Kitabı oku: «Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)», sayfa 23

Although not a single fact arose to give a shade of color to this suspicion, the lawyer clung to it with the peculiar pertinacity that often establishes by persistence when it fails in proof; and so pointedly and directly at last, that the learned judge felt bound to interfere, and observe, that nothing in the testimony of the respected witness could lay any ground for the insinuation thrown out by the counsel.

Upon this there ensued one of those sharp altercations between Bench and Bar which seem the “complement” of every eventful trial in Ireland; and which, after a brief contest, usually leave both the combatants excessively in the wrong.

The present case was no exception to this rule. The Judge was heated and imperious; the counsel flippant in all the insolence of mock respect, and ended by the stereotyped panegyric on the “glorious sanctity that invests the counsel of a defence in a criminal action – the inviolability of a pledge which no member of the Bar could suffer to be sullied in his person” – and a great many similar fine things, which, if not “briefed” by the attorney, are generally paid for by the client! The scrimmage ended, as it ever does, by a salute of honor; in which each, while averring that he was incontestably right, bore testimony to the conscientious scruples and delicate motives of the other; and at last they bethought them of the business for which they were there, and of him whose fate for life or death was on the issue. The examination of Mr. Goring was renewed.

“You have told us, sir,” said Jones, “that immediately after the terrible tidings had reached Tubbermore of Mr. Kennyfeck’s death, suspicion seemed at once to turn on Mr. Cashel. Will you explain this, or at least let us hear how you can account for a circumstance so strange?”

“I did not say as much as you have inferred,” replied Goring. “I merely observed that Mr. Cashel’s name became most singularly mixed up with the event, and rumors of a difference between him and his agent were buzzed about.”

“Might not this mention of Mr. Cashel’s name have proceeded from an anxious feeling on the part of his friends to know of his safety?”

“It might.”

“Are you not certain that it was so?”

“In one instance, certainly. I remember that a gentleman at once drew our attention to the necessity of seeing after him.”

“Who was this gentleman?”

“Mr. Linton, – a near and intimate friend of Mr. Cashel.”

“And he suggested that it would be proper to take steps for Mr. Cashers safety?”

“He did so.”

“Was anything done in consequence of that advice?”

“Nothing, I believe. The state of confusion that prevailed; the terror that pervaded every side, the dreadful scenes enacting around us, – prevented our following up the matter with all the foresight which might be desired.”

“And, in fact, you sought relief from the unsettled distraction of your thoughts, by fixing the crime upon some one – even though he should prove, of all assembled there, the least likely.”

“We did not attach anything to Mr. Cashel’s disfavor until we discovered that he was in his dressing-room, and in the manner already stated.”

“But you certainly jumped to your conclusion by a sudden bound?”

“It would be fairer to say that our thoughts converged to the same impression at the same time.”

“Where is this Mr. Linton? Is he among the list of your witnesses, Mr. Attorney?”

“No, we have not called him.”

“I thought as much!” said Jones, sneeringly; “and yet the omission is singular, of one whose name is so frequently mixed up in these proceedings. He might prove an inconvenient witness.”

A slight murmur here ran through the court; and a gentleman, advancing to the bar, whispered some words to the Attorney-General, who, rising, said: —

“My Lord, I am just this instant informed that Mr. Linton is dangerously ill of fever at his house near Dublin. My informant adds, that no hopes are entertained of his recovery.”

“Was he indisposed at the period in which my learned friend drew up this case? or was there any intention of summoning him here for examination?” asked Jones.

“We did not require Mr. Linton’s testimony,” replied the Attorney-General.

“It can scarcely be inferred that we feared it,” said a junior barrister, “since the first palpable evidences that implicated the prisoner were discovered by Mr. Linton: the wadding of the pistol; part of a letter in Mr. Cashel’s own handwriting; and the tracks corresponding with his boots.”

“This is all most irregular, my Lord,” broke in Jones, eagerly. “Here are statements thrown out in all the loose carelessness of conversation, totally unsupported by evidence. I submit that it is impossible to offer a defence to a cause conducted in this manner.”

“You are quite right, Mr. Jones; this is not evidence.”

