Chapter X

Are you acquainted with the difference
That holds the present question in the court?
Is not this the boy redeemed from death?
SHAKSPEARE.

Can the sea yield up its dead alive?

The Judge took his seat on the bench at nine o’clock: on one side of him was the high-sheriff, and on the other sat an acquaintance of the sheriff’s, a fair-haired good-looking young man, who seemed a silent but apparently an interested spectator of all the proceedings; and to him the Judge turned frequently during what followed, making easy courteous remarks, occasionally in a tone of levity which perhaps did not quite become the person from whom they emanated, or the occasion on which they were expressed: nor did they seem to be particularly acceptable to him to whom they were addressed, for he very faintly re-echoed his Lordship’s chuckling accompaniment to his own pleasantry.

The prisoners having been placed at the bar, and the pleadings having been opened from his first brief by Mr. Spencer, a proceeding which in any hands always seems calculated to make the matter a thousand times more unintelligible to a simple-minded jury, the case was stated by a senior counsel, whose practice was so exclusively confined to the criminal court, that it was said of him, by the witlings below him, “that he never took any daily exercise but on the _rope-walk_.” The first witness then called was Lucy Darnell. This was an awful moment for poor George, when on such an occasion he heard that name shouted in the court by the crier, and taken up by the javelin-men.

Except that one moment when, as he was brought back handcuffed, he had met her half distracted on the beach, he had not seen her since they parted in anger before the cave. And now, as she appeared at this summons and mounted the elevated witness-box, a murmur of admiration ran through the court, so little did her appearance coincide with what any one who had not seen her, had formed to themselves as their idea of the sort of girl who was likely to be mixed up in a transaction of this kind. The effect was universal. Even the old Judge expressed his favourable feelings in rather too lively a sally to the fair young man beside him. Mr. Bailey senior, the leading counsel for the prosecution, altered his usual address to persons in her situation, of “my good girl,” into “Miss Darnell.” Tutored as she had been by her aunt, and determined as she was not to cast her eyes to the bar, Lucy got through all the first questions tolerably well, interspersed as they were with repeated desires from Mr. Bailey, “that she would raise her voice,” and “lift up her head,” and “look at my Lord and the gentlemen of the jury;” and at length, interrupted by a request, conveyed by him in an unusually courteous manner, that she would remove her bonnet,--a suggestion offered to him who made it by a learned brother, who, from where he sat, could not see her face,--she chose rather to comply at once with this request, than to make any difficulties, and in consequence, the graceful contour of her face and throat, except where partially concealed by the luxuriant clusters of her fine light-brown hair, became visible to all. This was followed by another of those general murmurs of approbation peculiarly remarked in courts of justice, because, perhaps, there least of all they ought to find vent.

To all the first questions, as, “What’s your name?” “Where do you live?” “What is your father?” “Do you know George Darnell?” “Did you know a person of the name of Churchill?” “Do you remember the evening of the 19th of the month of----?” the reader will readily have anticipated her answers, and they were given with the same facility, which any of my readers themselves, if they have paid courteous attention to these pages, could have replied. But when it came to the act in question, and she was required to speak accurately to the blow given, old Bailey and his young witness no longer pulled so well together. She having stated that she was so far off at the time, that she could not speak positively as to anything more than seeing the deceased fall: it was then again, “Come, my good girl, you must try and recollect yourself.” For Mr. Bailey, perhaps, suspecting that there was a flaw in George’s confession, was very anxious to have it confirmed on this point. At last, not being able to weather this difficulty, he was provoked to say, “Come, my good girl, if the deceased Churchill had been your sweetheart, instead of the prisoner at the bar, I think this is not exactly the sort of evidence you would have given.” At this, one of the prisoner’s counsel, who had been affecting to take notes, but who was, in fact, sketching the witness’s profile on a scrap of paper before him, finding his avocation interrupted by the flood of tears which burst from her at this unjust remark, addressed the Judge, saying, “My Lord, my learned friend forgets this is his own witness.” The Judge was, for a moment, prevented from replying, by the amusement he seemed to experience from the fair young man beside him, who probably, from being easily excited, and unused to the decorum required in courts of justice, had started up, as if to resent the insult offered to the young person, to whose testimony he had throughout been very attentive. His Lordship smiled for a moment, and then phlegmatically said,

“Mr. Bailey, you may as well not persevere in these remarks.”

As soon as the poor witness was sufficiently composed to be enabled to go on with her testimony, she was farther interrogated with respect to the deceased, his habits and character, and whether he was likely to provoke offence. To all of which she replied warmly and fervently in his favour. The examination in chief being concluded, the junior sketching counsel on the other side would have proceeded to ask her some questions, but, as the solicitor for the defence had complied with the directions to spare no expense, he had engaged Mr. Serjeant Leaderly, who had then been pleading in the other court, and having just been summoned, the consequence was, an immense bustle and rustling of silk gowns, and many obtrusive heads were somewhat roughly tapped by the javelin-men, to make room for the learned Serjeant, and at length he arrived, and took his place on the seat immediately under the bench, when the Judge handed over a paper to him, with,

“Take a sandwich, brother Leaderly; they have been sent me by my learned brother in the other court. I suppose, as they are _hung_ beef, he thought the venue ought to lie here; at any rate, I can’t deny that _he’s_ on the _civil side_ now,” chuckling audibly, and turning round to the fair young man for applause, who, by the constrained expression of his countenance, seemed to think that the ermine and the toga, no more than grey hairs, became a fool and a jester.

