The Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) Part 5

This evidence rather puzzled me, for I could not understand its purport. Maule in the meantime was watching it with the keenest interest and no little curiosity. He was not a great believer in the defence of insanity--except, occasionally, that of the solicitor who set it up--and consequently watched the Vicar with scrutinizing intensity.

"Have you finished with your witness, Mr. Woollet?" his lordship inquired.

"Yes, my lord."

Maule then took him in hand, and after looking at him steadfastly for about a minute, said,--

"You say, sir, that you have been Vicar of this parish for _four-and-thirty years_?"

"Yes, my lord."

"And during that time I dare say you have regularly performed the services of the Church?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Did you have week-day services as well?"

"Every Tuesday, my lord."

"And did you preach your own sermons?"

"With an occasional homily of the Church."

"Your own sermon or discourse, with an occasional homily? And was this poor man a regular attendant at all your services during the whole time you have been Vicar?"

"Until he killed his wife, my lord."

"That follows--I mean up to the time of this Sabbath-breaking you spoke of he regularly attended your ministrations, and then killed his wife?"

"Exactly, my lord."

"Never missed the sermon, discourse, or homily of the Church, Sunday or week-day?"

"That is so, my lord."

"Did you write your own sermons, may I ask?"

"Oh yes, my lord."

Maule carefully wrote down all that our witness said, and I began to think the defence of insanity stood on very fair grounds, especially when I perceived that Maule was making some arithmetical calculations.

But you never could tell by his manner which way he was going, and therefore we had to wait for his next observation, which was to this effect:--

"You have given yourself, sir, a very excellent character, and doubtless, by your long service in the village, have richly deserved it. You have, no doubt, also won the affection of all your parishioners, probably that of the Bishop of your diocese, by your incomparable devotion to your parochial duties. The result, however, of your indefatigable exertions, so far as this unhappy man is concerned, comes to this--"

His lordship then turned and addressed his observations on the result to me.

"This gentleman, Mr. Hawkins, has written with his own pen and preached or read with his own voice to this unhappy prisoner about _one hundred and four Sunday sermons or discourses, with an occasional homily, every year_."

There was an irresistible sense of the ludicrous as Maule uttered, or rather growled, these words in a slow enunciation and an asthmatical tone. He paused as if wondering at the magnitude of his calculations, and then commenced again more slowly and solemnly than before.

"These," said he, "added to the week-day services--make--exactly _one hundred and fifty-six sermons, discourses, and homilies for the year_." (Then he stared at me, asking with his eyes what I thought of it.) "These, again, being continued over a s.p.a.ce of time, comprising, as the reverend gentleman tells us, no less than _thirty-four years_, give us a grand total of _five thousand three hundred and four sermons, discourses, or homilies_ during this unhappy man's life."

Maule's eyes were now riveted on the clergyman as though he were an accessory to the murder.

"Five thousand three hundred and four," he repeated, "by the same person, however respectable and beloved as a pastor he might be, was what few of us could have gone through unless we were endowed with as much strength of mind as power of endurance. I was going to ask you, sir, did the idea ever strike you when you talked of this unhappy being suddenly leaving your ministrations and turning Sabbath-breaker, that after thirty-four years he might want a little change? Would it not be reasonable to suppose that the man might think he had had enough of it?"

"It might, my lord."

"And would not that in your judgment, instead of showing that he was insane, prove that he was _a very sensible man_?"

The Vicar did not quite a.s.sent to this, and as he would not dissent from the learned Judge, said nothing.

"And," continued Maule, "that he was perfectly sane, although he murdered his wife?"

All this was very clever, not to say facetious, on the part of the learned Judge; but as I had yet to address the jury, I was resolved to take the other view of the effect of the Vicar's sermons, and I did so. I worked Maule's quarry, I think, with some little effect: for after all his most strenuous exertions to secure a conviction, the jury believed, probably, that no man's mind could stand the ordeal; and, further, that any doubt they might have, after seeing the two children of the prisoner in court dressed in little black frocks, and sobbing bitterly while I was addressing them, would be given in the prisoner's favour, which it was.

This incident in my life is not finished. On the same evening I was dining at the country house of a Mr. Hardcastle, and near me sat an old inhabitant of the village where the tragedy had been committed.

"You made a touching speech, Mr. Hawkins," said the old inhabitant.

"Well," I answered, "it was the best thing I could do in the circ.u.mstances."

"Yes," he said; "but I don't think you would have painted the little home in such glowing colours if you had seen what I saw last week when I was driving past the cottage. No, no; I think you'd have toned down a bit."

"What was it?" I asked.

"Why," said the old inhabitant, "the little children who sobbed so violently in court this morning, and to whom you made such pathetic reference, were playing on an ash-heap near their cottage; and they had a poor cat with a string round its neck, swinging backwards and forwards, and as they did so they sang,--

This is the way poor daddy will go!

This is the way poor daddy will go!'

Such, Mr. Hawkins, was their excessive grief!"

Yes, but it got the verdict.

CHAPTER VI.

AN INCIDENT ON THE ROAD TO NEWMARKET.

My first visit to Newmarket Heath had one or two little incidents which may be interesting, although of no great importance. The Newmarket of to-day is not quite the same Newmarket that it was then: many things connected with it have changed, and, above all, its frequenters have changed; and if "things are not what they seem," they do not seem to me, at all events, to be what they were "in my day."

Sixty years is a long s.p.a.ce of time to traverse, but I do so with a very vivid recollection of my old friend Charley Wright.

It was on a bright October morning when we set out, and glad enough was I to leave the courts at Westminster and the courts of the Temple--glad enough to break loose from the thraldom of nothing to do and get away into the beautiful country.