Hard Cash Part 119

Mr. Compton cast an inquiring glance up at a certain gallery. A beautiful girl bowed her head in reply, with a warm blush and such a flash of her eye, and Mr. Colt said, "As my learned friend was afraid to cross-examine the plaintiff on any point but this, and as I mean to respond to his challenge, and call Miss Dodd, I will not trouble the plaintiff any further."

Through the whole ordeal Alfred showed a certain flavour of Eton and Oxford that won all hearts. His replies were frank and honest, and under cross-examination he was no more to be irritated than if Saunders had been Harrow bowling at him, or the Robin sparring with him. The serjeant, who was a gentleman, indicated some little regret at the possible annoyance he was causing him. Alfred replied with a grand air of good fellowship, "Do not think so poorly of me as to suppose I feel aggrieved because you are an able advocate and do your duty to your client, sir."

_The Judge._--That is very handsomely said. I am afraid you have got an awkward customer, in a case of this kind, Brother Saunders.

_Serjt. S._--It is not for want of brains he is mad, my lord.

_Alfred._--That is a comfort, any way. (Laughter.)

When counsel had done with him, the judge used his right, and put several shrewd and unusual questions to him: asked him to define insanity. He said he could only do it by examples: and he abridged several intelligent madmen, their words and ways; and contrasted them with the five or six sane people he had fallen in with in asylums; showing his lordship plainly that _he_ could tell any insane person whatever from a sane one, and _vice versa._ This was the most remarkable part of the trial, to see this shrewd old judge extracting from a real observer and logical thinker those positive indicia of sanity and insanity, which exist, but which no lawyer has ever yet been able to extract from any psychological physician in the witness-box. At last, he was relieved, and sat sucking an orange among the spectators; for they had parched his throat amongst them, I promise you.

Julia Dodd entered the box, and a sunbeam seemed to fill the court.

She knew what to do: her left hand was gloved, but her white right hand bare. She kissed the book, and gave her evidence in her clear, mellow, melting voice; gave it reverently and modestly, for to her the court was a church. She said how long she had been acquainted with Alfred, and how his father was adverse, and her mother had thought it was because they did not pa.s.s for rich, and had told her they were rich, and with this she produced David's letter, and she also swore to having met Alfred and others carrying her father in a swoon from his father's very door.

She deposed to Alfred's sanity on her wedding eve, and on the day his recapture was attempted.

Saunders, against his own judgment, was instructed to cross-examine her; and, without meaning it, he put a question which gave her deep distress.

"Are you now engaged to the plaintiff?" She looked timidly round, and saw Alfred, and hesitated. The serjeant pressed her politely, but firmly.

"Must I reply to that?" she said piteously.

"If you please."

"Then, no. Another misfortune has now separated him and me for ever."

"What is that, pray?"

"My father is said to have died at sea: and my mother thinks _he_ is to blame."

_The judge to Saunders._--What on earth has this to do with Hardie against Hardie?

_Saunders._--You are warmly interested in the plaintiff's success?

_Julia._--Oh yes, sir.

_Colt_ (aside to Garrow).--The fool is putting his foot into it: there's not a jury in England that would give a verdict to part two interesting young lovers.

_Saunders._--You are attached to him?

_Julia._--Ah, that I do.

This burst, intended for poor Alfred, not the court, baffled cross-examination and grammar and everything else. Saunders was wise and generous, and said no more.

Colt cast a glance of triumph, and declined to re-examine. He always let well alone. The judge, however, evinced a desire to trace the fourteen thousand pounds from Calcutta; but Julia could not help him: that mysterious sum had been announced by letter as about to sail, and then no more was heard about it till Alfred accused his father of having it.

All endeavours to fill this hiatus failed. However, Julia, observing that in courts material objects affect the mind most, had provided herself with all the _pieces de conviction_ she could find, and she produced her father's empty pocket-book, and said, when he was brought home senseless, this was in his breast-pocket.

"Hand it up to me," said the judge. He examined it, and said it had been in the water.

"Captain Dodd was wrecked off the French coast," suggested Mr. Saunders.

