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diff --git a/7734.txt b/7734.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c51f2e --- /dev/null +++ b/7734.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2654 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Paul Clifford, by Lytton, Volume 7. +#161 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: Paul Clifford, Volume 7. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7734] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on May 13, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAUL CLIFFORD, BY LYTTON, V7 *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Bryan Sherman +and David Widger + + + + + +PAUL CLIFFORD, Volume 7. + +By Edward Bulwer-Lytton + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + O Fortuna, viris invida fortibus + Quam non aqua bonis praemia dividis. + SENECA. + . . . . . . . . . . . . + And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, + Pants to the place from whence at first he flew. + . . . . . . . . . . . . + Here, to the houseless child of want, + My door is open still. + GOLDSMITH. + +Slowly for Lucy waned the weeks of a winter which to her was the most +dreary portion of life she had ever passed. It became the time for the +judge to attend one of those periodical visitations so fraught with dread +and dismay to the miserable inmates of the dark abodes which the complex +laws of this country so bounteously supply,--those times of great +hilarity and eating to the legal gentry,-- + + "Who feed on crimes and fatten on distress, + And wring vile mirth from suffering's last excess." + +Ah! excellent order of the world, which it is so wicked to disturb! How +miraculously beautiful must be that system which makes wine out of the +scorching tears of guilt; and from the suffocating suspense, the agonized +fear, the compelled and self-mocking bravery, the awful sentence, the +despairing death-pang of one man, furnishes the smirking expectation of +fees, the jovial meeting, and the mercenary holiday to another! "Of Law, +nothing less can be said than that her seat is the bosom of God."-- +[Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.]--To be sure not; Richard Hooker, you +are perfectly right. The divinity of a sessions and the inspiration of +the Old Bailey are undeniable! + +The care of Sir William Brandon had effectually kept from Lucy's ear the +knowledge of her lover's ignominious situation. Indeed, in her delicate +health even the hard eye of Brandon and the thoughtless glance of +Mauleverer perceived the danger of such a discovery. The earl, now +waiting the main attack on Lucy till the curtain had forever dropped on +Clifford, proceeded with great caution and delicacy in his suit to his +purposed bride. He waited with the more patience inasmuch as he had +drawn in advance on his friend Sir William for some portion of the +heiress's fortune; and he readily allowed that he could not in the mean +while have a better advocate than he found in Brandon. So persuasive, +indeed, and so subtle was the eloquence of this able sophist, that often +in his artful conversations with his niece he left even on the unvitiated +and strong though simple mind of Lucy an uneasy and restless impression, +which time might have ripened into an inclination towards the worldly +advantages of the marriage at her command. Brandon was no bungling +mediator or violent persecutor. He seemed to acquiesce in her rejection +of Mauleverer. He scarcely recurred to the event. He rarely praised the +earl himself, save for the obvious qualities of liveliness and good- +nature. But he spoke, with all the vivid colours he could infuse at will +into his words, of the pleasures and the duties of rank and wealth. Well +could he appeal alike to all the prejudices and all the foibles of the +human breast, and govern virtue through its weaknesses. Lucy had been +brought up, like the daughters of most country gentlemen of ancient +family, in an undue and idle consciousness of superior birth; and she was +far from inaccessible to the warmth and even feeling (for here Brandon +was sincere) with which her uncle spoke of the duty of raising a gallant +name sunk into disrepute, and sacrificing our own inclination for the +redecorating the mouldered splendour of those who have gone before us. +If the confusion of idea occasioned by a vague pomposity of phrase, or +the infant inculcation of a sentiment that is mistaken for a, virtue, so +often makes fools of the wise on the subject of ancestry; if it clouded +even the sarcastic and keen sense of Brandon himself, we may forgive its +influence over a girl so little versed in the arts of sound reasoning as +poor Lucy, who, it may be said, had never learned to think until she had +learned to love. However, the impression made by Brandon, in his +happiest moments of persuasion, was as yet only transient; it vanished +before the first thought of Clifford, and never suggested to her even a +doubt as to the suit of Mauleverer. + +When the day arrived for Sir William Brandon to set out on the circuit, +he called Barlow, and enjoined on that acute and intelligent servant the +strictest caution with respect to Lucy. He bade him deny her to every +one, of whatever rank, and carefully to look into every newspaper that +was brought to her, as well as to withhold every letter, save such as +were addressed to her in the judge's own handwriting. Lucy's maid +Brandon had already won over to silence; and the uncle now pleased +himself with thinking that he had put an effectual guard to every chance +of discovery. The identity of Lovett with Clifford had not yet even been +rumoured; and Mauleverer had rightly judged of Clifford, when he believed +the prisoner would himself take every precaution against the detection of +that fact. Clifford answered the earl's note, and promised, in a letter +couched in so affecting yet so manly a tone of gratitude that even +Brandon was touched when he read it. And since his confinement and +partial recovery of health, the prisoner had kept himself closely +secluded, and refused all visitors. Encouraged by this reflection, and +the belief in the safety of his precautions, Brandon took leave of Lucy. +"Farewell!" said he, as he embraced her affectionately. "Be sure that +you write to me, and forgive me if I do not answer you punctually. Take +care of yourself, my sweet niece, and let me see a fresher colour on that +soft cheek when I return!" + +"Take care of yourself rather, my dear, dear uncle," said Lucy, clinging +to him and weeping, as of late her weakened nerves caused her to do at +the least agitation. "Why may I not go with you? You have seemed to me +paler than usual the last three or four days, and you complained +yesterday. Do let me go with you. I will be no trouble, none at all; +but I am sure you require a nurse." + +"You want to frighten me, my pretty Lucy," said Brandon, shaking his head +with a smile. "I am well, very well. I felt a strange rush of blood +towards the head yesterday, it is true; but I feel to-day stronger and +lighter than I have done for years. Once more, God bless you, my child!" + +And Brandon tore himself away, and commenced his journey. + +The wandering and dramatic course of our story now conducts us to an +obscure lane in the metropolis, leading to the Thames, and makes us +spectators of an affecting farewell between two persons, whom the +injustice of fate and the persecutions of men were about perhaps forever +to divide. + +"Adieu, my friend!" said Augustus Tomlinson, as he stood looking full on +that segment of the face of Edward Pepper which was left unconcealed by a +huge hat and a red belcher handkerchief. Tomlinson himself was attired +in the full costume of a dignified clergyman. "Adieu, my friend, since +you will remain in England,--adieu! I am, I exult to say, no less +sincere a patriot than you. Heaven be my witness, how long I looked +repugnantly on poor Lovett's proposal to quit my beloved country. But +all hope of life here is now over; and really, during the last ten days I +have been so hunted from corner to corner, so plagued with polite +invitations, similar to those given by a farmer's wife to her ducks, +'Dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed!' that my patriotism has been +prodigiously cooled, and I no longer recoil from thoughts of self- +banishment. 'The earth,' my dear Ned, as a Greek sage has very well +observed,--'the earth is the same everywhere!' and if I am asked for my +home, I can point, like Anaxagoras, to heaven!" + +"'Pon my soul, you affect me!" said Ned, speaking thick, either from +grief or the pressure of the belcher handkerchief on his mouth; "it is +quite beautiful to hear you talk!" + +"Bear up, my dear friend," continued Tomlinson; "bear up against your +present afflictions. What, to a man who fortifies himself by reason and +by reflection on the shortness of life, are the little calamities of the +body? What is imprisonment or persecution or cold or hunger? By the by, +you did not forget to put the sandwiches into my coat-pocket!" + +"Hush!" whispered Ned, and he moved on involuntarily; "I see a man at the +other end of the street." + +"Let us quicken our pace," said Tomlinson; and the pair proceeded towards +the river. + +"And now," began Ned, who thought he might as well say something about +himself; for hitherto Augustus, in the ardour of his friendship, had been +only discussing his own plans,--"and now,--that is to say, when I leave +you,--I shall hasten to dive for shelter, until the storm blows over. I +don't much like living in a cellar and wearing a smock frock; but those +concealments have something interesting in them, after all! The safest +and snuggest place I know of is the Pays Bas, about Thames Court; so I +think of hiring an apartment underground, and taking my meals at poor +Lovett's old quarters, the Mug,--the police will never dream of looking +in these vulgar haunts for a man of my fashion." + +"You cannot then tear yourself from England?" said Tomlinson. + +"No, hang it! the fellows are so cursed unmanly on the other side of the +water. I hate their wine and their parley woo. Besides, there is no fun +there." + +Tomlinson, who was absorbed in his own thoughts, made no comment on his +friend's excellent reasons against travel; and the pair now approached +the brink of the river. A boat was in waiting to receive and conduct to +the vessel in which he had taken his place for Calais the illustrious +emigrant. But as Tomlinson's eye fell suddenly on the rude boatmen and +the little boat which were to bear him away from his native land; as he +glanced, too, across the blue waters, which a brisk wind wildly agitated, +and thought how much rougher it would be at sea, where "his soul" +invariably "sickened at the heaving wave,"--a whole tide of deep and +sorrowful emotions rushed upon him. + +He turned away. The spot on which he stood was a piece of ground to be +let (as a board proclaimed) upon a building lease; below, descended the +steps which were to conduct him to the boat; around, the desolate space +allowed him to see in far and broad extent the spires and domes and +chimneys of the great city whose inhabitants he might never plunder more. +As he looked and looked, the tears started to his eyes, and with a gust +of enthusiasm, little consonant with his temperate and philosophical +character, he lifted his right hand from his black breeches-pocket, and +burst into the following farewell to the metropolis of his native +shores:-- + +"Farewell, my beloved London, farewell! Where shall I ever find a city +like you? Never, till now, did I feel how inexpressibly dear you were to +me. You have been my father and my brother and my mistress and my tailor +and my shoemaker and my hatter and my cook and my wine-merchant! You and +I never misunderstood each other. I did not grumble when I saw what fine +houses and good strong boxes you gave to other men. No! I rejoiced at +their prosperity. I delighted to see a rich man,--my only disappointment +was in stumbling on a poor one. You gave riches to my neighbours; but, +O generous London, you gave those neighbours to me! Magnificent streets, +all Christian virtues abide within you! Charity is as common as smoke! +Where, in what corner of the habitable world, shall I find human beings +with so many superfluities? Where shall I so easily decoy, from +benevolent credulity, those superfluities to myself? Heaven only knows, +my dear, dear, darling London, what I lose in you! O public charities! +O public institutions! O banks that belie mathematical axioms and make +lots out of nothing! O ancient constitution always to be questioned! +O modern improvements that never answer! O speculations! O companies! +O usury laws which guard against usurers, by making as many as possible! +O churches in which no one profits, save the parson, and the old women +that let pews of an evening! O superb theatres, too small for parks, too +enormous for houses, which exclude comedy and comfort, and have a +monopoly for performing nonsense gigantically! O houses of plaster, +built in a day! O palaces four yards high, with a dome in the middle, +meant to be invisible! + + [We must not suppose this apostrophe to be an anachronism. + Tomlinson, Of course, refers to some palace of his day; one of the + boxes--Christmas boxes--given to the king by his economical nation + of shopkeepers. We suppose it is either pulled down or blown down + long ago; it is doubtless forgotten by this time, except by + antiquaries. Nothing is so ephemeral as great houses built by the + people. Your kings play the deuce with their playthings!] + +"O shops worth thousands, and O shopkeepers not worth a shilling! O +system of credit by which beggars are princes, and princes are beggars! +O imprisonment for debt, which lets the mare be stolen, and then locks up +the bridle! O sharpers, bubbles, senators, beaux, taverns, brothels, +clubs, houses private and public!---O LONDON, in a word, receive my last +adieu! Long may you flourish in peace and plenteousness! May your +knaves be witty, and your fools be rich! May you alter only two things, +--your damnable tricks of transportation and hanging! Those are your sole +faults; but for those I would never desert you. Adieu!" + +Here Tomlinson averted his head, and then hastily shaking the hand of +Long Ned with a tremulous and warm grasp, he hurried down the stairs and +entered the boat. Ned remained motionless for some moments, following +him with his eyes as he sat at the end of the boat, waving a white +pocket-handkerchief. At length a line of barges snatched him from the +sight of the lingerer; and Ned, slowly turning away, muttered,--"Yes, I +have always heard that Dame Lobkins's was the safest asylum for +misfortune like mine. I will go forthwith in search of a lodging, and +to-morrow I will make my breakfast at the Mug!" + +Be it our pleasing task, dear reader, to forestall the good robber, and +return, at the hour of sunrise on the day following Tomlinson's +departure, to the scene at which our story commenced. We are now once +more at the house of Mrs. Margery Lobkins. + +The room which served so many purposes was still the same as when Paul +turned it into the arena of his mischievous pranks. The dresser, with +its shelves of mingled delf and pewter, occupied its ancient and +important station. Only it might be noticed that the pewter was more +dull than of yore, and that sundry cracks made their erratic wanderings +over the yellow surface of the delf. The eye of the mistress had become +less keen than heretofore, and the care of the hand maid had, of +necessity, relaxed. The tall clock still ticked in monotonous warning; +the blanket-screen, haply innocent of soap since we last described it, +many-storied and polyballaded, still unfolded its ample leaves "rich with +the spoils of time;" the spit and the musket yet hung from the wall in +amicable proximation. And the long, smooth form, "with many a holy text +thereon bestrewn," still afforded rest to the weary traveller, and an +object to the vacant stare of Mrs. Margery Lobkins, as she lolled in her +opposite seat and forgot the world. But poor Piggy Lob!