Hard Cash

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"I'll come."

"I'll blow you to Mr. Alfred and Miss Dodd."

"I'll come, I tell you."

"I'll post you for a thief on every brick in the Exchange."

"Have mercy, Skinner. Have pity on the wretched man whose bread you have
eaten. I tell you I'll come."

"Well, mind you do, then, cash and all," said Skinner sulkily, but not
quite proof against the reminiscences those humble words awakened.

Each walked backwards a good dozen steps, and then they took different
roads, Skinner taking good care not to be tracked home. He went up the
high stairs to the hole in the roof he occupied, and lighted a rushlight.
He had half a mind to kindle a fire, he felt so chilly; but he had
blocked up the vent, partly to keep out the cold, partly to shun the
temptation of burning fuel. However, he stopped the keyhole with paper,
and also the sides of the window, till he had shut the wintry air all
out. Still, what with the cold and what with the reaction after so great
an excitement, his feeble body began to shiver desperately. He thought at
last he would light a foot-warmer he had just purchased for old iron at a
broker's; _that_ would only spend a halfpenneyworth of charcoal. No, he
wouldn't; he would look at his money; that would cheer him. He unripped a
certain part of his straw mattress and took out a bag of gold. He spread
three hundred sovereigns on the floor and put the candle down among them.
They sparkled; they were all new ones, and he rubbed them with an old
toothbrush and whiting every week. "That's better than any fire," he
said, "they warm the heart. For one thing, they are my own: at all
events, I did not steal them, nor take them of a thief for a bribe to
keep dark and defraud honest folk." Then remorse gripped him: he asked
himself what he was going to do. "To rob an angel," was the answer. "The
fourteen thousand pounds is all hers, and I could give it her in a
moment. Curse him, he would have killed me for it."

Then he pottered about and took out his will. "Ah," said he, "that is all
right so far. But what is a paltry three hundred when I help do her out
of fourteen thousand? Villain!" Then, to ease his conscience, he took a
slip of paper and wrote on it a short account of the Receipt, and how he
came by it, and lo: as if an unseen power had guided his hand, he added,
"Miss Dodd lives at 66, Pembroke Street, and I am going to take it to her
as soon as I am well of my cold." Whether this preceded an unconscious
resolve which had worked on him secretly for some time, or whether it
awakened such a resolve, I hardly know: but certain it is, that having
written it, he now thought seriously of doing it; and, the more seriously
he entertained the thought, the more good it seemed to do him. He got
"The Sinner's Friend" and another good book she had lent him, and read a
bit: then, finding his feet frozen, he lighted his chafer and blew it
well, and put it under his feet and read. The good words began to reach
his heart more and more: so did the thought of Julia's goodness. The
chafer warmed his feet and legs. "Ay," said he, "men don't want fires;
warm the feet and the body warms itself." He took out "The Receipt" and
held it in his hand, and eyed it greedily, and asked himself could he
really part with it. He thought he could--to Julia. Still holding it
tight in his left hand, he read on the good but solemn words that seemed
to loosen his grasp upon that ill-gotten paper. "How good it was of her,"
he thought, "to come day after day and feed a poor little fellow like
him, body and soul. She asked nothing back. She didn't know he could make
her any return. Bless her! bless her!" he screamed. "Oh, how cruel I have
been to her, and she so kind to me. She would never let me want, if I
took her fourteen thousand pounds. Like enough give me a thousand, and
help me save my poor soul, that I shall damn if I meet him again. I won't
go his way again. Lead us not into temptation. I repent. Lord have mercy
on me a miserable sinner." And tears bedewed those wizened cheeks, tears
of penitence, sincere, at least for the time.

A sleepy languor now came over him, and the good book fell from his hand;
but his resolution remained unshaken. By-and-by waking up from a sort of
heavy dose, he took, as it were, a last look at the receipt, and
murmured, "My head, how heavy it feels." But presently he roused himself,
full of his penitent resolution, and murmured again brokenly,
"I'll---take it to---Pembroke Street to---morrow: to---mor---row."

CHAPTER LII

MR. HARDIE raised the money on his scrip, and at great inconvenience, for
he was holding on five hundred thousand pounds' worth of old Turkish
Bonds over an unfavourable settling day, and wanted every shilling to pay
his broker. If they did not rise by next settling day, he was a beggar.
However, being now a desperate gamester, and throwing for his last stake,
he borrowed this sum, and took it within a heavy heart to his appointment
with Skinner. Skinner never came. Mr. Hardie waited till one o'clock. Two
o'clock. No Skinner. Mr. Hardie went home hugging his five hundred
pounds, but very uneasy. Next day he consulted Peggy. She shook her head,
and said it looked very ugly. Skinner had most likely got angrier and
angrier with thinking on the assault. "You will never see him again till
the day of the trial: and then he will go down and bear false witness
against you. Why not leave the country?"

