The Daltons Volume II Part 73

Meekins tried to smile as he proceeded to obey; but the effort was too much, and the features became fixed into one rigid expression, resembling the look of hysteric laughter.

"Well, do you know me now?" cried he, in a voice whose every accent rang with a tone of intimidation and defiance.

"I do," said the witness, boldly. "I 'll swear to that coat, my Lord, and I 'll prove I 'm right. It was the same stuffing put into both collars; and if I 'm telling you the truth, it 's a piece of ould corduroy is in that one there."

The very grave was not more still than the court as the officer of the jail, taking off the coat, ripped up the collar, and held up in his hand a small piece of tarnished corduroy.

"My Lord! my Lord! will you let a poor man's life be swore away--"

"Silence, sir,--be still, I say," cried the prisoner's counsel, who saw the irremediable injury of these pa.s.sionate appeals. "I am here to conduct your defence, and I will not be interfered with. Your Lordship will admit that this proceeding has all the character of surprise. We were perfectly unprepared for the line my learned friend has taken--"

"Permit me to interrupt the counsel, my Lord. I need scarcely appeal to this court to vindicate me against any imputation such as the learned gentleman opposite would apply to me. Your Lordship's venerable predecessors on that bench have more than once borne witness to the fairness and even the lenity of the manner in which the crown prosecutions have been conducted. Any attempt to surprise, any effort to entrap a prisoner, would be as unworthy of us as it would be impossible in a court over which you preside. The testimony which the witness has just given, the extraordinary light his evidence has just shown, was only made available to ourselves by one of those circ.u.mstances in which we see a manifestation of the terrible judgment of G.o.d upon him who sheds the blood of his fellow-man. Yes, my Lord, if any case can merit the designation of Providential intervention, it is this one. Every step of this singular history is marked by this awful characteristic. It is the nephew of the murdered man by whom the first trace of crime has been detected. It is by him that we have been enabled to bring the prisoner into that dock. It is by him that a revelation has been made which, had it not occurred in our own day and under our own eyes, we should be disposed to cla.s.s amongst the creations of fiction. The learned counsel has told you that these articles of clothing have been produced here by surprise. This affidavit is the shortest answer to that suspicion. From this you will see that, early this morning, young Mr. Dalton requested that two magistrates of the city should be brought to his bedside, to take down the details of an important declaration. The fever which for several days back had oppressed him, had abated for the time, and he was, although weak and low, calm and collected in all his faculties. It was then, with remarkable accuracy, and in a manner totally free from agitation, that he made the following singular revelation." The counsel then recited, at more length than would suit our reader's patience to follow, the story of Frank's visit to Ireland when a boy, and his accidental presence in the grounds of Corrig-O'Neal on the very night of the murder. "At first the magistrates were disposed to regard this revelation as the mere dream of an erring intellect; but when he described every feature of the locality, and the most intricate details of scenery, their opinion was changed; and when at last he designated the exact spot where he had seen a large bundle buried, it only needed that this should be confirmed to establish the strict truth of all he alleged. With every care and precaution Against deception, the magistrates proceeded to visit the place. They were accompanied by several persons of character and station, in presence of whom the examination was made. So accurate was the narrative, that they found the spot without difficulty, and, on digging down about two feet, they came upon the articles which you now see before you. These, without any examination, they at once sealed up in presence of the witnesses, and here for the first time have they been displayed to view."

As the counsel had reached thus far, the fall of a heavy body resounded through the court, and the cry was raised that the prisoner had been seized with a fit.

"No, my Lord," exclaimed the lawyer; "fatigue and weariness alone have produced this effect. My unhappy client is no more proof against exhaustion than against slander."

"My Lord! my Lord!" cried the prisoner, as, holding by the spikes of the dock, he leaned forwards over it, "can't I get justice? Is it my coat--"

"Sit down, sir," said his counsel, angrily; "leave this to _me_."

"What do you care what becomes of me?" cried the other, rudely. "Where's Father Cahill? Where's----" At this instant his eyes met those of D'Esmonde, as, seated in the gallery immediately above him, he watched the proceedings with an agonizing interest only second to the prisoner's own. "Oh, look what you've brought me to!" cried he, in an accent of heart-broken misery; "oh, see where I'm standing now!"

The utterance of these words sent a thrill through the court, and the judge was obliged to remind the prisoner that he was but endangering his own safety by these rash interruptions.

"Sure I know it, my Lord; sure I feel it," cried he, sobbing; "but what help have I? Is there no one to stand by me? You're looking for marks of blood, ain't ye?" screamed he to the jury, who were now examining the coat and cap with great attention. "And there it is now,--there it is!"

cried he, wildly, as his eyes detected a folded paper that one of the jurymen had just taken from the coat-pocket "What could I get by it?--sure the will could n't do me any harm."

"This _is_ a will, my Lord," said the foreman, handing the doc.u.ment down to the bench. "It is dated, too, on the very-night before Mr. G.o.dfrey's death."