---there was the +alteration! The soul of the woman was gone; the spirit had evaporated +from the human bottle! She sat, with open mouth and glassy eye, in her +chair, sidling herself to and fro, with the low, peevish sound of fretful +age and bodily pain; sometimes this querulous murmur sharpened into a +shrill but unmeaning scold: "There now, you gallows-bird! you has taken +the swipes without chalking; you wants to cheat the poor widow; but I +sees you, I does! Providence protects the aged and the innocent--Oh, oh! +these twinges will be the death o' me. Where's Martha? You jade, you! +you wiperous hussy, bring the tape; does n't you see how I suffers? Has +you no bowels, to let a poor Christian cretur perish for want o' help! +That's with 'em, that's the way! No one cares for I now,--no one has +respect for the gray 'airs of the old!" And then the voice dwindled into +the whimpering "tenor of its way." + +Martha, a strapping wench with red hair streaming over her "hills of +snow," was not, however, inattentive to the wants of her mistress. "Who +knows," said she to a man who sat by the hearth, drinking tea out of a +blue mug, and toasting with great care two or three huge rounds of bread +for his own private and especial nutriment,--"who knows," said she, "what +we may come to ourselves?" And, so saying, she placed a glowing tumbler +by her mistress's elbow. + +But in the sunken prostration of her intellect, the old woman was +insensible even to her consolation. She sipped and drank, it is true; +but as if the stream warmed not the benumbed region through which it +passed, she continued muttering in a crazed and groaning key,-- + +"Is this your gratitude, you sarpent! Why does not you bring the tape, I +tells you? Am I of a age to drink water like a 'oss, you nasty thing! +Oh, to think as ever I should live to be desarted!" + +Inattentive to these murmurs, which she felt unreasonable, the bouncing +Martha now quitted the room to repair to her "upper household" +avocations. The man at the hearth was the only companion left to the +widow. Gazing at her for a moment, as she sat whining, with a rude +compassion in his eye, and slowly munching his toast, which he had now +buttered and placed in a delf plate on the hob, this person thus +soothingly began:-- + +"Ah, Dame Lobkins, if so be as 'ow little Paul vas a vith you, it would +be a gallows comfort to you in your latter hend!" + +The name of Paul made the good woman incline her bead towards the +speaker; a ray of consciousness shot through her bedulled brain. + +"Little Paul,--eh, sirs! where is Paul? Paul, I say, my ben cull. +Alack! he's gone,--left his poor old nurse to die like a cat in a +cellar. Oh, Dummie, never live to be old, man! They leaves us to +oursel's, and then takes away all the lush with 'em! I has not a drop o' +comfort in the 'varsal world!" + +Dummie, who at this moment had his own reasons for soothing the dame, and +was anxious to make the most of the opportunity of a conversation as +unwitnessed as the present, replied tenderly, and with a cunning likely +to promote his end, reproached Paul bitterly for never having informed +the dame of his whereabout and his proceedings. "But come, dame," he +wound up, "come, I guess as how he is better nor all that, and that you +need not beat your hold brains to think where he lies, or vot he's a +doing. Blow me tight, Mother Lob,--I ax pardon, Mrs. Margery, I should +say,--if I vould not give five bob, ay, and five to the tail o' that, to +know what the poor lad is about; I takes a mortal hinterest in that 'ere +chap!" + +"Oh! oh!" groaned the old woman, on whose palsied sense the astute +inquiries of Dummie Dunnaker fell harmless; "my poor sinful carcass! +what a way it be in!" + +Artfully again did Dummie Dunnaker, nothing defeated, renew his attack; +but fortune does not always favour the wise, and it failed Dummie now, +for a twofold reason,--first, because it was not possible for the dame to +comprehend him; secondly, because even if it had been, she had nothing to +reveal. Some of Clifford's pecuniary gifts had been conveyed +anonymously, all without direction or date; and for the most part they +had been appropriated by the sage Martha, into whose hands they fell, to +her own private uses. Nor did the dame require Clifford's grateful +charity; for she was a woman tolerably well off in this world, +considering how near she was waxing to another. Longer, however, might +Dummie have tried his unavailing way, had not the door of the inn creaked +on its hinges, and the bulky form of a tall man in a smockfrock, but with +a remarkably fine head of hair, darkened the threshold. He honoured the +dame, who cast on him a lacklustre eye, with a sulky yet ambrosial nod, +seized a bottle of spirits and a tumbler, lighted a candle, drew a small +German pipe and a tobacco-box from his pouch, placed these several +luxuries on a small table, wheeled it to a far corner of the room, and +throwing himself into one chair, and his legs into another, he enjoyed +the result of his pains in a moody and supercilious silence. Long and +earnestly did the meek Dummie gaze on the face of the gentleman before +him. It had been some years since he had last beheld it; but it was one +which did not easily escape the memory; and although its proprietor was a +man who had risen in the world, and had gained the height of his +profession (a station far beyond the diurnal sphere of Dummie Dunnaker), +and the humble purloiner was therefore astonished to encounter him in +these lower regions, yet Dummie's recollection carried him back to a day +when they had gone shares together without respect of persons, and been +right jolly partners in the practical game of beggar my neighbour. +While, however, Dummie Dunnaker, who was a little inclined to be shy, +deliberated as to the propriety of claiming acquaintanceship, a dirty +boy, with a face which betokened the frost, as Dummie himself said, like +a plum dying of the scarlet fever, entered the room, with a newspaper in +his dexter paw. + +"Great news! great news!" cried the urchin, imitating his vociferous +originals in the street; "all about the famous Captain Lovett, as large +as life!" + +"'Old your blarney, you blattergowl!" said Dummie, rebukingly, and +seizing the journal. + +"Master says as how he must have it to send to Clapham, and can't spare +it for more than a 'our!" said the boy, as he withdrew. + +"I 'members the day," said Dummie, with the zeal of a clansman, "when the +Mug took a paper all to itsel' instead o' 'iring it by the job like!" + +Thereon he opened the paper with a fillip, and gave himself tip to the +lecture. But the tall stranger, half rising with a start, exclaimed,-- + +"Can't you have the manners to be communicative? Do you think nobody +cares about Captain Lovett but yourself?" On this, Dummie turned round +on his chair, and, with a "Blow me tight, you're velcome, I'm sure," +began as follows (we copy the paper, not the diction of the reader):-- + + "The trial of the notorious Lovett commences this day. Great + exertions have been made by people of all classes to procure seats + in the Town Hall, which will be full to a degree never before known + in this peaceful province. No less than seven indictments are said + to await the prisoner; it has been agreed that the robbery of Lord + Mauleverer should be the first to come on. The principal witness in + this case against the prisoner is understood to be the king's + evidence, MacGrawler. No news as yet have been circulated + concerning the suspected accomplices, Augustus Tomlinson and Edward + Pepper. It is believed that the former has left the country, and + that the latter is lurking among the low refuges of guilt with which + the heart of the metropolis abounds. Report speaks highly of the + person and manners of Lovett. He is also supposed to be a man of + some talent, and was formerly engaged in an obscure periodical + edited by MacGrawler, and termed the 'Althenaeum,' Or 'Asinaeum.' + Nevertheless, we apprehend that his origin is remarkably low, and + suitable to the nature of his pursuits. The prisoner will be most + fortunate in a judge. Never did any one holding the same high + office as Sir William Brandon earn an equal reputation in so short a + time. The Whigs are accustomed to sneer at us, when we insist on + the private virtues of our public men. Let them look to Sir William + Brandon, and confess that the austerest morals maybe linked with the + soundest knowledge and the most brilliant genius. The opening + address of the learned judge to the jury at-------is perhaps the + most impressive and solemn piece of eloquence in the English + language!" + +A cause for this eulogium might haply be found in another part of the +paper, in which it was said,-- + + "Among the higher circles, we understand, the rumour has gone forth + that Sir William Brandon is to be recalled to his old parliamentary + career in a more elevated scene. So highly are this gentleman's + talents respected by his Majesty and the ministers, that they are, + it is reported, anxious to secure his assistance in the House of + Lords!" + +When Dummie had spelt his "toilsome march" through the first of the above +extracts he turned round to the tall stranger, and, eying him with a sort +of winking significance, said,-- + +"So MacGrawler peaches,--blows the gaff on his pals, eh! Vel, now, I +always suspected that 'ere son of a gun! Do you know, he used to be at +the Mug many 's a day, a teaching our little Paul, and says I to Piggy +Lob, says I, 'Blow me tight, but that cove is a queer one! and if he does +not come to be scragged,' says I, 'it vill only be because he'll turn a +rusty, and scrag one of his pals!' So you sees" (here Dummie looked +round, and his voice sank into a whisper),--"so you sees, Meester Pepper, +I vas no fool there!" + +Long Ned dropped his pipe, and said sourly and with a suspicious frown, +"What! you know me?" + +"To be sure and sartin I does," answered little Dummie, walking to the +table where the robber sat. "Does not you know I?" + +Ned regarded the interrogator with a sullen glance, which gradually +brightened into knowledge. "Ah!" said he, with the air of a Brummel, +"Mr. Bummie, or Dummie, I think, eh! Shake a paw,--I'm glad to see you. +Recollect the last time I saw you, you rather affronted me. Never mind. +I dare say you did not mean it." + +Encouraged by this affable reception from the highwayman, though a little +embarrassed by Ned's allusion to former conduct on his part, which he +felt was just, Dummie grinned, pushed a stool near Ned, sat himself down, +and carefully avoiding any immediate answer to Ned's complaints, +rejoined,-- + +"Do you know, Meester Pepper, you struck I all of a heap? I could not +have s'posed as how you'd condescend nowadays to come to the Mug, vhere I +never seed you but once afore. Lord love ye, they says as 'ow you go to +all the fine places in ruffles, with a pair of silver pops in your +vaistcoat pocket! Vy, the boys hereabout say that you and Meester +Tomlinson, and this 'ere poor devil in quod, vere the finest gemmen in +town; and, Lord, for to think of your ciwility to a pitiful ragmerchant, +like I!" + +"Ah!" said Ned, gravely, "there are sad principles afloat now. They want +to do away with all distinctions in ranks,--to make a duke no better than +his valet, and a gentleman highwayman class with a filcher of fogles.' +But, damme, if I don't think misfortune levels us all quite enough; and +misfortune brings me here, little Dummie." + +"Ah! you vants to keep out of the vay of the bulkies!" "Right. Since +poor Lovett was laid by the heels, which I must say was the fault of his +own deuced gentlemanlike behaviour to me and Augustus (you've heard of +Guz, you say), the knot of us seems quite broken. One's own friends look +inclined to play one false; and really, the queer cuffins hover so +sharply upon us that I thought it safe to duck for a time. So I have +taken a lodging in a cellar, and I intend for the next three months to +board at the Mug. I have heard that I may be sure of lying snug here. +Dummie, your health! Give us the baccy." + +"I say, Meester Pepper," said Dummie, clearing his throat, when he had +obeyed the request, "can you tell I, if so be you 'as met in your travels +our little Paul? Poor chap! You knows as 'ow and vy he was sent to quod +by Justice Burnflat. Vel, ven he got out, he vent to the devil, or +summut like it, and ve have not 'card a vord of him since. You 'members +the lad,--a 'nation fine cull, tall and straight as a harrow!" + +"Why, you fool," said Ned, "don't you know"--then checking himself +suddenly, "Ah! by the by, that rigmarole oath! I was not to tell; though +now it's past caring for, I fear! It is no use looking after the seal +when the letter's burned." + +"Blow me," cried Dunnaker, with unaffected vehemence, "I sees as how you +know vot's come of he! Many's the good turn I'll do you, if you vill but +tell I." + +"Why, does he owe you a dozen bobs; or what, Dummie?" said Ned. + +"Not he,--not he," cried Dummie. + +"What then, you want to do him a mischief of some sort?" + +"Do little Paul a mischief!" ejaculated Dummie; "vy, I've known the cull +ever since he was that high! No, but I vants to do him a great sarvice, +Meester Pepper, and myself too,--and you to boot, for aught that I know, +Meester Pepper." + +"Humph!" said Ned,--"humph! what do you mean? I do, it is true, know +where Paul is; but you must tell me first why you wish to know, otherwise +you may ask your grandfather for me." + +A long, sharp, wistful survey did Mr. Dummie Dunnaker cast around him +before he rejoined. All seemed safe and convenient for confidential +communication. The supine features of Mrs. Lobkins were hushed in a +drowsy stupor; even the gray cat that lay by the fire was curled in the +embrace of Morpheus. Nevertheless, it was in a close whisper that Dummie +spoke. + +"I dares be bound, Meester Pepper, that you 'members vell ven Harry Cook, +the great highvayman,--poor fellow! he's gone vhere ve must all go,-- +brought you, then quite a gossoon,' for the first time to the little back +parlour at the Cock and Hen, Dewereux Court?" + +Ned nodded assent. + +"And you 'members as how I met Harry and you there, and I vas all afeard +at you,--'cause vy? I had never seen you afore, and ve vas a going to +crack a swell's crib. And Harry spoke up for you, and said as 'ow though +you had just gone on the town, you was already prime up to gammon. You +'members, eh?" + +"Ay, I remember all," said Ned; "it was the first and only house I ever +had a hand in breaking into. Harry was a fellow of low habits; so I +dropped his acquaintance, and took solely to the road, or a chance +ingenuity now and then. I have no idea of a gentleman turning +cracksman." + +"Vel, so you vent vith us, and ve slipped you through a pane in the +kitchen-vindow. You vas the least of us, big as you be now; and you vent +round and opened the door for us; and ven you had opened the door, you +saw a voman had joined us, and you were a funked then, and stayed vithout +the crib, to keep vatch vhile ve vent in." + +"Well, well," cried Ned, "what the devil has all this rigmarole got to do +with Paul?" + +"Now don't be glimflashy, but let me go on smack right about. Vell, ven +ve came out, you minds as 'ow the voman had a bundle in her arms, and you +spake to her; and she answered you roughly, and left us all, and vent +straight home; and ve vent and fenced the swag' that wery night and +afterwards napped the regulars. And sure you made us laugh 'artily, +Meester Pepper, when you said, says you, 'That 'ere voman is a rum blo" +en.' So she vas, Meester Pepper!" + + [The reader has probably observed the use made by Dummie and Mrs. + Lobkins of Irish phraseology or pronunciation, This is a remarkable + trait in the dialect of the lowest orders in London, owing, we + suppose, to their constant association with emigrants from "the + first flower of the earth." Perhaps it is a modish affectation + among the gentry of St. Giles's, just as we eke out our mother- + tongue with French at Mayfair.] + +"Oh, spare me," said Ned, affectedly, "and make haste; you keep me all in +the dark. By the way, I remember that you joked me about the bundle; and +when I asked what the woman had wrapped in it, you swore it was a child. +Rather more likely that the girl, whoever she was, would have left a +child behind her than carried one off!" The face of Dummie waxed big +with conscious importance. + +"Vell, now, you would not believe us; but it vas all true. That 'ere +bundle vas the voman's child,--I s'pose an unnatural von by the gemman; +she let us into the 'ouse on condition we helped her off vith it. And, +blow me tight, but ve paid ourselves vel for our trouble. That 'ere +voman vas a strange cretur; they say she had been a lord's blowen; but +howsomever, she was as 'ot-'eaded and hodd as if she had been. There vas +old Nick's hown row made on the matter, and the revard for our +[de]tection vas so great, that as you vas not much tried yet, Harry +thought it best for to take you vith 'im down to the country, and told +you as 'ow it vas all a flam about the child in the bundle!" + +"Faith," said Ned, "I believed him readily enough; and poor Harry was +twisted shortly after, and I went into Ireland for safety, where I stayed +two years,--and deuced good claret I got there!" + +"So, vhiles you vas there," continued Dummie, "poor Judy, the voman, +died,--she died in this very 'ouse, and left the horphan to the +[af]fection of Piggy Lob, who was 'nation fond of it surely! Oh! but I +'members vot a night it vas ven poor Judy died; the vind vistled like +mad, and the rain tumbled about as if it had got a holiday; and there the +poor creature lay raving just over 'ed of this room we sits in! Laus-a- +me, vat a sight it vas!" + +Here Dummie paused, and seemed to recall in imagination the scene he had +witnessed; but