The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney Part 6

"I have requested to see you," said the unhappy culprit, "rather than Dr.

Curteis, because he, I know, is bitterly prejudiced against me. But _you_ will not refuse, I think, the solemn request of a dying man--for a dying man I feel myself to be--however long or short the interval which stands between me and the scaffold. It is not with a childish hope that any a.s.sertion of mine can avail before the tribunal of the law against the evidence adduced this day, that I, with all the solemnity befitting a man whose days are numbered, declare to you that I am wholly innocent of the crime laid to my charge. I have no such expectation; I seek only that you, in pity of my youth and untimely fate, should convey to her whom I have madly presumed to worship this message: 'Alfred Bourdon was mad, but not blood-guilty; and of the crime laid to his charge he is innocent as an unborn child.'"

"The pure and holy pa.s.sion, young man," said I, somewhat startled by his impressive manner, "however presumptuous, as far as social considerations are concerned, it might be, by which you affect to be inspired, is utterly inconsistent with the cruel, dastardly crime of which such d.a.m.ning evidence has an hour since been given"--

"Say no more, sir," interrupted Bourdon, sinking back in his seat, and burying his face in his hands: "it were a bootless errand; she _could_ not, in the face of that evidence, believe my unsupported a.s.sertion! It were as well perhaps she did not. And yet, sir, it is hard to be trampled into a felon's grave, loaded with the maledictions of those whom you would coin your heart to serve and bless! Ah, sir," he continued, whilst tears of agony streamed through his firmly-closed fingers, "you cannot conceive the unutterable bitterness of the pang which rends the heart of him who feels that he is not only despised, but loathed, hated, execrated, by her whom his soul idolizes! Mine was no boyish, transient pa.s.sion: it has grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength. My life has been but one long dream of her. All that my soul had drunk in of beauty in the visible earth and heavens--the light of setting suns--the radiance of the silver stars--the breath of summer flowers, together with all which we imagine of celestial purity and grace, seemed to me in her incarnated, concentrated, and combined! And now lost--lost--forever lost!" The violence of his emotions choked his utterance; and deeply and painfully affected, I hastened from his presence.

Time sped as ever onwards, surely, silently; and justice, with her feet of lead, but hands of iron, closed gradually upon her quarry. Alfred Bourdon was arraigned before a jury of his countrymen, to answer finally to the accusation of wilful murder preferred against him.

The evidence, as given before the committing magistrate, and the coroner's inquisition, was repeated with some addition of pa.s.sionate expressions used by the prisoner indicative of a desire to be avenged on the deceased. The cross-examination by the counsel for the defense was able, but failed to shake the case for the prosecution. His own admission, that no one but himself had access to the recess where the poison was found, told fatally against him. When called upon to address the jury, he delivered himself of a speech rather than a defense; of an oratorical effusion, instead of a vigorous, and, if possible, damaging commentary upon the evidence arrayed against him. It was a labored, and in part eloquent, exposition of the necessary fallibility of human judgment, ill.u.s.trated by numerous examples of erroneous verdicts. His peroration I jotted down at the time:--"Thus, my lord and gentlemen of the jury, is it abundantly manifest, not only by these examples, but by the testimony which every man bears in his own breast, that G.o.d could not have willed, could not have commanded, his creatures to perform a pretended duty, which he vouchsafed them no power to perform righteously.

Oh, be sure that if he had intended, if he had commanded you to p.r.o.nounce irreversible decrees upon your fellow-man, quenching that life which is his highest gift, he would have endowed you with gifts to perform that duty rightly. Has he done so? Ask not alone the pages dripping with innocent blood which I have quoted, but your own hearts! Are you, according to the promise of the serpent-tempter, 'G.o.ds, knowing good from evil?' of such clear omniscience, that you can hurl an unprepared soul before the tribunal of its Maker, in the full a.s.surance that you have rightly loosed the silver cord which he had measured, have justly broken the golden bowl which he had fashioned! Oh, my lord," he concluded, his dark eyes flashing with excitement, "it is possible that the first announcement of my innocence of this crime, to which you will give credence, may be proclaimed from the awful tribunal of him who alone cannot err! How if he, whose eye is even now upon us, should then proclaim, '_I_ too, sat in judgment on the day when you presumed to doom your fellow-worm; and _I_ saw that the murderer was not in the dock, but on the bench!' Oh, my lord, think well of what you do--pause ere you incur such fearful hazard; for be a.s.sured, that for all these things G.o.d will also bring _you_ to judgment!"