The judge quickly scanned the contents, and then pa.s.sed it over to Mr.

Hipsley, who, glancing his eyes over it, exclaimed, "If we wanted any further evidence to exculpate the memory of Mr. Dalton, it is here.

By this will, signed, sealed, and witnessed in all form, Mr. G.o.dfrey bequeathed to his brother-in-law his whole estate of Corrig-O'Neal, and, with the exception of some trifling legacies, names him heir to all he is possessed of."

"Let me out of this,--leave me free!" shouted the prisoner, whose eyeb.a.l.l.s now glared with the red glow of madness. "What brought me into your schemes and plots?--why did I ever come here? Oh, my Lord, don't see a poor man come to harm that has no friends. Bad luck to them here and hereafter, the same Daltons! It was ould Peter turned me out upon the world, and G.o.dfrey was no better. Oh, my Lord! oh, gentlemen! if ye knew what druv me to it,--but I did n't do it,--I never said I did. I'll die innocent!"

These words were uttered with a wild volubility, and, when over, the prisoner crouched down in the dock, and buried his face in his hands.

From that instant he never spoke a word. The trial was prolonged till late into the night; a commission was sworn and sent to the inn, to examine young Dalton and interrogate him on every point. All that skill and address could do were exerted by the counsel for the defence; but, as the case proceeded, the various facts only tended to strengthen and corroborate each other, and long before the jury retired their verdict was certain.

"Guilty, my Lord!" And, well known and antic.i.p.ated as the words were, they were heard in all that solemn awe their terrible import conveys.

The words seemed to rouse the prisoner from his state; for, as if with a convulsive effort, he sprang to his legs, and advanced to the front of the dock. To the dreadful question of the Judge, as to what he had to say, why sentence of death should not be p.r.o.nounced upon him, he made no answer; and his wild gaze and astonished features showed an almost unconsciousness of all around him. From this state of stupor he soon rallied, and, grasping the iron spikes with his hands, he protruded his head and shoulders over the dock, while he carried his eyes over the a.s.sembled crowd, till at last they lighted on the spot where Cahill and D'Esmonde were seated,--the former pale and anxious-looking, the latter with his head buried in his hands. The prisoner nodded with an insolent air of familiarity to the priest, and muttered a few broken words in Irish. Again was the terrible demand made by the Judge; and now the prisoner turned his face towards the bench, and stood as if reflecting on his reply.

"Go on," cried he at last, in a tone of rude defiance; and the judge, in all the pa.s.sionless dignity of his high station, calmly reviewed the evidence in the case, and gave his full concurrence to the verdict of the jury.

"I cannot conclude," said he, solemnly, "without adverting to that extraordinary combination of events by which this crime, after a long lapse of years, has been brought home to its guilty author. The evidence you have heard to-day from Mr. Dalton--the singular corroboration of each particular stated by him in the very existence of the will, which so strongly refutes the motive alleged against the late Mr. Dalton--were all necessary links of the great chain of proof; and yet all these might have existed in vain were it not for another agency, too eventful to be called an accident; I allude to the circ.u.mstance by which this man became acquainted with one who was himself peculiarly interested in an fathoming the mystery of this murder; I mean the Abbe D'Esmonde. The name of this gentleman has been more than once alluded to in this trial; but he has not been brought before you, nor was there any need that he should be. Now the Abbe, so far from connecting the prisoner with the crime, believed him to be the agency by which it might have been fastened on others; and to this end he devoted himself with every zeal to the inquiry. Here, then, amidst all the remarkable coincidences of this case, we find the very strangest of all; for this same Abbe,--the accidental means of rescuing the prisoner from death at Venice, and who is the chief agent in now bringing him to punishment here,--this Abbe is himself the natural son of the late Mr. G.o.dfrey. Sent when a mere boy to St. Omer and Louvain to be educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood, he was afterwards transferred to Salamanca, where he graduated, and took deacon's orders. Without any other clew to his parentage than the vague lines of admission in the conventual registry, the checks for money signed and forwarded by Mr. G.o.dfrey, this gentleman had risen by his great talents to a high and conspicuous station before he addressed himself to the search after his family. I have no right to pursue this theme further; nor had I alluded to it at all, save as ill.u.s.trating in so remarkable a manner that direct and unmistakable impress of the working of Providence in this case, showing how, amidst all the strange chaos of a time of revolution and anarchy, when governments were crumbling, and nations rending asunder, this one blood-spot--the foul deed of murder----should cry aloud for retribution, and, by a succession of the least likely incidents, bring the guilty man to justice."

After a careful review of all the testimony against the prisoner, the conclusiveness of which left no room for a doubt, he told him to abandon all hope of a pardon in this world, concluding, in the terrible words of the law, by the sentence of death,----

"You, Samuel Eustace, will be taken from the bar of this court to the place from whence you came, the jail, and thence to the place of execution, there to be hung by the neck till you are dead--"

"Can I see my priest,----may the priest come to me?" cried the prisoner, fiercely; for not even the appalling solemnity of the moment could repress the savage energy of his nature.