over the mind of Long Ned a ray of light broke slowly. + +"Whew!" said he, lifting up his forefinger, "whew! I smell a rat; this +stolen child, then, was no other than Paul. But, pray, to whom did the +house belong? For that fact Harry never communicated to me. I only +heard the owner was a lawyer, or parson, or some such thing." + +"Vy now, I'll tell you, but don't be glimflashy. So, you see, ven Judy +died, and Harry was scragged, I vas the only von living who vas up to the +secret; and vhen Mother Lob vas a taking a drop to comfort her vhen Judy +vent off, I hopens a great box in which poor Judy kept her duds and +rattletraps, and surely I finds at the bottom of the box hever so many +letters and sick like,--for I knew as 'ow they vas there; so I vhips +these off and carries 'em 'ome with me, and soon arter, Mother Lob sold +me the box o' duds for two quids--'cause vy? I vas a rag-merchant. So +now I 'solved, since the secret vas all in my hown keeping, to keep it as +tight as vinkey; for first, you sees as 'ow I vas afeard I should be +hanged if I vent for to tell,--'cause vy? I stole a vatch, and lots +more, as vell as the hurchin; and next I vas afeard as 'ow the mother +might come back and haunt me the same as Sall haunted Villy, for it vas a +'orrid night ven her soul took ving. And hover and above this, Meester +Pepper, I thought summut might turn hup by and by, in vhich it vould be +best for I to keep my hown counsel and nab the revard, if I hever durst +make myself known." + +Here Dummie proceeded to narrate how frightened he had been lest Ned +should discover all, when (as it may be remembered, Pepper informed Paul +at the beginning of this history) he encountered that worthy at Dame +Lobkins's house; how this fear had induced him to testify to Pepper that +coldness and rudeness which had so enraged the haughty highwayman; and +how great had been his relief and delight at finding that Ned returned to +the Mug no more. He next proceeded to inform his new confidant of his +meeting with the father (the sagacious reader knows where and when), and +of what took place at that event. He said how, in his first negotiation +with the father, prudently resolving to communicate drop by drop such +information as he possessed, he merely, besides confessing to a share in +the robbery, stated that he thought he knew the house, etc., to which the +infant had been consigned,--and that, if so, it was still alive; but that +he would inquire. He then related how the sanguine father, who saw that +hanging Dummie for the robbery of his house might not be half so likely a +method to recover his son as bribery and conciliation, not only forgave +him his former outrage, but whetted his appetite to the search by +rewarding him for his disclosure. He then proceeded to state how, unable +anywhere to find Paul, or any trace of him, he amused the sire from time +to time with forged excuses; how, at first, the sums he received made him +by no means desirous to expedite a discovery that would terminate such +satisfactory receipts; how at length the magnitude of the proffered +reward, joined to the threats of the sire, had made him become seriously +anxious to learn the real fate and present "whereabout" of Paul; how, the +last time he had seen the father, he had, by way of propitiation and +first fruit, taken to him all the papers left by the unhappy mother and +secreted by himself; and how he was now delighted to find that Ned was +acquainted with Paul's address. Since he despaired of finding Paul by +his own exertions alone, he became less tenacious of his secret; and he +now proffered Ned, on discovery of Paul, a third of that reward the whole +of which he had once hoped to engross. + +Ned's eyes and mouth opened at this proposition. "But the name,--the +name of the father? You have not told me that yet!" cried he, +impatiently. + +"Noa, noa!" said Dummie, archly, "I does n't tell you all, till you tells +I summut. Vhere's little Paul, I say; and vhere be us to get at him?" + +Ned heaved a sigh. + +"As for the oath," said he, musingly, "it would be a sin to keep it, now +that to break it can do him no harm, and may do him good, especially as, +in case of imprisonment or death, the oath is not held to be binding; yet +I fear it is too late for the reward. The father will scarcely thank you +for finding his son!---Know, Dummie, that Paul is in jail, and that he +is one and the same person as Captain Lovett!" Astonishment never wrote +in more legible characters than she now displayed on the rough features +of Dummie Dunnaker. So strong are the sympathies of a profession +compared with all others, that Dummie's first confused thought was that +of pride. "The great Captain Lovett!" he faltered. + +"Little Paul at the top of the profession! Lord, Lord! I always said as +how he'd the hambition to rise!" + +"Well, well, but the father's name?" + +At this question the expression of Dummie's face fell; a sudden horror +struggled to his eyes-- + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + Why is it that at moments there creeps over us an awe, a terror, + overpowering but undefined? Why is it that we shudder without a + cause, and feel the warm life-blood stand still in its courses? + Are the dead too near? + FALKLAND + + Ha! sayest thou! Hideous thought, I feel it twine + O'er my iced heart, as curls around his prey + The sure and deadly serpent! + . . . . . . . . . . . . + What! in the hush and in the solitude + Passed that dread soul away? + Love and Hatred. + +The evening prior to that morning in which the above conversation +occurred, Brandon passed alone in his lodging at --------. He had felt +himself too unwell to attend the customary wassail, and he sat indolently +musing in the solitude of the old-fashioned chamber to which he was +consigned. There, two wax-candles on the smooth, quaint table dimly +struggled against the gloom of heavy panels, which were relieved at +unfrequent intervals by portraits in oaken frames, dingy, harsh, and +important with the pomp of laced garments and flowing wigs. The +predilection of the landlady for modern tastes had, indeed, on each side +of the huge fireplace suspended more novel masterpieces of the fine arts. +In emblematic gorgeousness hung the pictures of the four Seasons, buxom +wenches all, save Winter, who was deformedly bodied forth in the likeness +of an aged carle. These were interspersed by an engraving of Lord +Mauleverer, the lieutenant of the neighbouring county, looking extremely +majestical in his peer's robes; and by three typifications of Faith, +Hope, and Charity,--ladies with whom it may be doubted if the gay earl +ever before cultivated so close an intimacy. Curtains, of that antique +chintz in which fasces of stripes are alternated by rows of flowers, +filled the interstices of three windows; a heavy sideboard occupied the +greater portion of one side of the room; and on the opposite side, in the +rear of Brandon, a vast screen stretched its slow length along, and +relieved the unpopulated and as it were desolate comfort of the +apartment. + +Pale and imperfectly streamed the light upon Brandon's face, as he sat in +his large chair, leaning his cheek on one hand, and gazing with the +unconscious earnestness of abstraction on the clear fire. At that moment +a whole phalanx of gloomy thought was sweeping in successive array across +his mind. His early ambition, his ill-omened marriage, the causes of his +after-rise in the wrong-judging world, the first dawn of his reputation, +his rapid and flattering successes, his present elevation, his aspiring +hope of far higher office, and more patrician honours,--all these +phantoms passed before him in checkered shadow and light; but ever with +each stalked one disquieting and dark remembrance,--the loss of his only +son. + +Weaving his ambition with the wish to revive the pride of his hereditary +name, every acquisition of fortune or of fame rendered him yet more +anxious to find the only one who could perpetuate these hollow +distinctions to his race. + +"I shall recover him yet!" he broke out suddenly and aloud. As he spoke, +a quick, darting, spasmodic pain ran shivering through his whole frame, +and then fixed for one instant on his heart with a gripe like the talons +of a bird; it passed away, and was followed by a deadly sickness. +Brandon rose, and filling himself a large tumbler of water, drank with +avidity. The sickness passed off like the preceding pain; but the +sensation had of late been often felt by Brandon, and disregarded,--for +few persons were less afflicted with the self-torture of hypochondria; +but now, that night, whether it was more keen than usual, or whether his +thought had touched on the string that jars naturally on the most +startling of human anticipations, we know not, but, as he resumed his +seat, the idea of his approaching dissolution shot like an ice-bolt +through his breast. + +So intent was this scheming man upon the living objects of the world, and +so little were his thoughts accustomed to turn toward the ultimate goal +of all things, that this idea obtruding itself abruptly upon him, +startled him with a ghastly awe. He felt the colour rush from his cheek, +and a tingling and involuntary pain ran wandering through the channels of +his blood, even from the roots of the hair to the soles of his feet. But +the stern soul of Brandon was not one which shadows could long affright. +He nerved himself to meet the grim thought thus forced upon his mental +eye, and he gazed on it with a steady and enduring look. + +"Well," thought he, "is my hour coming, or have I yet the ordinary term +of mortal nature to expect? It is true, I have lately suffered these +strange revulsions of the frame with somewhat of an alarming frequency; +perhaps this medicine, which healed the anguish of one infirmity, has +produced another more immediately deadly. Yet why should I think this? +My sleep is sound and calm, my habits temperate, my mind active and clear +as in its best days. In my youth I never played the traitor with my +constitution; why should it desert me at the very threshold of my age? +Nay, nay, these are but passing twitches, chills of the blood that begins +to wax thin. Shall I learn to be less rigorous in my diet? Perhaps wine +may reward my abstinence in avoiding it for my luxuries, by becoming a +cordial to my necessities! Ay, I will consult,--I will consult, I must +not die yet. I have--let me see, three--four grades to gain before the +ladder is scaled. And, above all, I must regain my child! Lucy married +to Mauleverer, myself a peer, my son wedded to-whom? Pray God he be not +married already! My nephews and my children nobles! the house of Brandon +restored, my power high in the upward gaze of men, my fame set on a more +lasting basis than a skill in the quirks of law,--these are yet to come; +these I will not die till I have enjoyed! Men die not till their +destinies are fulfilled. The spirit that swells and soars within me says +that the destiny of William Brandon is but half begun!" + +With this conclusion, Brandon sought his pillow. What were the +reflections of the prisoner whom he was to judge? Need we ask? Let us +picture to ourselves his shattered health, the languor of sickness +heightening the gloom which makes the very air of a jail; his certainty +of the doom to be passed against him; his knowledge that the uncle of +Lucy Brandon was to be his judge, that Mauleverer was to be his accuser, +and that in all human probability the only woman he had ever loved must +sooner or later learn the criminality of his life and the ignominy of his +death; let us but glance at the above blackness of circumstances that +surrounded him, and it would seem that there is but little doubt as to +the complexion of his thoughts! Perhaps, indeed, even in that terrible +and desolate hour one sweet face shone on him, "and dashed the darkness +all away." Perhaps, too, whatever might be the stings of his conscience, +one thought, one remembrance of a temptation mastered and a sin escaped, +brought to his eyes tears that were sweet and healing in their source. +But the heart of a man in Clifford's awful situation is dark and +inscrutable; and often when the wildest and gloomiest external +circumstances surround us, their reflection sleeps like a shadow, calm +and still upon the mind. + +The next morning, the whole town of (a town in which, we regret to say, +an accident once detained ourself for three wretched days, and which we +can, speaking therefore from profound experience, assert to be in +ordinary times the most melancholy and peopleless-looking congregation of +houses that a sober imagination can conceive) exhibited a scene of such +bustle, animation, and jovial anxiety as the trial for life or death to a +fellow-creature can alone excite in the phlegmatic breasts of the +English. Around the court the crowd thickened with every moment, until +the whole marketplace in which the townhall was situated became one +living mass. The windows of the houses were filled with women, some of +whom had taken that opportunity to make parties to breakfast; and little +round tables, with tea and toast on them, caught the eyes of the grinning +mobists as they gaped impatiently upwards. + +"Ben," said a stout yeoman, tossing up a halfpenny, and catching the said +coin in his right hand, which he immediately covered with the left,-- +"Ben, heads or tails that Lovett is hanged; heads hanged, tails not, for +a crown." + +"Petticoats, to be sure," quoth Ben, eating an apple; and it was heads! + +"Damme, you've lost!" cried the yeoman, rubbing his rough hands with +glee. + +It would have been a fine sight for Asmodeus, could he have perched on +one of the house tops of the market-place of --------, and looked on the +murmuring and heaving sea of mortality below. Oh! the sight of a crowd +round a court of law or a gibbet ought to make the devil split himself +with laughter. + +While the mob was fretting, and pushing, and swearing, and grinning, and +betting, and picking pockets, and trampling feet, and tearing gowns, and +scrambling nearer and nearer to the doors and windows of the court, +Brandon was slowly concluding his abstemious repast, preparatory to +attendance on his judicial duties. His footman entered with a letter. +Sir William glanced rapidly over the seal (one of those immense +sacrifices of wax used at that day), adorned with a huge coat-of-arms, +surmounted with an earl's coronet, and decorated on either side with +those supporters so dear to heraldic taste. He then tore open the +letter, and read as follows:-- + + MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM,--You know that in the last conversation I had + the Honour to hold with you I alluded, though perhaps somewhat + distantly, to the esteem which his Majesty had personally expressed + for your principles and talents, and his wish to testify it at the + earliest opportunity. There will be, as you are doubtless aware, an + immediate creation of four peerages. Your name stands second on the + list. The choice of title his Majesty graciously leaves to you; but + he has hinted that the respectable antiquity of your family would + make him best pleased were you to select the name of your own + family-seat, which, if I mistake not, is Warlock. You will instruct + me at your leisure as to the manner in which the patent should be + made out, touching the succession, etc. Perhaps (excuse the license + of an old friend) this event may induce you to forsake your long- + cherished celibacy. I need not add that this accession of rank will + be accompanied by professional elevation. You will see by the + papers that the death of --------leaves vacant the dignity of Chief + Baron; and I am at length empowered to offer you a station + proportioned to your character and talents. + + With great consideration, believe me, my dear Sir, Very truly yours, + + Private and Confidential. + + +Brandon's dark eye glanced quickly from the signature of the premier, +affixed to this communication, towards the mirror opposite him. He +strode to it, and examined his own countenance with a long and wistful +gaze. Never, we think, did youthful gallant about to repair to the +trysting-spot, in which fair looks make the greatest of earthly +advantages, gaze more anxiously on the impartial glass than now did the +ascetic and scornful judge; and never, we ween, did the eye of the said +gallant retire with a more satisfied and triumphant expression. + +"Yes, yes!" muttered the judge, "no sign of infirmity is yet written +here; the blood flows clear and warm enough; the cheek looks firm too, +and passing full, for one who was always of the lean kine. Aha! this +letter is a cordial, an elixir vitro. I feel as if a new lease were +granted to the reluctant tenant. Lord Warlock, the first Baron of +Warlock, Lord Chief Baron,--what next?" + +As he spoke, he strode unconsciously away, folding his arms with that +sort of joyous and complacent gesture which implies the idea of a man +hugging himself in a silent delight. Assuredly had the most