailings of sentenced guilt. And not always guilt! There exist many records of proofs, incontestable, but obtained too late, of innocence having been legally strangled on the gallows in other cases than that of Eliza Fenning. How could it be otherwise with a criminal code crowded in every line with penalties of death, nothing but--death? Juster, wiser times have dawned upon us, in which truer notions prevail of what man owes to man, even when sitting in judgment on transgressors; and this we owe, let us not forget, to the exertions of a band of men who, undeterred by the sneers of the reputedly wise and _practical_ men of the world, and the taunts of "influential" newspapers, persisted in teaching that the rights of property could be more firmly cemented than by the shedding of blood--law, justice, personal security more effectually vindicated than by the gallows. Let me confess that I also was, for many years, amongst the mockers, and sincerely held such "theorists" and "dreamers" as Sir Samuel Romilly and his fellow-workers in utter contempt. Not so my partner, Mr. Flint. Constantly in the presence of criminal judges and juries, he had less confidence in the unerring verity of their decisions than persons less familiar with them, or who see them only through the medium of newspapers. Nothing could exceed his distress of mind if, in cases in which he was prosecuting attorney, a convict died persisting in his innocence, or without a full confession of guilt. And to such a pitch did this morbidly-sensitive feeling at length arrive, that he all at once refused to undertake, or in any way meddle with, criminal prosecutions, and they were consequently turned over to our head clerk, with occasional a.s.sistance from me if there happened to be a press of business of the sort. Mr. Flint still, however, retained a monopoly of the _defences_, except when, from some temporary cause or other, he happened to be otherwise engaged, when they fell to me. One of these I am about to relate, the result of which, whatever other impression it produced, thoroughly cured me--as it may the reader--of any propensity to sneer or laugh at criminal-law reformers and denouncers of the gallows.

One forenoon, during the absence of Mr. Flint in Wilts.h.i.+re, a Mrs.

Margaret Davies called at the office, in apparently great distress of mind. This lady, I must premise, was an old, or at all events an elderly maiden, of some four-and-forty years of age--I have heard a very intimate female friend of hers say she would never see fifty again, but this was spite--and possessed of considerable house property in rather poor localities. She found abundant employment for energies which might otherwise have turned to cards and scandal, in collecting her weekly, monthly, and quarterly rents, and in promoting, or fancying she did, the religious and moral welfare of her tenants. Very bare-faced, I well knew, were the impositions practiced upon her credulous good-nature in money matters, and I strongly suspected the spiritual and moral promises and performances of her motley tenantry exhibited as much discrepancy as those pertaining to rent. Still, deceived or cheated as she might be, good Mrs. Davies never wearied in what she conceived to be well-doing, and was ever ready to pour balm and oil into the wounds of the sufferer, however self-inflicted or deserved.

"What is the matter now?" I asked as soon as the good lady was seated, and had untied and loosened her bonnet, and thrown back her shawl, fast walking having heated her prodigiously. "Nothing worse than transportation is, I hope, likely to befall any of those interesting clients of yours?"

"You are a hard-hearted man, Mr. Sharp," replied Mrs. Davies between a smile and a cry; "but being a lawyer, that is of course natural, and, as I am not here to consult you as a Christian, of no consequence."

"Complimentary, Mrs. Davies; but pray, go on."

"You know Jane Eccles, one of my tenants in Bank Buildings--the embroidress who adopted her sister's orphan child?"

"I remember her name. She obtained, if I recollect rightly, a balance of wages for her due to the child's father, a mate, who died at sea. Well, what has befallen her?"

"A terrible accusation has been preferred against her," rejoined Mrs.

Davies; "but as for a moment believing it, that is quite out of the question. Jane Eccles," continued the warm-hearted lady, at the same time extracting a crumpled newspaper from the miscellaneous contents of her reticule--"Jane Eccles works hard from morning till night, keeps herself to herself; her little nephew and her rooms are always as clean and nice as a new pin; she attends church regularly; and pays her rent punctually to the day. This disgraceful story, therefore," he added, placing the journal in my hands, "_cannot_ be true."

I glanced over the police news:--'Uttering forged Bank-of-England notes, knowing them to be forged;' I exclaimed, "The devil!"

"There's no occasion to be spurting that name out so loudly, Mr. Sharp,"

said Mrs. Davies with some asperity, "especially in a lawyer's office.