Mr. Serjeant Leaderly, mumbling his sandwich the while, and turning over the folios of his brief, at length began:

“My good girl, you knew the deceased (what’s his name?) Churchill; did he ever himself follow the nautical calling?”

“Sir?”

“Was he involved in these smuggling transactions himself?”

“I believe not, Sir.”

“What was his habit while he resided in your house?”

“His habit was to walk out with me, whenever mother would let him.”

“Yes, yes, I dare say; but I don’t mean that.--Did he ever wear a short round-cut jacket?”

“I can’t remember that he ever did.”

“Will you undertake to say that he never did wear a short round-cut jacket?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Will you pretend to deny that he ever did wear a short round-cut jacket?”

“No; I cannot say positively that he never did.”

The turn of this examination having so little to do with the previous course of the trial, of which Mr. Serjeant Leaderly had not heard a word, surprised several. And one or two briefless juniors who were sitting together, whispered,

“A short round-cut jacket! What can Leaderly be driving at? Spencer, that’s you he’s describing. Spencer, that must be a cut at you.”

“No,” retorted the other, “it’s the reverse of a cut at Spencer, for he seems to think thereby to hang a tail.”

But Leaderly, perhaps, not having had time to do more than ascertain that this was a principal witness for the prosecution, and thinking it his business to discredit her, evidently somehow imagined he had made a point, and he continued,

“Then do you mean to tell me, Lucy Darnell, that you cannot answer my question simply and decidedly, yes or no?”

“I cannot say positively.”

“Oh! you cannot say positively. We must try somehow, and bring you to the point; you will recollect you are on your oath, or is that a fact you do recollect?”

“Yes, Sir, certainly,” said Lucy, mildly but firmly.

At this moment a messenger from the other court whispered, from behind the railing, to Mr. Serjeant Leaderly, that the important cause of Scurry _versus_ Waitfort was just called on; upon which the Serjeant, nodding apart, said,

“And being upon your oath, which, it appears, you do recollect, you mean to tell my lord and the gentlemen of the jury, that you cannot recollect whether Churchill either did or did not ever wear a short round-cut jacket?”

“No, I cannot, indeed.”

“My Lord, I shall ask the witness no farther questions,” said the Serjeant, with the self-satisfied air of a man who had settled the whole business; and gathering up his papers into his bag, and with the same rustling of silk gown and tapping of intervening heads, he made his exit. And this was all the benefit George derived from the first lawyer on the circuit having been engaged in his behalf.

At this period of the trial the Judge interfered. He was, or he would never have been on the bench, barring that one defect, an unfortunate incontinence of waggery, a very quick-sighted person as to the weak points in a cause; and when he could exercise the power of retention upon the flow of his pleasantry till a fitting occasion, he was an excellent judge. He said, “Gentlemen of the jury, I don’t think this will do at all. It don’t appear clear that the body of this unfortunate gentleman was ever found. Now, Lucy Darnell, listen to me; don’t distress yourself. I am not going to ask you any question which need have that effect. It appears that you knew this Churchill very well, and therefore would have been able to recognize him however changed. Now don’t turn your head away, nobody’s going to frighten you; look at me, and answer my question. When was the last time you saw Churchill, dead or alive?”

As the Judge finished his question, Lucy, preparing to answer it, raised her eyes in the direction she had been desired; a ray of sunshine, through the sky-light above, fell full upon the countenance of the fair young man on the bench; and Lucy, uttering a piercing scream, dropped lifeless at the bottom of the witness-box. The impression which had produced this sudden effect was, that the person before her was no other than Churchill, and though somewhat changed in many respects from the state in which she had lately known him, yet still gazing on her with the same fond interest which his countenance had expressed on the night on which they last had been parted.--It certainly was Churchill, or rather Lord Castleton, she then beheld.

It was thought best for her recovery to remove her from the court, though no one guessed the cause of this emotion, which was attributed to the severe discipline, in the shape of cross examination, to which she had been subjected; and as no one besides Lord Castleton suspected that his living apparition had produced this powerful effect, he, without any danger of enlightening them on that subject, to which he was still averse, speedily afterwards himself left the court. The reader will foresee George’s acquittal, from the turn which the Judge’s examination had taken, because, however the matter might have been for a time involved in mystery from the confused nature of the depositions taken by Mr. Spencer, upon enquiry it turned out, that there was no proof of any murder having been actually committed, from any dead body having been discovered. We shall therefore take the liberty of inviting the reader also to leave the court, as what has been recorded was only so far as was thought necessary for the progress of the story, and with no ambition of broaching a paraphrase of the celebrated “Causes Celèbres” of a neighbouring country; and still less with the bad taste of attempting a parody of our own.