"My learned friend had better go into the witness-box, if he means to give evidence," said Mr. Colt.

"You are very much afraid of a very little truth," retorted Saunders.

The judge stopped this sham rencontre, by asking the witness whether her father had been wrecked. She said "Yes."

"And that is how the money was lost," persisted Saunders.

"Possibly," said the judge.

"I'm darned if it was," said Joshua Fullalove composedly.

Instantly, all heads were turned in amazement at this audacious interruption to the soporific decorum of an English court. The transatlantic citizen received this battery of eyes with complete imperturbability.

"Si-lence!" roared the crier, awaking from a nap, with an instinct that something unusual had happened. But the shrewd old judge had caught the sincerity with which the words were uttered, and put on his spectacles to examine the speaker.

"Are you for the plaintiff or the defendant?"

"I don't know either of 'em from Adam, my lord. But I know Captain Dodd's pocket-book by the bullet-hole."

"Indeed! You had better call this witness, Mr. Colt."

"Your lordship must excuse me; I am quite content with my evidence," said the wary advocate.

"Well then, I shall call him as _amicus curiae;_ and the defendant's counsel can cross-examine him."

Fullalove went into the box, was sworn, identified the pocket-book, and swore he had seen fourteen thousand pounds in it on two occasions. With very little prompting, he told the sea-fight, and the Indian darkie's attempt to steal the money, and pointed out Vespasian as the rival darkie who had baffled the attempt. Then he told the shipwreck to an audience now breathless--and imagine the astonished interest with which Julia and Edward listened to this stranger telling them the new strange story of their own father!--and lastly, the attempt of the two French wreckers and a.s.sa.s.sins, and how it had been baffled. And so the mythical cash was tracked to Boulogne.

The judge then put this question, "Did Captain Dodd tell you what he intended to do with it?"

_Fullalove_ (reverently).--I think, my lord, he said he was going to give it to his wife. (Sharply.) Well, what is it, old hoss? What are you making mugs at me for? Don't you know it's clean against law to telegraph a citizen in the witness-box?

_The Judge._--This won't do; this won't do.

_The Crier._--Silence in the court.

"Do you hyar now what his lordship says?" said Fullalove, with ready tact. "If you know anything more, come up hyar and swear it like an enlightened citizen; do you think I am going to swear for tew?" With this Vespasian and Fullalove proceeded to change places amidst roars of laughter at the cool off-hand way this pair arranged forensicalities; but Serjeant Saunders requested Fullalove to stay where he was. "Pray sir," said he slowly, "who retained you for a witness in this cause?"

Fullalove looked puzzled.

"Of course somebody asked you to drop in here so very accidentally: come now, who was it?"

"I'm G.o.d Almighty's witness dropped from the clouds, I cal'late."

"Come, sir, no prevarication. How came you here just at the nick of time?"

"Counsellor, when I'm treated polite, I'm ile; but rile me, and I'm thunder stuffed with pison: don't you raise my dander, and I'll tell you. I have undertaken to educate this yar darkie,"--here he stretched out a long arm, and laid his hand on Vespasian's woolly pate--"and I'm bound to raise him to the Eu-ropean model." (Laughter.) "So I said to him, coming over Westminster Bridge, 'Now there's a store hyar where they sell a very extraordinary Fixin; and it's called Justice; they sell it tarnation dear; _but_ prime. So I make tracks for the very court where I got the prime article three years ago, against a varmint that was breaking the seventh and eighth commandments over me, adulterating my patent and then stealing it. Blast him!" (A roar of laughter.) "And coming along I said this old country's got some good pints after all, old hoss. One is they'll sell you justice dear, _but_ prime in these yar courts, if you were born at Kamschatkee; and the other is, hyar darkies are free as air, disenthralled by the univarsal genius of British liberty; and then I pitched Counsellor Curran's bunk.u.m into this darkie, and he sucked it in like mother's milk, and in we came on tiptoe, and the first thing we heard was a freeborn Briton treated wus than ever a n.i.g.g.e.r in Old Kentuck, decoyed away from his gal, shoved into a darned madhouse--the darbies clapped on him----"

"We don't want your comments on the case, sir."