skilful +physician then looked upon the ardent and all-lighted face, the firm +step, the elastic and muscular frame, the vigorous air of Brandon, as he +mentally continued his soliloquy, he would have predicted for him as fair +a grasp on longevity as the chances of mortal life will allow. He was +interrupted by the servant entering. + +"It is twenty-five minutes after nine, sir," said he, respectfully. + +"Sir,--sir!" repeated Brandon. "Ah, well! so late!" + +"Yes, sir, and the sheriff's carriage is almost at the door." + +"Humph! Minister,--Peer,--Warlock,--succession. My son, my son! would +to God that I could find thee!" + +Such were Brandon's last thoughts as he left the room. It was with great +difficulty, so dense was the crowd, that the judge drove up to the court. +As the carriage slowly passed, the spectators pressed to the windows of +the vehicle, and stood on tiptoe to catch a view of the celebrated +lawyer. Brandon's face, never long indicative of his feelings, had now +settled into its usual gravity; and the severe loftiness of his look +chilled, while it satisfied, the curiosity of the vulgar. It had been +ordered that no person should be admitted until the judge had taken his +seat on the bench; and this order occasioned so much delay, owing to the +accumulated pressure of the vast and miscellaneous group, that it was +more than half an hour before the court was able to obtain that decent +order suiting the solemnity of the occasion. At five minutes before ten +a universal and indescribable movement announced that the prisoner was +put to the bar. We read in one of the journals of that day, that "on +being put to the bar, the prisoner looked round with a long and anxious +gaze, which at length settled on the judge, and then dropped, while the +prisoner was observed to change countenance slightly. Lovett was dressed +in a plain dark suit; he seemed to be about six feet high; and though +thin and worn, probably from the effect of his wound and imprisonment, he +is remarkably well made, and exhibits the outward appearance of that +great personal strength which he is said to possess, and which is not +unfrequently the characteristic of daring criminals. His face is +handsome and prepossessing, his eyes and hair dark, and his complexion +pale, possibly from the effects of his confinement; there was a certain +sternness in his countenance during the greater part of the trial. His +behaviour was remarkably collected and composed. The prisoner listened +with the greatest attention to the indictment, which the reader will find +in another part of our paper, charging him with the highway robbery of +Lord Mauleverer, on the night of the of last. He occasionally inclined +his body forward, and turned his ear towards the court; and he was +observed, as the jury were sworn, to look steadily in the face of each. +He breathed thick and hard when the various aliases he had assumed-- +Howard, Cavendish, Jackson, etc.,--were read; but smiled with an +unaccountable expression when the list was completed, as if exulting at +the varieties of his ingenuity. At twenty-five minutes past ten Mr. +Dyebright, the counsel for the crown, stated the case to the jury." + +Mr. Dyebright was a lawyer of great eminence; he had been a Whig all his +life, but had latterly become remarkable for his insincerity, and +subservience to the wishes of the higher powers. His talents were +peculiar and effective. If he had little eloquence, he had much power; +and his legal knowledge, was sound and extensive. Many of his brethren +excelled him in display; but no one, like him, possessed the secret of +addressing a jury. Winningly familiar; seemingly candid to a degree that +scarcely did justice to his cause, as if he were in an agony lest he +should persuade you to lean a hair-breadth more on his side of the case +than justice would allow; apparently all made up of good, homely, +virtuous feeling, a disinterested regard for truth, a blunt yet tender +honesty, seasoned with a few amiable fireside prejudices, which always +come home to the hearts of your fathers of families and thorough-bred +Britons; versed in all the niceties of language, and the magic of names; +if he were defending crime, carefully calling it misfortune; if attacking +misfortune, constantly calling it crime,--Mr. Dyebright was exactly the +man born to pervert justice, to tickle jurors, to cozen truth with a +friendly smile, and to obtain a vast reputation as an excellent advocate. +He began with a long preliminary flourish on the importance of the case. +He said that he should with the most scrupulous delicacy avoid every +remark calculated to raise unnecessary prejudice against the prisoner. +He should not allude to his unhappy notoriety, his associations with the +lowest dregs. (Here up jumped the counsel for the prisoner, and Mr. +Dyebright was called to order.) "God knows," resumed the learned +gentleman, looking wistfully at the jury, "that my learned friend might +have spared himself this warning. God knows that I would rather fifty of +the wretched inmates of this county jail were to escape unharmed than +that a hair of the prisoner you behold at the bar should be unjustly +touched. The life of a human being is at stake; we should be guilty +ourselves of a crime which on our deathbeds we should tremble to recall, +were we to suffer any consideration, whether of interest or of prejudice, +or of undue fear for our own properties and lives, to bias us even to the +turning of a straw against the unfortunate prisoner. Gentlemen, if you +find me travelling a single inch from my case,--if you find me saying a +single word calculated to harm the prisoner in your eyes, and unsupported +by the evidence I shall call,--then I implore you not to depend upon the +vigilance of my learned friend, but to treasure these my errors in your +recollection, and to consider them as so many arguments in favour of the +prisoner. If, gentlemen, I could by any possibility imagine that your +verdict would be favourable to the prisoner, I can, unaffectedly and from +the bottom of my heart, declare to you that I should rejoice; a case +might be lost, but a fellow-creature would be saved! Callous as we of +the legal profession are believed, we have feelings like you; and I ask +any one of you, gentlemen of the jury, any one who has ever felt the +pleasures of social intercourse, the joy of charity, the heart's reward +of benevolence,--I ask any one of you, whether, if he were placed in the +arduous situation I now hold, all the persuasions of vanity would not +vanish at once from his mind, and whether his defeat as an advocate would +not be rendered dear to him by the common and fleshly sympathies of a +man. But, gentlemen" (Mr. Dyebright's voice at once deepened and +faltered), "there is a duty, a painful duty, we owe to our country; and +never, in the long course of my professional experience, do I remember an +instance in which it was more called forth than in the present. Mercy, +gentlemen, is dear, very dear to us all; but it is the deadliest injury +we can inflict on mankind when it is bought at the expense of justice." + +The learned gentleman then, after a few further prefatory observations, +proceeded to state how, on the night of ------- last, Lord Mauleverer was +stopped and robbed by three men masked, of a sum of money amounting to +above L350, a diamond snuff-box, rings, watch, and a case of most +valuable jewels,--how Lord Mauleverer, in endeavouring to defend himself, +had passed a bullet through the clothes of one of the robbers,--how it +would be proved that the garments of the prisoner, found in a cave in +Oxfordshire, and positively sworn to by a witness he should produce, +exhibited a rent similar to such a one as a bullet would produce,--how, +moreover, it would be positively sworn to by the same witness, that the +prisoner Lovett had come to the cavern with two accomplices not since +taken up, since their rescue by the prisoner, and boasted of the robbery +he had just committed; that in the clothes and sleeping apartment of the +robber the articles stolen from Lord Mauleverer were found; and that the +purse containing the notes for L300, the only thing the prisoner could +probably have obtained time to carry off with him, on the morning on +which the cave was entered by the policemen, was found on his person on +the day on which be had attempted the rescue of his comrades, and had +been apprehended in that attempt. He stated, moreover, that the dress +found in the cavern, and sworn to by one witness he should produce as +belonging to the prisoner, answered exactly to the description of the +clothes worn by the principal robber, and sworn to by Lord Mauleverer, +his servant, and the postilions. In like manner the colour of one of the +horses found in the cavern corresponded with that rode by the highwayman. +On these circumstantial proofs, aided by the immediate testimony of the +king's evidence (that witness whom he should produce) he rested a case +which could, he averred, leave no doubt on the minds of an impartial +jury. Such, briefly and plainly alleged, made the substance of the +details entered into by the learned counsel, who then proceeded to call +his witnesses. The evidence of Lord Mauleverer (who was staying at +Mauleverer Park, which was within a few miles of--) was short and clear +(it was noticed as a singular circumstance, that at the end of the +evidence the prisoner bowed respectfully to his lordship). The witness +of the postilions and of the valet was no less concise; nor could all the +ingenuity of Clifford's counsel shake any part of their evidence in his +cross-examination. The main witness depended on by the crown was now +summoned, and the solemn countenance of Peter MacGrawler rose on the eyes +of the jury. One look of cold and blighting contempt fell on him from +the eye of the prisoner, who did not again deign to regard him during the +whole of his examination. + +The witness of MacGrawler was delivered with a pomposity worthy of the +ex-editor of the "Asinaeum." Nevertheless, by the skill of Mr. +Dyebright, it was rendered sufficiently clear a story to leave an +impression on the jury damnatory to the interests of the prisoner. The +counsel on the opposite side was not slow in perceiving the ground +acquired by the adverse party; so, clearing his throat, he rose with a +sneering air to the cross-examination. + +"So, so," began Mr. Botheram, putting on a pair of remarkably large +spectacles, wherewith he truculently regarded the witness,--"so, so, Mr. +MacGrawler,--is that your name, eh, eh? Ah, it is, is it? A very +respectable name it is too, I warrant. Well, sir, look at me. Now, on +your oath, remember, were you ever the editor of a certain thing +published every Wednesday, and called the 'Athenaeum,' or the 'Asinaeum,' +or some such name?" + +Commencing with this insidious and self-damnatory question, the learned +counsel then proceeded, as artfully as he was able, through a series of +interrogatories calculated to injure the character, the respectable +character, of MacGrawler, and weaken his testimony in the eyes of the +jury. He succeeded in exciting in the audience that feeling of merriment +wherewith the vulgar are always so delighted to intersperse the dull +seriousness of hanging a human being. But though the jury themselves +grinned, they were not convinced. The Scotsman retired from the witness- +box "scotched," perhaps, in reputation, but not "killed" as to testimony. +It was just before this witness concluded, that Lord Mauleverer caused to +be handed to the judge a small slip of paper, containing merely these +words in pencil:-- + + DEAR BRANDON,--A dinner waits you at Mauleverer Park, only three + miles hence. Lord--and the Bishop of--meet you. Plenty of news + from London, and a letter about you, which I will show to no one + till we meet. Make haste and hang this poor fellow, that I may see + you the sooner; and it is bad for both of us to wait long for a + regular meal like dinner. I can't stay longer, it is so hot, and my + nerves were always susceptible. + + Yours, MAULEVERER. + + If you will come, give me a nod. You know my hour,--it is always + the same. + + +The judge, glancing over the note, inclined his head gravely to the earl, +who withdrew; and in one minute afterwards, a heavy and breathless +silence fell over the whole court. The prisoner was called upon for his +defence: it was singular what a different sensation to that existing in +their breasts the moment before crept thrillingly through the audience. +Hushed was every whisper, vanished was every smile that the late cross- +examination had excited; a sudden and chilling sense of the dread +importance of the tribunal made itself abruptly felt in the minds of +every one present. + +Perhaps, as in the gloomy satire of Hogarth (the moral Mephistopheles of +painters), the close neighbourhood of pain to mirth made the former come +with the homelier shock to the heart; be that as it may, a freezing +anxiety, numbing the pulse and stirring through the air, made every man +in that various crowd feel a sympathy of awe with his neighbour, +excepting only the hardened judge and the hackneyed lawyers, and one +spectator,--an idiot who had thrust himself in with the general press, +and stood, within a few paces of the prisoner, grinning unconsciously, +and every now and then winking with a glassy eye at some one at a +distance, whose vigilance he had probably eluded. + +The face and aspect, even the attitude, of the prisoner were well fitted +to heighten the effect which would naturally have been created by any man +under the same fearful doom. He stood at the very front of the bar, and +his tall and noble figure was drawn up to its full height; a glow of +excitement spread itself gradually over features at all times striking, +and lighted an eye naturally eloquent, and to which various emotions at +that time gave a more than commonly deep and impressive expression. He +began thus:-- + +"My lord, I have little to say, and I may at once relieve the anxiety of +my counsel, who now looks wistfully upon me, and add that that little +will scarcely embrace the object of defence. Why should I defend myself? +Why should I endeavour to protract a life that a few days, more or less, +will terminate, according to the ordinary calculations of chance? Such +as it is and has been, my life is vowed to the law, and the law will have +the offering. Could I escape from this indictment, I know that seven +others await me, and that by one or the other of these my conviction and +my sentence must come. Life may be sweet to all of us, my lord; and were +it possible that mine could be spared yet a while, that continued life +might make a better atonement for past actions than a death which, abrupt +and premature, calls for repentance while it forbids redress. + +"But when the dark side of things is our only choice, it is useless to +regard the bright; idle to fix our eyes upon life, when death is at hand; +useless to speak of contrition, when we are denied its proof. It is the +usual policy of prisoners in my situation to address the feelings and +flatter the prejudices of the jury; to descant on the excellence of our +laws, while they endeavour to disarm them; to praise justice, yet demand +mercy; to talk of expecting acquittal, yet boast of submitting without a +murmur to condemnation. For me, to whom all earthly interests are dead, +this policy is idle and superfluous. I hesitate not to tell you, my lord +judge,--to proclaim to you, gentlemen of the jury,--that the laws which I +have broken through my life I despise in death! Your laws are but of two +classes; the one makes criminals, the other punishes them. I have +suffered by the one; I am about to perish by the other. + +"My lord, it was the turn of a straw which made me what I am. Seven +years ago I was sent to the house of correction for an offence which I +did not commit. I went thither, a boy who had never infringed a single +law; I came forth, in a few weeks, a man who was prepared to break all +laws! Whence was this change? Was it my fault, or that of my +condemners? You had first wronged me by a punishment which I did not +deserve; you wronged me yet more deeply when (even had I been guilty of +the first offence) I was sentenced to herd with hardened offenders, and +graduates in vice and vice's methods of support. The laws themselves +caused me to break the laws: first, by implanting within me the goading +sense of injustice; secondly, by submitting me to the corruption of +example. Thus, I repeat,--and I trust my words will sink solemnly into +the hearts of all present,--your legislation made me what I am; and it +now destroys me, as it has destroyed thousands, for being what it made +me! But for this, the first aggression on me, I might have been what the +world terms honest,--I might have advanced to old age and a peaceful +grave through the harmless cheateries of trade or the honoured falsehoods +of a profession. Nay, I might have supported the laws which I have now +braved; like