Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

These, then, were the inhabitants of the silent gray house--a blind old woman, an imbecile old man, and a young girl faded before her time by the sadness and gloom that surrounded her! Her life had been a blank; each year had borne away some portion of her youth, her beauty, and her hope, and left her nothing but silence and oblivion. I often returned to visit Ursula, and one day, while I sat next her in the window, she told me the simple story of her life.

"I was born," said she, "in this house; and I have never quitted it; but my parents are not natives of this country--they came here as strangers, without either friends or relatives. When they married, they were already advanced in life; for I can not remember them ever being young. My mother became blind, and this misfortune rendered her melancholy and austere; so that our house was enveloped in gloom. I was never permitted to sing, or play, or make the slightest noise: very rarely did I receive a caress. Yet my parents loved me: they never told me that they did; but I judged their hearts by my own, and I felt that I loved them. My days were not always as solitary as they are now; I had a sister"--Her eyes filled with tears, but they did not overflow; they were wont to remain hidden in the depths of her heart. After a few moments, she continued--"I had an elder sister: like our mother, she was grave and silent, but toward me she was tender and affectionate. We loved each other dearly, and shared between us the cares which our parents required. We never enjoyed the pleasure of rambling together through the fields, for one always remained at home; but whichever of us went out, brought flowers to the other, and talked to her of the sun, and the trees, and the fresh air. In the evenings we worked together by the light of a lamp; we could not converse much, for our parents used to slumber by our side; but whenever we looked up, we could see a loving smile on each other's face; and we went to repose in the same room, never lying down without saying 'Good-night! I hope, dear sister, you will sleep well!' Was it not a trial to part? Yet I do not murmur: Martha is happy in heaven. I know not if it was the want of air and exercise, or the dull monotony of her life, which caused the commencement of Martha's illness, but I saw her gradually languish and fade. I alone was disquieted by it; my mother did not see her, and she never complained. With much difficulty I at length prevailed on my sister to see a physician. Alas! nothing could be done: she lingered for a time, and then died. The evening before her death, as I was seated by her bed, she clasped my hand between her trembling ones: 'Adieu! my poor Ursula!' she said: 'take courage, and watch well over our father and mother. They love us, Ursula; they love us, although they do not often say so. Take care of your health for their sake; you can not die before them. Adieu! sister: don't weep for me too much, but pray to our heavenly Father. We shall meet again, Ursula!' Three days afterward, Martha was borne away in her coffin, and I remained alone with my parents. When my mother first heard of my sister's death, she uttered a loud cry, sprang up, took a few hasty steps across the room, and then fell on the ground. I raised her up, and led her back to her arm-chair. Since then she has not wept, but she is more silent than before, save that her lips move in secret prayer. I have little more to tell. My father became completely imbecile, and at the same time we lost nearly the whole of our little property. I have succeeded in concealing this loss from my parents; making money for their support by selling my embroidery. I have no one to speak to since my sister's death; I love books, but I have no time for reading--I must work. It is only on Sunday that I breathe the fresh air; and I do not walk far, as I am alone. Some years since, when I was very young, I used to dream while I sat in this window. I peopled the solitude with a thousand visions which brightened the dark hours. Now a sort of numbness has fallen on my thoughts--I dream no more. While I was young, I used to hope for some change in my destiny; now I am twenty-nine years old, and sorrow has chastened my spirit: I no longer hope or fear. In this place I shall finish my lonely days. Do not think that I have found resignation without a conflict. There were times when my heart revolted at living without being loved, but I thought of Martha's gentle words, 'We shall meet again, sister!' and I found peace. Now I often pray--I seldom weep. And you, madam--are you happy?"

I did not answer this question of Ursula's. Speaking to her of happiness would be like talking of an ungrateful friend to one whom he has deserted.

Some months afterward, on a fine autumn morning, as I was preparing to go to Ursula, I received a visit from a young officer who had lately joined the garrison. He was the son of an old friend of my husband's, and we both felt a lively interest in his welfare. Seeing me prepared for a walk, he offered his arm, and we proceeded toward the dwelling of Ursula. I chanced to speak of her; and as the young officer, whom I shall call Maurice d'Erval, seemed to take an interest in her story, I related it to him as we walked slowly along. When we reached the old gray house he looked at her with pity and respect, saluted her, and withdrew. Ursula, startled at the presence of a stranger, blushed slightly. At that moment she looked almost beautiful. I know not what vague ideas crossed my brain, but I looked at her, and then, without speaking, I drew the rich bands of her hair into a more becoming form, I took a narrow black velvet collar off my own neck, and passed it round hers, and I arranged a few brilliant flowers in her girdle. Ursula smiled without understanding why I did so: her smile always pained me--there is nothing more sad than the smile of the unhappy. They seem to smile for others, not for themselves. Many days passed without my seeing Maurice d'Erval, and many more before chance led us together near the old gray house.

