Barrington. Volume 2 (of 2)

by Charles James Lever

When I arrived at the court, it was so full that it was with difficulty I got a passage to a seat behind the bench. There were crowds of fashionables present, the well-known men about town, and the idlers of the clubs, and a large sprinkling of military men, for the news of the case had got wind already.

Stapylton, dressed in black, and looking pale and worn, but still dignified and like a gentleman, had not a single friend with him. I own to you, I felt ashamed to be there, and was right glad when he did not recognize me.

Though the case opened by a declaration that this was no common assault case, wherein in a moment of passion a man had been betrayed into an excess, I knew the cant of my craft too well to lay any stress on such assertion, and received it as the ordinary exordium. As I listened, however, I was struck by hearing that the injured man was asserted to be one well known to Stapylton, with whom he had been for years in intimacy, and that the assault was in reality a deliberate attempt to kill, and not, as had been represented, a mere passing act of savage severity committed in hot blood. “My client,” said he, “will be brought before you; he is a Hindoo, but so long a resident of this country that he speaks our language fluently. You shall hear his story yourselves, and yourselves decide on its truthfulness. His wounds are, however, of so serious a nature that it will be advisable his statement should be a brief one.” As he said this, a dark-complexioned fellow, with a look half-frightened, half defiant, was carried forwards in a chair, and deposited, as he sat, on the table. He gave his name as Lai Adeen, his age as forty-eight, his birthplace Majamarha, near Agra. He came to this country twelve years ago, as servant to an officer who had died on the passage, and after many hardships in his endeavor to earn a livelihood, obtained employment at Manchester in the mill of Brandling and Bennett, where he was employed to sweep the corridors and the stairs; his wages were nine shillings a week. All this, and much more of the same kind, he told simply and collectedly. I tried to see Stapylton while this was going on, but a pillar of the gallery, against which he leaned, concealed him from my view.

I omit a great deal, not without its interest, but reserving it for another time, and come to his account of the night on which he was wounded. He said that as the cavalry marched on that morning into Manchester, he was struck by seeing at the head of the regiment one he had never set his eyes on for years, but whose features he knew too well to be deceived in.

“I tried to get near him, that he might recognize me,” said he; “but the crowd kept me back, and I could not. I thought, indeed, at one moment he had seen me, and knew me; but as he turned his head away, I supposed I was mistaken.

“It was on the following evening, when the riot broke out in Mill Street, that I saw him next. I was standing at the door of a chemist's shop when the cavalry rode by at a walk. There was a small body of them in front, at about forty or fifty paces, and who, finding a sort of barricade across the street, returned to the main body, where they seemed to be reporting this. A cry arose that the troops had been blocked up at the rear, and at the same instant a shower of stones came from the side-streets and the house-tops. Thinking to do him a service, I made my way towards him I knew, in order to tell him by what way he could make his escape; and jostled and pushed, and half ridden down, I laid my hand on his horse's shoulder to keep myself from falling. 'Stand back, you scoundrel!' said he, striking me with the hilt of his sword in the face. 'Don't you know me, master?' cried I, in terror. He bent down in his saddle till his face was almost close to mine, and then, reining his horse back to give him room for a blow, he aimed a desperate cut at me. I saw it coming, and threw myself down; but I rose the next instant and ran. The street was already so clear by this time, I got into Cleever's Alley, down Grange Street, up the lane that leads to the brick-fields, and at last into the fields themselves. I was just thinking I was safe, when I saw a horseman behind me. He saw me, and dashed at me. I fell upon my knees to ask mercy, and he gave me this;” and he pointed to the bandages which covered his forehead, stained as they were with clotted blood. “I fell on my face, and he tried to make his horse trample on me; but the beast would not, and he only touched me with his hoof as he sprang across me. He at last dismounted to see, perhaps, if I were dead; but a shout from some of the rioters warned him to mount again; and he rode away, and I lay there till morning. It is not true that I was in prison and escaped,—that I was taken to the hospital, and ran away from it. I was sheltered in one of the clay-huts of the brickmakers for several weeks, afraid to come abroad, for I knew that the Sahib was a great man and could take my life. It was only by the persuasions of others that I left my hiding-place and have come here to tell my story.”

On being questioned why this officer could possibly desire to injure him, what grudge one in such a station could bear him, he owned he could not say; they had never been enemies, and, indeed, it was in the hope of a friendly recognition and assistance that he approached him in Mill Street.

Stapylton's defence was very brief, given in an off-hand, frank manner, which disposed many in his favor. He believed the fellow meant to attack him; he certainly caught hold of his bridle. It was not his intention to give him more than a passing blow; but the utterance of a Hindoo curse—an expression of gross outrage in the East—recalled prejudices long dormant, and he gave the rascal chase, and cut him over the head,—not a severe cut, and totally unaccompanied by the other details narrated.

“As for our former acquaintance I deny it altogether. I have seen thousands of his countrymen, and may have seen him; but, I repeat, I never knew him, nor can he presume to say he knew me!”

The Hindoo smiled a faint, sickly smile, made a gesture of deep humility, and asked if he might put a few questions to the “Sahib.”