the counsel opposed to me, I might have grown sleek on the +vices of others, and advanced to honour by my ingenuity in hanging my +fellow-creatures! The canting and prejudging part of the Press has +affected to set before you the merits of 'honest ability,' or 'laborious +trade,' in opposition to my offences. What, I beseech you, are the props +of your 'honest' exertion,--the profits of 'trade'? Are there no bribes +to menials? Is there no adulteration of goods? Are the rich never duped +in the price they pay? Are the poor never wronged in the quality they +receive? Is there honesty in the bread you eat, in a single necessity +which clothes or feeds or warms you? Let those whom the law protects +consider it a protector: when did it ever protect me? When did it ever +protect the poor man? The government of a State, the institutions of +law, profess to provide for all those who 'obey.' Mark! a man hungers,-- +do you feed him? He is naked,--do you clothe him? If not, you break +your covenant, you drive him back to the first law of nature, and you +hang him, not because he is guilty, but because you have left him naked +and starving! [A murmur among the mob below, with great difficulty +silenced.] One thing only I will add, and that not to move your mercy,-- +no, nor to invest my fate with an idle and momentary interest,--but +because there are some persons in this world who have not known me as +the criminal who stands before you, and whom the tidings of my fate may +hereafter reach; and I would not have those persons view me in blacker +colours than I deserve. Among all the rumours, gentlemen, that have +reached you, through all the tales and fables kindled from my unhappy +notoriety and my approaching doom, I put it to you, if you have heard +that I have committed one sanguinary action or one ruinous and deliberate +fraud. You have heard that I have lived by the plunder of the rich,--I +do not deny the charge. From the grinding of the poor, the habitual +overreaching, or the systematic pilfering of my neighbours, my conscience +is as free as it is from the charge of cruelty and bloodshed. Those +errors I leave to honest mediocrity or virtuous exertion! You may +perhaps find, too, that my life has not passed through a career of +outrage without scattering some few benefits on the road. In destroying +me, it is true that you will have the consolation to think that among the +benefits you derive from my sentence will be the salutary encouragement +you give to other offenders to offend to the last, degree, and to divest +outrage of no single aggravation! But if this does not seem to you any +very powerful inducement, you may pause before you cut off from all +amendment a man who seems neither wholly hardened nor utterly beyond +atonement. My lord, my counsel would have wished to summon witnesses,-- +some to bear testimony to redeeming points in my own character, others to +invalidate the oath of the witness against me,--a man whom I saved from +destruction in order that he might destroy me. I do not think either +necessary. The public Press has already said of me what little good does +not shock the truth; and had I not possessed something of those qualities +which society does not disesteem, you would not have beheld me here at +this hour! If I had saved myself as well as my companions, I should have +left this country, perhaps forever, and commenced a very different career +abroad. I committed offences; I eluded you; I committed what, in my +case, was an act of duty: I am seized, and I perish. But the weakness of +my body destroys me, not the strength of your malice. Had I" (and as the +prisoner spake, the haughty and rapid motion, the enlarging of the form, +produced by the passion of the moment, made impressively conspicuous to +all the remarkable power of his frame),--"had I but my wonted health, my +wonted command over these limbs and these veins, I would have asked no +friend, no ally, to favour my escape. I tell you, engines and guardians +of the law, that I would have mocked your chains and defied your walls, +as ye know that I have mocked and defied them before. But my blood +creeps now only in drops through its courses; and the heart that I had of +old stirs feebly and heavily within me." The prisoner paused a moment, +and resumed in an altered tone: "Leaving, then, my own character to the +ordeal of report, I cannot perhaps do better than leave to the same +criterion that of the witness against me. I will candidly own that under +other circumstances it might have been otherwise. I will candidly avow +that I might have then used such means as your law awards me to procure +an acquittal and to prolong my existence,--though in a new scene; as it +is, what matters the cause in which I receive my sentence? Nay, it is +even better to suffer by the first than to linger to the last. It is +some consolation not again to stand where I now stand; to go through the +humbling solemnities which I have this day endured; to see the smile of +some, and retort the frown of others; to wrestle with the anxiety of the +heart, and to depend on the caprice of the excited nerves. It is +something to feel one part of the drama of disgrace is over, and that I +may wait unmolested in my den until, for one time only, I am again the +butt of the unthinking and the monster of the crowd. My lord, I have now +done! To you, whom the law deems the prisoner's counsel,--to you, +gentlemen of the jury, to whom it has delegated his fate,--I leave the +chances of my life." + +The prisoner ceased; but the same heavy silence which, save when broken +by one solitary murmur, had lain over the court during his speech, still +continued even for several moments after that deep and firm voice had +died on the ear. So different had been the defence of the prisoner from +that which had been expected; so assuredly did the more hackneyed part of +the audience, even as he had proceeded, imagine that by some artful turn +he would at length wind into the usual courses of defence,--that when his +unfaltering and almost stern accents paused, men were not prepared to +feel that his speech was finished, and the pause involuntarily jarred on +them as untimeous and abrupt. At length, when each of the audience +slowly awoke to the conviction that the prisoner had indeed concluded his +harangue, a movement, eloquent of feelings released from a suspense, +which had been perhaps the more earnest and the more blended with awe, +from the boldness and novelty of the words on which it hung, circled +round the court. The jurors looked confusedly at each other, but not one +of them spoke, even by a whisper; their feelings, which had been aroused +by the speech of the prisoner, had not from its shortness, its +singularity, and the haughty impolicy of its tone, been so far guided by +its course as to settle into any state of mind clearly favourable to him, +or the reverse; so that each man waited for his neighbour to speak first, +in order that he might find, as it were, in another, a kind of clew to +the indistinct and excited feelings which wanted utterance in himself. + +The judge, who had been from the first attracted by the air and aspect of +the prisoner, had perhaps, notwithstanding the hardness of his mind, more +approvingly than any one present listened to the defence; for in the +scorn of the hollow institutions and the mock honesty of social life, so +defyingly manifested by the prisoner, Brandon recognized elements of mind +remarkably congenial to his own; and this sympathy was heightened by the +hardihood of physical nerve and moral intrepidity displayed by the +prisoner,--qualities which among men of a similar mould often form the +strongest motive of esteem, and sometimes (as we read of in the Imperial +Corsican and his chiefs) the only point of attraction! Brandon was, +however, soon recalled to his cold self by a murmur of vague applause +circling throughout the common crowd, among whom the general impulse +always manifests itself first, and to whom the opinions of the prisoner, +though but imperfectly understood, came more immediately home than they +did to the better and richer classes of the audience. Ever alive to the +decorums of form, Brandon instantly ordered silence in the court; and +when it was again restored, and it was fully understood that the +prisoner's defence had closed, the judge proceeded to sum up. + +It is worthy of remark that many of the qualities of mind which seem most +unamiable in private life often conduce with a singular felicity to the +ends of public; and thus the stony firmness characteristic of Brandon was +a main cause which made him admirable as a judge,--for men in office err +no less from their feelings than their interests. + +Glancing over his notes, the judge inclined himself to the jury, and +began with that silver ringing voice which particularly distinguished +Brandon's eloquence, and carried with it in high stations so majestic and +candid a tone of persuasion. He pointed out, with a clear brevity, the +various points of the evidence; he dwelt for a moment on the attempt to +cast disrepute upon the testimony of MacGrawler, but called a proper +attention to the fact that the attempt had been unsupported by witnesses +or proof. As he proceeded, the impression made by the prisoner on the +minds of the jury slowly melted away; and perhaps, so much do men soften +when they behold clearly the face of a fellow-man dependent on them for +life, it acted disadvantageously on the interests of Clifford, that +during the summing up he leaned back in the dock, and prevented his +countenance from being seen. When the evidence had been gone through, +the judge concluded thus:-- + +"The prisoner, who in his defence (on the principles and opinions of +which I now forbear to comment) certainly exhibited the signs of a +superior education, and a high though perverted ability, has alluded to +the reports circulated by the public Press, and leaned some little stress +on the various anecdotes tending to his advantage, which he supposes have +reached your ears. I am by no means willing that the prisoner should be +deprived of whatever benefit may be derivable from such a source; but it +is not in this place, nor at this moment, that it can avail him. All you +have to consider is the evidence before you. All on which you have to +decide is, whether the prisoner be or be not guilty of the robbery of +which he is charged. You must not waste a thought on what redeems or +heightens a supposed crime,--you must only decide on the crime itself. +Put away from your minds, I beseech you, all that interferes with the +main case. Put away also from your motives of decision all forethought +of other possible indictments to which the prisoner has alluded, but with +which you are necessarily unacquainted. If you doubt the evidence, +whether of one witness or of all, the prisoner must receive from you the +benefit of that doubt. If not, you are sworn to a solemn oath, which +ordains you to forego all minor considerations,--which compels you to +watch narrowly that you be not influenced by the infirmities natural to +us all, but criminal in you, to lean towards the side of a mercy that +would be rendered by your oath a perjury to God, and by your duty as +impartial citizens a treason to your country. I dismiss you to the grave +consideration of the important case you have heard; and I trust that He +to whom all hearts are open and all secrets are known, will grant you the +temper and the judgment to form a right decision!" + +There was in the majestic aspect and thrilling voice of Brandon something +which made the commonest form of words solemn and impressive; and the +hypocrite, aware of this felicity of manner, generally, as now, added +weight to his concluding words by a religious allusion or a Scriptural +phraseology. He ceased; and the jury, recovering the effect of his +adjuration, consulted for a moment among themselves. The foreman then, +addressing the court on behalf of his fellow-jurors, requested leave to +retire for deliberation. An attendant bailiff being sworn in, we read in +the journals of the day, which noted the divisions of time with that +customary scrupulosity rendered terrible by the reflection how soon all +time and seasons may perish for the hero of the scene, that "it was at +twenty-five minutes to two that the jury withdrew." + +Perhaps in the whole course of a criminal trial there is no period more +awful than that occupied by the deliberation of the jury. In the present +case the prisoner, as if acutely sensible of his situation, remained in +the rear of the dock, and buried his face in his hands. They who stood +near him observed, however, that his breast did not seem to swell with +the convulsive emotion customary to persons in his state, and that not +even a sigh or agitated movement escaped him. The jury had been absent +about twenty minutes, when a confused noise was heard in the court. The +face of the judge turned in commanding severity towards the quarter +whence it proceeded. He perceived a man of a coarse garb and mean +appearance endeavouring rudely and violently to push his way through the +crowd towards the bench, and at the same instant he saw one of the +officers of the court approaching the disturber of its tranquillity with +no friendly intent. The man, aware of the purpose of the constable, +exclaimed with great vehemence, "I vill give this to my lord the judge, +blow me if I von't!" and as he spoke he raised high above his head a +soiled scrap of paper folded awkwardly in the shape of a letter. The +instant Brandon's eye caught the rugged features of the intrusive +stranger, he motioned with rather less than his usual slowness of gesture +to one of his official satellites. "Bring me that paper instantly!" he +whispered. + +The officer bowed and obeyed. The man, who seemed a little intoxicated, +gave it with a look of ludicrous triumph and self-importance. + +"Stand avay, man!" he added to the constable, who now laid hand on his +collar. "You'll see vot the judge says to that 'ere bit of paper; and so +vill the prisoner, poor fellow!" + +This scene, so unworthy the dignity of the court, attracted the notice +and (immediately around the intruder) the merriment of the crowd; and +many an eye was directed towards Brandon, as with calm gravity he opened +the note and glanced over the contents. In a large school-boy hand-it +was the hand of Long Ned--were written these few words: + + MY LORD JUDGE,--I make bold to beg you will do all you can for the + prisoner at the barre, as he is no other than the "Paul" I spoke to + your Worship about. You know what I mean. + + DUMMIE DUNNAKER. + + +As he read this note, the judge's head was observed to droop suddenly, as +if by a sickness or a spasm; but he recovered himself instantly, and +whispering the officer who brought him the note, said, "See that that +madman be immediately removed from the court, and lock him up alone. He +is so deranged as to be dangerous!" + +The officer lost not a moment in seeing the order executed. Three stout +constables dragged the astounded Dummie from the court in an instant, yet +the more ruthlessly for his ejaculating,-- + +"Eh, sirs, what's this? I tells you I have saved the judge's hown flesh +and blood! Vy, now, gently, there; you'll smart for this, my fine +fellow! Never you mind, Paul, my 'arty; I 'se done you a pure good--" + +"Silence!" proclaimed the voice of the judge; and that voice came forth +with so commanding a tone of power that it awed Dummie, despite his +intoxication. In a moment more, and ere he had time to recover, he was +without the court. During this strange hubbub, which nevertheless +scarcely lasted above two or three minutes, the prisoner had not once +lifted his head, nor appeared aroused in any manner from his revery; and +scarcely had the intruder been withdrawn before the jury returned. + +The verdict was, as all had foreseen, "Guilty;" but it was coupled with a +strong recommendation to mercy. + +The prisoner was then asked, in the usual form, whether he had to say +anything why sentence of death should not be passed against him. + +As these dread words struck upon his ear, slowly the prisoner rose. He +directed first towards the jury a brief and keen glance, and his eyes +then rested full, and with a stern significance, on the face of his +judge. + +"My lord," he began, "I have but one reason to advance against the +sentence of the law. If you have interest to prevent or mitigate it, +that reason will, I think, suffice to enlist you on my behalf. I said +that the first cause of those offences against the law which brings me to +this bar was the committing me to prison on a charge of which I was +wholly innocent! My lord judge, you were the man who accused me of that +charge, and subjected me to that imprisonment! Look at me well, my lord, +and you may trace in the countenance of the hardened felon you are about +to adjudge to death the features of a boy whom, some seven years ago, you +accused before a London magistrate of the theft of your watch. On