He ceased, and sank back exhausted. His fervid declamation produced a considerable impression upon the auditory; but it soon disappeared before the calm, impressive charge of the judge, who re-a.s.sured the startled jury, by reminding them that their duty was to honestly execute the law, not to dispute about its justice. For himself, he said, sustained by a pure conscience, he was quite willing to incur the hazard hinted at by the prisoner. After a careful and luminous summing up, the jury, with very slight deliberation, returned a verdict of "Guilty."

As the word pa.s.sed the lips of the foreman of the jury, a piercing shriek rang through the court. It proceeded from a tall figure in black, who, with closely-drawn veil, had sat motionless during the trial, just before the dock. It was the prisoner's mother. The next instant she rose, and throwing back her veil wildly exclaimed, "He is innocent--innocent, I tell ye! I alone"--

"Mother! mother! for the love of Heaven be silent!" shouted the prisoner with frantic vehemence, and stretching himself over the front of the dock, as if to grasp and restrain her.

"Innocent, I tell you!" continued the woman. "I--I alone am the guilty person! It was I alone that perpetrated the deed! He knew it not, suspected it not, till it was too late. Here," she added, drawing a sheet of paper from her bosom--"here is my confession, with each circ.u.mstance detailed!"

As she waved it over her head, it was s.n.a.t.c.hed by her son, and, swift as lightning, torn to shreds. "She is mad! Heed her not--believe her not!"

He at the same time shouted at the top of his powerful voice, "She is distracted--mad! Now, my lord, your sentence! Come!"

The tumult and excitement in the court no language which I can employ would convey an adequate impression of. As soon as calm was partially restored, Mrs. Bourdon was taken into custody: the prisoner was removed; and the court adjourned, of course without pa.s.sing sentence.

It was even as his mother said! Subsequent investigation, aided by her confessions, amply proved that the fearful crime was conceived and perpetrated by her alone, in the frantic hope of securing for her idolized son the hand and fortune of Miss Armitage. She had often been present with him in his laboratory, and had thus become acquainted with the uses to which certain agents could be put. She had purloined the key of the recess; and he, unfortunately too late to prevent the perpetration of the crime, had by mere accident discovered the abstraction of the poison. His subsequent declarations had been made for the determined purpose of saving his mother's life by the sacrifice of his own!

The wretched woman was not reserved to fall before the justice of her country. The hand of G.o.d smote her ere the scaffold was prepared for her. She was smitten with frenzy, and died raving in the Metropolitan Lunatic Asylum. Alfred Bourdon, after a lengthened imprisonment, was liberated. He called on me, by appointment, a few days previous to leaving this country forever; and I placed in his hands a small pocket-Bible, on the fly-leaf of which was written one word--"Ellen!"

His dim eye lighted up with something of its old fire as he glanced at the characters; he then closed the book, placed it in his bosom, and waving me a mute farewell--I saw he durst not trust himself to speak--hastily departed. I never saw him more!

"THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS."

In the month of February of the year following that which witnessed the successful establishment of the claim of Sir Harry Compton's infant son to his magnificent patrimony, Mr. Samuel Ferret was traveling post with all the speed he could command towards Lancashire, in compliance with a summons from Lady Compton, requesting, in urgent terms, his immediate presence at the castle. It was wild and bitter weather, and the roads were in many places rendered dangerous, and almost impa.s.sable, by the drifting snow. Mr. Ferret, however, pressed onwards with his habitual energy and perseverance; and, spite of all elemental and postboy opposition, succeeded in accomplishing his journey in much less time than, under the circ.u.mstances, could have been reasonably expected. But swiftly as, for those slow times, he pushed on, it is necessary I should antic.i.p.ate, by a brief period, his arrival at his destination, in order to put the reader in possession of the circ.u.mstances which had occasioned the hurried and pressing message he had received.

