THE DOCTRINE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH CONCERNING THE NECESSITY OF EPISCOPAL ORDINATION. [Footnote 182]
[Footnote 182: "A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Church of England, or the Validity of the Orders of the Scotch and Foreign Non-Episcopal Churches." By W. Goode, M.A., F.S.A., Rector of All Hallows the Great and Less. London. 1852.
"Does the Episcopal Church teach the Exclusive Validity of Episcopal Orders?" By William Goode, M. A. New York. 185-
"Vox Ecclesiae; or, The Doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church on Episcopacy," etc. Philadelphia. 1866.]
Within the past few years, certain circles of the Protestant Episcopal Church have been thrown into no small commotion by a controversy which has arisen between the two great parties, into which she is divided, over the question, Whether or not it is her doctrine that episcopal ordination is necessary to constitute a valid ministry? The contest seems to have been opened by the Rev. William Goode, rector of All Hallows, London, who in the year 1852 published a treatise maintaining the negative of the proposition; "Is it the doctrine of the Church of England that episcopal ordination is a sine qua non to constitute a valid ministry?" In support of his position, he adduced those articles and other formularies of his church, which relate to this subject; the testimony of those divines who drew up these standards, as interpreting the same, together with the sense in which they were received by their successors in the clerical office for the ensuing hundred years; and the conduct of the church toward the Continental Protestant societies and in the ordering of her own hierarchy for the same period of time. So successful was this author in his argument, and so triumphant was his vindication of this peculiar principle of the Low Church party, that his work was at once hailed by them, in England and in America, as the "End of Controversy" upon this point; was adopted by their publication societies as an "unanswerable defence of the validity of non-episcopal orders," and was claimed by one of their leading journals to be effectual in "banishing and driving away the last doubt, which hung upon some minds, from the boldness and continuity of assertion that the Episcopal Church disallowed the validity of other than episcopal orders."
How completely "banished and driven away" from some minds that last doubt was, events of a startling character soon made manifest.
"Certain clergymen of the diocese of New York adopted a course destined to change the settled practice of the church, if not to change its whole character. They turned their backs upon all existing laws and all previous usage in connection with such matters, and openly admitted to their pulpits ministers who had not had episcopal ordination. . . . . Of course, an innovation so startling and so daring occasioned much excitement. The Bishop of the diocese issued a pastoral letter, in which, in the kindest language and most reasonable spirit, he pointed out to those gentlemen the unlawfulness of their course. And there, if they had been lovers of order and of peace, the whole matter might have rested. But, however gentle the reproof or remonstrance, it was still an exercise of authority, and that was hard to bear. Therefore the reverend gentlemen rushed into print at once, and strove to give to the whole matter the air of simple controversy, on equal terms, between the Bishop and themselves. They represented him as the advocate of a narrow partisan policy, and not as their ecclesiastical superior to whom they had solemnly promised obedience, and whose duty compelled him to give them a reproof. Their 'letters,' 'reviews,' and 'replies to the pastoral' have been sent everywhere throughout the country, and have served to show that some Episcopalians pay but little respect 'to those who are over them in the Lord;' that they are not much disposed to 'submit to their judgment,' and 'to follow with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions.'" (Vox Ecclesiae, vi.)
Such was the state of affairs, when a reply to "Goode on Orders" issued from the Philadelphia press, professing to demolish its conclusions and to clear the doctrine of the Episcopal Church, on the point in question, from all ambiguity. This was the work of an elegant and judicious but anonymous writer, who, though disclaiming all tendencies to Puseyism, is, nevertheless, manifestly a High Churchman of strong and well-founded principles, and who has received on account of this reply, the highest commendations from many of the bishops and clergy of his church. His book is entitled "Vox Ecclesiae." The proposition he seeks to demonstrate is, "That the answer of the Episcopal Church to the question, 'What is the true and scriptural mode of church government, and what constitutes a true and proper organization?' would be, 'That episcopal government and ordination by bishops are the only modes of government or ordination recognized by that church as scriptural or proper.'" In support of this, he also, like his antagonist, relies upon the doctrinal and devotional standards of the church; her laws and principles as set forth in her canons and other official acts; those works which by her special endorsement have been raised to a semi official authority; and, lastly, the opinions of her eminent divines. The conclusion, which this exhaustive argument claims to have established, is that the church of England never recognized the validity of Presbyterian orders, as such, but, on the contrary, has ever held the doctrine of episcopacy by divine right and apostolical succession; a conclusion diametrically opposite to that of the first writer, whose book has, by this one, in the language of the American Churchman, been "So effectually answered that we believe it will ask no more questions for all time to come." This work in its time has received the highest encomiums from the Right Rev. Bishops Hopkins, Kemper, Atkinson, Coxe, Williams, Clark, and Randall, the Rev. Drs. Coit, Adams, Morton, Mason, Wilson, Meade, and other leaders of that party of the Episcopal Church, whose views it professes to embody, is already catalogued by them "among the best standard works of the church," and has been gratuitously circulated in its general seminary at New York, as a thorough antidote to the dangerous heresy of Mr. Goode.
From these two works, it might fairly be presumed, that we may, at last, gain a tolerably correct idea of the doctrine of the episcopal Church concerning the necessity of episcopal ordination. "Goode on Orders" is the "unanswerable" organ of one great party of that church. "Vox Ecclesiae" is the equally unanswerable organ of the other. And in these two great parties, and in the [{723}] undefinable middle ground between them, may be ranked at least ninety-nine one handredths of the laity and nearly all the clergy of that large and influential religious body.
To us Catholics it certainly, at first sight, seems a little singular, that in a church which bases upon an unbroken episcopal succession its whole claim to external unity with the primitive Catholic Church, there should be any doubt whether or not that church herself believes and teaches that such an unbroken succession is essential to the existence of a visible church; that in a denomination, which, for ages, has claimed superiority to other Protestant sects on almost the sole ground of her episcopally ordained ministry, there should be any controversy as to her doctrine on the necessity of such a ministry. But it is only one of those anomalies which meet us everywhere outside the Ark of Peter; which are the inevitable results of deviation, however slight, from the true source of apostolic unity. The ocean is as deep beneath the Ship of Christ as it is miles away. He that goes down under her very shadow is as effectually drowned as he that perishes beneath a sky whose horizon is unbroken by a single sail. It is as well among those who are most near us as among those who are most removed that we must look for the old marks of error, and this boldness of assertion and internal doubt is one of them. Before we close, it may be given us to show that this doubt is indeed well grounded and that this inconsistency is more consistent with the actual status of the Episcopal Church than many, even of her enemies, would dream.
Upon that fundamental principle which underlies the whole fabric of an organized Christian society, namely, the necessity of some authoritative ordination, there seems to be no question in the Episcopal Church. That man cannot originate a church; that Christ did originate one; that, conveying his power of mission and orders to his apostles, he left it to them to convey to their successors; that by them and by their successors it ever has been so conveyed; and that, at this day, no man has any right or power to fulfil the office of a minister of Christ unless he has received authority through this source; are tenets common to all Christians who recognize a visible church and believe in and maintain a regular ministry. However they may differ as to the channel through which this power has descended: whether, like the Presbyterians, denying the existence of a third order in the ministry, they claim that priests and bishops are the same, and thus that presbyters are the appointed agents of Christ in perpetuating the line of Christian teachers, or whether, like denominations far more radical, they confer on individual preachers, of whatever grade, the right to raise others at their pleasure to the same dignities and power--this principle is still maintained. It is, therefore, but natural, that while Mr. Goode and his Low Church followers scout the title "Apostolical Succession" as "monstrous" and "heretical," their whole ailment should presuppose the existence of the very state of facts, to which, in its most general construction, that title is applied, and should admit the necessity of such a "succession," through some channel, as the basis of all external, collective Christian life. That the High Church party also abide in this doctrine every page of "Vox Ecclesiae" makes manifest, and from what one thus necessarily implies and the other expressly declares, we feel safe in concluding that "succession in the mission and authority of the apostles" is held and taught by the Episcopal Church as necessary to the existence of a valid ministry.
We may even go a step farther. If "tactual succession" signifies merely that some visible or audible commission must pass from the minister ordaining to the man ordained, without supposing any particular act or word to be necessary to such "tactual succession," we may regard this also as [{724}] being a point upon which Episcopalians raise no issue. The High Churchman may know no other "tactual" ordination than "the laying on of hands." Mr. Goode and his party might perhaps scruple to adopt such an interpretation, for, though scriptural and primitive, it is not of the essence of the ministerial commission. But that "succession," perpetuated by means of some actual commission, visibly or audibly moving from the ordainer to the ordained, is necessary, neither of these adversaries will deny.
Here, however, all acknowledged unity of doctrine ceases. "What is the appointed channel of this ministerial authority?" "Is it confined to one rank of the ministry, or possessed by two?" "Is episcopal succession necessary to the validity of holy orders?" are questions on which their disagreement appears, to them, irreconcilable. The organs of both parties here speak with no uncertain sound. Each denounces the teachings of the other with unsparing acerbity. Mr. Goode characterizes the doctrines of his opponents as "at variance with the spirit of Christian charity" and "the facts of God's providence," as "having no foundation in Holy Scripture, and leading to consequences so dreadful that it is simply monstrous in any one to teach them." The "voice of the church" with equal plainness of speech replies, "He who looks upon Episcopacy as a thing of expediency, who talks of parity between bishop and presbyter, and who denounces 'Apostolical succession' as a monstrous theory, has no place among them. HE IS NOT A LOW CHURCHMAN? he is not an Episcopalian in any proper sense at all." (p. 487.)
The formal statement of the Low Church doctrine, as explained by Mr. Goode, may thus be made: That the highest order of ministers, appointed by Christ or enjoying any direct scriptural authority, is that of presbyters or elders, in which order inheres, ex ordine, the powers of government and ordination; that the apostles, selecting from among the presbytery certain men called bishops, appointed them to exercise these powers; that, consequently, government by bishops and episcopal ordination rest upon apostolic precedent, and are sanctioned by the constant observance of fifteen hundred years; that this appointment, however, in no wise conferred upon such bishop any power of order which he had not before, or deprived the remaining presbyters of those equal powers which they possessed already: and, therefore, that ordination by presbyters alone, although not regular or in accordance with established precedent, is truly valid, and confers upon the person so ordained all the rights and authority of a minister of Christ. This doctrine is essential Presbyterianism. On the questions of historical fact--whether the apostles did appoint bishops and confine to them the office of ordaining others, and whether such practice was adhered to unvaryingly from their day till that of Calvin; as, also, on the relative weight and importance of such a precedent, if it does historically exist--they certainly disagree. But on the main question their decision is identical: that ordination is a power of the presbyter by divine institution and of the presbyter only, and that the episcopate, wherever it exists, possesses these powers solely by virtue of the presbyterate which it includes.
The doctrine of the High Church party, on the other hand, is thus laid down in "Vox Ecclesiae:" That Christ instituted, either by his own act or that of his apostles, three several orders of ministers in his church, and to the first of these, called bishops, and to them alone, intrusted the power and authority of ordaining pastors for his flock; that this episcopate is, therefore, of divine commandment, and cannot be neglected or abolished without sin, neither can any ordination be valid or confer authority to preach the word or minister the sacraments unless performed by bishops; that, consequently, presbyterian orders, being bestowed [{725}] by men who have no power or commission to ordain, are, ipso facto, void: EXCEPT in cases of real necessity, where, if episcopal ordination cannot be obtained, presbyters may validly ordain. This doctrine is, in the main, that which we have always supposed the great majority of Episcopalians help. As we have never seen the "exception" so fully stated in any authoritative work as it is in this, we give it in the author's own language, as it occurs in several portions of his book. Thus on page 62--
"'Necessitas non habet legem' was a Roman proverb, the propriety and force of which must be acknowledged by all. In reference to our present subject, one of the most eminent of the defenders of our church uses almost the very words, viz. 'Nisi coegerit dura necessitas cui nulla lex est posita. ' (Hadrian Saravia's reply to Beza.) The principle then is fully admitted. Necessity excuseth every defect or irregularity which it really occasions." On page 313, an extract from the same Saravia is given, as follows: "Although I am of opinion that ordinations of ministers of the church properly belong to bishops, yet NECESSITY causes that, when they are wanting and CANNOT BE HAD, orthodox presbyters can, in case of necessity, ordain a presbyter;" and the author says of it, "We take this as Mr. Goode gives it." It is the strongest sentence in the whole passage, and yet it contains no more than what nine tenths of all Episcopal writers gladly allow, viz., (to use the words of Archbishop Parker,) "Extreme necessity in itself implieth dispensation with all laws." Again, on page 70, after noticing certain objections to this plea of necessity, put forward by individual writers in the church, he continues; "There is great force in these objections: nevertheless we think it far better to grant all that the foreign churches claimed in the way of necessity, inasmuch as the English Church certainly did so at the time." A still more definite statement of the same "exception" occurs on pages 82 and 83: "As regards the question before us, the High Churchman and the Low Churchman unite in considering episcopacy a divine institution, and a properly derived authority a sine qua non to lawful ministering in the church. They also agree in believing that real necessity in this, as in every other matter, abrogates law and makes valid whatever is performed under it." We have no wish to multiply quotations, but on this important point we desire to fall into no error and to be guilty of no misrepresentation. We have preferred to give the "voice of the church" in its own words, rather than in ours, and have no hesitation in repeating the definition we have already given, as setting forth the High Church doctrine, strictly according to its acknowledged organ: "Episcopacy is a divine institution, and necessary, where it can be had. Where it cannot be had, presbyters may validly ordain."