It was on our return from a country excursion with a large gay party. On entering the town, we all dispersed in different directions: I took the arm of Maurice, and led him toward Ursula's abode. It was one of those soft, calm autumn evenings, when the still trees are colored by the rays of the setting sun, and every thing breathes repose. It is a time when the soul is softened, when we become better, when we feel ready to weep without the bitterness of sorrow. Ursula, as usual, was seated in the window. A slanting ray of sunshine falling on her head lent an unwonted lustre to her dark hair: her eyes brightened when she saw me, and she smiled her own sad smile. Her sombre dress showed to advantage her slender, gracefully-bending figure, and a bunch of violets, her favorite flower, was fastened in her bosom. There was something in the whole appearance of Ursula which suited harmoniously the calm, sad beauty of the evening, and my companion felt it. As we approached, he fixed his eyes on the poor girl, who, timid as a child of fifteen, hung down her head, and blushed deeply. Maurice stopped, exchanged a few words with us both, and then took his leave. But from that time he constantly passed through the narrow alley, and paused each time for a moment to salute Ursula. One day, accompanied by me, he entered her house.

There are hearts in this world so unaccustomed to hope, that they can not comprehend happiness when it comes to them. Enveloped in her sadness, which, like a thick vail, hid from her sight all external things, Ursula neither saw nor understood. She remained under the eyes of Maurice as under mine--dejected and resigned. As to the young man, I could not clearly make out what was passing in his mind. It was not love for Ursula, at least so I thought, but it was that tender pity which is nearly allied to it. The romantic soul of Maurice pleased itself in the atmosphere of sadness which surrounded Ursula. Gradually they began to converse; and in sympathizing with each other on the misery of life, they experienced that happiness whose existence they denied. Months passed on; the pleasant spring came back again; and one evening, while walking with a large party, Maurice d'Erval drew me aside, and after some indifferent remarks, said, "Does not the most exalted happiness consist in making others share it with you? Is there not great sweetness in imparting joy to one who would otherwise pass a life of tears?" I looked at him anxiously without speaking. "Yes," said he, "dear friend, go ask Ursula if she will marry me!"

An exclamation of joy was my reply, and I hurried toward the gray house. I found Ursula, as usual, seated at her work. Solitude, silence, and the absence of all excitement had lulled her spirit into a sort of drowsiness. She did not suffer; she even smiled languidly when I appeared, but this was the only sign of animation she displayed. I feared not giving a sudden shock to this poor paralyzed soul, or stirring it into a violent tumult of happiness: I wanted to see if the mental vigor was extinct, or merely dormant. I placed my chair next hers, I took both her hands in mine, and fixing my eyes on hers, I said, "Ursula, Maurice d'Erval has desired me to ask you if you will be his wife!"

The girl was struck as if with a thunderbolt; her eyes beamed through the tears that filled them, and her blood, rushing through the veins, mantled richly beneath her skin. Her chest heaved, her heart beat almost audibly, and her hands grasped mine with a convulsive pressure. Ursula had only slumbered, and now the voice of love awakened her. She loved suddenly: hitherto she might, perchance, have loved unwittingly, but now the vail was rent, and she _knew_ that she loved.

After a few moments, she passed her hand across her forehead, and said, in a low voice, "No: it is not possible!"

I simply repeated the same phrase, "Maurice d'Erval asks you if you will be his wife," in order to accustom her to the sound of the words, which, like the notes of a harmonious chord, formed for her, poor thing, a sweet, unwonted melody.

"His wife!" repeated she with ecstasy; "his wife!" And running toward her mother, she cried, "Mother, do you hear it? He asks me to be his wife!"

"Daughter," replied the old blind woman, "my beloved daughter, I knew that, sooner or later, God would recompense your virtues."

"My God!" cried Ursula, "what hast Thou done for me this day? _His wife! beloved daughter!_" And she fell on her knees with clasped hands, and her face covered with tears. At that moment footsteps were heard in the passage. "It is he!" cried Ursula. "He brings life!" I hastened away, and left Ursula glowing with tearful happiness to receive Maurice d'Erval alone.

From that day Ursula was changed. She grew young and beautiful under the magic influence of joy, yet her happiness partook in some measure of her former character: it was calm, silent, and reserved; so that Maurice, who had first loved a pale, sad woman, seated in the shade, was not obliged to change the coloring of the picture, although Ursula was now happy. They passed long evenings together in the low, dull room, lighted only by the moonbeams, conversing and musing together.

Ursula loved with simplicity. She said to Maurice, "I love you--I am happy--and I thank you for it!" The old gray house was the only scene of these interviews. Ursula worked with unabated diligence, and never left her parents. But the walls of that narrow dwelling no longer confined her soul: it had risen to freedom, and taken its flight. The sweet magic of hope brightens not only the future, but the present, and through the medium of its all-powerful prism changes the coloring of all things. The old house was as mean-looking and gloomy as ever, but one feeling, enshrined in the heart of a woman, changed it to a palace. Dreams of hope, although you fleet and vanish like golden clouds in the sky, yet come, come to us ever! Those who have never known you, are a thousand times poorer than those who live to regret you!