“But this is, my Lord!” said the Attorney-General, in a heated manner; “and for motives of delicacy we might not have used it, if not driven to this course by the insinuations of counsel. Here is a note in pencil, dated from the ‘Pass of Ennismore,’ and running thus: ‘It looks badly; but I fear you have no other course than to arrest him. In fact, it is too late for anything else. Consult Malone and Meek.’ And this can be proved to be in Mr. Linton’s handwriting.”

Mr. Clare Jones did not speak a word as the note was handed up to the Bench, and then to the jury-box; he even affected to think it of no importance, and did not deign to examine it for himself.

“You may go down, Mr. Goring,” said he, after a slight pause, in which he appeared deliberating what course to follow.

Making his way to the side of the dock, Jones addressed himself to Cashel in a low, cautious voice: —

“It now remains with you, Mr. Cashel, to decide whether you will intrust me with the facts on which you ground your innocence, or prefer to see yourself overwhelmed by adverse testimony.”

Cashel made no reply, but leaned his head on his hand in deep thought

“Have you any witnesses to call?” whispered Jones. “Shall we try an alibi?”

Cashel did not answer.

“What is your defence, sir, in one word?” asked Jones, shortly.

“I am not guilty,” said Cashel, slowly; “but I do not expect others to believe me so.”

“Is your defence to rest upon that bare assertion?” asked the lawyer; but Roland did not seem to heed the question, as, folding his arms, he stood erect in the dock, his attention to all appearance bestowed upon the ceremonial of the court.

Jones, at once turning to the Bench, expressed his regret that, neither being able, from the shortness of the time, to obtain proper information on the case, nor being honored by the confidence of the accused, he must decline the task of commenting on the evidence; and would only entreat the jury to weigh the testimony they had heard with a merciful disposition, and wherever discrepancies and doubts occurred, to give the full benefit of such to the prisoner.

“You have no witnesses to call?” asked the judge.

“I am told there are none, my Lord,” said Jones, with an accent of resignation.

A brief colloquy, in a low voice, ensued between the Crown lawyers and Clare Jones, when, at length, a well-known barrister rose to address the jury for the prosecution. The gentleman who now claimed the attention of the Court was one who, not possessing either the patient habits of study, or that minute attention to technical detail which constitute the legal mind, was a fluent, easy speaker, with an excellent memory, and a thorough knowledge of the stamp and temperament of the men that usually fill a jury-box. He was eminently popular with that class, on whom he had often bestowed all the flatteries of his craft; assuring them that their “order” was the bone and sinew of the land, and that “our proudest boast as a nation was in the untitled nobility of commerce.”

His whole address on the present occasion tended to show that the murder of Mr. Kennyfeck was one among the many instances of the unbridled license and tyranny assumed by the aristocracy over the middle ranks.

Mr. Kennyfeck was no bad subject for such eulogium as he desired to bestow. He was the father of a family; a well-known citizen of Dublin; a grave, white-cravated, pompous man of respectable exterior, always seen at vestries, and usually heading the lists of public charities. Cashel was the very antithesis to all this: the reckless squanderer of accidentally acquired wealth; the wayward and spoiled child of fortune, with the tastes of a buccaneer and the means of a prince, suddenly thrown into the world of fashion. What a terrible ordeal to a mind so untrained – to a temper so unbridled! and how fearfully had it told upon him! After commenting upon the evidence, and showing in what a continuous chain each event was linked with the other, – how consistent were all, – how easily explicable every circumstance, he remarked that the whole case had but one solitary difficulty; and although that was one which weighed more in a moral than a legal sense, it required that he should dwell a few moments upon it.

“The criminal law of our land, gentlemen of the jury, is satisfied with the facts which establish guilt or innocence, without requiring that the motives of accused parties should be too closely scrutinized. Crime consists, of course, of the spirit in which a guilty action is done; but the law wisely infers that a guilty act is the evidence of a guilty spirit; and therefore, although there may be circumstances to extenuate the criminality of an act, the offence before the law is the same; and the fact, the great fact, that a man has killed his fellow-man, is what constitutes murder.

