Hard Cash Part 124

On this they proposed she should retire to her room, and they would go for David.

"Think over the meeting, dear, dear mamma," said Julia, "and then you will behave well for his sake, who was lost to us and is found."

Husband and wife met alone in Mrs. Dodd's room. No eye, even of the children, ventured to witness a scene so strange, so sacred. We may try and imagine that meeting; but few of us can conceive it by the light of our narrow experience. Yet one or two there may be--the world is wide, and the adventures and emotions of our race are many.

One by one all were had up to that sacred room to talk to the happy pair. They found David seated calmly at his wife's feet, her soft hand laid on his white hair, lest he should leave her again: and they told him all the sorrow behind them; and he, genial and kindly as ever, told them all the happiness before them. He spoke like the master of the house, the father of the family, the friend of them all.

But with all his goodness he was sternly resolved to have his L. 14,000 out of Richard Hardie. He had an interview with Mr. Compton that very night, and the lawyer wrote a letter to Mr. Hardie, saying nothing about the death of Skinner, but notifying that his client, Captain Dodd, had recovered from Noah Skinner the receipt No. 17 for L. 14,010 12s. 6d, and he was instructed to sue for it unless repaid immediately. He added Captain Dodd was mercifully restored, and remembered distinctly every particular of the transaction.

They all thought in their innocence that Hardie _v._ Hardie was now at an end. Captain Dodd could prove Alfred's _soi-disant_ illusion to be the simple truth. But Compton thought that this evidence had come too late. "What, may we not get up and say here is papa, and it is all true?" cried Julia indignant.

"No, Miss Dodd; our case is closed. And take my advice: don't subject your father to the agitation of a trial. We can do without him."

Well then, they would all go as spectators, and pray that justice might prevail.

They did go: and all sat together to hear a matter puzzled over, which had David come one day earlier he would have set at rest for ever.

d.i.c.k Absolom was put in to prove that Alfred had put two sovereigns on the stumps for him to bowl if he could; and after him the defendant, Mr.

Thomas Hardie, a mild, benevolent, weak gentleman, was put into the box, and swore the boy's father had come to him with story after story of the plaintiff's madness, and the trouble it would get him into, and so he had done for the best. His simplicity was manifest, and Saunders worked it ably. When Colt got hold of him, and badgered him, he showed something more than simplicity. He stuttered, he contradicted himself, he perspired, he all but wept.

_Colt._--Are you sure you had no spite against him?

_Deft._--No.

_Colt._--You are not sure, eh?

This candid interpretation of his words knocked the defendant stupid. He made no reply, but looked utterly flabbergasted.

_Colt._--Did he not provoke you? Did he not call you an idiot.

_Deft._--He might.

_Colt._ (satirically).--Of course he might. (Laughter.) But did he?

_Deft._ (plucking up a little spirit).--No. He called me SOFT TOMMY.

This revelation, and the singular appropriateness of the nickname, were so highly relished by an intelligent audience, that it was a long time before the trial could go on for roars. The plaintiff's ringing laugh was heard among the rest.

The cross-examination proceeded in this style till the defendant began to drivel at the mouth a little. At last, after a struggle, he said, with a piteous whine, that he could not help it: he hated signing his name; some mischief always came of it; but this time he had no option.

"No option?" said Colt. "What do you mean?"

And with one or two more turns of the screw, out came this astounding revelation:

"Richard said if I didn't put Taff in one, _he_ would put _me_ in one."

_The Judge._--In one what?

_Deft._ (weeping).--In one madhouse, my lord.

A peal followed this announcement, and Colt sat down grinning. Saunders rose smiling. "I am much obliged to the learned counsel for making my case," said he: "I need not prolong the sufferings of the innocent. You can go down, Mr. Hardie."

_The Judge._--Have you any defence to this action?

"Certainly, my lord."

"Do you call Richard Hardie?"

"No, my lord."

"Then had you not better confine yourself to the question of damages?"

The st.u.r.dy Saunders would not take the hint; he replied upon the whole case, and fought hard for a verdict. The line he took was bold; he described Richard Hardie as a man who had acquired a complete power over his weaker brother: and had not only persuaded him by statements, but even compelled him by threats, to do what he believed would be the salvation of his nephew. "Will you imitate the learned counsel's cruelty? Will you strike a child?" In short, he made a powerful appeal to their pity, while pretending to address their judgments.

