The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney Part 8

The subject then dropped, and it was a considerable time afterwards, and under altogether altered circ.u.mstances, when the newly-married couple once more crossed my path in life.

It was about eight months after his marriage--though he had been profitably enough employed in the interim--that Henry Mason, in consequence of the welcome announcement that the new brig was at last ready for her captain and cargo, arrived in London to enter upon his new appointment.

"These lodgings, Esther," said he, as he was preparing to go out, soon after breakfast, on the morning after his arrival, "are scarcely the thing; and as I, like you, am a stranger in c.o.c.kney-land, I had better consult some of the firm upon the subject, before we decide upon permanent ones. In the meantime, you and w.i.l.l.y must mind and keep in doors when I am not with you, or I shall have one or other of you lost in this great wilderness of a city. I shall return in two or three hours. I will order something for dinner as I go along: I have your purse.

Good-by: G.o.d bless you both."

Inquiring his way every two or three minutes, Mason presently found himself in the vicinity of Tower Stairs. A scuffle in front of a public-house attracted his attention; and his ready sympathies were in an instant enlisted in behalf of a young sailor, vainly struggling in the grasp of several athletic men, and crying l.u.s.tily on the gaping bystanders for help. Mason sprang forward, caught one of the a.s.sailants by the collar, and hurled him with some violence against the wall. A fierce outcry greeted this audacious interference with gentlemen who, in those good old times, were but executing the law in a remarkably good old manner. Lieutenant Donnagheu, a somewhat celebrated snapper-up of loose mariners, emerged upon the scene; and in a few minutes was enabled to exult in the secure possession of an additional prize in the unfortunate Henry Mason, who, too late, discovered that he had embroiled himself with a _pressgang_! Desperate, frenzied were the efforts he made to extricate himself from the peril in which he had rashly involved himself. In vain!

His protestations that he was a mate, a captain, in the merchant service, were unheeded or mocked at.

To all his remonstrances he only got the professional answer--"His majesty wants you, and that is enough; so come along, and no more about it."

Bruised, exhausted, almost mad, he was borne off in triumph to a boat, into which he was thrust with several others, and swiftly rowed off to a receiving-s.h.i.+p in the river. Even there his a.s.sertions and protestations were of no avail. Nothing but an Admiralty order, the officer in command candidly told him, should effect his liberation. His majesty was in need of seamen; and he was evidently too smart a one to be deprived of the glory of serving his country. "You must therefore," concluded the officer, as he turned laughingly upon his heel, "do as thousands of other fine fellows have been compelled to do--'grin and bear it.'" In about three weeks from the date of his impressment Mason found himself serving in the Mediterranean on board the "Active" frigate, Captain Alexander Gordon, without having been permitted one opportunity of communicating with the sh.o.r.e. This was certainly very sharp, but it was not the less very _common_ practice in those great days of triumphant battles by land and sea.

Very drearily pa.s.sed the time with the bereaved wife. Her husband had promised to send home something for dinner, and various groceries; yet hour after hour went past, and nothing arrived. Morning flushed into noon, day faded to twilight, and still the well-known and always eager step sounded not upon the stairs! What could have detained him from his wife, shut up, imprisoned, as it were, in that hot, hurrying, stifling city? She feared to listen to the suggestions of her boding heart; and with feverish restlessness ran out upon the landing, and peered over the stairs every time a knock or ring was heard at the street-door. This strange behavior was, it seems, noticed by the landlady of the lodging-house, and injuriously interpreted. A knock came to the door, and that person entered to know at what time _Mrs_. ----, she had forgotten the young woman's name, expected the dinner, she, the landlady, had undertaken to cook.

Esther timidly replied that her husband had promised to return in two or three hours at latest; and that she did not comprehend his continued absence--was indeed quite alarmed about it--

"Your husband!" said the woman, glancing insolently at Esther's figure.

"Are you sure he _is_ your husband?"

The hot blood suffused the temples of the indignant wife as she said, "This apartment, madam, I believe is mine?"

"Oh, certainly, as long as you can pay for it;" and rudely slamming the door, the landlady departed.

The long wretched night at last over, Esther rose with the light; and after giving her son his breakfast from the remains of that of the day before, set off with him to the place of business of the Messrs. Roberts.

It was early, and one clerk only had as yet arrived at the office. He informed her that Mr. Henry Mason had not been seen, and that the partners were greatly annoyed about it, as his immediate presence was absolutely necessary.

