The sentence was no sooner published, than every effort was made to procure Oakley’s pardon, or, failing that, a commutation of his punishment. Colonel de Bellechasse used all the interest he could command; Monsieur de Berg set his friends to work; and I, on my part, did every thing in my power to obtain mercy for the unfortunate young man. All our endeavours were fruitless. The minister of war refused to listen to the applications by which he was besieged. In a military view, the crime was flagrant, subversive of discipline, and especially dangerous as a precedent in an army where promotion from the ranks continually placed between men, originally from the same class of society and long comrades and equals, the purely conventional barrier of the epaulet. The court-martial, taking into consideration the peculiar character of the offence, had avoided the infliction of an ignominious punishment. Oakley was not sentenced to the boulet, or to be herded with common malefactors; his doom was to simple imprisonment. And that doom the authorities refused to mitigate.
Some days had elapsed since Oakley’s condemnation. Returning weary and dispirited from a final attempt to interest an influential personage in his behalf, I was startled by a smart tap upon the shoulder, and looking round, beheld the shrewd, good-humoured countenance of Mr Anthony Scrivington, a worthy man and excellent lawyer, who had long had entire charge of my temporal affairs. Upon this occasion, however, I felt small gratification at sight of him, for I had a lawsuit pending, on account of which I well knew I ought to have been in England a month previously, and should have been, but for this affair of Oakley’s, which had interested and occupied me to the exclusion of my personal concerns. My solicitor’s unexpected appearance made me apprehend serious detriment from my neglect. He read my alarm upon my countenance.
“Ah!” said he, “conscience pricks you, I see. You know I have been expecting you these six weeks. No harm done, however; we shall win the day, not a doubt of it.”
“Then you are not come about my business?”
“Not the least, although I shall take you back with me, now I have found you. A very different affair brings me over. By the bye, you may perhaps help me. You know all Paris. I am come to look for an Englishman.”
“You need not look long,” said I, glancing at a party of unmistakeable Britons, who stood talking broad Cockney on the Boulevard.
“Aye, but not any Englishman. I want one in particular, the heir to a pretty estate of eight or ten thousand a-year. He was last heard of in Paris, three years ago, and since then all trace of him is lost. ’Tis an odd affair enough. No one could have expected his coming to the estate. A couple of years since, there were two young healthy men in his way. Both have died off,—and he is the owner of Oakley Manor.”
“Of what?” I exclaimed, in a tone of voice that made Scrivington stagger back, and for a moment drew the eyes of the whole street upon us. “What did you say?”
“Oakley Manor,” stammered the alarmed attorney, settling his well-brushed hat, which had almost fallen from his head with the start he had given. “Old Valentine Oakley died the other day, and his nephew Francis comes into the estate. But what on earth is the matter with you?”
For sole reply I grasped his arm, and dragged him into my house, close to which we had arrived. There, five minutes cleared up every thing, and convinced Scrivington and myself that the man he sought now languished, a condemned criminal, in a French military prison.