Thus there passed a happy time for Ursula. But a day came when Maurice entering her room in haste, said, "Dearest, we must hasten our marriage; the regiment is about to be moved to another garrison, and we must be ready to set out."

"Are we going far, Maurice?"

"Does it frighten my Ursula to think of seeing distant countries? There are many lands more beautiful than this."

"Oh, no, Maurice, not for myself, but for my parents: they are too old to bear a long journey." Maurice looked at his betrothed without speaking. Although he well knew that, in order to share his wandering destiny, Ursula must leave her parents, yet he had never reflected seriously on the subject. He had foreseen her grief, but confiding in her affection, he had thought that his devoted love would soothe every sorrow of which he was not himself the cause. It was now necessary to come to an explanation; and sad at the inevitable pain which he was about to inflict on his betrothed, Maurice took her hand, made her sit down in her accustomed place, and said, gently, "Dearest, it would be impossible for your father and mother to accompany us in our wandering life. Until now, my Ursula, we have led a loving, dreamy life, without entering soberly into our future plans. I have no fortune but my sword; and now, at the commencement of my career, my income is so small, that we shall have to submit together to many privations. I reckon on your courage; but you alone must follow me. The presence of your parents would only serve to entail misery on them, and hopeless poverty on us."

"Leave my father and my mother!" cried Ursula.

"Leave them, with their little property, in this house; confide them to careful hands; and follow the fortunes of your husband."

"Leave my father and my mother!" repeated Ursula. "But do you know that the pittance they possess would never suffice for their support--that without their knowledge, I work to increase it--and that, during many years, I have tended them alone?"

"My poor Ursula!" replied Maurice, "we must submit to what is inevitable. Hitherto you have concealed from them the loss of their little fortune; tell it to them now, as it can not be helped. Try to regulate their expenditure of the little which remains; for, alas! we shall have nothing to give them."

"Go away, and leave them here! Impossible! I tell you, I must work for them!"

"Ursula, my Ursula!" said Maurice, pressing both her hands in his, "do not allow yourself, I conjure you, to be carried away by the first impulse of your generous heart. Reflect for a moment: we do not refuse to give, but we have it not. Even living alone, we shall have to endure many privations."

"I can not leave them," said Ursula, looking mournfully at the two old people slumbering in their arm-chairs.

"Do you not love me, Ursula?" The poor girl only replied by a torrent of tears.

Maurice remained long with her, pouring forth protestations of love, and repeating explanations of their actual position. She listened without replying; and at length he took his leave. Left alone, Ursula leaned her head on her hand, and remained without moving for many hours. Alas! the tardy gloom of happiness which brightened her life for a moment was passing away: the blessed dream was fled never to return! Silence, oblivion, darkness, regained possession of that heart whence love had chased them. During the long midnight hours who can tell what passed in the poor girl's mind? God knew: she never spoke of it.

When day dawned, she shuddered, closed the window, which had remained open during the night, and, trembling from the chill which seized both mind and body, she took paper and pen, and wrote--"Farewell, Maurice! I remain with my father and my mother: they have need of me. To abandon them in their old age would be to cause their death: they have only me in the world. My sister, on her death-bed, confided them to me, saying, 'We shall meet again, Ursula!' If I neglected my duties, I should never see her more. I have loved you well--I shall love you always. You have been very kind, but I know now that we are too poor to marry. Farewell! How hard to write that word! Farewell, dear friend--I knew that happiness was not for me, URSULA."

I went to the old gray house, and so did Maurice; but all our representations were useless--she would not leave her parents. "I must work for them!" she said. In vain I spoke to her of Maurice's love, and, with a sort of cruelty, reminded her of her waning youth, and the improbability of her meeting another husband. She listened, while her tears dropped on the delicate work at which she labored without intermission, and then in a low voice she murmured, "They would die: I must work for them!" She begged us not to tell her mother what had passed. Those for whom she had sacrificed herself remained ignorant of her devotion. Some slight reason was assigned for the breaking off of the marriage, and Ursula resumed her place and her employment near the window, pale, dejected, and bowed down as before.

Maurice d'Erval possessed one of those prudent, deliberating minds which never allow themselves to be carried away by feeling or by impulse. His love had a limit: he prayed and intreated for a time, but at length he grew weary, and desisted.

It happened one day, while Ursula was seated in her window, that she heard a distant sound of military music, and the measured trampling of many feet. It was the regiment departing. Tremblingly she listened to the air, which sounded as a knell in her ears; and when the last faint notes died away in the distance, she let her work fall on her lap, and covered her face with her hands. A few tears trickled between her fingers, but she speedily wiped them away, and resumed her work: she resumed it for the rest of her life. On the evening of this day of separation--this day when the sacrifice was consummated--Ursula, after having bestowed her usual care on her parents, seated herself at the foot of her mother's bed, and, bending toward her with a look, whose tearful tenderness the blind old woman could not know, the poor deserted one took her hand, and murmured softly, "Mother! you love me; do you not? Is not my presence a comfort to you? Would you not grieve to part with me, my mother?"