The doctrine of the Episcopal Church, as a church, if, as a church, she has any doctrine on the subject, must lie within these definitions. Mr. Goode must be wholly right, and the "Vox Ecclesiae" wholly wrong, or vice versa, or else both must have the truth, mingled in each case with more or less of falsehood and confusion. If we can reconcile the two, or if the teaching of either has that in it which disproves itself, we may at last define the real position of their church upon the question which involves her life.
And here we must premise, that the words "order," "Office," etc., which seem to be the gist of much of this controversy, are names, not things. They mean, in the mouth, or on the pen, of any Individual, just what that individual means by them, no less, no more. They have never been defined authoritatively by Scripture or by any other tribunal to which these parties own allegiance. When Mr. Goode uses them, they may imply one thing. In the pages of "Vox Ecclesiae," they may signify another. The whole contest, therefore, so far as [{726}] it relates to the number of "orders," or whether that of the bishop is a different "order," or only a different "office," from that of the presbyter, is, in our view, one of names and titles only. The real question stands thus: "Has a bishop, by divine institution, a power which the presbyter has not, or is the same power resident in both, and ordinarily made latent in the one, and operative in the other, by virtue of ecclesiastical law and usage?" The answer to this question will show how far the High and Low Church party really differ from each other, and what is the variance, if any, between the "Vox Ecclesiae" and Mr. Goode.
It seems to us that the "EXCEPTION," which, equally with the rule, is admitted by the High Church doctrine to be fundamental law, answers this question once for all. For if, in any supposable emergency, presbyters may validly ordain, and if persons so by them ordained have power to preach the word and minister the sacraments, then either (1.) Necessity confers a power to ordain upon those who have it not, or else (2.) The power to ordain is resident alike in presbyters and bishops, and the restrictions on its exercise by presbyters are, by that necessity, removed. If the second of these positions truly represent the High Church theory, then, between them and Mr. Goode's adherents, there is no essential difference, and their war, with all its bitterness and pertinacity, is one of human words and human facts, and not of Christian doctrine. If, to avoid this fate, the first alternative be the one adopted, the following difficulties must be met and answered.
1. It overthrows the entire doctrine of "succession." This fundamental law of organic, collective, Christian life presupposes the existence of an unbroken chain of ministers, transmitting their authority, through generation after generation, from Christ's day to our own. It presupposes that every man, who has himself possessed and transmitted this authority, has received it in his turn from some other man who possessed it and transmitted it to him, and so on back to Christ himself. Christ thus becomes the sole source, and man the sole channel, of ecclesiastical authority, and the right or power of any individual to exercise the functions of the ministerial office depends on his reception of authority therefor from this only source and through this only channel.
But if necessity can also confer authority, or rather, to put the case in words more expressive of its real character, if, whenever the appointed channel cannot be had and necessity of ministers exists, God will himself from heaven confer the authority in need, the value of this "succession" amounts to nothing. Orders, wherever necessary, will be had as well without it as with it, and they who have it can never with any certainty deny the validity of orders which have it not. Christ still may be the sole source, but man is not the only, nay, nor the most perfect and available, channel of this authority. There is another, surer, nearer, more direct, conveying, only to proper persons, the gifts of God, and free from all the doubts and dangers which result from a residence of heavenly "treasure in earthen vessels," and the necessity which demands it is the sole condition of its use. The High Church party, if they adopt this position, must, therefore, become more radical than any Christian church upon the globe. They out-Herod even their great Herod, Mr. Goode, and are more dangerous to the cause of "apostolic order" and ecclesiastical authority than any Low Churchmen or Separatist that ever lived.
2. It elevates human necessity above divine law. The law, by which holy orders exist, and by which their transmission from man to man is regulated, is unquestionably divine. "Vox Ecclesiae" goes so far as to claim that their transmission, from bishop to bishop only, is of divine precept, but, waiving that, it is acknowledged by all parties, with whom we have to do at [{727}] present, that whatever be the human channel, it is of Christ's appointment, and rests upon divine authority. It is thus a divine law which "necessity abrogates," a positive institution and command of God which is to be disregarded and disobeyed, and that because "necessity" demands it.
But this necessity is a merely human one. Orders confers on the ordained only the power to preach and to administer the sacraments, and it is only that those things may be done, that God's law is despised and set aside. Yet, though the eternal salvation of the human soul may ordinarily depend upon the preaching of the word and on the sacraments, still nothing is absolutely necessary to eternal life that may not take place between the soul and God, independently of bishop, priest, or church. It is thus no necessity of God's creation, no necessity inevitably involving the eternal destinies of man, that substitutes itself for the admitted law of God, but a mere earthly need, a need based upon human views and customs and opinions, which never received endorsement from on high, and finds no sanction for its existence in Holy Writ. There is no irregularity which such a position would not justify, no departure from God's ordinances which it could consistently condemn. It would come with fearful self-rebuke from that portion of the Episcopal Church, who for three hundred years have practically ignored their brother Protestants, because they judged of their own necessities and set aside the institutions of God in order that those necessities might be supplied.
3. It legitimates every form of error and schism. For, if "necessity confers orders," the sole question in every case is, whether the necessity existed. If there was such necessity in Germany and Switzerland in the sixteenth century, then Lutheran and Calvinistic orders were as valid as Episcopal, and if that necessity continues, they are valid still. If there was such necessity in Scotland, after the abolition of the prelacy, and that necessity continues, the orders of the kirk are valid at this day. If there was such necessity when John Wesley ordained Dr. Coke, and that necessity continues, Methodist orders are as valid as his Grace of Canterbury's are. There is no stopping-place for these deductions. If "necessity confers orders," not even the channel of presbyters is necessary. No human instrument at all stands between God and the recipient of his extraordinary favor. In every case where the necessity exists, there God confers the power of orders, and there is no sect so wild and heretical, no ministry so dangerous and erratic, that may not claim validity upon this ground, and that must not, on these principles, when necessity is proven, be adjudged legitimate.
But of this necessity who shall be the judge? Shall God, who, of course, knows all the circumstances of mankind and estimates them at their proper value? But then, to us his judgment is useless without expression, and his expression is revelation. Are those who allow the force of this plea of necessity prepared to admit all who claim it, for the sake of Christian charity, or will they demand a revelation from God to satisfy them that the "necessity" was real? Yet, if God be the only Judge, they must admit all or reject all until he speaks from heaven, and in the latter case, the "EXCEPTION" might as well have been left unmade. Or shall the church judge? And if so, what church? The church, from which Luther, and Calvin, and Cranmer, and Parker separated? She had her bishops ready to ordain all proper men, and if her judgment had been taken, there would have been no occasion for men to plead necessity. The church, from which came forth the Puritans and Methodists? She also had her bishops, and in her view no necessity could ever have existed. So with every church. None that are founded in Episcopacy could ever [{728}] admit a necessity without supplying it in the appointed way. And none that reject Episcopacy would care to inquire whether or not there was any such necessity. The church could, therefore, be no judge. She is, in every issue of this sort, a party, not an umpire; but, were she competent to judge, wherein is her decree less valid, when from Rome she excommunicates the Church of England, than when from London or New York she denies ministerial authority to Presbyterians and Universalists? Or is it the individual? There can be no doubt in this answer. It must be. No man can judge of a necessity except he who is placed in it. A little colony of Christians, cast away on some Pacific island, must decide for themselves, whether they will ordain a pastor for their flock or utterly dispense with Christian teaching. A man, whose creed differs from that of the church in which he lives, and yet who feels an inward call to preach the Gospel, as he understands it, must be the sole judge of the necessity of call, upon the one hand, which commands him to preach, and of conscience, on the other, which forbids him to subscribe the creed which is the unrelenting condition of his ordination by authority. Extend it to societies and communities of men, and the rule is the same. These societies become themselves the judges, whether or not, in their case, necessity exists, and no other can judge for them. The law is universal. If necessity be a justification, it must be necessity as judged of by the parties in necessity, and not as judged of by God, unknown to men, or by a church which either will supply the need or treat the whole matter as of little moment. There thus becomes no limit to necessities. They are moral as well as physical. They grow out of duties and responsibilities, as well as out of distances and years. Obedience to the voice of conscience is an indispensable condition of salvation, and no necessity is greater or more potent than the necessity of that obedience. When the Rev. Gardiner Spring was moved, as he believed it, by the Holy Ghost, to do the work of a minister in the church of God, there was not a regularly ordained bishop in the world who would have ordained him, while holding the doctrines he professed. In his case, without a violation of his conscience and the loss of his soul, bishops "COULD NOT BE HAD," and presbyters must have validly ordained. When Charles Spurgeon, rejoicing in the new-found light of the Gospel, burned to tell other men the good that God had done to him, the moral necessity was the same, a necessity which compelled him to disobey what he believed to be a command of God, or to receive orders from non-Episcopal hands. Is there any need of multiplying instances? Where is the imaginable limit to which validity must be acknowledged and beyond which it must cease? The High Churchman who starts with the admission, that in case of "necessity," God confers the power of order, can never stop till he has bowed the knee before every Baal which claims the name of Christian and opened the gifts of God to every man who demands priestly recognition at his hands.
There are other objections to this theory, equally insuperable with those already suggested. It can hardly be necessary, however, to mention them. No candid mind, after seeing the real bearing of this position on the whole question of a visible church, can hesitate a moment to reject it. There remains only the other alternative, namely, that necessity renders operation in presbyters a power possessed by, but latent in, them, by removing the restrictions which, in ordinary circumstances, apostolic precedent and ecclesiastical usage have imposed; and as this is essentially the position advocated by Mr. Goode, and as the difference between these parties is thus reduced, in every case, to a question of historic or contemporaneous fact, which no one but the individuals who plead it can adequately settle, we conclude that [{729}] the sole contest as to doctrine is one of words and definitions, and that on all material points of theory and faith they perfectly agree. We thus feel justified in the conclusion that the Episcopal Church of the present age has a doctrine concerning the necessity of episcopal ordination, and that her doctrine is no less, no more, than this: "The power of order is resident in bishops and presbyters both, ex ordine, and is operative, under ordinary circumstances, in bishops only, though in cases of necessity, presbyters may exercise that power and validly ordain."
This doctrine is logical, coherent, and conservative. No divine institution is thereby set aside for a mere human necessity. No destructive principle antagonistic to the doctrine of "succession" is thereby introduced; no gate is thereby opened for a multitudinous throng of orthodox and heretics, ordained and unordained, to bring disorder and confusion into the Church of God. However fatal to the high pretensions of the Episcopal Church in generations past, and to any claim of exclusive apostolicity at present, this doctrine is, nevertheless, most consistent with her actual status in the religious world. Thoroughly Protestant in doctrine and in worship, all her affinities and tendencies are toward the Presbyterian and other non-Episcopal denominations of the age. No church on earth, whose episcopal succession can be traced to any apostolic source, has ever recognized hers as beyond question, or admitted her claim to be a portion of the Catholic Church of Christ. Her very episcopate itself is, practically, as the recent events in New York have shown, a rank of honor and of office not of power. Her alleged superiority, for her bishops' sakes, can never bring her one step nearer to the Catholic Church, while she retains her heresies or remains in schism; and, on the other hand, her alienation from her protesting sisters must increase with every generation while this allegation is maintained. Far better, far more accordant with her actual position, is her doctrine as thus evolved by Mr. Goode and "Vox Ecclesiae," and while its enunciation cannot change her in our estimation, it will doubtless draw nearer to her, in the bonds of love and brotherhood, all those by whom she is surrounded and to whose fraternity she naturally belongs. It is only a matter of regret that the barrier now destroyed was not broken down long ago, and that the good influences, which the Episcopal Church is so well calculated to exert, have not been working on the masses of our non-Catholic brethren in America during all the past eighty years.
Nothing now remains but to retrieve that past. Let it be understood that the Episcopal Church does not deny the validity of presbyterian orders, but that at most she holds them irregular, and only that when not given in necessity; that men of other denominations have clergymen and sacraments equally beneficial with her own. Let her throw open her doors to all religious bodies who thus preserve the "succession," and unite with them in prevailing on those to receive it who have it not, and make common cause with all such in stemming the tide of infidelity and "liberalism" which is deluging our land. Then may her self-adopted mission, however faulty in its origin, however riskful in its progress, fulfil at least one portion of the work of Christ's Church in the world, and, if she cannot feed men with the bread of truth, she may preserve them from the more fearful poisons.
In conclusion, we desire to correct an error into which the author of "Vox Ecclesiae" has fallen, concerning the view of this same question taken by Catholics. On page 57, he says:
"The exaggerated or Romish theory is, that the possession of the Apostolical Constitution and a properly transmitted succession is enough to constitute a true and perfect church. Thus succession is held to be everything," etc.
