“A cousin about this time made his appearance, and gradually became a daily visitor; and had my muddled faculties been more capable of forming an opinion, I might have been puzzled how a well-dressed and apparently gentlemanly man could be the nephew of either the blind father or the bed-ridden mother. Gradually, however, my suspicions were aroused, and I employed a detective to watch them both. He fulfilled his duty, alas! too well, and I received incontestable proof that my wife was a —, and that the ‘cousin’ was a man with whom she had lived for years. A sickly child, too, that frequently came to the house, and whom she often told me, with tears in her eyes, was her ‘dead sister’s,’ I had reason to suspect was a much nearer relative. But my feelings outstride my discretion. I’m again going too fast, and surely you’ve heard enough?”
I begged him to continue, for I was deeply interested in his tale.
“My wife now began to display reckless extravagance; nothing was good enough for her; the handsome settlement I had made on her failed to meet a fraction of her expenses, and she became so degraded as to borrow money of my very servants. Love, they say, is blind, and in my case, I fear, was frequently blind drunk. On these occasions I would agree to anything, and gradually signed away first one thing, and then another, till I found myself divested of house, estates, everything, and a pensioner on my wife’s bounty. It may seem incredible that anything should be capable of bringing the blush of shame to such as I—I who for six long years have worn this dreadful dress—but, believe me, my cheeks tingle even now when I think of it all. I was at length compelled to resort to the pawnbroker’s, and watch, chain, ring, everything, found their way to an establishment in — Road. My credit, once good, was entirely gone; tradesmen to whom I owed money began to dun me; others refused me the smallest credit; servants, washerwomen, butchers, and bakers all were creditors; writs and County Court summonses were of daily occurrence; and the family mansion that my ancestors had never disgraced was in the hands of the bailiffs. How I cried out in my anguish will never be known. Relations I had none to whom I could apply for sympathy or advice. My only friend was ‘drink,’ and in my misery I turned to it with redoubled energy. I have not much more to tell; the climax which brought me here was very near at hand. One afternoon I had returned to our lodgings (we were then in apartments at 28, — Place) rather sooner than expected from a fruitless endeavour to borrow a few pounds. I had stopped at every public-house, and gulped down a dram of cheap spirits, in hopes of lightening my sorrow; I was, I believe, almost mad with misery and drink. As I entered the room the first thing that met my gaze was the hated ‘Cousin.’ To seize a loaded pistol that always hung over the mantel-piece was the work of a second, and, without aim, without deliberation, I fired. The report and my wife’s screams alarmed a policeman who happened to be passing by; he entered and found her swooning on the ground, but happily uninjured. Thank God! I’m free of that crime—and the tell-tale bullet lodged in the wall. Concealment was hopeless. I was there and then arrested, and eventually sentenced, on the evidence of my wife and her paramour, to ‘twenty years’ penal servitude.’”
His excited state alarmed me. I feared we should be observed, but it was hopeless to attempt to check him as, with eyes starting, and the tears flowing fast, he added, pointing to his seamed and blotchy face: “The worst has yet to be told; look at these scars that I shall carry with me to the grave. Can you suspect what they are? My —.”
“Hush!” I said, “they have noticed us.”
I never saw him again, but heard, months after, that the unhappy man had died, and that the bright expectations accruing from youth, birth, and fortune, that had been formed six short years ago, lie buried in a nameless convict’s grave.
Not long ago I walked round to the pawn shop in — Road, with the morbid desire of testing the truth of some of his assertions, and found that the watch, chain, and ring were still there. I informed the worthy pawnbroker of the real name and sad fate of his former customer, and was almost tempted to purchase the cat’s-eye as a souvenir of my quasi-friend; but more prudent counsels prevailed, and I relegated them to the auction-room, to go forth with their crests and monograms, a sad memento of fallen greatness.
CHAPTER XII.
THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.
After my sudden summons to attend the Court I found myself in the yard below, where, in company with some twenty others, I was placed in rotation according to a list the Governor and chief warder were “checking.” This formula being completed, we proceeded in single file, preceded by an “officer” and followed by a patriarch, along the subterraneous passages that connect the prison with the Old Bailey Court-house. These passages are the last remnants of the old prison, and demonstrate the change that has taken place in the accepted notions of insuring the safety of prisoners. Every few yards a massive iron door some inches thick, with huge bolts and a ponderous key, bars the passage. Having passed through all these, we came to a halt in a dark recess, partially lighted by gas, on each side of which were arched cells, suggestive of those of the Adelphi. Into each of these five or six of us were conducted, for by the prison system prisoners before trial may be herded together; after conviction, however, all that ceases, and one is “supposed” henceforth to be isolated. After a delay of some twenty minutes, and during which I was initiated into the style of society I might expect for the future, my name was called and I was conducted up a wooden stair. The hum of voices—for I could see nothing—indicated to me that I was in the vicinity of the Court and on the stair leading into the dock—one of those mysterious boxes I had often seen from the opposite side, where criminals popped up and popped down so suddenly and so mysteriously.
I had seen many murderers sentenced to death from that very dock, and was often puzzled at the geography of the place; all this, however, was now made perfectly clear. It was with mingled feelings of astonishment and bewilderment that I found myself, suddenly and without warning, the observed of all observers. The crowded Court, the forest of well-known faces—vindictive prosecutors, reluctant witnesses, quasi-friends come to gloat over my misfortune, and one or two real sympathisers—all appeared glued together to my bewildered gaze. Beyond, and seated against the wall, were innumerable figures robed in flowing scarlet gowns, and presenting to my senses so ghastly and weird a picture that I can compare it to nothing but that impressive trial scene in “The Bells,” to which Mr. Irving imparts such terrible reality. It only required the mesmerist to complete the resemblance; and he must have been there, although invisible, for I was mesmerized, or at least completely dazed. By degrees, however, I recovered my senses, and embracing the whole scene, summed up the vanity of human sympathy and the value to be attached to friendship, as it is called. Reader, whoever you are, take the word of a man who has been rich and surrounded by every luxury. Friends will cluster round you in your prosperity as they did round me, and when they have eaten you out of house and home, and robbed you by fair means or foul, by card playing and racing, you must not be surprised if you discover that the most vindictive and uncompromising are those you least expected. “For it was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it—neither was it he that hated me, that did magnify himself against me; but it was a man, mine equal, my guide, and my acquaintance—yea, mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread—hath lifted up his heel against me.”