“I have said that this case has but one difficulty; and that is, the possible motive which could have led to the fatal act Now, this would present itself as a considerable obstacle if the relations between the parties were such as we happily witness them in every county of this island, where the proprietor and his agent are persons linked, by the sacred obligation of duty, and the frequent intercourse of social life, into the closest friendship.

“That blood should stain the bonds of such brotherhood would be scarcely credible – and even when credible, inexplicable; it would be repugnant to all our senses to conceive an act so unnatural. But was the present a similar case? or rather, was it one exactly the opposite? You have heard that repeated differences occurred between the parties, amounting even to altercations. Mr. Hoare’s evidence has shown you that Mr. Cashel’s extravagance had placed him in difficulties of no common kind; his demands for money were incessant, and the utter disregard of the cost of obtaining it is almost beyond belief. The exigence on one side, the manly resistance on the other, must have led to constant misunderstanding. But these were not the only circumstances that contributed to a feeling of estrangement, soon to become something still more perilous. And here I pause to ask myself how far I am warranted in disclosing facts of a private nature, although in their bearing they have an important relation to the case before us! It is a question of great delicacy; and were it not that the eternal interests of truth and justice transcend all others, I might shrink from the performance of a task which, considered in a merely personal point of view, is deeply distressing. But it is not of one so humble as myself of whom there is a question here: the issue is, whether a man’s blood should be spilled, and no expiation be made for it?”

The counsel after this entered into a discursive kind of narrative of Cashel’s intimacy with the Kennyfeck family, with whom he had been for a time domesticated; and after a mass of plausible generalities, wound up by an imputed charge that he had won the affections of the younger daughter, who, with the consent of her parents, was to become his wife.

“It will not seem strange to you, gentlemen,” said he, “that I have not called to that table as a witness either the widow or the orphan to prove these facts, or that I have not subjected their sacred sorrows to the rude assaults of a cross-examination. You will not think the worse of me for this reserve, nor shall I ask of you to give my statements the value of sworn evidence; you will hear them, and decide what value they possess in leading you to a true understanding of this case.

“I have said, that if a regular pledge and promise of marriage did not bind the parties, something which is considered equivalent among persons of honor did exist, and that by their mutual acquaintances they were regarded as contracted to each other. Mr. Cashel made her splendid and expensive presents, which had never been accepted save for the relations between them; he distinguished her on all occasions by exclusive attention, and among his friends he spoke of his approaching marriage as a matter fixed and determined on. In this state of things a discovery took place, which at once served to display the character of the young gentleman, and to rescue the family from one of the very deepest, because one of the most irremediable, of all calamities. Information reached them, accompanied by such circumstances as left no doubt of its veracity, that this Mr. Cashel had been married already, and that his wife, a young Spanish lady, was still living, and residing at the Havannah.

“I leave you to imagine the misery which this sad announcement produced in that circle, where, until he entered it, happiness had never been disturbed. It is not necessary that I should dwell upon the distress this cruel treachery produced: with its consequences alone we have any concern here; and these were a gradual estrangement, – a refusal, calm but firm, to receive Mr. Cashel as before; an intimation that they knew of circumstances which, from delicacy to him, they would never advert to openly, but which must at once bar all the contemplated relations: and to this sad, humiliating alternative he submitted!

“To avoid the slanderous stories which gossip would be certain to put in circulation, they did not decline the invitation they had before accepted to visit Tubbermore; they came, however, under the express stipulation that no close intimacy was ever to be resumed between Mr. Cashel and themselves; he was not even to use the common privilege of a host, – to visit them in their own apartments. That this degree of cold distance was maintained between them, on every occasion, all the guests assembled at the house can testify; and he neither joined the party in carriage nor on horseback. Perhaps this interdiction was carried out with too rigid a discipline; perhaps the cold reserve they maintained had assumed a character of insult, to one whose blood still glowed with the fire of southern associations; perhaps some circumstance with which we are unacquainted contributed to render this estrangement significant, and consequently painful to a man who could not brook the semblance of a check. It is needless to ask how or whence originating, since we can see in the fact itself cause sufficient for indignant reproof on one side, for a wounded self-love and tarnished honor on the other.