People have been wrongfully accused before to-day, I suppose?"

I was intent on the report, and not answering, she continued, "I heard nothing of it till I read the shameful account in the paper half an hour agone. The poor slandered girl was, I dare say, afraid or ashamed to send for me."

"This appears to be a very bad case, Mrs. Davies," I said at length.

"Three forged ten-pound notes changed in one day at different shops each time, under the pretence of purchasing articles of small amount, and another ten-pound note found in her pocket! All that has, I must say, a very ugly look."

"I don't care," exclaimed Mrs. Davies quite fiercely, "if it looks as ugly as sin, or if the whole Bank of England was found in her pocket! I know Jane Eccles well; she nursed me last spring through the fever; and I would be upon my oath that the whole story, from beginning to end, is an invention of the devil, or something worse."

"Jane Eccles," I persisted, "appears to have been unable or unwilling to give the slightest explanation as to how she became possessed of the spurious notes. Who is this brother of hers, 'of such highly respectable appearance,' according to the report, who was permitted a private interview with her previous to the examination?"

"She has no brother that I have ever heard of," said Mrs. Davies. "It must be a mistake of the papers."

"That is not likely. You observed of course that she was fully committed--and no wonder!"

Mrs. Davies's faith in the young woman's integrity was not to be shaken by any evidence save that of her own bodily eyes, and I agreed to see Jane Eccles on the morrow, and make the best arrangements for the defence--at Mrs. Davies' charge--which the circ.u.mstances and the short time I should have for preparation--the Old Bailey session would be on in a few days--permitted. The matter so far settled, Mrs. Margaret hurried off to see what had become of little Henry, the prisoner's nephew.

I visited Jane Eccles the next day in Newgate. She was a well-grown young woman of about two or three-and-twenty--not exactly pretty perhaps, but very well-looking. Her brown hair was plainly worn, without a cap, and the expression of her face was, I thought, one of sweetness and humility, contradicted in some degree by rather harsh lines about the mouth, denoting strong will and purpose. As a proof of the existence of this last characteristic, I may here mention that, when her first overweening confidence had yielded to doubt, she, although dotingly fond of her nephew, at this time about eight years of age, firmly refused to see him, "in order," she once said to me--and the thought brought a deadly pallor to her face--in order that, should the worst befall, her memory might not be involuntarily connected in his mind with images of dungeons, and disgrace, and shame. Jane Eccles had received what is called in the country, "a good schooling," and the books Mrs. Davies had lent her she had eagerly perused. She was therefore to a certain extent a cultivated person; and her speech and manners were mild, gentle, and, so to speak, religious. I generally found, when I visited her, a Bible or prayer-book in her hand. This, however, from my experience, comparatively slight though it was, did not much impress me in her favor--devotional sentiment so easily, for a brief time, a.s.sumed, being in nine such cases out of ten a hypocritical deceit. Still she, upon the whole, made a decidedly favorable impression on me, and I no longer so much wondered at the bigotry of unbelief manifested by Mrs. Davies in behalf of her apparently amiable and grateful protegee.

But beyond the moral doubt thus suggested of the prisoner's guilt, my interviews with her utterly failed to extract anything from her in rebutment of the charge upon which she was about to be arraigned. At first she persisted in a.s.serting that the prosecution was based upon manifest error; that the impounded notes, instead of being forged, were genuine Bank-of-England paper. It was some time before I succeeded in convincing her that this hope, to which she so eagerly, desperately clung, was a fallacious one. I did so at last; and either, thought I, as I marked her varying color and faltering voice, "either you are a consummate actress, or else the victim of some frightful delusion or conspiracy."

"I will see you, if you please, to-morrow," she said, looking up from the chair upon which, with her head bowed and her face covered with her hands, she had been seated for several minutes in silence. "My thoughts are confused now, but to-morrow I shall be more composed; better able to decide if--to talk, I mean, of this unhappy business."

I thought it better to comply without remonstrance, and at once took my leave.

When I returned the next afternoon, the governor of the prison informed me that the brother of my client, James Eccles, quite a das.h.i.+ng gentleman, had had a long interview with her. He had left about two hours before, with the intention, he said, of calling upon me.