In one sense of these words, namely, that to be the actual organization founded by Christ and constituted, as he left it, in the hands of the apostles, is to be a true and perfect church; they are the faith of Catholics. But this is not the sense in which the author uses them. The idea he thus expresses is, that we regard an external succession in the line of apostolic orders as sufficient to make a man a priest or bishop, as the case may be, and that such a succession constitutes a church. This is a very prevalent, but very thoughtless, error. It is true that we believe apostolic orders, in the apostolic line, to be so absolutely necessary that no man, under any circumstances, can perform any I without them. But we do not believe, that the possession of such orders by any organization makes it a true church. Cranmer was lawfully ordained as priest and bishop of the Catholic Church, and, whether as a schismatic under Henry, or a heretic under Edward, his orders went with him and rendered every act in pursuance of them valid. The bishops he consecrated were bishops, the priests he ordained were priests, and if Archbishop Parker were in fact consecrated by Barlow and Hodgkins, and either of them were consecrated by Cranmer, and if the English succession be otherwise unbroken, then every priest of that succession is a true priest, and every bishop a true bishop. Their acts are valid acts, whatever their doctrine or their schism.
But this does not make the Church of England "a true and perfect church." If the fact of her full apostolical succession were established to-day, beyond the shadow of a doubt, and we would it could be, her position would differ nothing, in our view, from that of the Arian and Donatist churches of the fourth century, or of the Greek Church for the past nine hundred years, churches whose orders were all valid, whose doctrines were more or less at variance with Catholic truth, whose sacraments conferred grace, but who were cut off from the body of Christ's Church by their state of schism.
The Catholic test of Catholicity is short and simple, "Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesiae," said Ambrose of Milan, (Comm. in Ps. xl.,) and wherever Peter is, Peter, who, "like an immovable rock, holds together the structure and mass of the whole Christian fabric," (Ambrosii serm. xlvii.,) and "who, down to the present time and forever, in his successors lives and judges," (Care Eph. A.D. 431, serm. Phil.,) wherever Peter is, there, and there only, do we see the church. Catholics, collectively and individually, say with St. Jerome, "Whoever is united with the See of Peter is mine," and, throughout the world, whatever church, society or man is joined by the bonds of visible communion with the Roman See, is in and of the body of the Catholic Church, they and none others. No union with that See is possible to those who do not profess, at least implicitly, the entire Catholic doctrine, and submit to the legitimate discipline of the church. No validity of orders without true doctrine, no truth of doctrine and validity of orders without union with the Apostolic See, can remedy the evil. To all outside that unity, however similar to us in one point or another, we must repeat the words which St. Optatus of Mela wrote to the African Donatists about A.D. 384:
"You know that the Episcopal See was first established for Peter at the city of Rome, in which See Peter, the head of all the apostles, sat, and with which one See unity must be maintained by all; that the apostles might not each defend before you his own see, but that he should be both a schismatic and a sinner who should set up any other against that one See." (Adr. Donat. ii.) Would that, of all who know the truth of that which Optatus has written, and whom a thousand hindrances are keeping from that rock of unity, we might say, as St. Cyprian wrote of Antonianus, in the first ages, to the Holy Pope Cornelius, (ad auton,) "He is in communion with you, that is, with the Catholic Church."
From All the Year Round.
STATISTICS OF VIRTUE.
Small presents, it has been shrewdly said, prevent the flame of friendship from dying out. A Stilton cheese, a bouquet of forced flowers, a maiden copy of a "just-published" book, a pâte de foie gras, a basket of fruit that will keep a day or two, a salmon in spring, or a fresh-killed hare in autumn--any thing that answers, as a feed of corn or a bait of hay, to one's own private hobby-horse--very rarely indeed gives offence.
Be the influence such offerings exert ever so small, it is attractive rather than repulsive in its tendency. They are silken fibres which draw people together, almost without their knowing it; and although the strength of any single one may be slight, by multiplication they acquire appreciable power. Even if they come from evidently interested motives, they are a tribute which flatters the receiver's self-esteem, for they are an unmistakable proof that he is worth being courted. They are a mutual tie which bind friendly connections into a firmer bundle of sticks than they were before. The giver even likes the person given to all the better for having bestowed gifts upon him. There may exist no thought or intention to lay him under an obligation; but there always must, and properly may, arise the hope of increasing his good-will and attachment. It is clear that, when it is desirable that kindly relations should exist between persons, any honorable means of promoting such relations are not only expedient but laudable. One stone of an arch may fit its fellow-stones perfectly, but a little cement does their union no harm.
As there is a reciprocal social attraction between individuals of respectability and worth, so also there ought to be a gravitation of every individual toward certain excellences of character and conduct. And here likewise small inducements, trifling bribes, minor temptations, help to increase the force of the tendency. Virtue is, and ought to be its own reward; still, an additional bonus of extraneous recompense cannot but help the moral progress of mankind. It sounds like a truism to say that a motive is useful as a mover to the performance of any act or course of action. The fact is implied by the meaning of the word itself. If good deeds can be rendered more frequent by increasing the motives to their practice, the world in general will be all the better and the happier for that increase.
The problem in ethics to be solved, is, simply, how men and women may be most easily led to behave like very good boys and girls. We urge children to do their best by rewards of merit. Why should not the minds of adults be stimulated by similar persuasive forces? Nor can worldly motives, if pulling in the same direction as moral and religious motives, be productive of anything but good. And we want motives to excite the good to become still more persistently and exemplarily good, all the more that terror of punishment is unfortunately insufficient to make the bad abstain from deeds of wickedness.
With this view a philanthropic Frenchman, M. de Montyon, founded in 1819 annual prizes for acts of benevolence and devotedness, which, beside addressing our higher feelings, appeal to two strong passions, interest and vanity. And why should integrity pass unrewarded? Why should bright conduct be hid under a bushel? In a darksome night, how far the little candle throws his beams! So ought to shine a good deed in a naughty world. Most undoubtedly, to do good by stealth is highly praiseworthy; but there is no reason why the blush which arises on finding it fame should necessarily be a painful blush. Far better that it should be a glow of pleasure.
More than forty years have now elapsed since these prizes for virtue were instituted, during which period more than seven hundred persons have received the reward of their exemplary conduct. The French Academy which distributes the prizes, has decided (doing violence to the modesty of the recipients ) to publish their good deeds to the world. After the announcement of their awards, a livret or list in the form of a pamphlet is issued, recounting each specific case with the same simplicity with which it was performed. These lists are spread throughout all France and further, in the belief that the more widely meritorious actions are known, the greater chance there is of their being imitated.
The awards made by the French Academy up to the present day to virtuous actions give an average of about eighteen per annum. These eighteen annual "crowns" have been competed for by more than seventy memorials coming from every point of France, mostly without the knowledge of the persons interested. In short, since the foundation of the prizes, the Academy has had to read several thousand memorials.
To Monsieur V. P. Demay (Secretary and Chef des Bureaux of the Mairie of the 18th Arrondissement of Paris) the idea occurred of collecting the whole of these livrets into a volume, so as to furnish an analytical summary of the distribution of the prizes throughout the empire, and of appending to it flowers of philanthropic eloquence culled from the speeches made at the Academic meetings. The result is a book entitled "Les Fastes de la Vertu Pauvre en France," "Annals of the Virtuous Poor in France."
No one, before M. Demay, thought of undertaking the Statistics of Virtue. The subject has not found a place on any scientific programme, French or international; whether through forgetfulness or not, the fact remains indisputable. And be it remarked that the seven hundred and thirty-two laureats to whom rewards have been decreed, represent only a fraction of the number of highly deserving persons. In all their reports ever since 1820, the French Academy has declared that it had only the embarrassment of choosing between the candidates while awarding the prizes, so equally meritorious were their acts. Therefore, to the seven hundred and thirty-two nominees ought to be added the two thousand four hundred and forty competitors whose cases were considered during that period, making altogether a total of three thousand one hundred and seventy-two instances of conduct worthy of imitation which had been brought to light by the agency of the prizes.
The book, not more amusing than other statistics, is nevertheless highly suggestive. Serious thought is the consequence of opening its pages. It is a touching book, and goes to the heart. After reading it, many will feel prompted to go and do likewise by some effort of generosity or self-denial. In any case, it cannot be other than a moralizing work to bring to light so many instances of devotion, and to set them forth as public examples.
In some of his speculations our author, perhaps, may be considered as just a little too sanguine. Certainly, if there are tribunals for the infliction of punishment, there is no reason why tribunals should not exist for the conferring of recompenses. How far they are likely to become general, is a question for consideration. Also, it is [{733}] true that newspapers give the fullest details of horrid crimes, while they are brief in their usual mention of meritorious actions. But before M. Demay, somebody said, "Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues we write in water;" and it is to be feared he is somewhat too bright-visioned a seer, when he hopes that, through Napoleon the Third's and Baron Haussmaun's educational measures, coupled with the influence of the Montyon prizes, "at no very distant day, the words penitentiary, prison, etc., will exist only in the state of souvenirs--painful as regards the past, but consolatory for the future."
To give the details of such a multitude of virtuous acts is simply impossible. M. Demay can only rapidly group those which present the most striking features, and which have appeared still more extraordinary--for that is the proper word--than the others, conferring on their honored actors surnames recognized throughout whole districts. It is the Table of Honor of Virtuous Poverty, crowned by the verdict of popular opinion. Among these latter are (the parentheses contain the name of their department): the Mussets, husband and wife, salt manufacturers, at Château Salins, (Meurthe,) surnamed the Second Providence of the Poor; Suzanne Géral, wife of the keeper of the lockup house, at Florae, (Loèzre) surnamed the Prison Angel; David Lacroix, fisherman, at Dieppe, (Seine-Inférieure,) surnamed the Sauveur, instead of the Sauveteur the rescuer, after having pulled one hundred and seventeen people out of fire and water --he has the cross of the Legion of Honor; Marie Philippe; Widow Gambon, vine-dresser, at Nanterre, (Seine.) surnamed la Mére de bon Secours, or Goody Helpful; Madame Langier, at Orgon, (Bouche-du-Rhône,) surnamed la Quéteuse, the Collector of Alms.
In the spring of 1839 almost the whole canton of Ax (Ariège) was visited by the yellow fever, which raged for ten months, and carried off a sixth of the population. It, was especially malignant at Prades. Terror was at its height; those whom the scourge had spared were prevented by their fears from assisting their sick neighbors, menaced with almost certain death. Nevertheless, a young girl, Madeleine Fort, who had been brought up in the practice of good works, exerted herself to the utmost in all directions. During the course of those ten disastrous months she visited, consoled, and nursed more than five hundred unfortunates; and if she could not save them from the grave, she followed them, alone, to their final resting-place. Two Sisters of Charity were sent to help her; one was soon carried off, and the second fell ill. The caré died, and was replaced by another. The latter, finding himself smitten, sent for Madeleine. One of the flock had to tend the pastor. Those disastrous days have long since disappeared; but if the traveller, halting at Prades, asks for Madeleine Fort's dwelling, he will be answered, "Ah! you mean our Sister of Charity?"
Suzanne Bichon is only a servant. Her master and mistress were completely ruined by the negro insurrection in St. Domingo; but the worthy woman would not desert them--she worked for them all, and took care of the children. On being offered a better place, that is, a more lucrative engagement, she refused it with the words, "You will easily find another person, but can my master and mistress get another servant?" The Academy gave their recompense for fifteen years of this devoted service. Her mistress wanted to go and take a place herself; she would not hear of it, making them believe that she had means at her command, and expectations. But all her means lay in her capacity for work, while her expectations were--Providence. It is not to be wondered at that she was known as Good Suzette.
Such attachments as these on the part of servants are a delightful contrast to what we commonly see in the course of our household experience. They can hardly be looked for under the combined regime of register-offices, a month's wages or a month's warning, no followers, Sundays out, and crinoline.
We look for virtue amongst the clergy. The devotion, self-denial, and resignation often witnessed amongst them are matters of notoriety. Nevertheless, it is right that one of its members should find a place on a list like the present. In 1834, the Abbé Bertran was appointed cure of Peyriac, (Aude.) He was obliged, so to speak, to conquer the country of which he was soon to be the benefactor. For two years he had to struggle with the obstinate resistance which his parishioners opposed to him. His evangelical gentleness succeeded in vanquishing every obstacle; henceforth he was master of the ground, and could march onward with a firm step. At once he consecrated his patrimony to the restoration of the church and the presbyter. He bought a field, turned architect, and soon there arose a vast building which united the two extremes of life--old age and infancy. He then opened simultaneously a girls' school, an infant school, and a foundling hospital. He sought out the orphans belonging to the canton, and supplied a home to old people of either sex. To effect these objects the good pastor expended seventy thousand francs, (nearly three thousand pounds,) the whole of his property: he left himself without a sou. But he had sown his seed in good ground, and it promised to produce a hundred-fold. Rich in his poverty, his place is marked beside Vincent de Paul and Charles Borromeo.