The old woman turned her face to the wall, and said in a fretful tone, "Nonsense, Ursula. I'm tired; let me go to sleep!" The word of tenderness which she had sought as her only recompense was not uttered; the mother fell asleep without pressing her daughter's hand; and the poor girl, falling on her knees, poured out her sorrows in prayer to One who could both hear and heal them.

From that time Ursula became more pale, more silent, more cast down than ever. The last sharp sorrow bore away all traces of her youth and beauty. "All is ended!" she used to say; and all, save duty, _was_ ended for her on earth. No tidings came of Maurice d'Erval. Ursula had pleased his imagination, like some graceful melancholy picture, but time effaced its coloring from his memory, and he forgot. How many things are forgotten in this life! How rarely do the absent mourn each other long!

One year after these events, Ursula's mother began visibly to decline, yet without suffering from any positive malady. Her daughter watched and prayed by her bed, and received her last benediction. "Once more she is with thee, Martha!" sighed Ursula: "be it thine to watch over her in heaven." She knelt down, and prayed by the side of the solitary old man. She dressed him in mourning without his being conscious of it; but on the second day he turned toward the empty arm-chair next his own, and cried, "My wife!"

Ursula spoke to him, and tried to divert his attention; but he repeated, "My wife!" while the tears rolled down his cheeks. In the evening, when his supper was brought, he turned away from it, and fixing his eyes on the vacant chair, said, "My wife!"

Ursula tried every expedient that love and sorrow could suggest; but in vain. The old man continued watching the place which his wife was wont to occupy; and refusing food, he would look at Ursula, and with clasped hands, in the querulous tone of a child imploring some forbidden indulgence, repeat, "My wife!" In a month afterward he died. His last movement was to raise his clasped hands, look up to Heaven, and cry "My wife!" as though he saw her waiting to receive him. When the last coffin was borne away from the old gray house, Ursula murmured softly, "My God! couldst thou not have spared them to me a little longer?" She was left alone; and many years have passed since then.

I left the dark old town and Ursula to travel into distant lands. By degrees she ceased to write to me, and after many vain efforts to induce her to continue the correspondence, I gradually lost all trace of her. I sometimes ask myself, "What has been her fate? Is she dead?" Alas! the poor girl was ever unfortunate: I fear she still lives!

STREET MUSIC IN LONDON.

"Charming place this," said a mad lady to us while looking out of a window of the finest Lunatic Asylum in North Britain; "so retired, so quiet, so genteel, so remote from the busy hum of men and women. The view you perceive is lovely--quite sylvan (there were two trees in the remote distance), 'Silence reigns around,' as the poet says, and then you see, sir, _we do not allow street bands to come here_."

On inquiry, we were told that this patient was a London literary lady. Her mania, like Morose in Ben Jonson's Epicure, was against noise. She constantly prayed for deafness. She walked in list shoes, and spoke in a whisper as an example to others. The immediate cause of her confinement had not been ascertained, but we have no doubt that she had been driven stark mad by the street discord of the metropolis. We firmly believe her case is not singular. Judging from our own experience of the extremest brink of insanity, to which we have been occasionally driven by the organic and Pandean persecutions to which we have been subjected, we should say that much of the madness existing and wrought in this county of Middlesex originates in street music. If Dr. Connolly can not bear us out in this opinion, we shall be rather astonished.

A man of thoughtful habit, and of a timid, or nervous temperament, has only to take apartments in what lodging-house-keepers wickedly call, in their advertisements, "a quiet neighborhood," to be tolerably sure of making his next move in a strait waistcoat to an asylum for the insane. In retired streets, squares, terraces, or "rows," where the more pleasing music of cart, coach, and cab wheels does not abound, the void is discordantly filled up by peripatetic concerts, which last all day long. You are forced, each morning, to shave to the hundredth psalm groaned out from an impious organ; at breakfast you are stunned by the basses of a wretched waltz belched forth from a bass trombone; and your morning is ruined for study by the tinkling of a barrel piano-forte; at luncheon acute dyspepsia communicates itself to your vitals in the stunning _buldering_ of a big-drum; tuneless trumpets, discordant cornets, and blundering bass-viols form a running accompaniment of discord to your afternoon walk; hurdy-gurdies, peradventure, destroy your dinner; fiddles and harps squeak away the peace of your whole evening; and, when you lay your distracted head on your pillow you are robbed of sleep by a banditti of glee singers, hoarsely croaking, "Up rouse ye then, my merry, merry men!"

Yet this is a land of liberty, and every man's house is his castle!