"How can I, simpleton? My money is all locked up in the bargains. No, I'm
tied, tied to the stake; I'll fight to the last: and, if I'm defeated and
disgraced, I'll die, and end it."

Peggy implored him not to talk so. "I've been down to the court," said
she softly, "to see what it is like. There's a great hall; and he must
pass through that to get into the little places where they try 'em. Let
me be in that hall with the five hundred pounds, and I promise you he
shall never appear against you. We will both go; you with the money, I
with my woman's tongue."

He gave her his hand like a shaky monarch, and said she had more wit than
he had.

Mr. Heathfield, who had contrived to postpone Hardie _v._ Hardie six
times in spite of Compton, could not hurry it on now with his
co-operation. It hung fire from some cause or another a good fortnight:
and in this fortnight Hardie senior endured the tortures of suspense.
Skinner made no sign. At last, there stood upon the paper for next day, a
short case of disputed contract, and Hardie _v._ Hardie.

Now, this day, I must premise, was to settle the whole lawsuit: for while
trial of the issue was being postponed and postponed, the legal question
had been argued and disposed of. The very Queen's counsel, unfavourable
to the suit, was briefed with Garrow's views, and delivered them in court
with more skill, clearness, and effect than Garrow ever could; then sat
down, and whispered over rather contemptuously to Mr. Compton, "That is
your argument, I think."

"And admirably put," whispered the attorney, in reply.

"Well; now hear Saunders knock it to pieces."

Instead of that, it was Serjeant Saunders that got maltreated: first one
judge had a peck at him: then another: till they left him scarce a
feather to fly with; and, when Alfred's counsel rose to reply, the judges
stopped him, and the chief of the court, Alfred's postponing enemy,
delivered his judgment after this fashion:

"We are all of opinion that this plea is bad in law. By the common law of
England no person can be imprisoned as a lunatic unless actually insane
at the time. It has been held so for centuries, and down to the last
case. And wisely: for it would be most dangerous to the liberty of the
subject, if a man could be imprisoned without remedy unless he could
prove _mala fides_ in the breast of the party incarcerating him. As for
the statute, it does not mend the matter, but rather the reverse; for it
expressly protects duly authorised persons acting under the order and
certificates, and this must be construed to except from the protection of
the statute the person making the order."

The three puisne judges concurred and gave similar reasons. One of them
said that if A. imprisoned B. for a _felon,_ and B. sued him, it was no
defence to say that B., in his opinion, had imitated felony. They cited
Elliot _v._ Allen, Anderdon _v._ Burrows, and Lord Mansfield's judgment
in a very old case, the name of which I have unfortunately forgotten.

Judgment was entered for the plaintiff; and the defendant's ingenious
plea struck off the record; and Hardie _v._ Hardie became the leading
case. But in law one party often wins the skirmish and the other the
battle. The grand fight, as I have already said, was to be to-day.

But the high hopes and ardour with which the young lovers had once come
into court were now worn out by the postponement swindle, and the adverse
events delay had brought on them. Alfred was not there: he was being
examined in the schools; and had plumply refused to leave a tribunal that
named its day and kept it--for Westminster, until his counsel should have
actually opened the case. He did not believe trial by jury would ever be
allowed him. Julia was there, but sad and comparatively listless. One of
those strange vague reports, which often herald more circumstantial
accounts, had come home, whispering darkly that her father was dead, and
buried on an island in the South Sea. She had kept this report from her
mother, contrary to Edward's wish: but she implored him to restrain his
fatal openness. In one thing both these sorely tried young people agreed,
that there could be no marriage with Alfred now. But here again Julia
entreated her brother not to be candid; not to tell Alfred this at
present. "Oh do not go and dispirit him just now," she said, "or he will
do something rash. No, he must and shall get his first-class, and win his
trial; and then you know any lady will be too proud to marry him, and,
when he is married and happy, you can tell him I did all I could for him,
and hunted up the witnesses, and was his loving friend, though I could
not--be--his--wife."

She could not say this without crying; but she said it for all that, and
meant it too.