Goodness may even indulge in its caprices and still remain good. Marguerite Monnier, surnamed la Mayon, (a popular term of affection in Lorraine,) seems to have selected a curious specialty for the indulgence of her charitable propensities. It is requisite to be infirm or idiotic to be entitled to receive her benevolent attentions. When quite a child, she selects as her friend a poor blind beggar, whom she visits every day in her wretched hovel. She makes her bed, lights her fire, and cooks her food. While going to school, she remarks a poor old woman scarcely able to drag herself along, but, nevertheless, crawling to the neighboring wood to pick up a few dry sticks. She follows her thither, helps her to gather them, and brings back the load on her own shoulders. Grown to womanhood, and married, Marguerite successively gives hospitality to an idiot, a crazy person, a cretin, several paralytic patients, orphans, strangers without resources, and even drunkards, (one would wish to see in their falling an infirmity merely.) Every creature unable to take care of itself finds in her a ready protector. Such are her lodgers, her clients, her customers! Ever cheerful, she amuses them by discourse suited to their comprehension. All around her is in continued jubilation, and Marguerite herself seems to be more entertained than any body else. It may be said, perhaps, that a person must be born with a natural disposition for this kind of devotedness. Granted; but his claim to public gratitude is not a whit the less for that.
Catherine Vernet, of Saint-Germain, (Puy-de-dôme,) is a simple lace-maker, who, after devoting herself to her family, has for thirty years devoted herself to those who have no one to take care of them. Her savings having amounted to a sufficient sum for the purchase of a small house, she converted it into a sort of hospital with eight beds always occupied. Situated amongst the mountains of Anvergne, this hospital is a certain refuge for perdus, travellers who have lost their way. It is an imitation of the Saint Bernard; and if it has not attained its celebrity, it emanates from the same source, charity.
In looking through the lists and comparing the several departments of France, it would be hard to say that one department is better than another; because their population, and other important influential circumstances, vary immensely between themselves. But what strikes one immediately, is the great preponderance of good women--rewarded as such--over good men. Thus, to dip into the list at hazard, we have--Meuse, one man, five women; Seine, thirty-one men, ninety-eight women; Loire, two men, six women; Côte-d'Or, three men, eleven women; and so on. The nature of the acts rewarded--also taken by chance--are these: reconciliations of families in vendetta, (Corsica;) maintenance of deserted children; rescues from fire and water; faithfulness to master and mistress for sixteen years; adoption of seven orphans for fifteen years; maintenance of master and mistress fallen into poverty; devotion to the aged; nursing the sick poor; killing a mad dog who inflicted fourteen bites. When "inexhaustible charity" and "succor to the indigent" are mentioned, one would like to know whether they consisted in mere alms-giving. Probably not; because by "charity" Montyon understood, not the momentary impulse which causes us to help a suffering fellow-creature, and then dies away, but the constant, durable affection which regards him as another self, and whose device is "Privation, Sacrifice."
In the period, then, between 1819 and 1864 seven hundred and seventy-six persons received Montyon rewards, two hundred and eleven of whom were men, and five hundred and sixty-five women. In M. Demay's opinion, the disproportion ought to surprise nobody; for if man is gifted with virile courage, which is capable of being suddenly inflamed, and is liable to be similarly extinguished, woman only is endowed with the boundless, incessant, silent devotion which is found in the mother, the wife, the daughter, the sister. This dear companion, given by God to man, is conscious of the noble mission allotted her to fulfil on earth. We behold the results in her acts, and in what daily occurs in families. Abnegation, with her, is a natural instinct. "She may prove weak, no doubt; she may even go astray: but, be assured, she always retains the divine spark of charity, which only awaits an opportunity to burst forth into a brilliant flame. Let us abstain, therefore, from casting a stone at temporary error; let us pardon, and forget. Our charity will lead her back to duty more efficaciously than all the moral stigmas we could possibly inflict."
The years more fruitful in acts of devotion appear to have been 1851, 1852, and 1857, in which twenty-seven and twenty-eight prizes were awarded. Their cause is, that previously the Academy received memorials from the authorities only. But after making an appeal to witnesses of every class and grade, virtue, if the expression maybe allowed, overflowed in all directions. Lives of heroism and charity, hidden in the secrets of the heart, were suddenly brought to the light of day, to the great surprise of their heroes and heroines. During the same period there were distributed, in money, three hundred and sixty-four thousand francs, (sixteen thousand pounds;) in medals, four hundred and eighteen thousand five hundred and fifty francs, (sixteen thousand seven hundred and forty-two pounds;) total, seven hundred and eighty-two thousand five hundred and fifty francs, (thirty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-two pounds.) The Montyon prizes are worth having, and not an insult to the persons to whom they are offered. The sums of money given range as high as one, two, three, and even four thousand francs; the medals vary in value from five and six hundred to a thousand francs: but even a five hundred franc or twenty-pound medal is a respectable token of approbation and esteem. In some few cases, both money and a medal are bestowed.
It may be said that the persons to whom these prizes are given would have done the same deeds without any reward. True; and therein lies their merit. And ought money to be given to recompense virtuous acts? Yes, most decidedly; because it will confer on its recipients their greatest possible recompense--the power of doing still more good. Money gifts are not to be depreciated so long as there are orphans to sustain, sick poor to nurse, and infirm old age to keep from starvation.
Finally, is charity the growth of one period of life rather than of another? On inspecting the lists, we find children, six, twelve, thirteen years of age, and close to them octogenarians, one nonagenarian, one centenarian! If noble courage does not want for fulness of years, it would appear not to take its leave on their arrival.
[ORIGINAL.]
THE CHRISTIAN CROWN.
BY JOHN SAVAGE.
I.
Ten centuries and one had trod
Jerusalem, since when,
In mortal form, the Son of God
Died for the sons of men.
II.
And they who in the Martyr found
Their Saviour, wailed and wept,
That gorgeous horrors should abound
Where Christ the Blessèd slept.
III.
From clam'rous towns, and forests' hush.
As cascades from the gloom
Of caves, crusaders eastward rush
To win the holy tomb.
IV.
Their corselets, steel and silver bright,
'Neath swaying plumes displayed,
Now dance, like streams, in lines of light.
Now loiter on in shade.
[{737}]
V.
Their crosses glow in every form
Inspiring vale and mart,
As through earth's arteries they swarm,
Like blood back to the heart.
VI.
Tis mid-day of midsummer's heat;
Faith crowns the live and dead:
Jerusalem is at their feet.
Brave Godfrey at their head.
VII.
Within the walls, the ramparts ring
As proudly they proclaim
Great Godfrey de Bouillon as king!
A king in more than name.
VIII.
The ruby-budding crown to bind
About his head, they stood:
Another crown is in his mind;
For rubies, blobs of blood.
IX.
"No. no!" and back the bauble flings,
"No gold this brow adorns
Where willed He, Christ, the King of kings,
To wear a crown of thorns."
X.
Let not the glorious truth depart
Brave Godfrey handed down:
A king whose crown is in his heart,
Needs wear no other crown.
From The Lamp
UNCONVICTED;
OR, OLD THORNELEY'S HEIRS.
CHAPTER VII.
THE READING OF THE WILL.
Nearing the brink of a discovery, yet dreading to approach the edge, lest a false step should precipitate you into a chaos of darkness; holding the end of an intricate web in your hand, yet not daring to follow the lead, lest you should lose yourself in its mazes--so I felt on the morning succeeding my visit with Detective Jones to Blue-Anchor Lane; so, likewise, had that astute officer and faithful friend expressed himself when we had parted the night before.
"You see, sir," he said, "the whole of what we have gathered this evening may only mean that Mr. Wilmot has got mixed up with this De Vos or Sullivan in some-gambling transaction, who, hearing that he's left sole heir to poor Thorneley's fortune, means to hold whatever knowledge he possesses as a threat over him to extort money. Then, as to what passed at 'Noah's Ark,' why, it may mean a good deal, and it may just mean nothing, as not referring to the parties we know of. I don't wish to raise your hopes, sir; and until I've consulted with Inspector Keene and seen what he's ferreted out, I wouldn't like to say that we'd gained as much as I thought we should from our move tonight."
On my table I found a broad black-bordered letter. It was a formal invitation on the part of Lister Wilmot, as sole executor, to attend old Thorneley's funeral on the following Tuesday.
The intervening days were dark, and blank with the blankness of despair. Vigilant, energetic, and penetrating as was that secret, silent search of the detectives, no real clue was found to the mystery of the murdered man's death; no light thrown upon the black page in the history of that fatal Tuesday evening, save what our own miserable suspicions or fallacious hopes suggested. De Vos had entirely disappeared from the scene, leaving no truce of his whereabouts. Wilmot's public movements, though closely watched by the lynx-eyed functionaries of the law, were perfectly satisfactory: and the housekeeper remained closeted in her own room, intent, apparently, upon making up her mourning garments for her late master, and fairly baffling Inspector Keene in his insidious attempts to elicit a word further, or at variance to what she stated at the inquest, by her cool, collected, and straightforward replies to his 'cute cross-questioning. And yet, in concluding the short interviews between Mr. Inspector and Merrivale, at which I was generally present, after a silent scrape at his chin, and a hungry crop at his nails, he would still repeat with a certain little air of quiet confidence, "Good-day, gentlemen. I think I am on the scent."
Meanwhile the verdict at the inquest had gone forth and done its work; and Hugh Atherton was fully committed for trial next sessions at the Old Bailey. These were to take place early in November, and the thought of how terribly short a time was left till then filled us with a fearful, heart-sickening dread lest all, upon which hung the issues of life or death, could not be accomplished in so little space. True that a respite [{739}] might be asked, and the trial postponed until the following sessions; but upon what plea could the request be preferred? Some evidence not yet forthcoming. What evidence could we hope for? upon what future revelation could we rely? At present there was nothing, absolutely nothing, but our vague conjectures, our blind belief in the acuteness of the police officers whom we were employing.
And Ada Leslie, what of her? Every day, and twice a day, I went to Hyde-Park Gardens, sometimes with Merrivale, sometimes alone, repeating every detail, every minute particular, every circumstance, and going though everything with her said or done by each one concerned. It seemed to be her only comfort and support, after that better and higher consolation promised to the weary and heavy-laden, and which both she and Hugh knew well how to seek.
"Tell me all," she would say--"the good and bad. I can bear it better if I know nothing is kept back. To deceive me would be no real kindness; and who has a better right to know everything than I, who am part of himself? We shall be man and wife soon, in the sight of God and the world, and then nothing can separate us in other men's minds: but till then I am truly and faithfully one with him; and what touches him touches me, only infinitely more because it is for him. Don't you know what the idyl says about the fame and shame being mine equally if his? But better and holier words still have been spoken, and I say them often to myself now when I think of the time which is coming: 'They two shall be one flesh.'"
Strangely enough, though fully conscious of Atherton's danger, of the awful position in which he stood, she never seemed to take count for one instant that the simple plea of innocence on his part, and the belief of it on ours, would not weigh one feather's weight in the heavy balance of evidence against him.
Since my encounter with Mrs. Leslie, that lady and I had been cold and distant, conversing the least possible within our power, and avoiding one another by mutual consent. But one thing I noted, that come when I would, early or late, with news or without, alone or accompanied by Merrivale, whose visits seemed a great comfort to Ada, Lister Wilmot was certain to have forestalled me, and given in his version, either personally or by letter, of whatever had happened. And I found the effect of this was, that Mrs. Leslie was speaking of Hugh as guilty, though "poor Lister still persists in trying to think him innocent;" and was publishing about wherever she could that I had volunteered to give evidence against him. Ada took a different view of Wilmot's conduct.
"I think, guardian, that Lister is almost mad," she said one day. "He talks quite wildly sometimes to me. We never thought he had a very clear head; and now he seems to be so incoherent and contradictory in all he says, and this confuses mamma, and makes her get wrong notions about it all. But he is so kind and good to me now. Once I thought he didn't like me; but he is quite changed now."
On the Saturday she was allowed to see Hugh, now lodged in Newgate Prison. She went with Wilmot and her mother; but she saw him alone, with only the warder present. Contrary to my expectations, she was calmer and happier, if one can use such a word, knowing all the anguish of the heart, than before. They had mutually strengthened and comforted each other. She repeated to me a great deal of what passed when I saw her in the evening; but she never said one word of what had passed about myself; she never brought me any message; and when I asked her if Hugh had expressed a wish to see me, she only replied, "No, he thinks it is best not--at least at present." The same reply came through [{740}] Merrivale, who seemed puzzled by it; the same through Lister Wilmot, who was offensively regretful for me. I could not bear it, and I gave utterance to the pent-up feeling which raged within me. I told him that none of his meddling was needed between myself and Hugh Atherton, and I hinted that the rôle he had taken upon himself to play now would before many days were over be changed in a very unpleasant manner. A covert sneer curled his thin lips, and there was an evil light in his eyes, as he replied that he was not afraid of any plot that might be hatched against him, and he could make excuses for my excited feelings "As to myself," he concluded, "I am prepared for everything. "
Tuesday, the day appointed for the burial of Gilbert Thorneley, at last arrived; and those invited to attend assembled for the time in Wimpole street to pay their tribute of homage to the man who had swept his master's office in his youth, and died worth more than a million of money in the Funds. They flocked thither at the bid of his nephew and reported heir; his comrades on 'change, his compeers in wealth, his fellow-citizens; those men who had passed through the same evolutions of barter and exchange, of tare and tret, of selling out and buying in, of all that busy tumult of money-making in which the dead man lying in his silver-plated coffin upstairs, and covered by the handsome velvet pall, had borne his share even to the fullest. For Wilmot had given orders for the funeral to be conducted on a scale befitting the magnificence of the fortune which his uncle left behind him; and the management of the affair had been placed in the hands of an undertaker whose reputation for conducting people to their grave with every mournful splendor of state and style was irreproachable. But amid those funeral plumes, those heavy trappings, those sombre mantles, those long hat-bands new and scarfs of richest silk, there was no eye wet with sorrow, no brow shadowed by regret, no heart that was heavier for the loss of the one going to his grave. It was a funeral without a mourner. On Lister Wilmot's face was the half-concealed triumph and elation, under an affected grief too evidently put on for the dullest man to believe in; and the only one who would have mourned, nay who did mourn, for the murdered man, lay in his cell within the walls of Newgate, stigmatized with the brand of wilful murder of him. So the gloomy pageant set out with its hearse-and-four, its dozen mourning-coaches, its string of private carriages belonging to the rich men invited there that day. So we went to Kensal Green and laid Gilbert Thorneley in the new vault prepared for him, lonely and alone--"dust to dust, ashes to ashes"--until the resurrection.