Stunned, terrified, bewildered by the frightful calamity which she believed had befallen her, she felt convinced that her husband had been entrapped and murdered for the sake of the money he had about him: the wretched woman tottered back to her lodgings, and threw herself on the bed in wild despair. What was to be done for food even for her boy? Her husband had not only his pocket-book with him containing his larger money, but had taken her purse! She was alone and penniless in a strange city! The hungry wailings of her witless child towards evening at length aroused her from the stupor of despair into which she had fallen. The miserable resource of p.a.w.ning occurred to her: she could at least, by pledging a part of her wardrobe, procure sustenance for her child till she could hear from her sister; and with trembling hands she began arranging a bundle of such things as she could best spare, when the landlady abruptly entered the room, with a peremptory demand--as her husband was not returned, and did not appear likely to do so--for a month's rent in advance, that being the term the apartments were engaged for. The tears, entreaties, expostulations of the miserable wife were of no avail. Not one article, the woman declared, should leave her house till her claim was settled. She affected to doubt, perhaps really did so, that Esther was married; and hinted coa.r.s.ely at an enforcement of the laws against persons who had no visible means of subsistence. In a paroxysm of despair, the unhappy woman rushed out of the house; and accompanied by her hungry child, again sought the counting-house of the Messrs. Roberts. She was now as much too late as she had been too early in the morning: the partners and clerks had gone, and she appears to have been treated with some rudeness by the porter, who was closing the premises when she arrived. Possibly the wildness of her looks, and the incoherence of her speech and manner, produced an impression unfavorable to her. Retracing her steps--penniless, hungry, sick at heart--she thought, as she afterwards declared, that she recognized my wife in one of the numerous ladies seated before the counters of a fas.h.i.+onable shop in one of the busiest thoroughfares. She entered, and not till she approached close to the lady discovered her mistake. She turned despairingly away; when a piece of rich lace, lying apparently unheeded on the counter, met her eye, and a dreadful suggestion crossed her fevered brain; here at least was the means of procuring food for her wailing child. She glanced hastily and fearfully round. No eye, she thought, observed her; and, horror of horrors! a moment afterwards she had concealed the lace beneath her shawl, and with tottering feet was hastily leaving the shop. She had not taken half-a-dozen steps when a heavy hand was laid upon her shoulder, and a voice, as of a serpent hissing in her ear, commanded her to restore the lace she had stolen.

Transfixed with shame and terror, she stood rooted to the spot, and the lace fell on the floor.

"Fetch an officer," said the harsh voice, addressing one of the shopmen.

"No--no--no!" screamed the wretched woman, falling on her knees in wild supplication. "For my child's sake--in mercy of the innocent babe as yet unborn--pity and forgive me!"

The harsh order was iterated; and Esther Mason, fainting with shame and agony, was conveyed to the prison in Giltspur Street. The next day she was fully committed to Newgate on the capital charge of privately stealing in a shop to the value of five pounds. A few hours after her incarceration within those terrible walls, she was prematurely delivered of a female child.

I have no moral doubt whatever, I never have had, that at the time of the committal of the felonious act, the intellect of Esther Mason was disordered. Any other supposition is inconsistent with the whole tenor of her previous life and character "Lead us not into temptation" is indeed the holiest, because the humblest prayer.

Three weeks had elapsed before the first intimation of these events reached me, in a note from the chaplain of Newgate, an excellent, kind-hearted man, to whom Mrs. Mason had confided her sad story. I immediately hastened to the prison; and in a long interview with her, elicited the foregoing statement. I readily a.s.sured her that all which legal skill could do to extricate her from the awful position in which she stood, the gravity of which I did not affect to conceal, should be done. The offence with which she was charged had supplied the scaffold with numberless victims; and tradesmen were more than ever clamorous for the stern execution of a law which, spite of experience, they still regarded as the only safeguard of their property. My wife was overwhelmed with grief; and in her anxiety to save her unhappy foster-sister, sought, without my knowledge, an interview with the prosecutor, in the hope of inducing him not to press the charge. Her efforts were unavailing. He had suffered much, he said, from such practices, and was "upon principle"

determined to make an example of every offender he could catch. As to the plea that the husband had been forcibly carried off by a pressgang, it was absurd; for what would become of the property of tradesmen if the wife of every sailor so entrapped were to be allowed to plunder shops with impunity? This magnificent reasoning was of course unanswerable; and the rebuked pet.i.tioner abandoned her bootless errand in despair. Messrs.

Roberts, I should have mentioned, had by some accident discovered the nature of the misfortune which had befallen their officer, and had already made urgent application to the Admiralty for his release.

The Old Bailey sessions did not come on for some time: I, however, took care to secure at once, as I did not myself practice in that court, the highest talent which its bar afforded. w.i.l.l.y, who had been placed in a workhouse by the authorities, we had properly taken care of till he could be restored to his mother; or, in the event of her conviction, to his relatives in Devons.h.i.+re.