“Are we at a loss for such motives, then, in the presence of facts like these? Ask yourselves, Is a man, bred and trained up in all the riotous freedom of a service scarcely above the rank of piracy, – accustomed to the lawless license of a land where each makes the law with his own right hand, – is such a man one to bear a slight with patient submission, or to submit to an open shame in tame obedience? Can you not easily imagine how all the petty differences of opinion they might have had were merely skirmishes in front of that line where deeper and graver feelings stood in battle array? Can you suppose that, however ruled over by the ordinary courtesies of life, this youth nourished his plans of ultimate revenge, not only upon those who refused with indignation his traitorous alliance, but who were the depository of a secret that must interdict all views of marriage in any other quarter?”

CHAPTER XXX. THE DEFENCE

Equal to either fortune.

– Eugene Aram.

As the Crown counsel sat down, a low murmur ran through the Court, whose meaning it would be difficult to define; for if the greater number present were carried away by the indignant eloquence of the pleader to believe Cashel a hardened criminal, some few still seemed to cling to his side, and bent their eyes towards the dock with looks of sympathy and comfort. And oh, how little know they, whose eyes are beaming with the bright spark that warms their generous hearts, what loadstars are they to him who stands alone, forsaken, and accused in the criminal dock! What a resting-place does the weary and tired soul feel that glance of kindly meaning! How does it speak to his bruised and wounded spirit of hope and charity! What energy will it impart to the fast-failing courage! what self-respect and self-reliance to him who, a few moments back, was sinking beneath the abasement of despair!

Such was the effect now produced upon Roland Cashel. The array of circumstances, so formidably marshalled by his accuser, had completely overwhelmed him; the consciousness of innocence failed to support him against the feeling which he saw spreading like a mist around him. Against the accusation – against its fearful penalty – his own stout heart could sustain him; but how bear up against the contempt and the abhorrence of his fellow-men! Under the crushing weight of this shame he was sinking fast, when a stray glance – a chance expression of interest, like sunlight piercing a dark cloud – gave promise that all was not lost. He felt that there were yet some who wished to believe him guiltless, and that all sympathy for him had not yet died out.

“Does the prisoner desire to avail himself of the privilege he possesses to call witnesses to character?” asked the judge.

“No, my Lord,” said Cashel, firmly, but respectfully. “Since my accession to fortune, my life has been passed for the most part in what is called the ‘fashionable world;’ and from what I have seen of it, the society does not seem rich in those persons whose commendations, were they to give them, would weigh heavily with your Lordship. Besides, they could say little to my praise, which the learned counsel has not already said to my disparagement, – that I had the command of wealth, and squandered it without taste and without credit.”

Few and insignificant as were these words, the easy and fearless mode of their delivery, the manly energy of him who spoke them, seemed to produce a most favorable impression throughout the court, which as rapidly reacted upon Cashel; for now the embers of hope were fanned, and already glowed into a slight flicker.

“The prisoner having waived his privilege, my Lord,” said the Attorney-General, “I beg to observe that the case is now closed.”

“Is it too late, then, my Lord, for me to address a few words to the jury?” asked Roland, calmly.

“What say you, Mr. Attorney-General?” asked the judge.

“Your Lordship knows far better than I, that to address the Court at this stage of the proceedings, would be to concede the right of reply – and, in fact, of speaking twice; since the prisoner’s not having availed himself of the fitting occasion to comment on the evidence, gives him not the slightest pretension to usurp another one.”

“Such is the law of the case,” said the judge, solemnly.

“I have nothing to observe against it, my Lord,” said Cashel. “If I have not availed myself of the privilege accorded to men placed as I am, I must only submit to the penalty my pride has brought upon me, – for it was pride, my Lord. Since that, however, another, and I hope a higher pride has animated me, to vindicate my character and my fame; so that, at some future day – a long future, it may be – when the true facts of this dark mystery shall be brought to light, a more cautious spirit will pervade men’s minds as to the guilt of him assailed by circumstantial evidence. It might be, my Lord, that all I could adduce in my own behalf would weigh little against the weight of accusations which even to myself appear terribly consistent. I know, for I feel, how hard it would be to accept the cold unsupported narrative of a prisoner, in which many passages might occur of doubtful probability, some of even less credit, and some again of an obscurity to which even he himself could not afford the clew; and yet, with all these difficulties, enhanced tenfold by my little knowledge of the forms of a court, and my slender capacity, I regret, my Lord, that I am unable to address the few words I had intended to the jury, – less, believe me, to avert the shipwreck that awaits myself, than to be a beacon to some other who may be as solitary and unfriended as I am.”