When the last solemn words had been read over the open grave and the earth thrown with hollow sound upon the coffin, we turned to depart. A greater portion of the large assembly dispersed in their carriages on their various ways, and a few were asked to return to Wimpole street and be present at the reading of the will. Whether bidden or not, I had a reason for being there likewise, and had made up my mind what to do; but to my surprise Mr. Walker came up as we were leaving the cemetery, and invited me in Wilmot's name to go back with them.
In the dining room where the inquest had been held we gathered once again--some dozen of Thorneley's oldest acquaintances, the two doctors, the rector of the parish with his three curates, myself, the housekeeper, and the other servants of the dead man's household. The guests grouped themselves in different knots round the room, talking and gossiping together on the money market, the state of the country, of trade, of politics, of I know not what, but mostly of the past and future concerning the house in which we were assembled, of [{741}] the murdered and the supposed murderer, whilst we waited for Lister Wilmot and his two lawyers. The servants placed themselves in a row near the door, the housekeeper somewhat apart behind the rest, as if shrinking from notice. Very striking she looked in her deep mourning, gown, fitting with perfect exactitude, her light hair streaked here and there with silver threads braided beneath a close tulle-cap, very pale very self-possessed, but with that dangerous look in the cold blue eyes and peculiar motion of the eyelids which Merrivale had described as "a scintillating light and a shivering."
In less than a quarter of an hour the three came in--Thorneley's executor and two lawyers; Smith, the senior partner--one of those pompous old men who are met up and down the world, embodying, only in a wrong sense, the conception of a late spiritual writer of "a man of one idea," that idea being self--carrying in his hand a large parchment folded in familiar form and indorsed in the orthodox caligraphy of a law-office. The hum of conversation ceased as they entered and advanced to the top of the room, where a small table was placed, upon which the lawyer deposited the document. I glanced round the room. All eyes were turned upon the three, who were now seating themselves at the table in question, with the eager curiosity of men going to hear news. The expression of triumph upon Lister Wilmot's face had deepened yet more visibly; but underneath I fancied I perceived a lurking anxiety, and especially when his eye fell with a quick, sharp glance upon myself, and then as quickly looked away. The two lawyers appeared very full of their own importance, and were very obsequious to their new client. Lastly I looked at the housekeeper. Two hectic spots now burned upon her singularly pale cheeks, and her lips were tightly compressed; her hands, delicate and white for a woman in her position, wandered restlessly over each other. Perhaps it was but very natural agitation, for those who had served so long and faithfully were no doubt expecting to be remembered in the will of their late master.
"Are you ready, Mr. Wilmot?" asked Smith, wiping his gold spectacles and adjusting them on his nose.
Wilmot bowed assent; and the lawyer unfolding the parchment, read in loud, high, nasal tones, "The last will and testament of the late Gilbert Thorneley, squire, of 100 Wimpole street, in the parish of St. Mary-le-bone, London, and of the Grange, Warnside, Lincolnshire."
A dead silence reigned throughout the room; as the saying is, you might have heard a pin drop. One thing only was audible to my ear, sitting a few feet distant, and that was the heavy pant of the housekeeper's breathing. Smith read on.
The said Gilbert Thorneley bequeathed to his nephew, Hugh Atherton, the sum of £5000, free of legacy-duty; to his housekeeper an annuity of £100 per annum for life; to his butler and coachman annuities of £50 per annum for life, all free of legacy-duty, and £20 to the other servants for mourning, with a twelvemonth's wages; to his nephew, Lister Wilmot, the whole of his landed property, all moneys vested in the Funds, all personal property, furniture, carriages, horses, and plate, as sole residuary legatee.
This was the gist and pith of Gilbert Thorneley's will, which further bore date of the 19th of August in the present year, and was witnessed by William Walker, of the firm of Smith and Walker, and Abel Griffiths, Smith and Walker's clerk. By it Lister Wilmot came into an annual income of something like £100,000; by it Hugh Atherton was cut off with a mere nominal sum from the joint inheritance which his uncle had from his boyhood upward in the most unequivocal manner and words taught him to expect. A murmur of surprise ran through the company assembled. [{742}] The equal position of the two nephews with regard to their uncle had been too publicly known for the present declaration not to excite the most unbounded astonishment. So certain did it seem that the cousins would be co-heirs of Thorneley 'a enormous wealth, that whispers had gone about pretty freely of that being the motive which induced Hugh Atherton to commit the crime imputed to him--the desire of entering into possession of the old man's money. I gathered the thought in each person's mind by the broken words which fell from them. "Then why did he do it?" I heard one of the curates whisper to the other, and I knew that they thought and spoke of Hugh, believing him to be guilty.
I waited for a few minutes after Mr. Smith had finished his pompous delivery of this document, purporting to be the last will and testament of the late Gilbert Thorneley, and then I rose from the remote comer where I had placed myself and confronted the two lawyers.
"Gentlemen," I said, "I take leave to dispute that will which has just been read."
A thunderbolt falling in the midst of us could not have had a more astounding effect than those few words.
"Dispute the will!" shouted old Smith, purple in the face.
"Dispute the will!" echoed Walker.
"Dispute the will!" reverberated all round.
"God bless my soul, sir!" continued Smith, rising from his chair and literally shaking with excitement, "what do you mean by that? Dispute this will!" striking the open parchment with his closed hand; "upon what grounds, Mr. Kavanagh--upon what grounds and by what authority do you dare to dispute it, made by us, witnessed by us, and which we know to be the genuine and latest testament of our late client? What do you mean by it?"
"I dispute that will on the ground of there existing another and a later will of Mr. Thorneley; and I dispute it on the part of those in whose favor it is made. Gentlemen, I have a statement to make, to the truth of which I am prepared to affix my oath."
Involuntarily I glanced at Lister Wilmot. He was deadly pale; but he returned my gaze very steadily, and I noticed the same evil light in his eye as I had once before seen. Smith drew himself up and settled his thick bull-throat in his white choker, whilst his junior partner ran his hand through his hair, and seemed to prepare himself for whatever was coming with a sort of "Do your worst--I don't care for you" air.
"I hold in my hand," I continued, "a memorandum from my journal, and dated October 23, 185--, last Tuesday, gentlemen; and I beg your particular attention to the extract I am going to read to you--'Received a note from Mr. Gilbert Thorneley, of 100 Wimpole street, requesting me to call on him this evening. Went at seven o'clock; made and executed a will for the same, under solemn promise not to reveal the transaction until after his funeral had taken place. In case of my death, to leave a memorandum of the same addressed to Mr. Hugh Atherton. Saw the will signed by Mr. Thorneley and witnessed by his footman and coachman. Made memorandum of same for H. A., as desired. Put it with private papers, addressed to H. A.' That will, gentlemen, being of later date, will, if forthcoming, upset the will just read, and which is dated two months back."
There was a profound silence for some moments, broken only by the two servants. Barker the footman and Thomas the coachman, who both murmured in low but distinct tones, "Right enough, sir; we did put our names to that there dockiment."
"I don't quite understand your 'statement,' Mr. Kavanagh," said Smith at last, with an air which plainly said, "And I consider myself insulted by your making it."
"It is quite plain and straightforward, Mr. Smith, though, of course, you are taken by surprise. Allow me to hand you this copy of the memorandum I have read to you, and to which I have signed my name."
"But where is that will, sir? Statements and memoranda go for nothing, if you can't produce your proofs; and the will itself is the only proof."
"Where it is," I replied, "is best known to Mr. Wilmot, or yourselves, or to both. I never saw it after leaving Mr. Thorneley's study on the evening of the 23d."
The two lawyers turned simultaneously to Wilmot.
"Did you know anything of this transaction, sir?" asked Walker.
"Only so far as came out at the inquest yesterday. Where is the will? I ask. Let Mr. Kavanagh produce it."
There was a world of defiance in his glittering eyes as he rose and faced me.
"Yes," he cried again, with a hard, ringing voice, "let Mr. John Kavanagh produce it."
"Gently, Mr. Wilmot," said Walker in an insinuating voice. "Allow us to deal with this matter; it is really only proper that we should."
"Only proper that we should," echoed old Smith in his peculiar nasal twang.
But Lister Wilmot waved them both imperiously aside; and advancing a step forward, he said with an evident effort to control himself:
"I don't see, Kavanagh, what you can gain by bringing forward this absurd statement. Of course we all imagined that the mysterious business upon which you saw my deceased uncle the last evening of his life was in some way connected with making his will; and Mr. Smith, Mr. Walker, and myself searched through his papers with the utmost care, and with this idea in our minds; but no will, no codicil, no letter, nor memorandum of later date than the one just read could anywhere be found. Knowing what an eccentric character he was, we came to the conclusion that, if any will posterior to this were made, he had destroyed it immediately afterward.--Is this not so?" he turned to the two lawyers.
"It is so," answered Walker, for self and partner. "We made the minutest investigation, and were all three together when the seals were removed which had been placed on everything by the police in charge of the house. Nothing could have been tampered with."
I was fairly baffled, and stood considering what was the next best thing to do, when an old gray-headed man stepped forward and said that, if he might suggest, it would be satisfactory to hear in what particulars the deed I had drawn up differed from the one just made known.
"Yes," said Wilmot, with something like a sneer; "let us hear what were the contents of this will which you say you drew up."
"Wilmot," I answered, "the one whom that will, to my mind, most affected, for reasons which will presently be obvious to all who listen to me now, was the only one who loved the old man in life whose remains we have just followed to the grave--the only one who, I know, mourns his death with all the sincerity of his true and noble heart. In his presence I would never publicly have dragged forward a history which is full of sin, of sorrow, of remorse. But he lies in a felon's cell, charged, through a dark mysterious combination of events, and I firmly believe a deeply-laid scheme to work his ruin, with a felon's crime. In his interest therefore, first of all, I must speak. There is also that of another concerned, who comes before most of those present as a complete stranger; whether to all I know not.--Gentlemen, I, like you, believed until this day week that Gilbert Thorneley died childless and a bachelor. [{744}] Five-and twenty years ago he married a young and beautiful girl, an orphan, but possessed of an immense fortune. He married her for her money. It was a joyless marriage, without love, without happiness. One son was born to them, and shortly after the young wife died. The boy grew up an idiot, hated, loathed by his father, who sent him far away from his sight, and who for more than fifteen years before he died never saw his child's face. Remorse at last seems to have surged up in his heart, and he took a resolution to make what reparation he could for his past neglect. This is all which the deceased, Mr. Thorneley, confided to me in plain words; at the rest I can only darkly guess; but that much more might have been told which never passed his lips, that some terrible secret of the past remains still unrevealed, I am bound to say I feel convinced from the manner in which that little was revealed to me. Gentlemen, the will which I executed last Tuesday evening, and saw witnessed by the two servants now present, after bequeathing £10,000 a year to his nephew, Hugh Atherton, left the whole and entire of Gilbert Thorneley's property, landed, personal, and in the funds, to his idiot son, Francis Gilbert Thorneley, now living; and constituted Hugh Atherton as sole guardian of his cousin. With the exception of the same small legacies to the domestics of his household, no other bequest whatever was made; no other name mentioned. This will was executed as a tardy reparation for some wrong done to his dead wife."
There was the sound of a dull, heavy fall, and a cry from one of the women in the room. Mrs. Haag, the housekeeper, had fainted away.
CHAPTER VIII.
INSPECTOR KEENE SEES DAYLIGHT AT LAST.
"And pray, may I ask who was left executor in this wonderful will, since that item seems to have been omitted from an otherwise well-concocted story?" said Mr. Walker, as soon as the housekeeper had been carried out of the room, and order restored.
"Mr. Atherton and myself were named executors."
"For which little business," he continued with unutterable irony, "you were doubtless to receive some small compensation?"
"You are mistaken," I replied quietly; "my name is not otherwise mentioned than as being appointed to act with Hugh Atherton. No legacy was left to me, and I did not even receive the usual fee for drawing up the will. I mention this to remove any false impression which my previous statement may have given."