Two days before, as Lady Compton and her sister, who had been paying a visit to Mrs. Arlington at the Grange, were returning home towards nine o'clock in the evening, they observed, as the carriage turned a sharp angle of the road leading through Compton Park, a considerable number of lighted lanterns borne hurriedly to and fro in various directions, by persons apparently in eager but bewildered pursuit of some missing object. The carriage was stopped, and in answer to the servants'

inquiries, it was replied that Major Brandon's crazy niece had escaped from her uncle's house; and although traced by the snow-tracks as far as the entrance to the park, had not yet been recovered. Mrs. Brandon had offered a reward of ten pounds to whoever should secure and reconduct her home; hence the hot pursuit of the fugitive, who, it was now supposed, must be concealed in the shrubberies. Rumors regarding this unfortunate young lady, by no means favorable to the character of her relatives as persons of humanity, had previously reached Lady Compton's ears; and she determined to avail herself, if possible, of the present opportunity to obtain a personal interview with the real or supposed lunatic. The men who had been questioned were informed that only the castle servants could be allowed to search for the missing person, either in the park or shrubberies; and that if there, she would be taken care of, and restored to her friends in the morning. The coachman was then ordered to drive on; but the wheels had not made half-a-dozen revolutions, when a loud shout at some distance, in the direction of the park, followed by a succession of piercing screams, announced the discovery and capture of the object of the chase. The horses were urged rapidly forward; and ere more than a minute had elapsed, the carriage drew up within a few yards of the hunted girl and her captors. The instant it stopped, Clara Brandon, liberating herself by a frenzied effort from the rude grasp in which she was held by an athletic young man, sprang wildly towards it, and with pa.s.sionate intreaty implored mercy and protection. The young man, a son of Mrs.

Brandon's by a former husband, immediately re-seized her; and with fierce violence endeavored to wrench her hand from the handle of the carriage door, which she clutched with desperate tenacity. The door flew open, the sudden jerk disengaged her hold, and she struggled vainly in her captor's powerful grasp. "Save me! save me!" she frantically exclaimed, as she felt herself borne off. "You who are, they say, as kind and good as you are beautiful and happy, save me from this cruel man!"

Lady Compton, inexpressibly shocked by the piteous spectacle presented by the unhappy girl--her scanty clothing soiled, disarrayed, and torn by the violence of her struggles; her long flaxen tresses flowing disorderly over her face and neck in tangled dishevelment; and the pale, haggard, wild expression of her countenance--was for a few moments incapable of speech. Her sister was more collected: "Violet," she instantly remonstrated, "do not permit this brutal violence."

"What right has she or any one to interfere with us?" demanded the young man savagely. "This girl is Major Brandon's ward, as well as niece, and _shall_ return to her lawful home! Stand back," continued he, addressing the servants, who, at a gesture from Miss Dalston, barred his progress.

"Withstand me at your peril!"

"Force her from him!" exclaimed Lady Compton, recovering her voice. "Gently! gently! I will be answerable for her safe custody till the morning."

The athletic fellow struggled desperately; but however powerful and determined, he was only one man against a score, nearly all the bystanders being tenants or laborers on the Compton estates; and spite of his furious efforts, and menaces of law and vengeance, Clara was torn from him in a twinkling, and himself hurled with some violence prostrate on the road. "Do not let them hurt the man," said Lady Compton, as the servants placed the insensible girl in the carriage (she had fainted); "and tell him that if he has really any legal claim to the custody of this unfortunate person, he must prefer it in the morning."

Immediately on arrival at the castle, the escaped prisoner was conveyed to bed, and medical aid instantly summoned. When restored to consciousness, whether from the effect of an excess of fever producing temporary delirium, or from confirmed mental disease, her speech was altogether wild and incoherent--the only at all consistent portions of her ravings being piteously--iterated appeals to Lady Compton not to surrender her to her aunt in-law, Mrs. Brandon, of whom she seemed to entertain an overpowering, indefinable dread. It was evident she had been subjected to extremely brutal treatment--such as, in these days of improved legislation in such matters, and greatly advanced knowledge of the origin and remedy of cerebral infirmity, would not be permitted towards the meanest human being, much less a tenderly-nurtured, delicate female. At length, under the influence of a composing draught, she sank gradually to sleep; and Lady Compton having determined to rescue her, if possible, from the suspicious custody of her relatives, and naturally apprehensive of the legal difficulties which she could not doubt would impede the execution of her generous, if somewhat Quixotic project, resolved on at once sending off an express for Mr. Ferret, on whose ac.u.men and zeal she knew she could place the fullest reliance.