Then Colt rose like a tower, and a.s.suming the verdict as certain, asked the jury for heavy damages. He contrasted powerfully the defendant's paltry claim to pity with the anguish the plaintiff had undergone. He drew the wedding party, the insult to the bride, the despair of the kidnapped bridegroom; he lashed the whole gang of conspirators concerned in the crime, regretted that they could only make one of all these villains smart, but hinted that Richard and Thomas Hardie were in one boat, and that heavy damages inflicted on Thomas would find the darker culprit out. He rapped out Mr. Cowper's lines on liberty, and they were new to the jury, though probably not to you; he warned the jury that all our liberties depended on them. "In vain," said he, "have we beheaded one tyrant, and banished another, to secure those liberties, if men are to be allowed to send away their own flesh and blood into the worst of all prisons for life and not smart for it, in those lamentably few cases in which the law finds them out and lays hold of them." But it would task my abilities to the utmost, and occupy more time than is left me, to do anything like justice to the fluent fiery eloquence of Colt, Q.

C., when he got a great chance like this. _Tonat, fulgurat, et rapidis eloquentiae fluctibus cuncia proruit et proturbat._ Bursts of applause, that neither crier nor judge could suppress, bore witness to the deep indignation Britons feel when their hard-earned liberties are tampered with by power or fraud, in defiance of law; and, when he sat down, the jury were ready to fly out at him with L. 5000 in hand.

Then rose the pa.s.sionless voice of "justice according to law." I wish I could give the very words. The following is the effect as _I_ understood it. Lawyers, forgive my deficiencies.

"This is an important, but not a difficult case. The plaintiff sues the defendant under _the law of England_ for falsely imprisoning him in a madhouse. The imprisonment is admitted, and the sufferings of the plaintiff not disputed. The question is, whether he was insane at the time of the act? Now, I must tell you, that in a case of this kind, it lies upon the defendant to prove the plaintiff's insanity, rather than on the plaintiff to prove his own sanity. Has the defendant overcome this difficulty? Illusion is the best proof of insanity; and a serious endeavour was certainly made to fasten an illusion on the plaintiff about a sum of L. 14,000. But the proof was weak, and went partly on an a.s.sumption that all error is hallucination; this is illusory, and would, if acted on, set one half the kingdom imprisoning the other half; and after all, they did not demonstrate that the plaintiff was _in error._ They advanced no _undeniable proof_ that Mr. Richard Hardie has not embezzled this L. 14,000. I don't say it was proved on the other hand that he did embezzle that sum. Richard Hardie sueing Alfred Hardie for libel on this evidence might possibly obtain a verdict; for then the burden of proof would lie on Alfred Hardie; but here it lies on those who say he is insane. The fact appears to be that the plaintiff imbibed a reasonable suspicion of his own father's integrity; it was a suspicion founded on evidence, imperfect, indeed, but of a sound character as far as it went. There had been a letter from Captain Dodd to his family, announcing his return with L. 14,000 upon him, and, while as yet unaware of this letter, the plaintiff heard David Dodd accuse Richard Hardie of possessing improperly L. 14,000, the identical sum. At least, he swears to this, and as Richard Hardie was not called to contradict him, you are at liberty to suppose that Richard Hardie had some difficulty in contradicting him on oath. Here, then, true or false, was a rational suspicion, and every man has a right to a rational suspicion of his neighbour, and even to utter it within due limits; and, if he overstep those, the party slandered has his legal remedy; but if he omits his legal remedy, and makes an attempt of doubtful legality not to confute, but to stifle, the voice of reasonable suspicion, shrewd men will suspect all the more. But then comes a distinct and respectable kind of evidence for the defendant; he urges that the plaintiff was going to sign away his property to his wife's relations. Now, this was proved, and a draft of the deed put in and sworn to. This taken singly has a very extraordinary look. Still, you must consider the plaintiff's reasonable suspicion that money belonging to the Dodds had pa.s.sed irregularly to the Hardies, and then the wonder is diminished. Young and n.o.ble minds have in every age done generous, self-denying, and delicate acts. The older we get, the less likely we are to be incarcerated for a crime of this character; but we are not to imprison youth and chivalry merely because we have outgrown them. To go from particulars to generals, the defendant, on whom the proof lies, has advanced hearsay and conjecture, and not put their originators into the box. The plaintiff, on whom the proof does not lie, has advanced abundant evidence that he was sane at the time of his incarceration: this was proved to demonstration by friends, strangers, and by himself." Here the judge a.n.a.lysed the testimony of several of the plaintiff's witnesses.