"Most disinterested conduct on your part, I am sure, Mr. Kavanagh," was the reply in the same sarcastic tones. "It was, however, probably understood that the securing £10,000 a year to your friend would not pass unrewarded by him."
I was losing my temper under the man's repeated insults, and an angry reply had risen to my lips, when Wilmot interposed. He had entirely regained his usual self-possession, and more than his usual confidence. Evidently, he had resolved to change his tactics, and treat me civilly.
"We don't wish to dispute your word, Kavanagh, but you must own there is some excuse for our unbelief. Here are all three of us--Smith, Walker, and myself--ready to take oath that no other will save the document just read was or is to be found amongst my late uncle's papers; not so much as a hint of such a thing existing. And here are you, without a shadow of proof in your hand, stating that a will, posterior to this one lying here, was made by you on the evening previous to my uncle's death. The natural inference drawn is, that that will must now exist; we know it does not exist, or we must have found it, unless my uncle destroyed it immediately [{745}] after it was made, namely, before he went to bed this day week. Do I put the case clearly and fairly, gentlemen?" he continued, turning to the assembled company.
The same old gentleman who had spoken before now again advanced. "I have known Gilbert Thorneley," he said, "more than thirty years; but that he was ever married, or had a child living, is as great news to me as to any here present who had known him but as a recent acquaintance. Still, if what Mr. Kavanagh says be true--and no offence to him--that son of whom he speaks must be living now, and must be found. You, Mr. Wilmot, have asked, as proof of this strange statement being true, where is the will? I now ask likewise, as proof of its genuineness, where is the heir? Where is the son of my old friend? Where is Francis Gilbert Thorneley?"
I was fearfully staggered by the question. Never before had it occurred to me that there would be a difficulty in finding the poor idiot when the time came for him to enter upon his inheritance. No doubt, no passing misgiving, had crossed my mind but that, along with the will I had drawn up, papers would be left and found, giving all-sufficient information of his whereabouts. For the first time the thought flashed across me that perhaps, after all, I had not acted wisely in maintaining the silence which had been exacted from me by solemn promise. And that solemn promise! What had been old Thorneley's motive in exacting it? Why should he wish such inevitable risks to be run, as he, a shrewd man of the world, would know must be run, of that final will being suppressed by the parties interested in the other one lodged at his lawyers'? Of what, of whom, had he been afraid? Was the secret and mystery of the will in any way connected with the secret and mystery of the murder? As these questions crowded themselves upon me during the brief moment which succeeded the last speaker's queries, I looked round unconsciously on the eager, curious faces turned upon us, the actors in this scene; and suddenly my eye lighted upon a little man dressed in a dapper black suit, with a profusion of curly brown hair, and long beard, standing behind a group near the door. His eyes were fixed on mine--sharp, intelligent, piercing, black eyes--with an expression in them which plainly bespoke a desire of attracting my attention; eyes that were familiar to me, whilst the rest of the man's face and appearance was that of a stranger. Then one hand was lifted to his lips, and I saw him give a voracious bite at his nails. In a moment light broke upon darkness, and I knew him in spite of flowing wig and beard, in spite of funeral black and well-fitting clothes, to be Inspector Keene. I suppose he saw a gleam of intelligence pass over my countenance, for he began a series of evolutions on his closely-cropped fingers, and I, luckily, could spell the words: "Close this; see Merrivale." I seized the idea, and turning to Wilmot and his lawyers, I said, "This matter is too serious to be dealt with otherwise than in legal form and place. Mr. Merrivale or myself will communicate with Messrs. Smith and Walker. There is nothing further to be said at present;" and I left the room, exchanging another glance with the inspector, who I knew would quickly follow me.
Nor was I mistaken. I drove to Merrivale's, and whilst in full tide of relating what had transpired in Wimpole street, the little man arrived, still in mourning trim, but minus his wig and beard; and I am bound to confess that, despite the seriousness of the moment, I was almost overpowered by the ludicrous change which the doffing of those appendages had wrought in him--he looked so like a broom that had had its bristles cut short off.
"You are a clever fellow, Keene," said Merrivale; "how upon earth did you contrive to pass muster amongst those city swells?"
The inspector bowed to the compliment, but seemed no way abashed. "I showed the inside of your purse, Mr. Merrivale, There was no difficulty in sight of that. Please go on, Mr. Kavanagh, and I'll wait."
I concluded in as few words as possible, anxiously desiring to hear what Keene had to say; and immediately that I had finished, Merrivale turned toward him:
"What do you think of it all, in heaven's name?"
Mr. Inspector scraped his chin, and waited some moments before replying, his bright keen eyes glancing alternately from one to another of us. "If I were to tell you, sirs, all I think, you'd be tired of hearing me, for I've been thinking as hard as my brains could go for the last week past. If you'd have made a friend, Mr. Kavanagh, of Mr. Merrivale or your humble servant in the matter you just now revealed, it might have helped me not a trifle--not a trifle. However, I believe you did it for the best; and after all I think we'll be even with them yet. But it is as confoundedly black a business as it ever fell to my lot to deal with; and I've had businesses, gentlemen, as black as--well, as old Harry himself. You see there's three points to follow up; and if we can tackle one securely, why, I consider we shall tackle all, for I believe they hang together. First," checking it off on his thumb, "there's the murder; and the point there is to find who really bought that grain of strychnine which the chemist has booked. It rests between master and man to reveal; and I incline to the latter, and have my eye on him. Never tell me," said the detective, warming with his subject, "that neither of them don't know; I tell you one of them does know, and my name's not Keene if I don't have it out of them yet. That's one point, an't it, Mr. Merrivale?" Merrivale assented. "Then the second," checking number two off on his stumpy fore-finger, "includes four parties, and their connection with each other; the man De Vos or Sullivan, the man O'Brian, Mr. Lister Wilmot, and the housekeeper."
"The housekeeper, Mrs. Haag!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, sir; Mrs. Haag, if that's her name."
"You think it is not?"
"I know it isn't."
"You know it?"
"I do. When Jones showed me his notes, and repeated to me what you and he had heard in Blue-Anchor Lane last Thursday night, I smelt a rat, Mr. Kavanagh, and I followed my nose, sir. When I said I was on the scent, I meant it. From that hour I wrote down in my note-book, 'Mrs. Haag, alias Bradley--Bradley, alias O'Brian; her husband, escaped convict from New South Wales.' For Jones identified that man by a description in the hands of all of us in the force. To have taken him there and then would simply have been madness, and insured your both being murdered in that villainous hole. But to follow out the connection between the housekeeper and him, him and Sullivan, Sullivan and Mr. Wilmot, is another point, an't it, Mr. Merrivale?"
Again Merrivale assented, his usually impassible face now stirred with the deepest, most anxious interest.
"Is 'Sullivan' De Vos's right name?" he asked.
"I believe it is, sir. He's thoroughly Irish; but O'Brian isn't, though he's taken an Irish name. Sullivan's been known to the police also in his time, and I fancy there's a little matter in the wind which might introduce him again to us. They've both had their warning, though, from some quarter, and are in safe hiding somewhere or other as yet."
"Have you more to tell us about O'Brian?"
"Nothing more, sir, at present. There's some dark secret and mystery hanging over him--a terrible story, I am afraid; but I can't speak for certain just now.--Mr. Kavanagh," suddenly glancing up at me, "did you never see a likeness to any one in Mr. Wilmot?"
"No, not that I know of. We have often said he was like none of his relatives living, that was his uncle and cousin. Have you?"
"It's fancy, sir, no doubt. His mother died when he was very young, didn't she? and his father?"
"Mrs. Wilmot died soon after his birth. His father I never heard of. He was a mauvais sujet, I believe."
"Ah! The inspector drew a long breath and relapsed into one of his silent moods, during which the process of scraping and gnawing was resumed with avidity.
"And your third point?" said I, to arouse him.
"My third point, gentlemen," waking up lively, and dabbing at his middle finger, "which, considering Mr. Atherton's position at the present moment, seems to be the least important or pressing, is, nevertheless, the one I am for pursuing immediately,--to find this heir of whom mention has been made, Mr. Thorneley's idiot son."
"Surely there is no hurry about that!" we both exclaimed.
"It would appear not, gentlemen, perhaps to you, but there does to me. Supposing," said the detective, leaning forward, and speaking very much more earnestly than he had hitherto done--"supposing that the will you made, Mr. Kavanagh, was stolen, then secreted or destroyed on the night of Mr. Thorneley's death, that being what I might call the dead evidence of the truth of what you stated publicly to-day, and supposing the parties who suppressed that will knew of the whereabouts of the heir, they would, I conclude, be equally anxious to suppress the living evidence also--to get him out of the way. Do you follow me, gentlemen?"
"Yes, yes," we both exclaimed, for we felt he had a purpose in speaking; "you are right."
"Then, sirs, we must prosecute a search for this poor idiot fellow. I see my way at present very dimly and darkly; but something tells me that on our road to find Mr. Francis Gilbert Thorneley we shall find also other links in the broken chain we are trying to piece together."
"How do you propose setting to work, Keene?" asked Merrivale.
"Mr. Atherton, being situated as he is, cannot act; it is therefore for Mr. Kavanagh to take it upon himself, being named executor. I have ascertained that Mr. Thorneley never went near his place in Lincolnshire. Why? Because his son lived there. Do you follow me, Mr. Kavanagh?"
"I do. You think I must visit the Grange immediately?"
"Yes, sir."
Light then at last seemed to be gleaming on our darkness; not only a glimmer, but a full bright ray. There was consistency and connection in all that the inspector had put before us, though only as yet, to a great degree, in supposition. Merrivale, agreeing with me that he would send us on no wild-goose chase, it was settled I should go down by the five-o'clock express train.
In less than an hour I was standing at King's Cross Terminus, and five minutes past five I was whirling away from London at the rate of thirty miles an hour. At Peterborough we stopped for half-an-hour to change carriages, and I went into the waiting-room to get some refreshment. It was very full, for numbers of passengers were travelling by that train to be present at some local races, and for some minutes I could not approach the counter. At last I contrived to edge in next to a rather tall man, very much enveloped in wraps, wearing a travelling-cap and blue spectacles. I asked for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Every one knows the degree of heat to which railway coffee is brought; and waiting awhile for the sake of my throat before drinking it, I suddenly bethought myself of setting my watch by the clock in the room. I put up my glass to look for it; it [{748}] was at the opposite end, and I turned my back upon my tall neighbor whilst altering the watch. When I turned round he was gone. I finished my coffee and paid for it. Bah! how mawkish a taste it had left in my mouth; what stuff they sell in England for real Mocha! So I thought as I stepped out on the platform and walked up and down, awaiting the train and reading in a sort of dreamy, unconscious manner the advertisements and placards covering the walls. Taylor Brothers, Parkins and Gotto, Heal and Son, Mudie's Library, and all the rest, so well known Ha! what is this? "MURDER: £100 Reward," for information leading to the detection of the murderer of Mr. Gilbert Thorneley; and beneath, another, "Reward of £50 offered for the apprehension of Robert Bradley," alias O'Brian, escaped convict, with a full description of his personal appearance appended. "Inspector Keene's work," thought I to myself. One solitary female figure stood before me, reading the placard; a neat trim figure, clad in deep mourning garments, motionless, mute, and absorbed as it were in the interest of what she was perusing. What was it that made me start and shiver as my eye fell upon that statue-like form? what was it that, amidst an overpowering and unaccountable drowsiness creeping over me, seemed to sting me into life and vigilance? The answer was plain before me: staring at me with wildly-gleaming eyes, with a face startled out of its habitual calmness and self-possession, with fear and rage and a hundred passions at work in her countenance, was old Thorneley's housekeeper. "Mrs. Haag!" I exclaimed; and almost as I spoke, a change sudden and rapid as thought took place in her, and she regained the cold passionless expression I had noticed that same afternoon.
"The same, Mr. Kavanagh;" and, inclining her head, she was passing on.
"Stay!" I said, catching her by the arm. "What are you doing here? Where are you going?"
"By what right do you ask me, sir?" was the reply in very calm and perfectly respectful tones.
"By what right!" I cried with headlong impetuosity. "By the best right that any man could have--the right of asking, or saying, or doing anything that may help me to detect the guilty and clear the innocent. Woman, there is some deadly mystery hanging around yon, some guilty secret in which you have played your part, and which, by the heavens above us, I will unearth and bring to light! I will, I will!"
What was the matter with me? My brain was dizzy; the lights, the station, the faces around me, the woman I was addressing, seemed to be going round and round, and I became conscious that my speech was getting incoherent.
"You have been drinking, Mr. Kavanagh," I heard a hard voice saying to me, with a slight foreign accent. Then a bell rang, and I was hurried forward by the crowd who were flocking on the platform; hurried on toward a train that had come into the station whilst I had been engaged with the housekeeper. I remember entering a carriage and sinking down on a cushioned seat; then I lost all consciousness, until I heard a voice shouting in my ear, "Your ticket, sir, please."
I started up.
"Where am I?"
"Lincoln; ticket--quick, sir."
I handed out my ticket.