I was conducted to the room where my conferences with the prisoner usually took place. In a few minutes she appeared, much flushed and excited, it seemed to be alternately with trembling joy and hope, and doubt, and nervous fear.

"Well," I said, "I trust you are now ready to give me your unreserved confidence, without which, be a.s.sured, that any reasonable hope of a successful issue from the peril in which you are involved is out of the question."

The varying emotions I have noticed were clearly traceable as they swept over her tell-tale countenance during the minute or so that elapsed before she spoke.

"Tell me candidly, sir," she said at last, "whether, if I owned to you that the notes were given to me by a--a person, whom I cannot, if I would, produce, to purchase various articles at different shops, and return him--the person I mean--the change; and that I made oath this was done by me in all innocence of heart, as the G.o.d of heaven and earth truly knows it was, it would avail me?"

"Not in the least," I replied, angry at such trifling. "How can you ask such a question? We must _find_ the person who, you intimate, has deceived you, and placed your life in peril; and if that can be proved, hang him instead of you. I speak plainly, Miss Eccles," I added in a milder tone; "perhaps you may think unfeelingly, but there is no further time for playing with this dangerous matter. To-morrow a true bill will be found against you, and your trial may then come on immediately. If you are careless for yourself, you ought to have some thought for the sufferings of your excellent friend, Mrs. Davies; for your nephew, soon perhaps to be left friendless and dest.i.tute."

"Oh spare me--spare me!" sobbed the unhappy young woman, sinking nervelessly into a seat. "Have pity upon me, wretched, bewildered as I am!" Tears relieved her, and after awhile, she said, "It is useless, sir, to prolong this interview. I could not, I solemnly a.s.sure you, if I would, tell you where to search for or find the person of whom I spoke.

And," she added, whilst the lines about her mouth of which I have spoken, grew distinct and rigid, "I would not if I could. What indeed would it, as I have been told and believe, avail, but to cause the death of two deceived innocent persons instead of one? Besides," she continued, trying to speak with firmness, and repress the shudder which crept over and shook her as with ague--"besides, whatever the verdict, the penalty will not, cannot, I am sure, I know, be--be"--

I understood her plainly enough, although her resolution failed to sustain her through the sentence.

"Who is this brother--James Eccles, he calls himself--whom you saw at the police-office, and who has twice been here, I understand--once to-day?"

A quick start revealed the emotion with which she heard the question, and her dilated eyes rested upon me for a moment with eager scrutiny.

She speedily recovered her presence of mind, and with her eyes again fixed on the floor, said in a quivering voice, "My brother! Yes--as you say--my brother."

"Mrs. Davies says you have no brother!" I sharply rejoined.

"Good Mrs. Davies," she replied in a tone scarcely above a whisper, and without raising her head, "does not know all our family."

A subterfuge was, I was confident, concealed in these words; but after again and again urging her to confide in me, and finding warning and persuasion alike useless, I withdrew, discomfited and angry, and withal as much concerned and grieved as baffled and indignant. On going out, I arranged with the governor that the "brother," if he again made his appearance, should be detained, _bongre malgre_, till my arrival. Our precaution was too late--he did not reappear; and so little notice had any one taken of his person, that to advertise a description of him with a reward for his apprehension was hopeless.

A true bill was found, and two hours afterwards Jane Eccles was placed in the dock. The trial did not last more than twenty minutes, at the end of which, an unhesitating verdict of guilty was returned, and she was duly sentenced to be hanged by the neck till she was dead. We had retained the ablest counsel practicing in the court, but, with no tangible defence, their efforts were merely thrown away. Upon being asked what she had to say why the sentence of the law should not be carried into effect? she repeated her previous statement--that the notes had been given her to change by a person in whom she reposed the utmost confidence; and that she had not the slightest thought of evil or fraud in what she did. That person, however, she repeated once more, could not be produced. Her a.s.sertions only excited a derisive smile; and all necessary forms having been gone through, she was removed from the bar.

The unhappy woman bore the ordeal through which she had just pa.s.sed with much firmness. Once only, whilst sentence was being pa.s.sed, her high-strung resolution appeared to falter and give way. I was watching her intently, and I observed that she suddenly directed a piercing look towards a distant part of the crowded court. In a moment her eye lightened, the expression of extreme horror which had momently darkened her countenance pa.s.sed away, and her partial composure returned. I had instinctively, as it were, followed her glance, and thought I detected a tall man enveloped in a cloak engaged in dumb momentary communication with her. I jumped up from my seat, and hastened as quickly as I could through the thronged pa.s.sages to the spot, and looked eagerly around, but the man, whosoever he might be, was gone.