The sessions were at last on: a "true bill" against Esther Mason for shoplifting, as it was popularly termed, was unhesitatingly found, and with a heavy heart I wended my way to the court to watch the proceedings.

A few minutes after I entered, Mr. Justice Le Blanc and Mr. Baron Wood, who had a.s.sisted at an important case of stockjobbing conspiracy, just over, left the bench: the learned recorder being doubtless considered quite equal to the trial of a mere capital charge of theft.

The prisoner was placed in the dock; but try as I might, I could not look at her. It happened to be a calm bright summer day; the air, as if in mockery of those death-sessions, humming with busy, l.u.s.ty life; so that, sitting with my back to the prisoner, I could, as it were, read her demeanor in the shadow thrown by her figure on the opposite sun-lighted wall. There she stood, during the brief moments which sealed her earthly doom, with downcast eyes and utterly dejected posture; her thin fingers playing mechanically with the flowers and sweet-scented herbs spread scantily before her. The trial was very brief: the evidence, emphatically conclusive, was confidently given, and vainly cross-examined. Nothing remained but an elaborate _ad misericordiam_ excusative defence, which had been prepared by me, and which the prisoner begged her counsel might be allowed to read. This was of course refused; the recorder remarking, they might as well allow counsel for felons to _address_ juries, as read defences; and _that_, as every practical man knew, would be utterly subversive of the due administration of justice. The clerk of the court would read the paper, if the prisoner felt too agitated to do so. This was done; and very vilely done. The clerk, I dare say, read as well as he was able; but old, near-sighted, and possessed of anything but a clear enunciation, what could be expected? The defence, so read, produced not the slightest effect either on the court or jury. The recorder briefly commented on the conclusiveness of the evidence for the prosecution; and the jury, in the same brief, business-like manner, returned a verdict of Guilty.

"What have you to say," demanded the clerk, "why sentence of death should not be p.r.o.nounced upon you, according to law?"

The shadow started convulsively as the terrible words fell from the man's lips; and I saw that the suddenly-upraised eyes of the prisoner were fastened on the face of the fearful questioner. The lips, too, appeared to move; but no sound reached my ears.

"Speak, woman," said the recorder; "if you have anything to urge before sentence is p.r.o.nounced."

I started up, and turning to the prisoner, besought her in hurried accents to speak. "Remind them of the infant at your breast--your husband"--

"Who is that conferring with the prisoner?" demanded the judge in an angry voice.

I turned, and confronted him with a look as cold and haughty as his own. He did not think proper to pursue the inquiry further; and after muttering something about the necessity of not interrupting the proceedings of the court, again asked the prisoner if she had anything to urge.

"Not for myself--not for my sake," at last faintly murmured the trembling woman; "but for that of my poor dear infant--my poor witless boy! I do not think, sir, I was in my right mind. I was starving. I was friendless. My husband, too, whom you have heard"--She stopped abruptly; a choking sob struggled in her throat; and but for the supporting arm of one of the turnkeys, she would have fallen to the ground.

"Unhappy, guilty woman," said the recorder, with the coolness of a demon, "the plea of insanity you would set up is utterly untenable. Your husband, it seems, is serving his majesty in the royal navy; defending his country, whilst his wife was breaking its laws, by the commission of a crime which, but for the stern repression of the law, would sap the foundations of the security of property, and"--

I could endure no more. The atmosphere of the court seemed to stifle me; and I rushed for relief into the open air. Before, however, I had reached the street, a long, piercing scream informed me that the learned judge _had done his duty_.

No effort was spared during the interval which elapsed previous to the recorder presenting his report to the privy-counsel--a peculiar privilege at that time attached to the office--to procure a mitigation of the sentence. A pet.i.tion, setting forth the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the case, was carefully prepared; and by the indefatigable exertions of an excellent Quaker gentleman--whom, as he is still alive, and might not choose to have his name blazoned to the world, I will call William Friend--was soon very numerously signed. The prosecutor, however, obstinately refused to attach his name to the doc.u.ment; and the absence of his signature--so strangely did men reason on such matters in those days--would, it was feared, weigh heavily against the success of the pet.i.tion. The amiable and enlightened Sir Samuel Romilly not only attached his name, but aided us zealously by his advice and influence.

In short, nothing was omitted that appeared likely to attain the desired object.

Two days before the pet.i.tion was to be forwarded to the proper quarter, Henry Mason arrived in England, the exertions of his employers having procured his discharge. The "Active" was one of Captain Hoste's squadron, which obtained the celebrated victory off Lissa, over the Franco-Venetian fleet commanded by Admiral Dobourdieu. Henry Mason, it appeared by the testimonials of the captain and officers of his s.h.i.+p, had greatly distinguished himself in the action. We inclosed these papers with the pet.i.tion; and then, having done all in our power, awaited with anxious impatience the result of the recorder's report. It was announced to me, as I was sitting somewhat later than usual at chambers, by Mr. William Friend. The judgment to die was confirmed! All our representations had not sufficed to counterbalance the supposed necessity of exhibiting terrible examples of the fate awaiting the perpetrators of an offence said to be greatly on the increase. Excellent William Friend wept like a child as he made the announcement.