"This is for Stixwould, four stations back on the line. Two extra shillings to pay."
"Good heavens! I must have been asleep. How am I to get back?"
"Don't know, sir; no train tonight."
The money is paid, the door banged to, and we are shot into Lincoln station at nine o'clock. There was no help for it now but to make my way to the nearest hotel, and see what [{749}] means were to be had of returning to Stixwould--the nearest station to the Grange, and that was ten miles from it--or else pass the night here and take the earliest train in the morning. I bade a porter take my bag, and show me to some hotel; and I followed him, shivering in every limb, my head aching as I had never felt it ache before--sick, giddy, and scarcely able to draw one foot after another. Then I knew what had happened to me; it flashed across me all in a moment. That man, disguised and in spectacles, standing next to me at the refreshment-counter at Peterborough, was De Vos, and he had dragged my coffee. I felt not a doubt of it.
In ten minutes we stopped at the Queen's Hotel, and after engaging a room, I despatched a porter for the nearest doctor. To him I confided the object of my journey, what I believed had occurred to me, and the necessity there was for my taking such prompt remedies as should enable me to recover my full strength, energies, and wits for the morrow. Following his advice, after swallowing his medicine, I relinquished all notion of proceeding that night on my journey, and went to bed. The next morning I awoke quite fresh and well; but what precious hours had been lost! hours sufficient to ruin all hope of my journey bearing any fruits, of finding even a shadowy clue to the tangled web that seemed closing in around us. And Hugh Atherton lay in prison and Ada, my poor sorrowful darling, was breaking her heart beneath the load of misery which had come upon her. By eight o'clock I had started for Stixwould, and in half an hour alighted at that small station. I was the only passenger for that place, and I had to wait whilst the train moved off for the solitary porter to take my ticket. Just as the bell had rung, a man passed out from some door and went up to one of the carriages. "Could you oblige me with a fusee, sir?" I heard him say.
Some one leaned forward and handed out what was asked for; it was the tall man in spectacles who had stood next to me at Peterborough station. The train moved off just as I rushed forward, rushed almost into the arms of the other man who had asked for the fusee. Wonders would never cease! It was Inspector Keene.
"Thank God, it is you!"
"Yes, sir--myself. In a moment--I must telegraph up to town;" and he ran into the office.
"Now, sir," he said when he came out, "what has happened to bring you here this morning from Lincoln?"
I told him, and expressed my astonishment at seeing him.
"We heard last night that Mrs. Haag had left London and taken her ticket for this place. I took the night mail to look after the lady and warn you, sir. Now we had best post off directly for the Grange. I've already ordered a fly and a pair of horses. We'll bribe the man, and be there in something less than an hour and a half.
"That man you spoke to in the train was De Vos," I said when we had started.
"I know it, sir. He was sent to watch you, I suspect; and treat you to that little dose in your coffee."
"And the housekeeper?"
"Oh! she, I imagine, is safe ahead there at the Grange. At any rate, she has not returned up the line; every station has been watched, and they would have telegraphed to me."
O the dreariness of that drive! Rain poured down from the leaden, lowering sky and concentrated into a thick midst over the dismal wolds. Patter, patter, slush, slush, as we drove along the wet miry roads, the horses urged on to the utmost of their wretched, broken-down speed; and the damp chill air penetrating the old rotten vehicle and entering the very marrow of one's bones. So we arrived at last before a low stone lodge that guarded some ponderous iron gates. A gaunt ill-favored man came out at the sound of the wheels, and stared at us in no friendly manner.
"Whar are ye from?" ho called out.
"From Mr. Wilmot," answered the inspector.
"Dunna b'lieve ye. Orders is for ne'run to go up to the house."
Keene opened the door of the fly and sprang out.
"Look here, my man," he said, producing his staff; "I'm a police-officer from London, and I've come down here about the murder of your master. Open the gate in the name of the law!"
The man stared, pulled the keys out of his pocket, unlocked the gates and threw them open. The inspector jumped up beside the driver and bade him go on.
A short avenue, lined on either side with magnificent trees, brought us to the gate of extensive but ill-kept pleasure-grounds, and so to the stone portico of the Grange. A peal of the bell brought an old woman to the door, who peered out suspiciously, and demanded what we wanted.
"I am a detective-officer from London, and have a warrant for searching this house;" and Keene putting the old hag aside, we passed into the hall.
"Ye mun show me yer warrant or I'll have ye put out agin in double-quick time," she said, scowling at the inspector. For reply the staff of office was again out of his pocket in a twinkling, and flourished before her eyes.
"You take yourself off and show us over the house instantly, or it will be the worse for you."
The woman cowered, and muttering to herself, led the way across the spacious hall, and threw open a door on the left. The house apparently was a low rambling building of ancient date, with panelled walls and high casement-windows. We traversed several rooms, bare in furniture and that struck one with a sense of utter cheerlessness and want of comfort. This, then, was the desolate isolated house which Gilbert Thorneley had owned and yet shunned so carefully during life; this was the place where his idiot boy had probably dragged on the greater number of his miserable years. But I need not dwell upon our search through the house.
High and low Inspector Keene ranged; looking into cupboards and dark closets, sounding the panelled walls and poking at imaginary trapdoors. With the exception of the old crone, who accompanied us, and a great tabby cat lying before the kitchen-fire, no trace of living soul was visible.
"Where's young Mr. Thorneley?" said the inspector to her when our visitation was made.
"Never heard on him."
"Who lives here?"
"Only myself."
"Where's the lady who came here yesterday evening?"
A curious gleam shot from the old woman's eyes.
"Dunno; no lady here."
"I shall take you into custody, if you won't tell."
"Then you mun do it--I'se nothing to say."
Keene turned to me.
"Our visit has been useless, sir. I used the threat, but I can't take the woman on no charge; there is nothing left but to--"
Hark! what sound was that which rang out upon our ears, which made our hair stand on end, and our hearts stand still! Shriek upon shriek of the most horrible, wild, unearthly laughter pealing from somewhere overhead. The old woman made a dash forward to the staircase, and called some name that was drowned in the echoes of that terrible mirth. But in a second we had bounded past her and up the flight of stairs, and there, at the far end of the corridor, gesticulating and jabbering at us as we approached him with all the fearful, revolting madness of idiocy, was the man in whose features was stamped the perfect likeness of old Gilbert Thorneley.
CHAPTER IX.
THE TRIAL.
Inspector Keene's third point had been followed up and worked out: Francis Gilbert Thorneley, the lost heir was found; and the living evidence in favor of the will I had made was in our actual possession. That it should be so seemed a merciful interposition of Providence; for we had little doubt but that it had been intended I should, under the influence of the stupefying drug administered by Do Vos, be delayed on my journey, and so give time for him or the housekeeper, or both, to visit the Grange and effect whatever purpose they had in view. What had defeated them, or caused their failure, remained as yet a mystery. Equally mysterious was the way in which both the conspirators had managed to elude the vigilance of the police; and bitter seemed the Inspector's disappointment when, on arriving in London, he found no intelligence awaiting him of either man or woman. We brought up the poor idiot with us; and I took him to my own chambers, engaging a proper attendant to take charge of him, recommended by the physician whom I called in to examine him. He seemed to be perfectly harmless, and tractable as a child, but totally bereft of sense or reason, amusing himself with toys, picture-books, and other infantile diversions, by the hour. We tried to get some coherent account of himself from him, but to no purpose; he knew his name and the name of the old man and woman who had been his sole guardians and companions, apparently for years. But beyond that, no information could be elicited; and to all questions he would reply with some sort of childish babble or jabber. This was the heir to old Thorneley's immense wealth.
There now remained the two other points marked by the Inspector to follow up. Oh! how time was fast rushing on!--time that was so precious for life or death--and so little done as yet toward clearing away all that mountain of condemning evidence which would infallibly, in the eyes of any English jury, bring sentence of death upon the suspected murderer. The question forever rang in my ears, "Who bought that grain of strychnine on the 23d of October?" Upon the discovery and identification of that person both Merrivale and myself, as also the counsel whom he had engaged for the defence, felt everything would hang. But up to the present moment, except in our own minds, not the shadow of a clue could be found. The 16th November, the day appointed for the trial of Hugh Atherton, approached with terrible nearness; and our confidence in all but God's mercy and justice was ebbing fast away. After finding and bringing the lost heir to London, I wrote to Atherton by Merrivale, detailing all that old Thorneley had confided to me, the contents of the will, and my journey into Lincolnshire. I wrote, entreating him to see me; to let no cloud come between us, who had been such close friends from boyhood, at such a moment; to turn a deaf ear to all influence that might suggest that I was acting otherwise than I had always done toward him. I wrote all the bitter sorrow of my heart at having been forced involuntarily to give evidence that might be turned against him; all the self-reproach I felt for not having yielded to his wish of returning home with me that terrible evening.
He answered me in cold distant words, that under the circumstances it was best we should not meet; that Merrivale would act for him in all as he judged best; that he did not wish to be disturbed again before his trial. I showed the letter to Merrivale, and he told me he could not make it out, for that Hugh was quite unreserved with him on all points save this, and [{752}] to every suggestion he had made to him of seeing me, he had invariably given the same reply, and declined to enter upon the subject. Then I had recourse to Ada Leslie; but she only obtained the same result.
"I told him, guardian," she said, "how true you were to him, how earnest and indefatigable in doing all you could for him, how sure I was that you loved him better than any thing on earth. But all the answer I got was, 'No, Ada; not better than anything. Don't let us say anything more on the subject.' What can he mean? for I am sure he meant something particular."
Was it hard to look in her face, meet her clear trusting eyes, and answer back, "You were right, Ada; he is laboring under some delusion?" Were they false words I spoke, my own heart giving them the lie? Thank God, no. I was true to her, true to him.
The time between my journey into Lincolnshire and the day of the trial seems, on looking back, to be one dead blank, inasmuch as, do what we would, we were no nearer the solution of the mystery after those three weeks of research and watchfulness than we were on the morning succeeding the murder. There were the prolonged conferences of lawyers with counsel, of counsel with prisoner, of both with the detectives; and day by day I saw Merrivale's face growing more careworn, stern, and anxious; I saw both Inspector Keene's and Jones's baffled looks; and--worse, far worse than all--I saw Ada Leslie wasting away before me, withering beneath the blighting sorrow that had fallen upon her young life. Oh! the terrible anguish written upon that wan, worn face that would be lifted up to mine each time I saw her, the unspeakably painful eagerness of her tones as she would ask, "is there any news?" and the touching calmness of her despairing look succeeding the answer which blasted the hopes that kept cruelly rising in her breast only to be crushed!
So the morning of the 16th of November dawned upon us. For the defence Merrivale had engaged two of the most acute lawyers and most eloquent pleaders then practising at the English bar, Sergeant Donaldson and Mr. Forster, Q.C. They were both personal friends of Hugh Atherton, both equally convinced of his innocence. On the part of the Crown the Solicitor-General, Sergeant Butler, and a Mr. Frost were retained--all eminent men. The judges sitting were the Lord Chief-Justice and Baron Watson. Although we arrived very early, the Court was crowded to suffocation; and it was only by help of the police-officers and authorities that we could find entrance, although engaged in the principal case coming on. Special reporters of the press, for London and the country, were eagerly clamoring for seats in the reporters' bench; and even foreign journals had sent over their "own correspondents," such a general stir and sensation had the murder of Gilbert Thorneley made far and near.
Two or three trivial cases of embezzlement and stealing came first before the Common Sergeant, whilst preparations for the one great trial were made, the witnesses collected, and the counsel on either side holding their final conferences. At a quarter to eleven the Chief-Justice, followed by his brother judge, entered amidst profound silence and took his seat. They were both men who had grown old and gray in the administration of justice, who had for years sat in judgment upon the guilty and the not guilty--men whose ears were familiar with the details of almost every misery and crime known to human nature--men who had had their own griefs and trials; and on the venerable face of the superior judge many a deep furrow had been left to tell its tale, whether engraven by private sorrow, or sympathy for the mass of woe and suffering which passed so constantly before his eyes. I had the honor of being personally acquainted [{753}] with his lordship. How well I remembered an evening, not so long ago, spent at his house with Hugh Atherton; when he, that eminent judge, that distinguished lawyer, had come up to me and talked of Hugh, of his talents, his eloquence, his growing reputation! I remembered the sad, wistful expression of his eye as it dwelt upon my friend, and the tone of his voice, as he said with a deep sigh, "If my boy had lived, I could have wished him to have been such a one as he. " He remembered it also, if I might judge from the sorrowful gravity of his countenance. I was standing beside Merrivale beneath the prisoner's dock, facing the judge's chair; and in a few moments there was a rustle and stir throughout the court, and I saw the Chief-Justice pass his hand before his eyes for a brief second. Then was heard the loud harsh voice of the clerk of the court addressing some one before him:
"Philip Hugh Atherton, you stand there charged with the wilful murder of your uncle, Mr. Gilbert Thorneley. How say you, prisoner at the bar--are you guilty or not guilty?"
A voice, low, deep-toned, and thrilling in its distinctness, replied: "Not guilty, my lord; not guilty, so help me, O my God!" and turning round, once again my eyes met those of Hugh Atherton.