Besides helping Mr. Compton to get up the evidence, this true and earnest
friend and lover had attended the court day after day, to watch how
things were done, and, womanlike, to see what _pleased_ and what
_displeased_ the court.

The witnesses subpoenaed on either side in Hardie _v._ Hardie began to
arrive at ten o'clock, and a tall stately man paraded Westminster Hall,
to see if Skinner came with them. All other anxieties had merged in this:
for the counsel had assured him if nothing unexpected turned up, Thomas
Hardie would have a verdict, or if not, the damages would be nominal.

At last the court crier cried, with a loud voice, "Hardie _v._ Hardie."
Julia's eyes roved very anxiously for Alfred, and up rose Mr. Garrow, and
stated to the court the substance of the declaration: "To this," he said,
"three pleas have been pleaded: first, the plea of not guilty, which is a
formal plea; also another plea, which has been demurred to, and struck
off the record; and, lastly, that at the time of the alleged imprisonment
the plaintiff was of unsound mind, and a fit person to be confined; which
is the issue now to be tried."

Mr. Garrow then sat down, very tired of this preliminary work, and
wondering when he should have the luck to conduct such a case as Hardie
_v._ Hardie; and leaned forward to be ready to prompt his senior, a
portly counsel, whom Mr. Compton had retained because he was great at
addressing juries, and no point of law could now arise in the Case.

Colt, Q. C., rose like a tower, knowing very little of the facts, and
seeming to know everything. He had a prodigious business, and was rather
indolent, and often skimmed his brief at home, and then mastered it in
court--if he got time. Now, it is a good general's policy to open a
plaintiffs case warily, and reserve your rhetoric for the reply; and Mr.
Colt always took this line when his manifold engagements compelled him,
as in Hardie _v._ Hardie, to teach his case first and learn it
afterwards. I will only add, that in the course of his opening he was on
the edge of seven distinct blunders; but Garrow watched him and always
shot a whisper like a bullet just in time. Colt took it, and glided away
from incipient error imperceptibly, and with a tact you can have no
conception of. The jury did not detect the creaking of this machinery;
Serjeant Saunders did, and grinned satirically; so did poor Julia, and
her cheeks burned and her eyes flashed indignant fire. And horror of
horrors, Alfred did not appear.

Mr. Colt's opening may be thus condensed: The plaintiff was a young
gentleman of great promise and distinction, on whom, as usual in these
cases of false imprisonment, money was settled. He was a distinguished
student at Eton and Oxford, and no doubt was ever expressed of his sanity
till he proposed to marry, and take his money out of his trustees hands
by a marriage settlement. On this his father, who up to that time had
managed his funds as principal trustee, showed him great personal
hostility for some time, and looked out for a tool: that tool he soon
found in his brother, the defendant, a person who, it would be proved,
had actually not seen the plaintiff for a year and a half, yet, with
great recklessness and inhumanity, had signed away his liberty and his
happiness behind his back. Then tools of another kind--the kind that
anybody can buy, a couple of doctors-- were, as usual, easily found to
sign the certificates. One of these doctors had never seen him but for
five minutes, and signed in manifest collusion with the other. They
decoyed this poor young gentleman away on his wedding morning-- on his
wedding morning, gentlemen, mark that--and consigned him to the worst of
all dungeons. What he suffered there he must himself relate to you; for
we, who have the happiness to walk abroad in the air of reason and
liberty, are little able to realise the agony of mind endured by a sane
man confined among the insane. What we undertake is to prove his sanity
up to the very hour of his incarceration; and also that he was quite sane
at the time when a brutal attempt to recapture him by violence was made
under the defendant's order, and defeated by his own remarkable
intelligence and courage. Along with the facts the true reason why he was
imprisoned will probably come out. But I am not bound to prove sinister
motives. It is for the defendant to prove, if he can, that he had lawful
motives for a lawless act; and that he exercised due precaution, and did
not lend himself recklessly to the dark designs of others. If he succeed
in this, that may go in mitigation of damages, though it cannot affect
the verdict. _Our_ principal object is the verdict, which will remove the
foul aspersion cast on my injured client, and restore him to society. And
to this verdict we are entitled, unless the other side can prove the
plaintiff was insane. Call Alfred Hardie.

And with this he sat down.

An official called Alfred Hardie very loud; he made no reply. Julia rose
from her seat with dismay painted on her countenance. Compton's,
Garrow's, and Colt's heads clashed together.

Mr. Colt jumped up again, and said, "My Lud, I was not aware the
gentleman they accuse of insanity is just being examined for high honours
in the University of Oxford." Aside to Compton, "And if he doesn't come
you may give them the verdict."

