Bred in the Bone; Or, Like Father, Like Son Part 30

Mr. Balais smiled, shrugged his shoulders. His principles of oratory were Demosthenean; his motto was "Action, action, action." His. friends on circuit called him the Balais of action. He had had some experience of the depravity of human nature, said the shrug, but this beat every thing, and would be really amusing but for its atrocious infamy. Good Heavens!

"Then you never had any conversation with the prisoner with reference to your daughter at all?"

"Never."

Mr. Balais bent down and interchanged a word or two with Mr. Weasel behind him.

"Now be so good as to give me your best attention, Mr. Trevethick, for upon my next question more may depend than you may be aware of. If you have any regard for your own interests you will answer it truly; for as sure as--"

"Is this necessary, Brother Balais?" interrupted the judge, scratching his forehead with his forefinger, and looking up at the sky-light, as though that matter was not satisfactorily settled even yet.

"My lud, I am instructed that nothing less than a conspiracy has been entered into against my unfortunate client."

The judge nodded slightly, shivered considerably, and made a mental note to complain of that infernal draught before he should dismiss the grand jury.

"I ask you, Mr. Trevethick," continued the counsel, solemnly, "whether or not, in a conversation which you held with the prisoner upon a certain day last month, you mentioned two thousand pounds as the sum you must needs see in his possession before you could listen to any proposition of his with respect to your daughter's hand?"

"I did not."

"You never spoke of that particular sum to him at all?"

"Never at all."

It was Mr. Balais who looked up at the sky-light this time--as though he expected a thunder-bolt.

"The notes, of which we have heard so much, as being h.o.a.rded in this ingenious box of yours--and that you are a very ingenious man, Mr.

Trevethick, there is no doubt--this box, I say, was kept in a certain cupboard, was it not?"

"It was."

"And now, please to look at the jury when you answer me this question: Where was this particular cupboard situated, Mr. Trevethick?"

Into the landlord's impa.s.sive face there stole for the first time a look of disquiet, and his harsh, monotonous voice grew tremulous as he replied, "The cupboard was in my daughter's bedroom."

"That will do, Mr. Trevethick, _for the present_," observed Mr. Balais, with emphasis; "though I shall probably have the opportunity of seeing you another time"--and he glanced significantly toward the dock--"_in another place_."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

FOR THE DEFENSE.

When Mr. Balais rose again it was to speak for the defense, and he addressed the jury amidst an unbroken silence. So rapt, indeed, was the attention of his audience that the smack of a carter's whip, as he went by in the street below, was resented by many a frown as an impertinent intrusion; and even the quarters of the church clock were listened to with impatience, lest its iron tongue should drown a single sentence.

This latter interruption did not, however, often take place, for Mr.

Balais was as brief in speech as he was energetic in action. He began by at once allowing the main facts which the prosecution had proved--that the notes had been taken from Trevethick's box, and found in the prisoner's possession, who had been detected in the very act of endeavoring to change them for notes of another banking company. But what he maintained was, that this exchange was not, as Mr. Smoothbore had suggested, effected for the purpose of realizing the money, but simply of throwing dust in the prosecutor's eyes. He had changed the notes only with the intention of returning his own money to Trevethick under another form. Even so young a man, and one so thoroughly ignorant of the ways of the world and of business matters as was his client, must surely have been aware, if using the money for himself had been his object, that it could be traced in notes of the Mining Company as easily as in notes of the Bank of England; nay, by this very proceeding of his, he had even given them a _double_ chance of being traced. He (Mr.

Balais) was not there, of course, to justify the conduct of the prisoner at the bar. It was unjustifiable, it was reprehensible in a very high degree; but what he did maintain was that, even taking for granted all that had been put in evidence, this young man's conduct was not criminal; it was not that of a thief. He had never had the least intention of stealing this money; his scheme had been merely a stratagem to obtain the object of his affections for his wife. This Trevethick was a hard and grasping man, and it was necessary for the young fellow to satisfy him that he was possessed of certain property before he would listen to any proposition for his daughter's hand. His idea--a wrong and foolish one, indeed, but then look at his youth and inexperience--was to impose upon this old miser, by showing him his own money in another form, and then, when he had gained his object, to return it to him. Mr.

Balais was, for his own part, as certain of such being the fact as that he was standing in that court-house. Let them turn their eyes on the unhappy prisoner in the dock, and judge for themselves whether he looked like the mere felon which his learned friend had painted him, or the romantic, self-deceiving, thoughtless lad, such as he (Mr. Balais) felt convinced he was. They had all heard of the proverb that all things were fair in love as in war. When the jury had been young themselves perhaps some of them had acted upon that theory; at all events, it was not an unnatural idea for young people to act upon. Proverbs had always a certain weight and authority of their own. They were not necessarily Holy Writ (Mr. Balais was not quite certain whether the proverb in question was one of Solomon's own or not, so he put it in this cautious manner), but they smacked of it. This Richard Yorke, perhaps, had thought it no great harm to win his love by a false representation of the state of his finances. He could not see his way how otherwise to melt the stony heart of this old curmudgeon, who had doubtless--notwithstanding the evidence they had heard from him that day--encouraged the young man's addresses so long as he believed him to be Mr. Carew's lawful heir. The whole question, in fact, resolved itself into one of _motive_; and if there was not a word of evidence forthcoming upon the prisoner's part, he (Mr. Balais) would have left the case in the jury's hands, with the confident conviction that they would never impute to that unhappy boy--who had already suffered such tortures of mind and body as were more than a sufficient punishment for his offense--the deliberate and shameful crime of which he stood accused. He had lost his position in the world already; he had lost his sweetheart, for they had all heard that day that she was about to be driven into wedlock with his rival, a man twice his age and hers; he had lost the protection of his father--his own flesh and blood--for since this miserable occurrence he had chosen to disown him; and yet here was the prosecutor, who had lost nothing (except his own self-respect, and the respect of all who had listened to his audacious testimony that morning), pressing for a conviction, for more punishment; in a word, for the gratification of a mean revenge. If he (Mr. Balais) had nothing more, therefore, to urge in his client's defense, he would have been content to leave the jury to deal with this case--Englishmen, who detested oppression, and loved that justice only which is tempered with mercy. But as it so happened, there was no need thus to leave it; no necessity to appeal to mercy at all. He had only to ask them for the barest justice. He was happily in a position to prove that the prisoner at the bar had no more stolen this two thousand pounds than their own upright and sagacious foreman.