the +oath of a man who has one step on the threshold of death, the accusation +was unjust. And, fit minister of the laws you represent! you, who will +now pass my doom,--You were the cause of my crimes! My lord, I have +done. I am ready to add another to the long and dark list of victims who +are first polluted and then sacrificed by the blindness and the injustice +of human codes!" + +While Clifford spoke, every eye turned from him to the judge, and every +one was appalled by the ghastly and fearful change which had fallen over +Brandon's face. Men said, afterwards, that they saw written there, in +terrible distinctness, the characters of death; and there certainly +seemed something awful and preternatural in the bloodless and haggard +calmness of his proud features. Yet his eye did not quail, nor the +muscles of his lip quiver; and with even more than his wonted loftiness, +he met the regard of the prisoner. But, as alone conspicuous throughout +the motionless and breathless crowd the judge and criminal gazed upon +each other, and as the eyes of the spectators wandered on each, a +thrilling and electric impression of a powerful likeness between the +doomed and the doomer, for the first time in the trial, struck upon the +audience, and increased, though they scarcely knew why, the sensation of +pain and dread which the prisoner's last words excited. Perhaps it might +have chiefly arisen from a common expression of fierce emotion conquered +by an iron and stern character of mind; or perhaps, now that the ashy +paleness of exhaustion had succeeded the excited flush on the prisoner's +face, the similarity of complexion thus obtained made the likeness more +obvious than before; or perhaps the spectators had not hitherto fixed so +searching, or, if we may so speak, so alternating a gaze upon the two. +However that be, the resemblance between the men, placed as they were in +such widely different circumstances,--that resemblance which, as we have +hinted, had at certain moments occurred startlingly to Lucy,--was plain +and unavoidably striking: the same the dark hue of their complexions; the +same the haughty and Roman outline of their faces; the same the height of +the forehead; the same even a displeasing and sarcastic rigidity of +mouth, which made the most conspicuous feature in Brandon, and which was +the only point that deteriorated from the singular beauty of Clifford. +But, above all, the same inflexible, defying, stubborn spirit, though in +Brandon it assumed the stately cast of majesty, and in Clifford it seemed +the desperate sternness of the bravo, stamped itself in both. Though +Clifford ceased, he did not resume his seat, but stood in the same +attitude as that in which he had reversed the order of things, and merged +the petitioner in the accuser; and Brandon himself, without speaking or +moving, continued still to survey him; so, with erect fronts and marble +countenances, in which what was defying and resolute did not altogether +quell the mortal leaven of pain and dread, they looked as might have +looked the two men in the Eastern story who had the power of gazing each +other unto death. + +What at that moment was raging in Brandon's heart, it is in vain to +guess. He doubted not for a moment that he beheld before him his long +lost, his anxiously demanded son! Every fibre, every corner of his +complex and gloomy soul, that certainly reached, and blasted with a +hideous and irresistible glare. The earliest, perhaps the strongest, +though often the least acknowledged principle of his mind was the desire +to rebuild the fallen honours of his house; its last scion he now beheld +before him, covered with the darkest ignominies of the law! He had +coveted worldly honours; he beheld their legitimate successor in a +convicted felon! He had garnered the few affections he had spared from +the objects of pride and ambition, in his son. That son he was about to +adjudge to the gibbet and the hangman! Of late he had increased the +hopes of regaining his lost treasure, even to an exultant certainty. Lo! +the hopes were accomplished! How? With these thoughts warring, in what +manner we dare not even by an epithet express, within him, we may cast +one hasty glance on the horror of aggravation they endured, when he heard +the prisoner accuse Him as the cause of his present doom, and felt +himself at once the murderer and the judge of his son! + +Minutes had elapsed since the voice of the prisoner ceased; and Brandon +now drew forth the black cap. As he placed it slowly over his brows, the +increasing and corpse-like whiteness of his face became more glaringly +visible, by the contrast which this dread head-gear presented. Twice as +he essayed to speak his voice failed him, and an indistinct murmur came +forth from his hueless lips, and died away like a fitful and feeble wind. +But with the third effort the resolution and long self-tyranny of the man +conquered, and his voice went clear and unfaltering through the crowd, +although the severe sweetness of its wonted tones was gone, and it +sounded strange and hollow on the ears that drank it. + +"Prisoner at the bar! it has become my duty to announce to you the close +of your mortal career. You have been accused of a daring robbery, and +after an impartial trial a jury of your countrymen and the laws of your +country have decided against you. The recommendation to mercy" (here, +only throughout his speech, Brandon gasped convulsively for breath) "so +humanely added by the jury, shall be forwarded to the supreme power; but +I cannot flatter you with much hope of its success." (The lawyers looked +with some surprise at each other; they had expected a far more +unqualified mandate, to abjure all hope from the jury's recommendation.) +"Prisoner, for the opinions you have expressed, you are now only +answerable to your God; I forbear to arraign them. For the charge you +have made against me, whether true or false, and for the anguish it has +given me, may you find pardon at another tribunal! It remains for me +only--under a reserve too slight, as I have said, to afford you a fair +promise of hope--only to--to" (all eyes were on Brandon; he felt it, +exerted himself for a last effort, and proceeded)--"to pronounce on you +the sharp sentence of the law! It is, that you be taken back to the +prison whence you came, and thence (when the supreme authority shall +appoint) to the place of execution, to be there hanged by the neck till +you are dead; and the Lord God Almighty have mercy on your soul!" + +With this address concluded that eventful trial; and while the crowd, in +rushing and noisy tumult, bore towards the door, Brandon, concealing to +the last with a Spartan bravery the anguish which was gnawing at his +entrails, retired from the awful pageant. For the next half-hour he was +locked up with the strange intruder on the proceedings of the court. At +the end of that time the stranger was dismissed; and in about double the +same period Brandon's servant re-admitted him, accompanied by another +man, with a slouched hat and in a carman's frock. The reader need not be +told that the new comer was the friendly Ned, whose testimony was indeed +a valuable corroborative to Dummie's, and whose regard for Clifford, +aided by an appetite for rewards, had induced him to venture to the town +of -----, although he tarried concealed in a safe suburb, until reassured +by a written promise from Brandon of safety to his person, and a sum for +which we might almost doubt whether he would not have consented (so long +had he been mistaking means for an end) to be hanged himself. Brandon +listened to the details of these confederates; and when they had +finished, he addressed them thus: "I have heard you, and am convinced you +are liars and impostors. There is the money I promised you" (throwing +down a pocket-book),--"take it; and, hark you, if ever you dare whisper, +ay, but a breath of the atrocious lie you have now forged, be sure I will +have you dragged from the recess or nook of infamy in which you may hide +your heads, and hanged for the crimes you have already committed. I am +not the man to break my word. Begone! quit this town instantly! If in +two hours hence you are found here, your blood be on your own heads! +Begone, I say!" + +These words, aided by a countenance well adapted at all times to +expressions of a menacing and ruthless character, at once astounded and +appalled the accomplices. They left the room in hasty confusion; and +Brandon, now alone, walked with uneven steps (the alarming weakness and +vacillation of which he did not himself feel) to and fro the apartment. +The hell of his breast was stamped upon his features, but he uttered only +one thought aloud,-- + +"I may,--yes, yes,--I may yet conceal this disgrace to my name!" + +His servant tapped at the door to say that the carriage was ready, and +that Lord Mauleverer had bid him remind his master that they dined +punctually at the hour appointed. + +"I am coming!" said Brandon, with a slow and startling emphasis on each +word. But he first sat down and wrote a letter to the official quarter, +strongly aiding the recommendation of the Jury; and we may conceive how +pride clung to him to the last, when he urged the substitution for death +of transportation for life! As soon as he had sealed this letter, he +summoned an express, gave his orders coolly and distinctly, and attempted +with his usual stateliness of step to walk through a long passage which +led to the outer door. He found himself fail. "Come hither," he said to +his servant, "give me your arm!" + +All Brandon's domestics, save the one left with Lucy, stood in awe of +him; and it was with some hesitation that his servant ventured to inquire +if his master felt well. + +Brandon looked at him, but made no reply. He entered his carriage with +slight difficulty, and telling the coachman to drive as fast as possible, +pulled down (a general custom with him) all the blinds of the windows. + +Meanwhile Lord Mauleverer, with six friends, was impatiently awaiting the +arrival of the seventh guest. + +"Our August friend tarries!" quoth the Bishop of -------, with his hands +folded across his capacious stomach. "I fear the turbot your lordship +spoke of may not be the better for the length of the trial." + +"Poor fellow!" said the Earl of --------, slightly yawning. + +"Whom do you mean?" asked Lord Mauleverer, with a smile,--"the bishop, +the judge, or the turbot?" + +"Not one of the three, Mauleverer,--I spoke of the prisoner." + +"Ah, the fine dog! I forgot him," said Mauleverer. "Really, now you +mention him, I must confess that he inspires me with great compassion; +but, indeed, it is very wrong in him to keep the judge so long!" + +"Those hardened wretches have such a great deal to say," mumbled the +bishop, sourly. + +"True!" said Mauleverer; "a religious rogue would have had some bowels +for the state of the church esurient." + +"Is it really true, Mauleverer," asked the Earl of ------, "that Brandon +is to succeed?" + +"So I hear," said Mauleverer. "Heavens, how hungry I am!" + +A groan from the bishop echoed the complaint. + +"I suppose it would be against all decorum to sit down to dinner without +him?" said Lord --------. + +"Why, really, I fear so," returned Mauleverer. "But our health--our +health is at stake; we will only wait five minutes more. By Jove, +there's the carriage! I beg your pardon for my heathen oath, my lord +bishop." + +"I forgive you!" said the good bishop, smiling. + +The party thus engaged in colloquy were stationed at a window opening on +the gravel road, along which the judge's carriage was now seen rapidly +approaching; this window was but a few yards from the porch, and had been +partially opened for the better reconnoitring the approach of the +expected guest. + +"He keeps the blinds down still! Absence of mind, or shame at +unpunctuality,--which is the cause, Mauleverer?" said one of the party. + +"Not shame, I fear!" answered Mauleverer. "Even the indecent immorality +of delaying our dinner could scarcely bring a blush to the parchment skin +of my learned friend." + +Here the carriage stopped at the porch; the carriage door was opened. + +"There seems a strange delay," said Mauleverer, peevishly. "Why does not +he get out?" + +As he spoke, a murmur among the attendants, who appeared somewhat +strangely to crowd around the carriage, smote the ears of the party. + +"What do they say,--what?" said Mauleverer, putting his hand to his ear. + +The bishop answered hastily; and Mauleverer, as he heard the reply, +forgot for once his susceptibility to cold, and hurried out to the +carriage door. His guests followed. + +They found Brandon leaning against the farther corner of the carriage,--a +corpse. One hand held the check-string, as if he had endeavoured +involuntarily but ineffectually to pull it. The right side of his face +was partially distorted, as by convulsion or paralysis; but not +sufficiently so to destroy that remarkable expression of loftiness and +severity which had characterized the features in life. At the same time +the distortion which had drawn up on one side the muscles of the mouth +had deepened into a startling broadness the half sneer of derision that +usually lurked around the lower part of his face. Thus unwitnessed and +abrupt had been the disunion of the clay and spirit of a man who, if he +passed through life a bold, scheming, stubborn, unwavering hypocrite, was +not without something high even amidst his baseness, his selfishness, and +his vices; who seemed less to have loved sin than by some strange +perversion of reason to have disdained virtue, and who, by a solemn and +awful suddenness of fate (for who shall venture to indicate the judgment +of the arch and unseen Providence, even when it appears to mortal eye the +least obscured?), won the dreams, the objects, the triumphs of hope, to +be blasted by them at the moment of acquisition! + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +AND LAST. + + Subtle, Surly,--Mammon, Dol, + Hot Ananias, Dapper, Dragger,--all + With whom I traded. + The Alchemist. + +As when some rural citizen-retired for a fleeting holiday, far from the +cares of the world _strepitumque Romae_,--[" And the roar of Rome."]-- +to the sweet shades of Pentonville or the remoter plains of Clapham-- +conducts some delighted visitor over the intricacies of that Daedalian +masterpiece which he is pleased to call his labyrinth or maze,--now +smiling furtively at his guest's perplexity, now listening with calm +superiority to his futile and erring conjectures, now maliciously +accompanying him through a flattering path in which the baffled +adventurer is suddenly checked by the blank features of a +thoroughfareless hedge, now trembling as he sees the guest stumbling +unawares into the right track, and now relieved as he beholds him after +a pause of deliberation wind into the wrong,--even so, O pleasant reader! +doth the sage novelist conduct thee through the labyrinth of his tale, +amusing himself with thy self-deceits, and spinning forth, in prolix +pleasure, the quiet yarn of his entertainment from the involutions which +occasion thy fretting eagerness and perplexity. But as when, thanks to +the host's good-nature or fatigue, the mystery is once unravelled, and +the guest permitted to penetrate even into the concealed end of the leafy +maze, the honest cit, satisfied with the pleasant pains he has already +bestowed upon his visitor, puts him not to the labour of retracing the +steps he hath so erratically trod, but leads him in three strides, and +through a simpler path, at once to the mouth of the maze, and dismisseth +him elsewhere for entertainment; even so will the prudent narrator, when +the intricacies of his plot are once unfolded, occasion no stale and +profitless delays to his wearied reader, but conduct him, with as much +brevity as convenient, without the labyrinth which has ceased to retain +the interest of a secret. + +We shall therefore, in pursuance of the tit's policy, relate as rapidly +as possible that part of our narrative which yet remains untold. On +Brandon's person was found the paper which had contained so fatal an +intelligence of his son; and when brought to Lord Mauleverer, the words +struck that person (who knew Brandon had been in search of his lost son, +whom we have seen that he had been taught however to suppose +illegitimate, though it is probable that many doubts whether he had not +been deceived must have occurred to his natural sagacity) as sufficiently +important to be worth an inquiry after the writer. Dummie was easily +found, for he had not yet turned his back on the town when the news of +the judge's sudden death was brought back to it; and taking advantage of +that circumstance, the friendly Dunnaker remained altogether in the town +(albeit his long companion deserted it as hastily as might be), and +whiled the time by presenting himself at the jail, and after some +ineffectual efforts winning his way to Clifford. Easily tracked by the +name he had given to the governor of the jail, he