"As to the parties themselves, it is curious how they impersonated, so to speak, their respective lines of argument. The representative of evidence and sound reasoning, though accused of insanity, was precise, frank, rational and dignified in the witness-box; and I think you must have noticed his good temper. The party, who relied on hearsay and conjecture, was as feeble as they are; he was almost imbecile, as you observed; and, looking at both parties, it really seems monstrous that the plaintiff should be the one confined as a lunatic, and the defendant allowed to run wild and lock up his intellectual superiors. If he means to lock them _all_ up, even you and I are hardly safe. (Laughter.) The only serious question, I apprehend, is on what basis the damages ought to be a.s.sessed. The plaintiffs counsel has made a powerful appeal to your pa.s.sions, and calls for vengeance. Now I must tell you, you have no right to make yourselves ministers of vengeance, nor even to punish the defendant, in a suit of the kind: still less ought you to strike the defendant harder than you otherwise would--in the vague hope of punishing indirectly the true mover of the defendant and the other puppets. I must warn you against that suggestion of the learned counsel's. If the plaintiff wants vengeance, the criminal law offers it.

He comes here, not for vengeance, but for compensation, and restoration to that society which he is every way fitted to adorn. More than this--and all our sympathies--it is not for us to give him. But then the defendant's counsel went too far the other way. His client, he says, is next door to an idiot, and so, forsooth, his purse must be spared entirely. This is all very well if it could be done without ignoring the plaintiff and his just claim to compensation. Why, if the defendant, instead of being weak-minded, were an idiot or a lunatic, it would protect him from punishment as a felon, but not from damages in a suit.

A sane man is not to be falsely imprisoned by a lunatic without full compensation from the lunatic or his estate: _a fortiori,_ he is not to be so imprisoned by a mere fool without just compensation. Supposing your verdict, then, to be for the plaintiff, I think vindictive damages would be unfair, on this feeble defendant, who has acted recklessly, but under an error, and without malice, or bad faith. On the other hand, nominal or even unsubstantial damages would be unjust to the plaintiff; and perhaps leave in some minds a doubt that I think you do not yourselves entertain, as to the plaintiff's perfect sanity during the whole period of his life."

As soon as his lordship had ended, the foreman of the jury said their minds were quite made up long ago.

"Si-lence in the court."

"We find for the plaintiff, with damages three thousand pounds."

The verdict was received with some surprise by the judge, and all the lawyers except Mr. Colt, and by the people with acclamation; in the midst of which Mr. Colt announced that the plaintiff had just gained his first cla.s.s at Oxford. "I wish him joy," said the judge.

CHAPTER LIV

THE verdict was a thunder-clap to Richard Hardie: he had promised Thomas to bear him blameless. The Old Turks, into which he had bought at 72, were down to 71, and that implied a loss of five thousand pounds. On the top of all this came Mr. Compton's letter neatly copied by Colls: Richard Hardie was doubly and trebly ruined.

Then in his despair and hate he determined to baffle them all, ay, and sting the hearts of some of them once more.

He would give Peggy his last shilling; write a line to Alfred, another to Julia, a.s.suring them he had no money, and they had killed him. And with that leave them both the solemn curse of a dying father, and then kill himself.

Not to be interrupted in his plan, he temporised with Mr. Compton; wrote that, if the Receipt was really signed by his agent, of course the loss must fall on him; it was a large sum, but he would sell out and do his best, in ten days from date. With this he went and bought a pistol, and at several chemist's shops a little essential oil of almonds: his plan was to take the poison, and, if it killed without pain, well and good; but if it tortured him, then he would blow his brains out at once.

He soon arranged his worldly affairs, and next day gave Peggy his L.