"Well," said the judge, "of course he will be here before you close your
case."

On this the three heads clashed again, and Serjeant Saunders, for the
defendant, popped up and said with great politeness, and affectation of
sympathy, "My Lud, I can quite understand my learned friend's hesitation
to produce his, principal witness."

"You understand nothing about the matter," said Colt cavalierly. "Call
Mr. Harrington."

Mr. Harrington was Alfred's tutor at Eton, and deposed to his sanity
there; he was not cross-examined. After him they went on step by step
with a fresh witness for every six months, till they brought him close to
the date of his incarceration; then they put in one of Julia's witnesses,
Peterson, who swore Alfred had talked to him like a sane person that very
morning; and repeated what had passed. Cross-examination only elicited
that he and Alfred were no longer good friends, which rather strengthened
the evidence. Then Giles and Hannah, now man and wife, were called, and
swore he was sane all the time he was at Silverton House. Mr. Saunders
diminished the effect by eliciting that they had left on bad terms with
Mr. Baker, and that Alfred had given them money since. But this was half
cured on re-examination, by being set down to gratitude on Alfred's part.
And now the judge went to luncheon; and in came a telegraphic message to
say Alfred was in the fast train coming up. This was good news and bad.
They had hoped he would drop in before. They were approaching that period
of the case, when not to call the plaintiff must produce a vile
impression. The judge--out of good nature, I suspect--was longer at
luncheon than usual, and every minute was so much gained to Mr. Compton
and Julia, who were in a miserable state of anxiety. Yet it was equalled
by Richard Hardie's, who never entered the court but paced the hall the
livelong day to intercept Noah Skinner. And, when I tell you that Julia
had consulted Mr. Green, and that he had instantly pronounced Mr.
Barkington to be a man from Barkington who knew the truth about the
fourteen thousand pounds, and that the said Green and his myrmidons were
hunting Mr. Barkington like beagles, you will see that R. Hardie's was no
vain terror. At last the judge returned, and Mr. Colt was obliged to put
in his reserves; so called Dr. Sampson. Instantly a very dull trial
became an amusing one; the scorn with which he treated the opinion of Dr.
Wycherley and Mr. Speers, and medical certificates in general, was so
droll coming from a doctor, and so racily expressed, that the court was
convulsed. Also in cross-examination by Saunders he sparred away in such
gallant style with that accomplished advocate that it was mighty
refreshing. The judge put in a few intelligent questions after counsel
had done, and surprised all the doctors in court with these words: "I am
aware, sir, that you were the main instrument in putting down
bloodletting in this country."

What made Sampson's evidence particularly strong was that he had seen the
plaintiff the evening before his imprisonment.

At this moment three men, all of them known to the reader, entered the
court; one was our old acquaintance Fullalove, another was of course
Vespasian; and the third was the missing plaintiff.

A buzz announced his arrival; and expectation rose high. Mr. Colt called
him with admirably feigned nonchalance; he stepped into the box, and
there was a murmur of surprise and admiration at his bright countenance
and manly bearing.

Of course to give his evidence would be to write "Hard Cash" over again.
It is enough to say that his examination in chief lasted all that day,
and an hour of the next.

Colt took him into the asylum, and made him say what he had suffered
there to swell the damages. The main points his examination in chief
established were his sanity during his whole life, the money settled on
him, the means the doctors took to irritate him, and then sign him
excited, the subserviency of his uncle to his father, the double motive
his father had in getting him imprisoned; the business of the L. 14,000.

When Colt sat down at eleven o'clock on the second day, the jury looked
indignant, and the judge looked very grave, and the case very black.

Mr. Saunders electrified his attorney by saying, "My advice is, don't
cross-examine him."

Heathfield implored him not to take so strange a course.

On this Saunders shrugged his shoulders, rose, and cross-examined Alfred
about the vision of one Captain Dodd he had seen, and about his
suspicions of his father. "Had not Richard Hardie always been a kind and
liberal father?" To this he assented. "Had he not sacrificed a large
fortune to his creditors?" Plaintiff believed so. "On reflection, then,
did not plaintiff think he must have been under an illusion?" No; he had
gone by direct evidence.

Confining himself sagaciously to this one question, and exerting all his
skill and pertinacity, Saunders succeeded in convincing the court that
the Hard Cash was a myth: a pure chimera. The defendant's case looked up;
for there are many intelligent madmen with a single illusion.