was conducted the same +day to Lord Mauleverer; and his narrative, confused as it was, and +proceeding even from so suspicious a quarter, thrilled those digestive +organs, which in Mauleverer stood proxy for a heart, with feelings as +much resembling awe and horror as our good peer was capable of +experiencing. Already shocked from his worldly philosophy of +indifference by the death of Brandon, he was more susceptible to a +remorseful and salutary impression at this moment than he might have been +at any other; and he could not, without some twinges of conscience, think +of the ruin he had brought on the mother of the being he had but just +prosecuted to the death. He dismissed Dummie, and after a little +consideration he ordered his carriage, and leaving the funeral +preparations for his friend to the care of his man of business, he set +off for London, and the house, in particular, of the Secretary of the +Home Department. We would not willingly wrong the noble penitent; +but we venture a suspicion that he might not have preferred a personal +application for mercy to the prisoner to a written one, had he not felt +certain unpleasant qualms in remaining in a country-house overshadowed by +ceremonies so gloomy as those of death. The letter of Brandon and the +application of Mauleverer obtained for Clifford a relaxation of his +sentence. He was left for perpetual transportation. A ship was already +about to sail; and Mauleverer, content with having saved his life, was by +no means anxious that his departure from the country should be saddled +with any superfluous delay. + +Meanwhile the first rumour that reached London respecting Brandon's fate +was that he had been found in a fit, and was lying dangerously ill at +Mauleverer's; and before the second and more fatally sure report arrived, +Lucy had gathered from the visible dismay of Barlow, whom she anxiously +cross-questioned, and who, really loving his master, was easily affected +into communication, the first and more flattering intelligence. To +Barlow's secret delight, she insisted instantly on setting off to the +supposed sick man; and accompanied by Barlow and her woman, the +affectionate girl hastened to Mauleverer's house on the evening after the +day the earl left it. Lucy had not proceeded far before Barlow learned, +from the gossip of the road, the real state of the case. Indeed, it was +at the first stage that with a mournful countenance he approached the +door of the carriage, and announcing the inutility of proceeding farther, +begged of Lucy to turn back. So soon as Miss Brandon had overcome the +first shock which this intelligence gave her, she said with calmness,-- + +"Well, Barlow, if it be so, we have still a duty to perform. Tell the +postboys to drive on!" + +"Indeed, madam, I cannot see what use it can be fretting yourself,--and +you so poorly. If you will let me go, I will see every attention paid to +the remains of my poor master." + +"When my father lay dead," said Lucy, with a grave and sad sternness in +her manner, "he who is now no more sent no proxy to perform the last +duties of a brother; neither will I send one to discharge those of a +niece, and prove that I have forgotten the gratitude of a daughter. +Drive on!" + +We have said that there were times when a spirit was stricken from Lucy +little common to her in general; and now the command of her uncle sat +upon her brow. On sped the horses, and for several minutes Lucy remained +silent. Her woman did not dare to speak. At length Miss Brandon turned, +and, covering her face with her hands, burst into tears so violent that +they alarmed her attendant even more than her previous stillness. "My +poor, poor uncle!" she sobbed; and those were all her words. + +We must pass over Lucy's arrival at Lord Mauleverer's house; we must +pass over the weary days which elapsed till that unconscious body was +consigned to dust with which, could it have retained yet one spark of its +haughty spirit, it would have refused to blend its atoms. She had loved +the deceased incomparably beyond his merits, and resisting all +remonstrance to the contrary and all the forms of ordinary custom, she +witnessed herself the dreary ceremony which bequeathed the human remains +of William Brandon to repose and to the worm. On that same day Clifford +received the mitigation of his sentence, and on that day another trial +awaited Lucy. We think briefly to convey to the reader what that scene +was; we need only observe that Dummie Dunnaker, decoyed by his great love +for little Paul, whom he delightedly said he found not the least "stuck +up by his great fame and helewation," still lingered in the town, and was +not only aware of the relationship of the cousins, but had gleaned from +Long Ned, as they journeyed down to ------, the affection entertained by +Clifford for Lucy. Of the manner in which the communication reached +Lucy, we need not speak; suffice it to say, that on the day in which she +had performed the last duty to her uncle, she learned for the first time +her lover's situation. + +On that evening, in the convict's cell, the cousins met. + +Their conference was low, for the jailer stood within hearing; and it was +broken by Lucy's convulsive sobs. But the voice of one whose iron nerves +were not unworthy of the offspring of William Brandon, was clear and +audible to her ear, even though uttered in a whisper that scarcely +stirred his lips. It seemed as if Lucy, smitten to the inmost heart by +the generosity with which her lover had torn himself from her at the time +that her wealth might have raised him in any other country far above the +perils and the crimes of his career in this; perceiving now, for the +first time, and in all their force, the causes of his mysterious conduct; +melted by their relationship, and forgetting herself utterly in the +desolation and dark situation in which she beheld one who, whatever his +crimes, had not been criminal towards her;--it seemed as if, carried away +by these emotions, she had yielded altogether to the fondness and +devotion of her nature,--that she had wished to leave home and friends +and fortune, and share with him his punishment and his shame. + +"Why," she faltered,--"why--why not? We are all that is left to each +other in the world! Your father and mine were brothers; let me be to you +as a sister. What is there left for me here? Not one being whom I love, +or who cares for me,--not one!" + +It was then that Clifford summoned all his courage, as he answered. +Perhaps, now that he felt (though here his knowledge was necessarily +confused and imperfect) his birth was not unequal to hers; now that he +read, or believed he read, in her wan cheek and attenuated frame that +desertion to her was death, and that generosity and self-sacrifice had +become too late,--perhaps these thoughts, concurring with a love in +himself beyond all words, and a love in her which it was above humanity +to resist, altogether conquered and subdued him. Yet, as we have said, +his voice breathed calmly in her ear; and his eye only, which brightened +with a steady and resolute hope, betrayed his mind. "Live, then!" said +he, as he concluded. "My sister, my mistress, my bride, live! In one +year from this day--I repeat--I promise it thee!" + +The interview was over, and Lucy returned home with a firm step. She was +on foot. The rain fell in torrents, yet even in her precarious state her +health suffered not; and when within a week from that time she read that +Clifford had departed to the bourne of his punishment, she read the news +with a steady eye and a lip that, if it grew paler, did not quiver. + +Shortly after that time Miss Brandon departed to an obscure town by the +seaside; and there, refusing all society, she continued to reside. As +the birth of Clifford was known but to few, and his legitimacy was +unsuspected by all except, perhaps, by Mauleverer, Lucy succeeded to the +great wealth of her uncle; and this circumstance made her more than ever +an object of attraction in the eyes of her noble adorer. Finding himself +unable to see her, he wrote to her more than one moving epistle; but as +Lucy continued inflexible, he at length, disgusted by her want of taste, +ceased his pursuit, and resigned himself to the continued sterility of +unwedded life. As the months waned, Miss Brandon seemed to grow weary of +her retreat; and immediately on attaining her majority, which she did +about eight months after Brandon's death, she transferred the bulk of her +wealth to France, where it was understood (for it was impossible that +rumour should sleep upon an heiress and a beauty) that she intended in +future to reside. Even Warlock (that spell to the proud heart of her +uncle) she ceased to retain. It was offered to the nearest relation of +the family at a sum which he did not hesitate to close with; and by the +common vicissitudes of Fortune, the estate of the ancient Brandons has +now, we perceive by a weekly journal, just passed into the hands of a +wealthy alderman. + +It was nearly a year since Brandon's death when a letter bearing a +foreign postmark came to Lucy. From that time her spirits--which before, +though subject to fits of abstraction, had been even and subdued, not +sad--rose into all the cheerfulness and vivacity of her earliest youth. +She busied herself actively in preparations for her departure from this +country; and at length the day was fixed, and the vessel was engaged. +Every day till that one, did Lucy walk to the seaside, and ascending the +highest cliff, spend hours, till the evening closed, in watching, with +seemingly idle gaze, the vessels that interspersed the sea; and with +every day her health seemed to strengthen, and the soft and lucid colour +she had once worn, to rebloom upon her cheek. + +Previous to her departure Miss Brandon dismissed her servants, and only +engaged one female, a foreigner, to accompany her. A certain tone of +quiet command, formerly unknown to her, characterized these measures, so +daringly independent for one of her sex and age. The day arrived,--it +was the anniversary of her last interview with Clifford. On entering the +vessel it was observed that she trembled violently, and that her face was +as pale as death. A stranger, who had stood aloof wrapped in his cloak, +darted forward to assist her; that was the last which her discarded and +weeping servants beheld of her from the pier where they stood to gaze. + +Nothing more in this country was ever known of the fate of Lucy Brandon; +and as her circle of acquaintances was narrow, and interest in her fate +existed vividly in none save a few humble breasts, conjecture was never +keenly awakened, and soon cooled into forgetfulness. If it favoured, +after the lapse of years, any one notion more than another, it was that +she had perished among the victims of the French Revolution. + +Meanwhile let us glance over the destinies of our more subordinate +acquaintances. + +Augustus Tomlinson, on parting from Long Ned, had succeeded in reaching +Calais; and after a rapid tour through the Continent, he ultimately +betook himself to a certain literary city in Germany, where he became +distinguished for his metaphysical acumen, and opened a school of morals +on the Grecian model, taught in the French tongue. He managed, by the +patronage he received and the pupils he enlightened, to obtain a very +decent income; and as he wrote a folio against Locke, proved that men had +innate feelings, and affirmed that we should refer everything not to +reason, but to the sentiments of the soul, he became greatly respected +for his extraordinary virtue. Some little discoveries were made after +his death, which perhaps would have somewhat diminished the general odour +of his sanctity, had not the admirers of his school carefully hushed up +the matter, probably out of respect for the "sentiments of the soul!" + +Pepper, whom the police did not so anxiously desire to destroy as they +did his two companions, might have managed, perhaps many years longer, +to graze upon the public commons, had not a letter, written somewhat +imprudently, fallen into wrong hands. This, though after creating a +certain stir it apparently died away, lived in the memory of the police, +and finally conspired, with various peccadilloes, to produce his +downfall. He was seized, tried, and sentenced to seven years' +transportation. He so advantageously employed his time at Botany Bay, +and arranged things there so comfortably to himself, that at the +expiration of his sentence he refused to return home. He made an +excellent match, built himself an excellent house, and remained in "the +land of the blest" to the end of his days, noted to the last for the +redundance of his hair and a certain ferocious coxcombry of aspect. + +As for Fighting Attie and Gentleman George, for Scarlet Jem and for Old +Bags, we confess ourselves destitute of any certain information of their +latter ends. We can only add, with regard to Fighting Attie, "Good luck +be with him wherever he goes!" and for mine host of the Jolly Angler, +that, though we have not the physical constitution to quaff "a bumper of +blue ruin," we shall be very happy, over any tolerable wine and in +company with any agreeable convivialist, to bear our part in the polished +chorus of-- + + "Here's to Gentleman George, God bless him!" + +Mrs. Lobkins departed this life like a lamb; and Dummie Dunnaker obtained +a license to carry on the business at Thames Court. He boasted, to the +last, of his acquaintance with the great Captain Lovett, and of the +affability with which that distinguished personage treated him. Stories +he had, too, about Judge Brandon, but no one believed a syllable of them; +and Dummie, indignant at the disbelief, increased, out of vehemence, the +marvel of the stories, so that, at length, what was added almost +swallowed up what was original, and Dummie himself might have been +puzzled to satisfy his own conscience as to what was false and what was +true. + +The erudite Peter MacGrawler, returning to Scotland, disappeared by the +road. A person singularly resembling the sage was afterward seen at +Carlisle, where he discharged the useful and praiseworthy duties of Jack +Ketch. But whether or not this respectable functionary was our identical +Simon Pure, our ex-editor of "The Asinaeum," we will not take upon +ourselves to assert. + +Lord Mauleverer, finally resolving on a single life, passed the remainder +of his years in indolent tranquillity. When he died, the newspapers +asserted that his Majesty was deeply affected by the loss of so old and +valued a friend. His furniture and wines sold remarkably high; and a +Great Man, his particular intimate, who purchased his books, startled to +find, by pencil marks, that the noble deceased had read some of them, +exclaimed, not altogether without truth, + +"Ah! Mauleverer might have been a deuced clever fellow--if he had liked +it!" + +The earl was accustomed to show as a curiosity a ring of great value, +which he had received in rather a singular manner. One morning a packet +was brought him which he found to contain a sum of money, the ring +mentioned, and a letter from the notorious Lovett, in which that person +in begging to return his lordship the sums of which he had twice assisted +to rob him, thanked him, with earnest warmth, for the consideration +testified towards him in not revealing his identity with Captain +Clifford; and ventured, as a slight testimony of respect, to inclose the +aforesaid ring with the sum returned. + +About the time Mauleverer received this curious packet, several anecdotes +of a similar nature appeared in the public journals; and it seemed that +Lovett had acted upon a general principle of restitution,--not always, it +must be allowed, the offspring of a robber's repentance. While the idle +were marvelling at these anecdotes, came the tardy news that Lovett, +after a single month's sojourn at his place of condemnation, had, in the +most daring and singular manner, effected his escape. Whether, in his +progress up the country, he had been starved or slain by the natives, or +whether, more fortunate, he had ultimately found the means of crossing +seas, was as yet unknown. There ended the adventures of the gallant +robber; and thus, by a strange coincidence, the same mystery which +wrapped the fate of Lucy involved also that of her lover. And here, kind +reader, might we drop the curtain on our closing scene, did we not think +it might please thee to hold it up yet one moment, and give thee another +view of the world behind. + +In a certain town of that Great Country where shoes are imperfectly +polished--[See Captain Hall's late work on America]--and opinions are not +prosecuted, there resided, twenty years after the date of Lucy Brandon's +departure from England, a man held in high and universal respect, not +only for the rectitude of his conduct, but for the energies of his mind, +and the purposes to which they were directed. If you asked who +cultivated that waste, the answer was, "Clifford!" who procured the +establishment of