Clara Brandon's simple history may be briefly summed up. She was the only child of a Mr. Frederick Brandon, who, a widower in the second year of his marriage, had since princ.i.p.ally resided at the "Elms," a handsome mansion and grounds which he had leased of the uncle of the late Sir Harry Compton. At his decease, which occurred about two years previous to poor Clara's escape from confinement, as just narrated, he bequeathed his entire fortune, between two and three thousand pounds per annum, chiefly secured on land, to his daughter; appointed his elder brother, Major Brandon, sole executor of his will, and guardian of his child; and in the event of her dying before she had attained her majority--of which she wanted, at her father's death, upwards of three years--or without lawful issue, the property was to go to the major, to be by him willed at his pleasure. Major Brandon, whose physical and mental energies had been prematurely broken down--he was only in his fifty-second year--either by excess or hard service in the East, perhaps both, had married late in life the widow of a brother officer, and the mother of a grown-up son.

The lady, a woman of inflexible will, considerable remains of a somewhat masculine beauty, and about ten years her husband's junior, held him in a state of thorough pupilage; and, unchecked by him, devoted all her energies to bring about, by fair or foul means, a union between Clara and her own son, a cub of some two or three-and-twenty years of age, whose sole object in seconding his mother's views upon Clara was the acquisition of her wealth. According to popular surmise and report, the young lady's mental infirmity had been brought about by the persecutions she had endured at the hands of Mrs. Brandon, with a view to force her into a marriage she detested. The most reliable authority for the truth of these rumors was Susan Hopley, now in the service of Lady Compton, but who had lived for many years with Mr. Frederick Brandon and his daughter.

She had been discharged about six months after her master's decease by Mrs. Major Brandon for alleged impertinence; and so thoroughly convinced was Susan that the soon-afterwards alleged lunacy of Clara was but a juggling pretence to excuse the restraint under which her aunt-in-law, for the furtherance of her own vile purposes, had determined to keep her, that although out of place at the time, she devoted all the savings of her life, between eighty and ninety pounds, to procure "justice" for the ill-used orphan. This article, Susan was advised, could be best obtained of the lord chancellor; and proceedings were accordingly taken before the keeper of the king's conscience, in order to change the custody of the pretended lunatic. The affidavits filed in support of the pet.i.tion were, however, so loose and vague, and were met with such positive counter-allegations, that the application was at once dismissed with costs; and poor Susan--rash suitor for "justice"--reduced to absolute penury. These circ.u.mstances becoming known to Lady Compton, Susan was taken into her service; and it was princ.i.p.ally owing to her frequently-iterated version of the affair that Clara had been forcibly rescued from Mrs. Brandon's son.

On the following morning the patient was much calmer, though her mind still wandered somewhat. Fortified by the authority of the physician, who certified that to remove her, or even to expose her to agitation, would be dangerous, if not fatal, Lady Compton not only refused to deliver her up to Major and Mrs. Brandon, but to allow them to see her. Mrs. Brandon, in a towering rage, posted off to the nearest magistrate, to demand the a.s.sistance of peace-officers in obtaining possession of the person of the fugitive. That functionary would, however, only so far comply with the indignant lady's solicitations, as to send his clerk to the castle to ascertain the reason of the young lady's detention; and when his messenger returned with a note, enclosing a copy of the physician's certificate, he peremptorily decided that the conduct of Lady Compton was not only perfectly justifiable, but praiseworthy, and that the matter must remain over till the patient was in a condition to be moved. Things were precisely in this state, except that Clara Brandon had become perfectly rational; and but for an irrepressible nervous dread of again falling into the power of her unscrupulous relative, quite calm, when Mr.

Samuel Ferret made his wished-for appearance on the scene of action.

Long and anxious was the conference which Mr. Ferret held with his munificent client and her interesting protegee, if conference that may be called in which the astute attorney enacted the part of listener only, scarcely once opening his thin, cautious lips. In vain did his eager brain silently ransack the whole armory of the law; no weapon could he discern which afforded the slightest hope of fighting a successful battle with a legally-appointed guardian for the custody of his ward. And yet Mr. Ferret felt, as he looked upon the flashing eye and glowing countenance of Lady Compton, as she recounted a few of the grievous outrages inflicted upon the fair and helpless girl reclining beside her--whose varying cheek and meek suffused eyes bore eloquent testimony to the truth of the relation--that he would willingly exert a vigor even _beyond_ the law to meet his client's wishes, could he but see his way to a safe result. At length a ray of light, judging from his suddenly-gleaming eyes, seemed to have broken upon the troubled chambers of his brain, and he rose somewhat hastily from his chair.

