Burton laid the accepted bill, face downwards, on the bank counter, took a pen, indorsed, and passed it to the managing clerk. The gray-headed man glanced sharply at the signature, and then at Burton, "Why, surely this is not Mr. Hornby's signature? It does not at all resemble it!"
"Not his signature!" exclaimed Burton; "what do you mean by that?"
"Reynolds, look here," continued the clerk, addressing another of the bank employés. Reynolds looked, and his immediate glance of surprise and horror at Burton revealed the impression he had formed.
"Please to step this way, Mr. Burton, to a private apartment," said the manager.
"No—no, I won't," stammered the unfortunate man, over whose mind a dreadful suspicion had glanced with the suddenness of lightning. "I will go back to Hornby;" and he made a desperate but vain effort to snatch the fatal instrument. Then, pale and staggering with a confused terror and bewilderment, he attempted to rush into the street. He was stopped, with the help of the bystanders, by one of the clerks, who had jumped over the counter for the purpose.
The messenger despatched by the bankers to Hornby returned with an answer that the alleged acceptance was a forgery. It was stated on the part of Mr. Hornby that Mr. Burton had indeed requested him to lend two hundred and fifty pounds, but he had refused. The frantic asseverations of poor Burton were of course disregarded, and he was conveyed to jail. An examination took place the next day before the magistrates, and the result was, that the prisoner was fully committed on the then capital charge for trial at the ensuing assize.
It were useless, as painful, to dwell upon the consternation and agony which fell upon the dwellers at Grange Farm when the terrible news reached them. A confident belief in the perfect innocence of the prisoner, participated by most persons who knew his character and that of Hornby, and that it would be triumphantly vindicated on the day of trial, which rapidly approached, alone enabled them to bear up against the blow, and to await with trembling hope the verdict of a jury.
It was at this crisis of the drama that I became an actor in it. I was retained for the defence by my long-known and esteemed friend Symonds, whose zeal for his client, stimulated by strong personal friendship, knew no bounds. The acceptance, he informed me, so little resembled Hornby's handwriting, that if Burton had unfolded the bill when given back to him by the villain, he could hardly have failed to suspect the nature of the diabolical snare set for his life.
In those days, and until Mr., now Sir, Robert Peel's amendment of the criminal law and practice of this country, the acceptor of a bill of exchange, on the principle that he was interested in denying the genuineness of the signature, could not, according to the English law of evidence, be called, on the part of the prosecution, to prove the forgery; and of course, after what had taken place, we did not propose to call Hornby for the defence. The evidence for the crown consisted, therefore, on the day of trial, of the testimony of persons acquainted with Hornby's signature, that the acceptance across the inculpated bill was not in his handwriting. Burton's behavior at the bank, in endeavoring to repossess himself of the bill by violence, was of course detailed, and told heavily against him.
All the time this testimony was being given, Hornby sat on one of the front seats of the crowded court, exulting in the visible accomplishment of his Satanic device. We could see but little of his face, which, supported on his elbow, was partially concealed by a handkerchief he held in his hand; but I, who narrowly observed him, could occasionally discern flashes from under his pent brows—revealments of the fierce struggle which raged within.