A man may have every comfort this world can afford--the prettiest house, the sweetest wife, the most unexceptionable cook, lovely children, and a good library--but what are these when the enjoyment they afford is destroyed by an endless _charivari_; when domestic happiness is made misery by street discord; when an English gentleman is denied what is insured to every Pentonville prisoner--peace; when a wise legislation has patented the silent system for convicts only, and supplies no free-born Briton with a defense from hideous invasions of his inmost privacy: a legislature which, here, in London, in the year of grace eighteen hundred and fifty, where civilization is said to have made some advances--permits bag-pipes!

This is a subject upon which it is impossible, without the most superhuman self-control, to write with calmness.

Justice is supposed in this country to be meted out with an even hand. A humane maxim says, "Better let ten guilty men escape, than one innocent man suffer." Yet what have the public, especially of "quiet neighborhoods," done; what crimes have we committed; what retribution have we invoked; that we are to be visited with the indiscriminating punishment, the excruciating agony, squealed and screeched into our ears out of that instrument of ineffable torture, the Scotch bagpipe? If our neighbor be a slanderer, a screw, a giver of bad dinners, or any other sort of criminal for whom the law has provided no punishment and a bag-pipe serenade be your mode of revenge on him, shut him up with a piper or pipers in the padded room in Bedlam, or take him out to the Eddystone lighthouse; but for the love of mercy, do not make us, his unoffending neighbors, partakers of his probably just, but certainly condign punishment!

We have, however, a better opinion of human nature than to believe in such extreme vindictiveness. We rather attribute these public performances of sonorous savagery to the perverted taste of a few unfortunate individuals, who pretend to relish the discords, and who actually pay the kilted executioners of harmony. The existence of such wretched amateurs might be doubted, if we did not remember that the most revolting propensities are to be found among mankind. There _are_ people who chew tobacco; a certain tribe of Polynesian aborigines deem assafoetida the most delicious of perfumes; and Southey, in his Travels in Spain, states that the Gallician carters positively refused to grease their wheels because of the delight the creaking gave them. Yet although the grating of wooden axles, or even the sharpening of saws, is music to the pibroch, it appears from a variety of evidence that bad taste can actually reach, even in the female mind, to the acme of encouraging and patronizing street bagpipers.

Do we wish to banish all music from the busy haunts of men? By no means. Good music is sometimes emitted from our pavements--the kerb sends forth here and there, and now and then, sounds not unworthy of the best appointed orchestra. Where these superior street performers received their musical education it is not our business to inquire; but their arrangements of some of the most popular opera music, show that their training has been strictly professional. Quintette, Sestette, and Septette bands of brass and string are occasionally heard in the open street, whose performances show that the pieces have been regularly scored and rigidly rehearsed. "Tune, time, and distance" are excellently kept; the pianos and fortes are admirably colored--there is no vamping of basses; no "fudging" of difficult passages. We look upon such players as musical missionaries who purvey the best music from the opera houses and from the saloons of the nobility to the general public, to the improvement of its musical taste. But where even these choice _pavé_ professionists have us at a disadvantage is in their discoursing their excellent music at precisely the times when we do _not_ want the sounds of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. The habitant of the "quiet neighborhood," fond as he is of _Casta Diva_ or the _Rosen Waltz_, would rather not be indulged with them just as he is commencing to study a complicated brief, or while he is computing the draft of a difficult survey. When he wants music he likes to go to it; he never wants it to come to him.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

MISTAKES IN PERSONAL IDENTITY.

There is no kind of evidence more infirm in its nature and against which jurymen on legal trials should be more on their guard, than that involving identity of person. The number of persons who resemble each other is not inconsiderable in itself; but the number is very large of persons who, though very distinguishable when standing side by side, are yet sufficiently alike to deceive those who are without the means of immediate comparison.

Early in life an occurrence impressed me with the danger of relying on the most confident belief of identity. I was at Vauxhall Gardens where I thought I saw, at a short distance, an old country gentleman whom I highly respected, and whose favor I should have been sorry to lose. I bowed to him, but obtained no recognition. In those days the company amused themselves by walking round in a circle, some in one direction, some in the opposite, by which means every one saw and was seen--I say in those days, because I have not been at Vauxhall for a quarter of a century. In performing these rounds I often met the gentleman, and tried to attract his attention, until I became convinced that either his eyesight was so weakened that he did not know me, or that he chose to disown my acquaintance. Some time afterward, going into the county in which he resided, I received, as usual, an invitation to dinner; this led to an explanation, when my friend assured me he had not been in London for twenty years. I afterward met the person whom I had mistaken for my old friend, and wondered how I could have fallen into the error. I can only explain it by supposing that, if the mind feels satisfied of identity, which it often does at the first glance, it ceases to investigate that question, and occupies itself with other matter; as in my case, where my thoughts ran upon the motives my friend might have for not recognizing me, instead of employing themselves on the question of whether or no the individual before my eyes was indeed the person I took him for.

If I had had to give evidence on this matter my mistake would have been the more dangerous, as I had full means of knowledge. The place was well lighted, the interviews were repeated, and my mind was undisturbed. How often have I known evidence of identity acted upon by juries, where the witness was in a much less favorable position (for correct observation) than mine.