A great change had been wrought in him during the last three weeks, he had grown so thin and worn; and amongst the waving masses of his dark hair I could trace many and many a silver thread. Twenty years could not have aged him more than these twenty days passed in that felon's cell, beneath the imputation of that savage crime. Who could look at him and think him guilty; who could gaze upon his open, manly face, so noble in its expression of mingled firmness and gentleness, in its guileless innocence and conscious rectitude of purpose, and say, "That man has committed murder"? My heart went out to him, as I looked on his familiar face once more, with all the love and honor with which I had ever cherished his friendship.
A special jury were then sworn in. All passed unchallenged; and the Solicitor-General rose to open the case for the prosecution, and began by requesting that all the witnesses might be ordered to leave the court. It is needless to say that I had been subpoenaed by the crown to repeat the wretched evidence already given at the inquest; needless also to say that, not being personally present during the whole trial, I have drawn from the same sources as before for an account of it.
We had been given to understand that no other witnesses than those examined before the coroner would be called against the prisoner; why should they want more? They had enough evidence to bring down condemnation twice over. On the part of the defence I have before said up to that morning nothing fresh had been discovered that could in any way be used as a direct refutation of what had already been adduced, and would be brought forward again on this day.
After the examination of the medical men I was called into the witness-box, and examined by the Solicitor-General. To my former evidence I now added an account of what had passed between myself and the murdered man on the evening of the 23d, the contents of the will, my journey to the Grange, and the discovery of Thorneley's idiot son. I likewise gave an account of my visit with Jones to Blue-Anchor lane. I noticed that this was ill-received by the Crown counsel; but the judges overruled the Solicitor-General's attempt to squash my statements, and insisted upon my having a full hearing. At the end Sergeant Donaldson rose to cross-question me.
"Did Mr. Thorneley mention in whose favor his previous will had been made?"
"He did not. Simply that he intended the will drawn up then to cancel all others."
"Can you remember the words in which he alluded to his wife and son?"
"Perfectly; I wrote them in the memorandum addressed to Mr. Atherton, and which Mr. Merrivale has communicated to you."
The Chief-Justice: "Read the extract, brother Donaldson."
Sergeant Donaldson read as follows: "'Five-and-twenty years ago I married one much younger than myself, an orphan living with an aunt, her only relative, and who died shortly after our marriage. My ruling passion was speculation; and I married her, not for love, but for her fortune, which was large; I coveted it for the indulgence of my passion. She was not happy with me, and I took no pains to make her happier. Few knew of our marriage. I kept her at the Grange till she died. Only I and one other person were with her at her death. She gave birth to one child, a boy. Ho grew up an idiot, and I hated him. But I wish to make reparation to my dead wife in the person of her son--not out of love to her memory, but to defeat the plans of others, and in expiation of me wrong done to her. I have never loved any one in my life but my twin-sister, Hugh Atherton's mother: and him for her sake and his own.' And then, my lord, follow the instructions for the will given to Mr. Kavanagh." To the witness: "Did Mr. Thorneley give you any clue to the 'other person' who was with him at his wife's death?"
"None at all."
"When you met the prisoner in Vere street, did he say he was going to visit his uncle then?"
"No; on the contrary, he seemed anxious to come home with me. I should imagine it was an after-thought."
"Mr. Wilmot has stated that you volunteered to give evidence against the prisoner: is it so?"
"No; it is most false. I was surprised by detective Jones into an admission; and when I found that it would be used against Mr. Atherton, I did all in my power to get off attending the inquest."
Reëxamined by the Solicitor-General: "It was against your consent that the prisoner was engaged to your ward Miss Leslie, was it not?"
"Against my consent! Assuredly not. She bad my consent from the beginning."
"You may go, Mr. Kavanagh."
The witness who succeeded me was the housekeeper. It was observed that she did not maintain the same calmness as at the inquest; but her evidence was perfectly consistent, given perhaps with more eagerness, but differing and varying in no essential point from her previous depositions.
Questioned as to whether she had been aware of Mr. Thorneley's marriage, replied she had not, having always been in charge of his house in town, first in the city and afterward in Wimpole street. He had often been from home for many weeks together, but she never knew where he went.
Cross-examined.--Could swear she had poured no ale out in the tumbler before taking it into the study--Barker had been with her all the time--nor yet in the room.
Sergeant Donaldson: "Now, Mrs. Haag, attend to me. How long have you been a widow?"
"Fifteen years."
"What was your husband?"
"A commercial traveller. He was not successful, and I went into service soon after I married."
"Had you any children?"
"One son. He died."
"When?"
"Years ago."
"How many years ago?"
"Twenty years ago."
"Is Haag your married name?"
"Yes."
"Did you bear the name of Bradley?"
"I never bore such a name. I am a Belgian; so was my husband."
A paper was here passed in to Sergeant Donaldson, and handed by him to the judges.
The Chief-Justice: "This is a certificate of marriage celebrated at Plymouth between Maria Haag, spinster, and Robert Bradley, bachelor, dated June, 1829, and witnessed in proper legal form."
Witness: "I know nothing of it. My name is Haag by marriage. I am very faint; let me go away."
A chair and glass of water were brought to the witness. In a few moments she had recovered and the cross-examination was renewed.
"How came it that you were met in the middle of Vere street, when, by your own showing, you must then have turned out of the street before Mr. Kavanagh could have overtaken you?"
"Mr. Kavanagh did not meet me. I have so said before. I went straight home after passing him and Mr. Atherton at the chemist's shop. He is mistaken."
"What took you to Peterborough on the 30th of last month?"
"I went to visit a friend at Spalding."
"How was it, then, that you returned to London by the twelve o'clock train the following day--I mean arrived in London at that hour?"
Witness hesitated for some time, and at last looked up defiantly.
"What right have you to ask me such a question?"
Baron Watson: "You are bound to answer, Mrs. Haag."
Witness confusedly: "I did not find my friend at home."
Sergeant Donaldson: "Do you mean to say you took that journey with the chance of finding your friend away?"
"I did."
To the Chief-Justice: "My lord, I am informed by Inspector Keene, of the detective service, that Mrs. Haag never visited Spalding at all; that she took a ticket for Stixwould, at which station she got out, and from which station she returned the following day."
Baron Watson: "I don't see what you are trying to prove, brother Donaldson."
"I am trying to prove, my lord, that Mrs. Haag is not a witness upon whose veracity we can rely."
The Chief-Justice: "You must be well aware, Mrs. Haag, that the mystery of this second will, and discovery of your late master's son, bear direct influence upon the charge of which the prisoner is accused. I think it highly necessary that you should be able to give a clear account of that journey of yours on the 30th of last month. For your own sake, do you understand?"
Witness violently: "Of what do you suspect me? I have related the truth."
Sergeant Donaldson: "Excuse me, my lord, I shall call two witnesses presently who will throw some light upon this person's movements. I have no further questions to put to her now."
Barker the footman and the other servants were next examined, and deposed as before, with no additions nor variations.
Mr. Forster in cross-examination drew from the cook a yet more confident declaration that she had heard footsteps on the front-stairs leading from the third to the second floor on the night of the murder. Also that the housekeeper had "gone on awful at her for saying so; but she had stuck to her word and told Mrs. 'Aag as she wasn't a-going to be badgered nor bullied out of her convictions for any 'ousekeeper; and that afterwards Mrs. 'Aag had come to her quite soft and civil, your lordships, and said, 'Here's a suverin, cook, not to mention what you heerd; for if you says a word about them steps, why,' says she, 'you'll just go and put it into them lawyers' 'eads as some of us did it,' says she. But a oath's a oath, my lordships; and a being close and confined is what I could never abide or abear; and that's every bit the truth, and here's her suverin back again, which I never touched nor broke into."
Baron Watson: "On your oath, then, you declare you heard a footstep on the front-stairs during the night of the 23d but you don't know at what hour?"
"As certain sure, my lord, as that you are a sittin' on your cheer."
After eliciting a few more confirmatory details, the witness was dismissed and Mr. Wilmot called. Nothing further was got out of him than what he had stated before the coroner. Either he was most thoroughly on his guard, or he really was, as he professed to be, ignorant of his cousin Thorneley's existence up to the day of the funeral; ignorant of the contents of his uncle's will, until it was opened at Smith and Walker's; totally unacquainted with the man Sullivan or De Vos; innocent of having written the note seized upon the boy in Blue-Anchor Lane by detective Jones, all knowledge of or complicity with which he absolutely and solemnly denied.
Questioned as to his motive for saying that Miss Leslie had been refused the consent of her guardian, Mr. Kavanagh, to her marriage, replied he had been distinctly told so by Mrs. Leslie, who had mentioned also that Mr. Kavanagh was attached to Miss Leslie himself, and had tried to make her break off the engagement.
Inspector Jackson and Thomas Davis, the chemist, next gave evidence. The latter was cross-questioned by Sergeant Donaldson. Could not swear he did not leave the shop on the evening of the 23d between the time when he had sold the camphor and nine o'clock, his supper-hour; had tried hard to recollect since attending at the inquest, and had spoken to his wife and his assistant. The former thought he had; that she had heard him go into the back-parlor whilst she was down in the kitchen; the latter had said he had not left the shop until nine o'clock. Could swear he had sold no strychnine himself that day. The entry was, however, in his own handwriting. He had talked over the matter repeatedly with James Ball, his assistant, but had gathered no light on the subject. The latter had been in a very odd state of mind since then. The murder seemed to have taken great effect upon him. He had become very nervous, forgetful, and absent; and he (Davis) had been obliged to admonish him several times of late, that if he went on so badly he must seek another situation.
James Ball replaced his master in the witness-box. He looked very haggard and excited, and answered the questions put to him, in an incoherent, unsatisfactory manner, very different from his conduct at the inquest. Admonished by the Chief-justice that he was upon his oath and giving evidence in a matter of life and death, had cried out passionately that he wished he had been dead before that wretched evening.--Ordered to explain what he meant, became confused, and said he had felt ill ever since the inquest.
Cross-questioned by Mr. Forester: "Does your master keep an errand-boy?"
"Yes."
"Was he in the shop on the evening of the 23d?"
"I don't remember."
"Oh! you don't remember! Do you remember receiving a letter on the afternoon of the 24th containing a Bank-of-England £10 note?"
"I did not receive any letter."
"But you received what is called an 'enclosure' of a £10 note, did you not?"
No answer.
"Did you hear my question, sir? Did you or did you not receive it?--on your oath, remember!"
No answer.
The Chief-Justice: "You must answer that gentleman, James Ball."
Still no answer.
The Chief-Justice: "Once more I repeat my learned brother's question. Did you or did you not receive that £10 note on the 24th of October last? If you do not answer, I shall commit you for contempt of court."
Witness, defiantly: "Well, if I did, what's that to any one here? I suppose I can receive money from my own mother."
Mr. Forster: "You know very well that it did not come from your mother, but that it was hush-money sent you by the person to whom you sold the grain of strychnine on the evening of the 23d." The Chief-Justice: "Is this so? Speak the truth, or it will be the worse for you."
Witness (in a very low voice): "It is."
Mr. Forster: "Who was the person?"
"I don't know--indeed I don't; but it wasn't he," (pointing to the prisoner.)
"Was it a man or a woman?"
"A woman."
"Was it the housekeeper?"
"I don't know."
The Chief-Justice: "Let Mrs. Haag be summoned into court."
The housekeeper was brought in and confronted with the witness. She was unveiled, and she looked Ball steadily in the face, the dangerous dark light in her eyes.
The Chief-Justice: "Is that the person?"
"No; I can't identify her." (The witness spoke with more firmness and assurance than he had done.)
Mr. Forster, to Mrs. Haag: "Is this your handwriting?" (A letter is passed to her.)
"No; it is not"
"On your oath?"
"On my oath."
"You can leave the court, Mrs. Haag."
"Now, witness, relate what took place about that strychnine."
"A lady came into the shop that evening, just before that gentleman came in for the camphor, and asked for a grain of strychnine. I refused to sell it. She said, 'It's for my husband; he's a doctor, and wants to try the effect on a dog.' I said, 'Who is he?' She said, 'He's Mr. Grainger, round the corner, at the top of Vere Street.' I knew Mr. Grainger lived there--a doctor. I thought it was all right, and gave her one grain of strychnine. I said, 'I shall run round presently and see if it's all right' She said, 'Very well; come now if you like.' I made sure now more than ever that it was all right. She paid me and left the shop. I told my master of selling it, along with a lot of other medicines. In the morning I heard that Mr. Thorneley had been poisoned by strychnine, and in the afternoon I received by post a ten-pound note and that letter."--(Letter read by Mr. Forster: "Say nothing, and identify no one. You shall receive this amount every month.")--"I guessed then it was from the person who had bought the strychnine, and that they had murdered old Thorneley. I am very poor, and my family needed the money. That is all."
Mr. Forster: "I have nothing further to ask."
The Chief-Justice: "Remove the witness, and let him be detained in custody for the present."
The Solicitor-General: "This, my lord, closes the evidence for the prosecution."
Sergeant Donaldson then rose to address the jury for the defence.
TO BE CONTINUED.
[ORIGINAL.]