"Miserable man," said the judge, in a faltering accent, "I beseech you to employ well the few minutes that remain to you in this world, and carry not into the next that spirit of defiance by which you would brave an earthly judgment-seat. And may G.o.d have mercy on your soul!"

CHAPTER XL. THE RETRIBUTION.

The sudden flash of intelligence by which young Frank was enabled to connect the almost forgotten incidents of boyhood with the date and the other circ.u.mstances of the murder, had very nearly proved fatal to himself. His brain was little able to resist the influence of all these conflicting emotions; and for some days his faculties wandered away in the wildest and most incoherent fancies. It was only on the very morning of the trial that he became self-possessed and collected. Then it was that he could calmly remember every detail of that fatal night, and see their bearing on the mysterious subject of the trial. At first Grounsell listened to his story as a mere raving; but when Frank described with minute accuracy the appearance of the spot--the old orchard, the stone stair that descended into the garden, and the little door which opened into the wood,--he became eagerly excited; and, anxious to proceed with every guarantee of caution, he summoned two other magistrates to the bedside to hear the narrative. We have already seen the event which followed that revelation, and by which the guilt of the murderer was established.

From hour to hour, as the trial proceeded, Frank received tidings from the court-house. The excitement, far from injuring, seemed to rally and re-invigorate him; and although the painful exposure of their domestic circ.u.mstances was cautiously slurred over to his ears, it was plain to see the indignant pa.s.sion with which he heard of Nelly and Kate being dragged before the public eye. It was, indeed, a day of deep and terrible emotion, and when evening came he sank into the heavy sleep of actual exhaustion. While nothing was heard in the sick-room save the long-drawn breathings of the sleeper, the drawing-rooms of the hotel were crowded with the gentry of the neighborhood, all eager to see and welcome the Dalton's home again. If the old were pleased to meet with the veteran Count Stephen, the younger were no less delighted with even such casual glimpses as they caught of Kate, in the few moments she could spare from her brother's bedside. As for Lady Hester, such a torrent of sensations, such a perfect avalanche of emotion, was perfect ecstasy; perhaps not the least agreeable feeling being the a.s.surance that she no longer possessed any right or t.i.tle to Corrig-O'Neal, and was literally unprovided for in the world.

"One detests things by halves," said she; "but to be utterly ruined is quite charming."

The country visitors were not a little surprised at the unfeigned sincerity of her enjoyment, and still more, perhaps, at the warm cordiality of her manner towards them,--she who, till now, had declined all proffers of acquaintanceship, and seemed determined to shun them.

Consigning to her care all the duties of receiving the crowd of visitors, which old Count Stephen was but too happy to see, Kate only ventured for a few minutes at a time to enter the drawing-room. It was while hastening back from one of these brief intervals that she heard her name spoken in a low but distinct voice. She turned round, and saw a man, closely enveloped in a large cloak, beside her.

"It is I, Miss Dalton,--the Abbe D'Esmonde," said he. "May I speak with your brother?"

Kate could hardly answer him from terror. All the scenes in which she had seen him figure rose before her view, and the man was, to her eyes, the very embodiment of peril.

"My brother is too ill, sir, to receive you," said she. "In a few days hence--"

"It will then be too late, Miss Dalton," said he, mournfully. "The very seconds as they pa.s.s, now, are as days to one who stands on the brink of eternity."

"Is there anything which I could communicate to him myself? for I am fearful of what might agitate or excite him."

"If it most be so," said he, sighing, and as if speaking to himself.

"But could you not trust me to say a few words? I will be most cautious."

"If, then,' to-morrow--"

"To-morrow! It must be now,--at this very instant!" cried he, eagerly.

"The life of one who is unfit to go hence depends upon it." Then, taking her hand, he continued: "I have drawn up a few lines, in shape of a pet.i.tion for mercy to this wretched man. They must be in London by to-morrow night, to permit of a reprieve before Sat.u.r.day. Your brother's signature is all-essential. For this I wished to see him, and to know if he has any acquaintanceship with persons in power which could aid the project. You see how short the time is; all depends upon minutes.

The Secretary of State can suspend the execution, and in the delay a commutation of the sentence may be obtained."

"Oh, give it to me!" cried she, eagerly. And, s.n.a.t.c.hing the paper from his hands, she hurried into the chamber.

Frank Dalton was awake, but in all the languor of great debility. He scarcely listened to his sister, till he heard her p.r.o.nounce the name of the Abbe D'Esmonde.

"Is he here, Kate?--is he here?" cried he, eagerly.

"Yes, and most anxious to see and speak with you."

"Then let him come in, Kate. Nay, nay, it will not agitate me."