Sometimes, a mistaken verdict is avoided by independent evidence. Rarely, however, is this rock escaped, by cross-examination, even when conducted with adequate skill and experience. The belief of the witness is belief in a matter of opinion resulting from a combination of facts so slight and unimportant, separately considered, that they furnish no handle to the cross-examiner. A striking case of this kind occurs to my recollection, with which I will conclude.

A prisoner was indicted for shooting at the prosecutor, with intent to kill him. The prosecutor swore that the prisoner had demanded his money, and that upon refusal, or delay, to comply with his requisition, he fired a pistol, by the flash of which his countenance became perfectly visible; the shot did not take effect, and the prisoner made off. Here the recognition was momentary, and the prosecutor could hardly have been in an undisturbed state of mind, yet the confidence of his belief made a strong impression on all who heard the evidence, and probably would have sealed the fate of the prisoner without the aid of an additional fact of very slight importance, which was, however, put in evidence, by way of corroboration, that the prisoner, who was a stranger to the neighborhood, had been seen passing near the spot in which the attack was made about noon of the same day. The judge belonged to a class now, thank God! obsolete, who always acted on the reverse of the constitutional maxim, and considered every man guilty until he was proved to be innocent.

If the case had closed without witnesses on behalf of the prisoner, his life would have been gone: fortunately, he possessed the means of employing an able and zealous attorney, and more fortunately, it so happened that several hours before the attack the prisoner had mounted upon a coach, and was many miles from the scene of the crime at the hour of its commission.

With great labor, and at considerable expense, all the passengers were sought out, and, with the coachman and guard, were brought into court, and testified to the presence among them of the prisoner. An _alibi_ is always a suspected defense, and by no man was ever more suspiciously watched than by this judge. But when witness after witness appeared, their names corresponding exactly with the way-bill produced by the clerk of a respectable coach-office, the most determined skepticism gave way, and the prisoner was acquitted by acclamation. He was not, however, saved by his innocence, but by his good fortune. How frequently does it happen to us all to be many hours at a time without having witnesses to prove our absence from one spot by our presence at another! And how many of us are too prone to avail ourselves of such proof in the instances where it may exist!

A remarkable instance of mistake in identity, which put the life of a prisoner in extreme peril, I heard from the lips of his counsel. It occurred at the Special Commission held at Nottingham after the riots consequent on the rejection of the Reform Bill by the House of Lords, in 1831.

The prisoner was a young man of prepossessing appearance, belonging to what may be called the lower section of the middle rank of life, being a framework knitter, in the employment of his father, a master manufacturer in a small way. He was tried on an indictment charging him with the offense of arson. A mob, of which he was alleged to be one, had burned Colwick Hall, near Nottingham, the residence of Mr. Musters, the husband of Mary Chaworth, whose name is so closely linked with that of Byron. This ill-fated lady was approaching the last stage of consumption, when, on a cold and wet evening in autumn, she was driven from her mansion, and compelled to take refuge among the trees of her shrubbery--an outrage which probably hastened her death.

The crime, with its attendant circumstances, created, as was natural, a strong sympathy against the criminals. Unhappily, this feeling, so praiseworthy in itself, is liable to produce a strong tendency in the public mind to believe in the guilt of a party accused. People sometimes seem to hunger and thirst after a criminal, and are disappointed when it turns out that they are mistaken in their man, and are, consequently, slow to believe that such an error has been made. Doubtless, the impression is received into the mind unconsciously; but although on that ground pardonable, it is all the more dangerous. In this case, the prisoner was identified by several witnesses as having taken an active part in setting fire to the house.

He had been under their notice for some considerable space of time: they gave their evidence against him without hesitation, and probably the slightest doubt of its accuracy. His defense was an _alibi_. The frame at which he worked had its place near the entrance to the warehouse, the room frequented by the customers and all who had business to transact at the manufactory. He acted, therefore, as door-keeper, and in that capacity had been seen and spoken with by many persons, who in their evidence more than covered the whole time which elapsed between the arrival of the mob at Colwick Hall and its departure. The _alibi_ was believed, and the prisoner, after a trial which lasted a whole day, was acquitted.

The next morning he was to be tried again on another indictment, charging him with having set fire to the castle at Nottingham. The counsel for the prosecution, influenced by motives of humanity, and fully impressed with the prisoner's guilt on both charges, urged the counsel for the prisoner to advise his client to plead guilty, undertaking that his life should be spared, but observing at the same time that his social position, which was superior to that of the other prisoners, would make it impossible to extend the mercy of the Crown to him unless he manifested a due sense of his offenses by foregoing the chance of escape. "You know," said they, "how rarely an _alibi_ obtains credit with a jury. You can have no other defense to-day than that of yesterday. The castle is much nearer than Colwick Hall to the manufactory, and a very short absence from his work on the part of the prisoner might reconcile the evidence of all the witnesses, both for him and against him; moreover, who ever heard of a successful _alibi_ twice running?"

