Mr. Berkeley had spoken never a word. For a few moments he remained motionless in his chair; then, lengthening his arm, he pulled a bell-rope at his side. A servant entered.
"Thomas," said the squire in his thin hard voice, "show these gentlemen to the door."
Grootz and the lawyer glanced at each other. The latter gave a slight shrug and began to tie up his portfolio. Grootz rose.
"I have de honour, Mr. Berkeley, to wish you good-day."
And with his companion he left the room.
An hour later the village was startled by the news that the squire had had a stroke. A man had ridden to Salisbury for the physician, and the gossips at the Queen's Head were already discussing the expected succession of "young squire" to the estates. But in the afternoon the report was contradicted. The squire had merely been seized with a fainting fit; he had recovered and was to all appearance his usual self.
A week passed; Mr. Berkeley had received from Mr. Swettenham Tape of Lincoln's Inn a formal demand for the surrender of the property, to which he made no reply. At the end of the week Mr. Tape filed a suit in chancery. But the mills of the law grind slowly. Grootz had returned to Holland, a new campaign had opened, and Harry Rochester was with Prince Eugene in northern Italy before Mr. Swettenham Tape had all his affidavits sworn.
A few weeks before the case was to be opened before Lord Chancellor Cowper, a bailiff armed with a warrant, and accompanied by two strong tipstaves, appeared at the house of a Mistress Consterdine near the Cockpit, Whitehall. The bailiff gained admittance, and when after some time he returned to the street he was accompanied by a tall bulky man in semi-military garb, with whom he and the tipstaves entered a hackney coach and were driven to Newgate. The prisoner was at once brought before the magistrate and charged under the name of Ralph Aglionby with entering into a treasonable conspiracy on behalf of the exiled Stuarts. In addition to the letters taken in his lodging, other papers that had been brought from Germany were put in by the Crown, proving Aglionby to have been in the service of Her Majesty's enemies; and a man Simmons, a joiner in London, who had received a free pardon, gave evidence that Aglionby had fought with the Bavarians at Blenheim and elsewhere, holding a commission in the Elector of Bavaria's forces. His papers were found to include letters from Mr. Nicolas Berkeley of Winton Hall, forwarding sums of money to Aglionby in Holland. The sequel to this discovery was the arrest of Mr. Berkeley at his inn in Soho, and his inclusion in the indictment for conspiracy.
The trial came on in due course. Captain Aglionby's connection with the Jacobites was fully established, and he was sentenced to be transported to the Plantations for twenty years. Mr. Berkeley's complicity was not so clearly shown, though he could bring no evidence to prove his statement that the sums remitted to his fellow-prisoner were payment for private services totally unconnected with the Jacobite cause. The circumstances were suspicious, and the judge considered that he showed great lenience in condemning Mr. Berkeley to pay a fine of £500. Although he had for years enjoyed a large income, he had but little ready money at command. He had spent large sums in purchasing lands adjoining the Winton property, and the extravagance of his son had been a constant drain upon his purse. With the civil action de Vaudrey v. Berkeley pending in the court of chancery, he found some difficulty in borrowing sufficient money to pay his fine.
The chancery suit came on for hearing. The claimants had engaged the highest counsel of the day, and brought a great array of evidence, documentary and oral, from Holland. Mr. Berkeley's case was ably argued, but the evidence was irresistible; the decision was given against him; he was ordered to produce the title deeds of the property, and to render an account of all that he had derived from the estates since his illegal usurpation of them forty-five years before. He wished to appeal; but, discredited by the result of the trial for conspiracy, he was unable to raise the necessary funds. He was moving heaven and earth to overcome his difficulties when payment was demanded of the sum he had borrowed to meet the fine, and as the money was not forthcoming he was arrested and thrown into the debtors' prison in the Fleet.