A sigh of relief was uttered from a hundred gentle b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "We are coming to something at last," it seemed to say. A hundred fair faces looked at Mr. Balais--who was growing gray and wrinkled, and found every new performance of his pantomime harder and harder--as though they could have kissed him, nevertheless. "Yes, gentlemen of the jury, that money was given to him by the prosecutor's daughter with her own hand."

A murmur of satisfaction ran round the court-house.

There _was_ a romance--a love-story--in the case, then, after all.

Mr. Balais concluded a most energetic speech with a peroration of great brilliancy, in which Richard and Harry were exhibited like a transparency in the bright colors of Youth, and Hope, and Pa.s.sion, and finally sat down amidst what would have been a burst of applause but for the harsh voice of the usher nipping it in the bud by proclaiming silence.

There was no need for his doing that when Mr. Balais jumped up to his feet again, as though he were on springs, and called for Harry Trevethick. The judge was taking snuff at the time; and such was the stillness that you could hear the overplus falling on the paper before him on which he wrote down his notes. There was a minute's delay, during which every eye was fixed upon the witness-box, and then Harry appeared.

She was very pale, and wore a look of anxious timidity; but a bright spot came into her cheeks as she turned her face to the prisoner in the dock, and smiled upon him. From that moment Richard felt that he was safe. Guarded as he was, and still in peril, he forgot his danger, and once more resolved that he would cleave to this tender creature, to whom he was about to owe his safety, to his life's end.

Harry was simply yet attractively attired in a pale violet silk dress, with a straw bonnet trimmed with the same modest color. It was observed, with reference to this and to the innocence and gentleness of her expression, that she looked like a dove; and a dove she seemed to Richard, bringing him the signal that the flood was abating, the deep waters of which had so nearly overwhelmed both soul and body. Even the judge, as Mr. Weasel had foretold, regarded her through his double gla.s.ses with critical approval; for a most excellent judge he was--of female attractions.

Mr. Balais smiled triumphantly at the jury. "Did I not tell you," he seemed to say, "that my client is guiltless in this matter? Here is Truth herself come to witness in his favor. Bless her!" Richard's feverish eyes were fixed upon her; he knew no G.o.d, but here was his spring in the wilderness, his shadow of the great rock in a weary land.

As for her, she looked only at the judge, expecting--poor little ignoramus--that it was he who would question her.

"You are the daughter of John Trevethick, of Gethin?" said Mr. Balais.

This interrogatory, simple as it was, made her color rise, coming from that unexpected quarter.

"Yes, Sir."

"He keeps an inn, does he not; the"--here Mr. Balais affected to consult his brief, to give her time to recover herself from her modest confusion--"the _Gethin Castle_, I believe?"

"Yes, Sir."

"The prisoner at the bar has been staying there for some months, has he not?"

She stole another look at Richard: it spoke as plainly as looks could speak, "Oh yes; that is how I came to know and love him." But she only murmured, "Yes, Sir."

"Speak up, Miss Trevethick," said the counsel, encouragingly; "these twelve gentlemen are all very anxious to hear what you have to say." The judge nodded and smiled, as though in corroboration, as well as to add, upon his own account, that it would give _him_ also much pleasure to hear her.

"Was the prisoner staying in the inn as an ordinary guest, or did he mix with the family?"

"He was in the bar parlor most nights, Sir, along with father and me and Solomon."

"He was in the bar parlor most nights," repeated Mr. Balais, significantly, for he was anxious that the jury should catch that answer--"'With father and me and Solomon.' And who introduced him into the parlor?"

"Father brought him first, Sir, on the second day after he came to Gethin."

"Father brought him in, did he? Now, that is rather an unusual thing for the landlord of an inn to do, is it not? To introduce a young man whom he had known but twenty-four hours to his family circle, and to the society of his daughter, eh?"

"Please, Sir, I don't know, Sir."

"No, of course you don't, Miss Trevethick; how should you? But I think the jury know. You have no idea, then, yourself, why your father introduced this young gentleman to you so early?"

"Father said he was a friend of Mr. Carew's, of Crompton, who is father's landlord."

"Just so," said Mr. Balais, with another significant glance at the attentive twelve. "Mr. Trevethick had already discovered that this youth was of a good social position, and likely to prove an excellent match.