that hospital, "Clifford!" who obtained the redress of +such a public grievance, "Clifford!" who struggled for and won such a +popular benefit, "Clifford!" In the gentler part of his projects and his +undertakings--in that part, above all, which concerned the sick or the +necessitous--this useful citizen was seconded, or rather excelled, by a +being over whose surpassing loveliness Time seemed to have flown with a +gentle and charming wing. There was something remarkable and touching in +the love which this couple (for the woman we refer to was Clifford's +wife) bore to each other; like the plant on the plains of Hebron, the +time which brought to that love an additional strength brought to it also +a softer and a fresher verdure. Although their present neighbours were +unacquainted with the events of their earlier life previous to their +settlement at ----------, it was known that they had been wealthy at the +time they first came to reside there, and that, by a series of +fatalities, they had lost all. But Clifford had borne up manfully +against fortune; and in a new country, where men who prefer labour to +dependence cannot easily starve, he had been enabled to toil upward +through the severe stages of poverty and hardship with an honesty and +vigour of character which won him, perhaps, a more hearty esteem for +every successive effort than the display of his lost riches might ever +have acquired him. His labours and his abilities obtained gradual but +sure success; and he now enjoyed the blessings of a competence earned +with the most scrupulous integrity, and spent with the most kindly +benevolence. A trace of the trials they had passed through was +discernible in each; those trials had stolen the rose from the wife's +cheek, and had sown untimely wrinkles in the broad brow of Clifford. +There were moments, too, but they were only moments, when the latter sank +from his wonted elastic and healthful cheerfulness of mind into a gloomy +and abstracted revery; but these moments the wife watched with a jealous +and fond anxiety, and one sound of her sweet voice had the power to +dispel their influence; and when Clifford raised his eyes, and glanced +from her tender smile around his happy home and his growing children, or +beheld through the very windows of his room the public benefits he had +created, something of pride and gladness glowed on his countenance, and +he said, though with glistening eyes and subdued voice, as his looks +returned once more to his wife, "I owe these to thee!" + +One trait of mind especially characterized Clifford,--indulgence to the +faults of others. "Circumstances make guilt," he was wont to say; "let +us endeavour to correct the circumstances, before we rail against the +guilt!" His children promised to tread in the same useful and honourable +path that he trod himself. Happy was considered that family which had +the hope to ally itself with his. + +Such was the after-fate of Clifford and Lucy. Who will condemn us for +preferring the moral of that fate to the moral which is extorted from the +gibbet and the hulks,--which makes scarecrows, not beacons; terrifies our +weakness, not warms our reason. Who does not allow that it is better to +repair than to perish,--better, too, to atone as the citizen than to +repent as the hermit? Oh, John Wilkes, Alderman of London, and +Drawcansir of Liberty, your life was not an iota too perfect,--your +patriotism might have been infinitely purer, your morals would have +admitted indefinite amendment, you are no great favourite with us or with +the rest of the world,--but you said one excellent thing, for which we +look on you with benevolence, nay, almost with respect. We scarcely know +whether to smile at its wit or to sigh at its wisdom. Mark this truth, +all ye gentlemen of England who would make law as the Romans made +fasces,--a bundle of rods with an axe in the middle,--mark it, and +remember! long may it live, allied with hope in ourselves, but with +gratitude in our children,--long after the book which it now "adorns" and +"points" has gone to its dusty slumber,--long, long after the feverish +hand which now writes it down can defend or enforce it no more: "THE VERY +WORST USE TO WHICH YOU CAN PUT A MAN IS TO HANG HIM!" + + + + + + NOTE. + +In the second edition of this novel there were here inserted two +"characters" of "Fighting Attie" and "Gentleman George," omitted in the +subsequent edition published by Mr. Bentley in the "Standard Novels." At +the request of some admirers of those eminent personages, who considered +the biographical sketches referred to impartial in themselves, and +contributing to the completeness of the design for which men so +illustrious were introduced, they are here retained, though in the more +honourable form of a separate and supplementary notice. + + + + FIGHTING ATTIE. + +When be dies, the road will have lost a great man, whose foot was rarely +out of his stirrup, and whose clear head guided a bold hand. He carried +common-sense to its perfection, and he made the straight path the +sublimest. His words were few, his actions were many. He was the +Spartan of Tobymen, and laconism was the short soul of his professional +legislation! + +Whatever way you view him, you see those properties of mind which command +fortune; few thoughts not confusing each other,--simple elements, and +bold. His character in action maybe summed in two phrases,--"a fact +seized, and a stroke made." Had his intellect been more luxurious, his +resolution might have been less hardy; and his hardiness made his +greatness. He was one of those who shine but in action,--chimneys (to +adapt the simile of Sir Thomas More) that seem useless till you light +your fire. So in calm moments you dreamed not of his utility, and only +on the road you were struck dumb with the outbreaking of his genius. +Whatever situation he was called to, you found in hire what you looked +for in vain in others; for his strong sense gave to Attie what long +experience ought, but often fails, to give to its possessors. His energy +triumphed over the sense of novel circumstance, and be broke in a moment +through the cobwebs which entangled lesser natures for years. His eye +saw a final result, and disregarded the detail. He robbed his man. +without chicanery; and took his purse by applying for it rather than +scheming. If his enemies wish to detract from his merit,--a merit great, +dazzling, and yet solid,--they may, perhaps, say that his genius fitted +him better to continue exploits than to devise them; and thus that, +besides the renown which he may justly claim, he often wholly engrossed +that fame which should have been shared by others: he took up the +enterprise where it ceased at Labour, and carried it onwards, where it +was rewarded with Glory. Even this charge proves a new merit of address, +and lessens not the merit less complicated the have allowed him before. +The fame he has acquired may excite our emulation; the envy he has not +appeased may console us for obscurity. + +A stanza of Greek poetry--Thus, not too vigorously, translated by Mr. +West,-- + +"But wrapped in error is the human mind, +And human bliss is ever insecure-- +Know we what fortune shall remain behind? +Know we how long the present shall endure?" + + + + + GENTLEMAN GEORGE. + +For thee, Gentleman George, for thee, what conclusive valediction +remains? Alas! since we began the strange and mumming scene wherein +first thou went introduced, the grim foe hath knocked thrice at thy +gates; and now, as we write,--[In 1830]--thou art departed thence,--thou +art no more! A new lord presides to thine easy-chair, a new voice rings +from thy merry board,--thou art forgotten! thou art already, like these +pages, a tale that is told to a memory that retaineth not! Where are thy +quips and cranks; where thy stately coxcombries and thy regal gauds? +Thine house and thy pagoda, thy Gothic chimney and thy Chinese sign- +post,--these yet ask the concluding hand. Thy hand is cold; their +completion, and the enjoyment the completion yields, are for another! +Thou sowest, and thy follower reaps; thou buildest, thy successor holds; +thou plantest, and thine heir sits beneath the shadow of thy trees,-- + + "Neque harum, quas colis, arborum + Te, praeter invisas cupressos, + Ulla brevem dominum sequetur!" + + ["Nor will any of these trees thou didst cultivate follow thee, + the shortlived lord, save the hateful Cyprus."] + +At this moment thy life,--for thou veert a Great Man to thine order, and +they have added thy biography to that of Abershaw and Sheppard,--thy life +is before us. What a homily in its events! Gayly didst thou laugh into +thy youth, and run through the courses of thy manhood. Wit sat at thy +table, and Genius was thy comrade. Beauty was thy handmaid; and +Frivolity played around thee,--a buffoon that thou didst ridicule, and +ridiculing enjoy! Who among us can look back to thy brilliant era, and +not sigh to think that the wonderful men who surrounded thee, and amidst +whom thou wert a centre and a nucleus, are for him but the things of +history, and the phantoms of a bodiless tradition? Those brilliant. +suppers, glittering with beauty, the memory of which makes one spot (yet +inherited by Bachelor Bill) a haunted and a fairy ground; all who +gathered to that Armida's circle,--the Grammonts and the Beauvilliers and +the Rochefoucaulds of England and the Road,--who does not feel that to +have seen these, though but as Gil Blas saw the festivities of his +actors, from the sideboard and behind the chair, would have been a +triumph for the earthlier feelings of his old age to recall? What, +then, must it have been to have seen them as thou didst see,--thou, the +deceased and the forgotten!---seen them from the height of thy youth and +power and rank (for early wert thou keeper to a public), and reckless +spirits, and lusty capacities of joy? What pleasures where sense +lavished its uncounted varieties? What revellings where wine was the +least excitement? + +Let the scene shift. How stirring is the change! Triumph and glitter +and conquest! For thy public was a public of renown; thither came the +Warriors of the Ring,--the Heroes of the Cross,--and thou, their patron, +wert elevated on their fame! "Principes pro victoria pugnant, comites +pro Principe."--[Chiefs for the victory fight,--for chiefs the soldiers] +--What visions sweep across us! What glories didst thou witness! Over +what conquests didst thou preside! The mightiest epoch, the most +wonderful events which the world, _thy_ world, ever knew,--of these was +it not indeed, and dazzlingly thine,-- + + "To share the triumph and partake the gale"? + +Let the scene shift. Manhood is touched by age; but Lust is "heeled" by +Luxury, and Pomp is the heir of Pleasure; gewgaws and gaud, instead of +glory, surround, rejoice, and flatter thee to the last. There rise thy +buildings; there lie, secret but gorgeous, the tabernacles of thine ease; +and the earnings of thy friends, and the riches of the people whom they +plunder, are waters to thine imperial whirlpool. Thou art lapped in +ease, as is a silkworm; and profusion flows from thy high and unseen +asylum as the rain poureth from a cloud.--Much didst thou do to beautify +chimney-tops, much to adorn the snuggeries where thou didst dwell. +Thieving with thee took a substantial shape; and the robberies Of the +public passed into a metempsychosis of mortar, and became public-houses. +So there and thus, building and planning, didst thou spin out thy latter +yarn, till Death came upon thee; and when we looked around, lo! thy +brother was on thy hearth. And thy parasites and thy comrades and thine +ancient pals and thy portly blowens, they made a murmur, and they packed +up their goods; but they turned ere they departed, and they would have +worshipped thy brother as they worshipped thee,--but he would not! And +thy sign-post is gone and mouldered already; and to the Jolly Angler has +succeeded the Jolly Tar! And thy picture is disappearing fast from the +print-shops, and thy name from the mouths of men! And thy brother, whom +no one praised while thou didst live, is on a steeple of panegyric built +above the churchyard that contains thy grave. O shifting and volatile +hearts of men! Who would be keeper of a public? Who dispense the wine +and the juices that gladden, when the moment the pulse of the band +ceases, the wine and the juices are forgotten? + +To History,--for thy name will be preserved in that record which, whether +it be the calendar of Newgate or of nations, telleth its alike how men +suffer and sin and perish,--to History we leave the sum and balance of +thy merits and thy faults. The sins that were thine were those of the +man to whom pleasure is all in all: thou wert, from root to branch, sap +and in heart, what moralists term the libertine; hence the light wooing, +the quick desertion, the broken faith, the organized perfidy, that +manifested thy bearing to those gentler creatures who called thee +'Gentleman George.' Never to one solitary woman, until the last dull +flame of thy dotage, didst thou so behave as to give no foundation to +complaint and no voice to wrong. But who shall say be honest to one, but +laugh at perfidy to another? Who shall wholly confine treachery to one +sex, if to that sex he hold treachery no offence? So in thee, as in all +thy tribe, there was a laxness of principle, an insincerity of faith, +even unto men: thy friends, when occasion suited, thou couldst forsake; +and thy luxuries were dearer to thee than justice to those who supplied +them. Men who love and live for pleasure as thou, are usually good- +natured; for their devotion to pleasure arises from the strength of their +constitution, and the strength of their constitution preserves them from +the irritations of weaker nerves. So went thou good-natured and often +generous; and often with thy generosity didst thou unite a delicacy that +showed thou hadst an original and a tender sympathy with men. But as +those who pursue pleasure are above all others impatient of interruption, +so to such as interfered with thy main pursuit thou didst testify a deep, +a lasting, and a revengeful anger. Yet let not such vices of temperament +be too severely judged! For to thee were given man's two most persuasive +tempters, physical and moral,--Health and Power! Thy talents, such as +they were,--and they were the talents of a man of the world,--misled +rather than guided thee, for they gave thy mind that demi-philosophy, +that indifference to exalted motives, which is generally found in a +clever rake. Thy education was wretched; thou hadst a smattering of +Horace, but thou couldst not write English, and thy letters betray that +thou went wofully ignorant of logic. The fineness of thy taste has been +exaggerated; thou wert unacquainted with the nobleness of simplicity; thy +idea of a whole was grotesque and overloaded, and thy fancy in details +was gaudy and meretricious. But thou hadst thy hand constantly in the +public purse, and thou hadst plans and advisers forever before thee; more +than all, thou didst find the houses in that neighbourbood wherein thou +didst build, so preternaturally hideous that thou didst require but +little science to be less frightful in thy creations. If thou didst not +improve thy native village and thy various homes with a solid, a lofty, +and a noble taste, thou didst nevertheless very singularly improve. And +thy posterity, in avoiding the faults of thy masonry, will be grateful +for the effects of thy ambition. The same demi-philosophy which +influenced thee in private life exercised a far benigner and happier +power over thee in public. Thou wert not idly vexatious in vestries, nor +ordinarily tyrannic in thy parish; if thou wert ever arbitrary it was +only when thy pleasure was checked, or thy vanity wounded. At other +times thou didst leave events to their legitimate course, so that in thy +latter years thou wert justly popular in thy parish; and in the grave thy +great good fortune will outshine thy few bad qualities, and men will say +of thee with a kindly, not an erring judgment, "In private life he was +not worse than the Rufers who came to this bar; in public life he was +better than those who kept a public before him." Hark! those huzzas! +what is the burden of that chorus? Oh, grateful and never time-serving +Britons, have ye modified already for another the song ye made so solely +in honour of Gentleman George: and must we, lest we lose the custom of +the public and the good things of the tap-room,--roust we roar with +throats yet hoarse with our fervour for the old words, our ardour for the +new-- + + "Here's to Mariner Bill, God bless him! + God bless him! + God bless him! + Here 's to Mariner Bill, God bless him!" + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAUL CLIFFORD, LYTTON, V7 *** + +****** This file should be named 7734.txt or 7734.zip ******** + +This eBook was produced by Bryan Sherman +and David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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