The next act in this sad drama was the decision of the Privy Council upon the recorder's report. It came. Several were reprieved, but amongst them was _not_ Jane Eccles. She and nine others were to perish at eight o'clock on the following morning.

The anxiety and worry inseparable from this most unhappy affair, which, from Mr. Flint's protracted absence, I had exclusively to bear, fairly knocked me up, and on the evening of the day on which the decision of the Council was received, I went to bed much earlier than usual, and really ill. Sleep I could not, and I was tossing restlessly about, vainly endeavoring to banish from my mind the gloomy and terrible images connected with the wretched girl and her swiftly-coming fate, when a quick tap sounded on the door, and a servant's voice announced that one of the clerks had brought a letter which the superscription directed to be read without a moment's delay. I sprang out of bed, s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter, and eagerly ran it over. It was from the Newgate chaplain, a very worthy, humane gentleman, and stated that, on hearing the result of the deliberations of the Privy Council, all the previous stoicism and fort.i.tude exhibited by Jane Eccles had completely given way, and she had abandoned herself to the wildest terror and despair. As soon as she could speak coherently, she implored the governor with frantic earnestness to send for me. As this was not only quite useless in the opinion of that official, but against the rules, the prisoner's request was not complied with. The chaplain, however, thinking it might be as well that I should know of her desire to see me, had of his own accord sent me this note. He thought that possibly the sheriffs would permit me to have a brief interview with the condemned prisoner in the morning, if I arrived sufficiently early; and although it could avail nothing as regarded her fate in this world, still it might perhaps calm the frightful tumult of emotion by which she was at present tossed and shaken, and enable her to meet the inevitable hour with fort.i.tude and resignation.

It was useless to return to bed after receiving such a communication, and I forthwith dressed myself, determined to sit up and read, if I could, till the hour at which I might hope to be admitted to the jail, should strike. Slowly and heavily the dark night limped away, and as the first rays of the cold wintry dawn reached the earth, I sallied forth. A dense, brutal crowd were already a.s.sembled in front of the prison, and hundreds of well-dressed sight-seers occupied the opposite windows, morbidly eager for the rising of the curtain upon the mournful tragedy about to be enacted. I obtained admission without much difficulty, but, till the arrival of the sheriffs, no conference with the condemned prisoners could be possibly permitted. Those important functionaries happened on this morning to arrive unusually late, and I paced up and down the paved corridor in a fever of impatience and anxiety. They were at last announced, but before I could, in the hurry and confusion, obtain speech of either of them, the dismal bell tolled out, and I felt with a shudder that it was no longer possible to effect my object.

"Perhaps it is better so," observed the reverend chaplain, in a whisper.

"She has been more composed for the last two or three hours, and is now, I trust, in a better frame of mind for death." I turned, sick at heart, to leave the place, and in my agitation missing the right way, came directly in view of the terrible procession. Jane Eccles saw me, and a terrific scream, followed by frantic heart-rending appeals to me to save her, burst with convulsive effort from her white quivering lips. Never will the horror of that moment pa.s.s from my remembrance. I staggered back, as if every spasmodic word struck me like a blow; and then, directed by one of the turnkeys, sped in an opposite direction as fast as my trembling limbs could carry me--the shrieks of the wretched victim, the tolling of the dreadful bell, and the obscene jeers and mocks of the foul crowd through which I had to force my way, evoking a confused tumult of disgust and horror in my brain, which, if long continued, would have driven me mad. On reaching home, I was bled freely, and got to bed. This treatment, I have no doubt, prevented a violent access of fever; for, as it was, several days pa.s.sed before I could be safely permitted to re-engage in business.

On revisiting the office, a fragment of a letter written by Jane Eccles a few hours previous to her death, and evidently addressed to Mrs.

Davies, was placed by Mr. Flint, who had by this time returned, before me. The following is an exact copy of it, with the exception that the intervals which I have marked with dots,.... were filled with erasures and blots, and that every word seemed to have been traced by a hand smitten with palsy:--