These words, delivered with much feeling, but in a spirit of calm determination, seemed to thrill through the entire assemblage; and even the senior judge stopped to confer for some minutes with his brother on the bench, in evident hesitation what course to adopt. At length he said, —

“However we may regret the course you have followed in thus depriving yourself of that legitimate defence the constitution of our country provides, we see no sufficient reason to deviate from the common order of proceeding in like cases. I will now, therefore, address the jury, who have already heard your words, and will accord them any consideration they may merit.”

“It may be, my Lord,” said Cashel, “that evidence so strongly imbued with probability may induce the gentlemen in that box to believe me guilty; in which case, I understand, your Lordship would address to me the formal question, ‘If I had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon me.’ Now, if I am rightly informed, any observations of a prisoner at such a moment are regarded rather in the light of petitions for mercy, than as explanations or corrections of falsehood. I have, therefore, only now to say, that, whatever decision you may come to, the Court shall not be troubled further with interference of mine.”

The Judge bowed slightly, as if in reply to this, and began his charge; but the foreman of the jury, leaning forward, said that his fellow-jurors had desired him to ask, as a favor to themselves, that the prisoner might be heard. A short conference ensued between the Bench and the Crown counsel, which ended by the permission being accorded; and now Cashel rose to address the Court.

“I will not,” said he, “abuse the time of this Court by any irrelevant matter, nor will I advert to a single circumstance foreign to the substance of the charge against me. I purpose simply to give a narrative of the last day I passed with my poor friend, and to leave on record this detail as the solemn protestation of innocence of one who has too little to live for to fear death.”

With this brief preface he began a regular history of that eventful day, from the hour he had started from Tubbermore in company with Mr. Kennyfeck.

The reader is already familiar with every step and circumstance of that period, so that it is not necessary we should weary him by any recapitulation; enough if we say that Cashel proceeded with a minuteness devoid of all prolixity, to mention each fact as it occurred, commenting as he went on upon the evidence already given, and explaining its import without impugning its truth. Juries are ever disposed to listen favorably to a speaker who brings to his aid no other allies than candor and frankness, and who, without pretensions to legal acuteness, narrates facts with clear and distinctive precision. Leaving him, therefore, still speaking, and in the irresistible force of truth gradually winning upon his hearers, let us quit the court for a brief time, and passing through the crowded space before the doors, traverse the town, densely thronged by curious and eager visitors. We do not mean to linger with them, nor overhear the comments they passed upon the eventful scene beside them; our business is about a mile off, at a small public-house at a short distance from the roadside, usually frequented by cattle-dealers and the customers at the weekly markets. Here, in a meanly-furnished room, where, for it was now evening, a common dip candle shed its lugubrious yellow light upon the rude appliances of vulgar life, sat a man, whose eager expectancy was marked in every line of his figure. Every now and then he would arise from his chair, and, screening the candle from the wind, open the window to look out.

The night was dark and gusty; drifting rain beat at intervals against the glass, and seemed the forerunner of a great storm. The individual we have spoken of did not seem to care for, if he even noticed, the inclemency; he brushed the wet from his bushy beard and mustaches with indifference, and bent his ear to listen to the sounds upon the road in deepest earnestness. At last the sound of horses’ feet and wheels was heard rapidly approaching, and a car drove up to the door, from which a man, wrapped up in a loose frieze coat, descended, and quickly mounted the stairs. As he reached the landing, the door of the room was thrown vide, and the other man, in a low, but distinct, voice said, “Well, what news?”

“All right,” said he of the frieze coat, as, throwing off the wet garment, he discovered the person of Mr. Clare Jones. “Nothing could possibly go better; my cross-examination clinched Keane’s evidence completely, and no jury could get over it.”