The counsel for the prisoner had his client taken into a room adjoining the court, and having explained to him the extreme danger in which he stood, informed him of the offer made by the prosecutors. The young man evinced some emotion, and asked his counsel to advise what step he should take. "The advice," he was answered, "must depend upon a fact known to himself alone--his guilt or innocence. If guilty, his chance of escape was so small, that it would be the last degree of rashness to refuse the offer; if, on the other hand, he were innocent, his counsel, putting himself in the place of the prisoner, would say, that no peril, however imminent, would induce him to plead guilty." The prisoner was further told, that in the course of a trial circumstances often arose at the moment, unforeseen by all parties, which disclosed the truth; that this consideration was in his favor, if he were innocent, but showed at the same time that there were now chances of danger, if he were guilty, the extent of which could not be calculated, nor even surmised. The youth, with perfect self-possession, and unshaken firmness, replied, "I am innocent, and will take my trial." He did so. Many painful hours wore away, every moment diminishing the prisoner's chance of acquittal, until it seemed utterly extinguished, when some trifling matter, which had escaped the memory of the narrator, occurred, leading him to think it was possible that another person, who must much resemble the prisoner, had been mistaken for him. Inquiry was instantly made of the family, whether they knew of any such resemblance; when it appeared that the prisoner had a cousin so much like himself, that the two were frequently accosted in the streets, the one for the other. The cousin had absconded.

It is hardly credible, though doubtless true, that a family of respectable station could have been unaware of the importance of such a fact, or that the prisoner, who appeared not deficient in intelligence, and who was assuredly in full possession of his faculties, could be insensible to its value. That either he or they could have placed such reliance on his defense as to induce them to screen his guilty relative, is to the last degree improbable, especially as the cousin had escaped. Witnesses, however, were quickly produced, who verified the resemblance between the two, and the counsel for the prosecution abandoned their case, expressing their belief that their witnesses had given their evidence under a mistake of identity.

The narrator added, that an _alibi_ stood a less chance of favorable reception at Nottingham than elsewhere, although in every place received with great jealousy. In one of the trials arising out of the outrages committed by the Luddites, who broke into manufactories and destroyed all lace frames of a construction which they thought oppressive to working men, an _alibi_, he said, had been concocted, which was successful in saving the life of a man notoriously guilty, and which had therefore added to the disrepute of this species of defense. The hypothesis was, that the prisoner, at the time when the crime was committed, at Loughborough, sixteen miles from Nottingham, was engaged at a supper party at the latter place; and the prisoner, having the sympathy of a large class in his favor, whose battle he had been fighting, no difficulty was experienced by his friends in finding witnesses willing to support this hypothesis on their oaths; but it would have been a rash measure to have called them into the box unprepared. And when it is considered how readily a preconcerted story might have been destroyed by cross-examination, the task of preparing the witnesses so as to elude this test, was one requiring no ordinary care and skill. The danger would arise thus: Every witness would be kept out of court, except the one in the box. He would be asked where he sat at the supper? where the prisoner sat, and each of the other guests; what were the dishes, what was the course of conversation, and so forth--the questions being capable of multiplication _ad infinitum_; so that, however well tutored, the witnesses would inevitably contradict each other upon some matters, on which the tutor had not foreseen that the witness would be cross-examined, or to which he had forgotten the answer prescribed. The difficulty was, however, surmounted. After the prisoner's apprehension, the selected witnesses were invited to a mackerel supper, which took place at an hour corresponding to that at which the crime was committed; and so careful was the ingenious agent who devised this conspiracy against the truth that, guided by a sure instinct, he fixed upon the same day of the week as that on which the crime had been committed, though without knowing how fortunate it would be for the prisoner that he took this precaution. When, on cross-examination, it was found that the witnesses agreed as to the order in which the guests were seated, the contents of the dishes, the conversation which had taken place, and so forth; the counsel for the crown suspected the plot, but not imagining that it had been so perfectly elaborated, they inquired of their attorneys as to whether there was any occurrence peculiar to the day of the week in question, and were told that upon the evening of such a day, a public bell was always rung, which must have been heard at the supper, if it had taken place at the time pretended. The witnesses were separately called back and questioned as to the bell. They had all heard it; and thus not only were the cross-examiners utterly baffled, but the cross-examination gave tenfold support to the examination in chief, that is, to the evidence as given by the witnesses in answer to the questions put by the prisoner's counsel in his behalf.