"By the by, I will just step and speak to this Susan Hopley, if your ladyship can inform me in what part of the lower regions I am likely to meet with her?"

"Let me ring for her."

"No; if you please not. What I have to ask her is of very little importance; still, to summon her here might give rise to surmises, reports, and so on, which it may be as well to avoid. I had much rather see her accidentally, as it were."

"As you please. You will find her somewhere about the housekeeper's apartments. You know her by sight, I think?"

"Perfectly; and with your leave I'll take the opportunity of directing the horses to be put to. I must be in London by noon to-morrow if possible;" and away Mr. Ferret bustled.

"Susan," said Mr. Ferret a few minutes afterwards, "step this way; I want to have a word with you. Now, tell me are you goose enough to expect you will ever see the money again you so foolishly threw into the bottomless pit of chancery?"

"Of course I shall, Mr. Ferret, as soon as ever Miss Clara comes to her own. She mentioned it only this morning, and said she was sorry she could not repay me at once."

"You are a sensible girl, Susan, though you _did_ go to law with the lord chancellor! I want you to be off with me to London; and then perhaps we may get your money sooner than you expect."

"Oh, bother the money! Is that _all_ you want me to go to Lunnon for?"

Mr. Ferret replied with a wink of such exceeding intelligence, that Susan at once declared she should be ready to start in ten minutes at the latest.

"That's a good creature; and, Susan, as there's not the slightest occasion to let all the world know who's going to run off with you, it may be as well for you to take your bundle and step on a mile or so on the road, say to the turn, just beyond the first turnpike." Susan nodded with brisk good-humor, and disappeared in a twinkling.

An hour afterwards, Mr. Ferret was on his way back to London, having first impressed upon Lady Compton the necessity of immediately relieving herself of the grave responsibility she had incurred towards Major Brandon for the safe custody of his ward, by sending her home immediately. He promised to return on the third day from his departure; but on the nature of the measures he intended to adopt, or the hopes he entertained of success, he was inflexibly silent; and he moreover especially requested that no one, not even Miss Brandon, should know of Susan Hopley's journey to the metropolis.

Mr. Ferret, immediately on his arrival in town, called at my chambers, and related with his usual minuteness and precision as many of the foregoing particulars as he knew and thought proper to communicate to me.

For the rest I am indebted to subsequent conversations with the different parties concerned.

"Well," said I, as soon as he had concluded, "what course do you propose to adopt?"

"I wish you to apply, on this affidavit, for a writ of _habeas ad sub._, to bring up the body of Clara Brandon. Judge Bailey will be at chambers at three o'clock: it is now more than half-past two, and I can be off on my return by four at latest."

"A writ of habeas!" I exclaimed with astonishment. "Why, what end can that answer? The lady will be remanded, and you and I shall be laughed at for our pains."

This writ of _habeas corpus "ad subjiciendum,_" I had better explain to the non-professional reader, is the great _prerogative_ writ, the operation of which is sometimes suspended by the legislature during political panics. It is grounded on the principle that the sovereign has at all times a right to inquire, through the judges of the superior courts, by what authority his or her subject is held in constraint. It issues, as a matter of right, upon the filing of an affidavit, averring that to the best of the belief of the deponent the individual sought to be brought up is illegally confined; and it is of the essence of the proceeding, that the person alleged to be suffering unlawful constraint should actually be brought before the "queen herself;" that is, before one or more of the judges of the court which has issued the writ, who, if they find _the detention illegal_, the only question at issue upon this writ may discharge or bail the party. It was quite obvious, therefore, that in this case such a proceeding would be altogether futile, as the detention in the house of her guardian, under the sanction, too, of the lord chancellor, the _ex-officio_ custodier of all lunatics--of a ward of alleged disordered intellect--was clearly legal, at least _prima facie_ so, and not to be disturbed under a _habeas ad sub_. at all events.

"Perhaps so," replied Ferret quite coolly in reply to my exclamation; "but I am determined to try every means of releasing the unfortunate young lady from the cruel thraldom in which she is held by that harridan of an aunt-in-law. She is no more really insane than you are; but at the same time so excitable upon certain topics, that it might be perhaps difficult to disabuse the chancellor or a jury of the impression so industriously propagated to her prejudice. The peremptory rejection by her guardian of young Burford's addresses, though sanctioned by her father: you know the Burfords?"