There are many persons alive who recollect this horrible tragedy--this national disgrace--this act of gross barbarity on the part of the great personage, who, first having carried off the poor woman's husband, left her to die for an act the very consequence of that robbery. Who among the spectators can ever forget that heart-rending scene--the hangman taking the baby from the breast of the wretched creature just before he put her to death! But let us not rake up these terrible reminiscences. Let us hope that the _truly guilty_ are forgiven. And let us take consolation from reflecting that this event led the great Romilly to enter on his celebrated career as a reformer of the criminal law.

The remains of Esther Mason were obtained from the Newgate officials, and quietly interred in St. Sepulchre's church-yard. A plain slab, with her name only plainly chiselled upon it, was some time afterwards placed above the grave. A few years ago I attended a funeral in the same grave-yard; and after a slight search, discovered the spot. The inscription, though of course much worn, was still quite legible.

I had not seen Henry Mason since his return; but I was glad to hear from Mr. William Friend that, after the first pa.s.sionate burst of rage and grief had subsided, he had, apparently at least, thanks to the tender and pious expostulations of his wife--with whom, by the kind intervention of the sheriffs, he was permitted long and frequent interviews--settled down into calmness and resignation. One thing only he would not bear to hear even from her, and that was any admission that she had been guilty of, even the slightest offence. A hint of the kind, however unintentional, would throw him into a paroxysm of fury; and the subject was consequently in his presence studiously avoided.

A few days after the execution, Mr. William Friend called on me just after breakfast, accompanied by the bereaved husband. I never saw so changed a man. All the warm kindliness of his nature had vanished, and was replaced by a gloomy fierce austerity, altogether painful to contemplate.

"Well, sir," said he, as he barely touched my proffered hand, "they have killed her, you see, spite of all you could say or do. It much availed me, too, that I had helped to win their boasted victories;" and he laughed with savage bitterness.

"Henry--Henry!" exclaimed William Friend, in a reproving accent.

"Well, well, sir," rejoined Mason, impatiently, "you are a good man, and have of course your own notions on these matters; I also have mine. Or, perhaps, you think it is only the blood of the rich and great which, shed unjustly, brings forth the iron harvest? Forgive me," he added, checking himself. "I respect you both; but my heart is turned to stone. You do not know--none ever knew but I--how kind, how loving, how gentle was that poor long-suffering girl."

He turned from us to hide the terrible agony which convulsed him.

"Henry," said Mr. Friend, taking him kindly by the hand, "we pity thee sincerely, as thou knowest; but thy bitter, revengeful expressions are unchristian, sinful. The authorities whom thou, not for the first time, railest on so wildly, acted, be sure of it, from a sense of duty; a mistaken one, in my opinion, doubtless; still"--

"Say no more, sir," interrupted Mason. "We differ in opinion upon the subject. And now, gentlemen, farewell. I wished to see you, sir, before I left this country forever, to thank you for your kind, though fruitless exertions. Mr. Friend has promised to be steward for poor w.i.l.l.y of all I can remit for his use. Farewell! G.o.d bless you both!" He was gone!

War soon afterwards broke out with the United States of America, and Mr.

Friend discovered that one of the most active and daring officers in the Republican navy was Henry Mason, who had entered the American service in the maiden name of his wife; and that the large sums he had remitted from time to time for the use of w.i.l.l.y, were the produce of his successful depredations on British commerce. The instant Mr. Friend made the discovery, he refused to pollute his hands with moneys so obtained, and declined all further agency in the matter. Mason, however, contrived to remit through some other channel to the Davies's, with whom the boy had been placed; and a rapid improvement in their circ.u.mstances was soon visible. These remittances ceased about the middle of 1814; and a twelvemonth after the peace with America, we ascertained that Henry Mason had been killed in the battle on Lake Champlain, where he had distinguished himself, as everywhere else, by the reckless daring and furious hate with which he fought against the country which, in his unreasoning frenzy, he accused of the murder of his wife. He was recognized by one of his former messmates in the "Active;" who, conveyed a prisoner on board the American commander Macdonough's s.h.i.+p, recognized him as he lay stretched on the deck, in the uniform of an American naval officer; his countenance, even in death, wearing the same stormful defiant expression which it a.s.sumed on the day that his beloved Esther perished on the scaffold.

THE MARRIAGE SETTLEMENT