The triumph of falsehood was complete. The prisoner was acquitted. When however the attention of prosecutors is called to the possibility of such fabrications they become less easy of management. The friends of a prisoner are often known to the police, and may be watched--the actors may be surprised at the rehearsal; a false ally may be inserted among them; in short there are many chances of the plot failing. This, however, is an age of improvement, and the thirty years which have elapsed since the days of Luddism have not been a barren period in any art or science. The mystery of cookery in dishes, accounts, and _alibis_, has profited by this general advancement. The latest device which my acquaintance with courts has brought to my knowledge is an _alibi_ of a very refined and subtle nature. The hypothesis is, that the prisoner was walking from point A to point Z, along a distant road, at the hour when the crime was committed. The witnesses are supposed each to see him, and some to converse with him, at points which may be indicated by many or all the letters of the alphabet. Each witness must be alone when he sees him, so that no two may speak to what occurred at the same spot or moment of time; but, with this reservation, each may safely indulge his imagination with any account of the interview which he has wit to make consistent with itself, and firmness to abide by under the storm of a cross-examination. "The force of _falsehood_ can no farther go." No rehearsal is necessary. Neither of the witnesses needs know of the existence of the others. The agent gives to each witness the name of the spot at which he is to place the prisoner. The witness makes himself acquainted with that spot, so as to stand a cross-examination as to the surrounding objects, and his education is complete. But as panaceas have only a fabulous existence, so this exquisite _alibi_ is not applicable to all cases; the witness must have a reason for being on the spot, plausible enough to foil the skill of the cross-examiner; and, as false witnesses can not be found at every turn, the difficulty of making it accord with the probability that the witness was where he pretends to have been on the day and at the hour in question, is often insuperable; to say nothing of the possibility and probability of its being clearly established, on the part of the prosecution, that the prisoner could not have been there. I should add, that, except in towns of the first magnitude, it must be difficult to find mendacious witnesses who have in other respects the proper qualifications to prove a concocted _alibi_, save always where the prisoner is the champion of a class; and then, according to my experience--sad as the avowal is--the difficulty is greatly reduced.

These incidents illustrate the soundness of the well known proposition, that mixture of truth with falsehood, augments to the highest degree the noxious power of the venomous ingredient. That man was no mean proficient in the art of deceiving, who first discovered the importance of the liar being parsimonious in mendacity. The mind has a stomach as well as an eye, and if the bolus be neat falsehood, it will be rejected like an overdose of arsenic which does not kill.

Let the juryman ponder these things, and beware how he lets his mind lapse into a conclusion either for or against the prisoner. To perform the duties of his office, so that the days which he spends in the jury-box will bear retrospection, his eyes, his ears, and his intellect must be ever on the watch. A witness in the box, and the same man in common life, are different creatures. Coming to give evidence, "he doth suffer a law change." Sometimes he becomes more truthful, as he ought to do, if any change is necessary; but unhappily this is not always so, and least of all in the case of those whose testimony is often required.

I remember a person, whom I frequently heard to give evidence quite out of harmony with the facts, but I shall state neither his name nor his profession. A gentleman who knew perfectly well the unpalatable designation which his evidence deserved, told me of his death. I ventured to think it was a loss which might be borne, and touched upon his infirmity, to which my friend replied in perfect sincerity of heart, "Well! after all, I do not think he ever told a falsehood in his life--_out of the witness box_!"

[From Dickens's Household Words]

THE GHOST THAT APPEARED TO MRS. WHARTON.

When my mother was a girl, some rumors began to steal through the town where she lived, about something having gone amiss with old Mrs. Wharton: for, if Mrs. Wharton was not known by all the townspeople, she was known and respected by so many, that it was really no trifle when she was seen to have the contracted brow, and the pinched look about the nose that people have when they are in alarm, or living a life of deep anxiety. Nobody could make out what was the matter. If asked, she said she was well. Her sons were understood to be perfectly respectable, and sufficiently prosperous; and there could be no doubt about the health, and the dutifulness, and the cheerfulness, of the unmarried daughter who lived with her. The old lady lived in a house which was her own property; and her income, though not large, was enough for comfort. What could it be that made her suddenly so silent and grave? Her daughter was just the same as ever, except that she was anxious about the change in her mother. It was observed by one or two that the clergyman had nothing to say, when the subject was spoken of in his hearing. He rolled and nodded his head, and he glanced at the ceiling and then stuck his chin deep into his shirt-frill: but those were things that he was always doing, and they might mean nothing. When inquired of about his opinion of Mrs. Wharton's looks and spirits, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as he stood before the fire with his hands behind him, and said, with the sweet voice and winning manner that charmed young and old, that, as far as he knew, Mrs. Wharton's external affairs were all right; and, as for peace of mind, he knew of no one who more deserved it. If the course of her life, and the temper of her mind, did not entitle her to peace within, he did not know who could hope for it. Somebody whispered that it would be dreadful if a shocking mortal disease should be seizing upon her: whereupon he, Mr. Gurney, observed that he thought he should have known if any such thing was to be apprehended. As far as a fit of indigestion went, he believed she suffered occasionally; but she did not herself admit even that. Dr. Robinson, who was present, said that Mrs. Wharton's friends might be quite easy about her health. She was not troubled with indigestion, nor with any other complaint. People could only go on to ask one another what could be the matter. One or two agreed that Mr. Gurney had made very skillful answers, in which he was much assisted by his curious customary gestures; but that he had never said that he did not know of any trouble being on Mrs. Wharton's mind.