“I almost wish you had let him alone,” said the other, gruffly, and in evident discontent; “I foresee that the sympathy the scoundrel affected will be troublesome to us yet.”

“I have no fears on that head,” replied the other, confidently. “The facts are there, and Crankle’s speech to evidence ripped him up in a terrific manner.”

“Did he allude to the Spanish girl?”

“He did, and with great effect.”

“And the Kilgoff affair – did he bring ‘My Lady’ up for judgment?”

“No. The Attorney-General positively forbade all allusion to that business.”

“Oh, indeed!” said the other, with a savage sneer. “‘The Court’ was too sacred for such profanation.”

“I think he was right, too,” said Jones. “The statement could never have been brought to bear upon the case before the Court. It would have been a mere episode outside of the general history, and just as likely impress the Jury with the opinion that all the charges were trumped up to gain a conviction in any way.”

The other paused, and seemed to reflect for some minutes, when he said, “Well, what are they about now?”

“When I left, the Court had just refused Cashel’s demand to address the jury. The Chief Baron had ruled against him, and, of course, the charge is now being pronounced. As I know how this must run, I took the opportunity of coming over here to see you.”

“My name was but once mentioned, you tell me,” said the other, in an abrupt manner.

“It was stated that you were dangerously ill, without hope of recovery,” said Jones, faltering, and with evident awkwardness.

“And not alluded to again?” asked the other, whom there is no need of calling Mr. Linton.

“Yes, once passingly,” said Jones, still faltering.

“How do you mean, passingly?” asked Linton, in anger.

“The Crown lawyers brought forward that note of yours from Ennismore.”

Linton dashed his closed fist against the table, and uttered a horrible and blasphemous oath.

“Some bungling of yours, I’ll be sworn, brought this about,” said he, savagely; “some piece of that adroit chicanery that always recoils upon its projector.”

“I ‘ll not endure this language, sir,” said Jones. “I have done more to serve you than any man would have stooped to in my profession. Unsay those words.”

“I do unsay them. I ask pardon for them, my dear Jones. I never meant them seriously,” said Linton, in that fawning tone he could so well assume. “You ought to know me better than to think that I, who have sworn solemnly to make your fortune, could entertain such an opinion of you. Tell me now of this. Did Cashel say anything as the note was read?”

“Not a syllable.”

“How did he look?”

“He smiled slightly.”

“Ah, he smiled,” said Linton, growing pale; “he smiled! He can do that when he is most determined.”

“What avails all his determination now? No narrative of his can shake the testimony which the examination has confirmed. It was a masterstroke of yours, Mr. Linton, to think of supplying him with counsel.”

Linton smiled superciliously, as though he was accustomed to higher flights of treachery than this. “So then,” said he, at length, “you say the case is strong against him?”

“It could scarcely be stronger.”

“And the feeling – how is the feeling of the Court?”

“Variable, I should say; in the galleries, and among the fashionably dressed part of the assemblage, inclined somewhat in his favor.”

“How? Did not the charge of attempted bigamy tell against him with his fair allies?”

“Not so much as I had hoped.”

“What creatures women are!” said Linton, holding up his hands. “And how are they betting? What says Frobisher?”

“He affects to think it no case for odds; he says there ‘s a little fellow in the jury-box never was known to say ‘Guilty.’”

“A scheme to win money, – a stale trick, my Lord Charles!” muttered Linton, contemptuously; “but I’ve no objection to hedge a little, for all that.”

“I must be going,” said Jones, looking at his watch; “the charge will soon be over, and I must look to the proceedings.”

“Will they be long in deliberation, think you?” asked Linton.

“I suspect not; they are all weary and tired. It is now ten o’clock.”

“I thought it later,” said Linton, thoughtfully; “time lags heavily with him whose mind is in expectancy. Hark! there is some one below talking of the trial! What says he?”

“He speaks of Cashel as still addressing the Court. Can they have consented to hear him, after all?”

A fearful curse broke from Linton, and he closed the door noiselessly.

“See to this, Jones; see to it speedily. My mind misgives me that something will go wrong.”

“You say that you know him thoroughly, and that he never would – ”