The re-examination was of course very short, but telling; for Alfred
swore that Miss Julia Dodd had helped him to carry home the phantom of
her father, and that Miss Dodd had a letter from her father to say that
he was about to sail with the other phantom, the L. 14,000.

Here Mr. Saunders interposed, and said that evidence was inadmissible.
Let him call Miss Dodd.

_Colt._--How do you know I'm not going to call her?

_The Judge._-- If you are, it is superfluous; if not, it is inadmissible.

Mr. Compton cast an inquiring glance up at a certain gallery. A beautiful
girl bowed her head in reply, with a warm blush and such a flash of her
eye, and Mr. Colt said, "As my learned friend was afraid to cross-examine
the plaintiff on any point but this, and as I mean to respond to his
challenge, and call Miss Dodd, I will not trouble the plaintiff any
further."

Through the whole ordeal Alfred showed a certain flavour of Eton and
Oxford that won all hearts. His replies were frank and honest, and under
cross-examination he was no more to be irritated than if Saunders had
been Harrow bowling at him, or the Robin sparring with him. The serjeant,
who was a gentleman, indicated some little regret at the possible
annoyance he was causing him. Alfred replied with a grand air of good
fellowship, "Do not think so poorly of me as to suppose I feel aggrieved
because you are an able advocate and do your duty to your client, sir."

_The Judge._--That is very handsomely said. I am afraid you have got an
awkward customer, in a case of this kind, Brother Saunders.

_Serjt. S._--It is not for want of brains he is mad, my lord.

_Alfred._--That is a comfort, any way. (Laughter.)

When counsel had done with him, the judge used his right, and put several
shrewd and unusual questions to him: asked him to define insanity. He
said he could only do it by examples: and he abridged several intelligent
madmen, their words and ways; and contrasted them with the five or six
sane people he had fallen in with in asylums; showing his lordship
plainly that _he_ could tell any insane person whatever from a sane one,
and _vice versa._ This was the most remarkable part of the trial, to see
this shrewd old judge extracting from a real observer and logical thinker
those positive indicia of sanity and insanity, which exist, but which no
lawyer has ever yet been able to extract from any psychological physician
in the witness-box. At last, he was relieved, and sat sucking an orange
among the spectators; for they had parched his throat amongst them, I
promise you.

Julia Dodd entered the box, and a sunbeam seemed to fill the court. She
knew what to do: her left hand was gloved, but her white right hand bare.
She kissed the book, and gave her evidence in her clear, mellow, melting
voice; gave it reverently and modestly, for to her the court was a
church. She said how long she had been acquainted with Alfred, and how
his father was adverse, and her mother had thought it was because they
did not pass for rich, and had told her they were rich, and with this she
produced David's letter, and she also swore to having met Alfred and
others carrying her father in a swoon from his father's very door. She
deposed to Alfred's sanity on her wedding eve, and on the day his
recapture was attempted.

Saunders, against his own judgment, was instructed to cross-examine her;
and, without meaning it, he put a question which gave her deep distress.
"Are you now engaged to the plaintiff?" She looked timidly round, and saw
Alfred, and hesitated. The serjeant pressed her politely, but firmly.

"Must I reply to that?" she said piteously.

"If you please."

"Then, no. Another misfortune has now separated him and me for ever."

"What is that, pray?"

"My father is said to have died at sea: and my mother thinks _he_ is to
blame."

_The judge to Saunders._--What on earth has this to do with Hardie
against Hardie?

_Saunders._--You are warmly interested in the plaintiff's success?

_Julia._--Oh yes, sir.

_Colt_ (aside to Garrow).--The fool is putting his foot into it: there's
not a jury in England that would give a verdict to part two interesting
young lovers.

_Saunders._--You are attached to him?

_Julia._--Ah, that I do.

This burst, intended for poor Alfred, not the court, baffled
cross-examination and grammar and everything else. Saunders was wise and
generous, and said no more.

Colt cast a glance of triumph, and declined to re-examine. He always let
well alone. The judge, however, evinced a desire to trace the fourteen
thousand pounds from Calcutta; but Julia could not help him: that
mysterious sum had been announced by letter as about to sail, and then no
more was heard about it till Alfred accused his father of having it. All
endeavours to fill this hiatus failed. However, Julia, observing that in
courts material objects affect the mind most, had provided herself with
all the _pieces de conviction_ she could find, and she produced her
father's empty pocket-book, and said, when he was brought home senseless,
this was in his breast-pocket.