Hard Cash

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Then Colt rose like a tower, and assuming the verdict as certain, asked
the jury for heavy damages. He contrasted powerfully the defendant's
paltry claim to pity with the anguish the plaintiff had undergone. He
drew the wedding party, the insult to the bride, the despair of the
kidnapped bridegroom; he lashed the whole gang of conspirators concerned
in the crime, regretted that they could only make one of all these
villains smart, but hinted that Richard and Thomas Hardie were in one
boat, and that heavy damages inflicted on Thomas would find the darker
culprit out. He rapped out Mr. Cowper's lines on liberty, and they were
new to the jury, though probably not to you; he warned the jury that all
our liberties depended on them. "In vain," said he, "have we beheaded one
tyrant, and banished another, to secure those liberties, if men are to be
allowed to send away their own flesh and blood into the worst of all
prisons for life and not smart for it, in those lamentably few cases in
which the law finds them out and lays hold of them." But it would task my
abilities to the utmost, and occupy more time than is left me, to do
anything like justice to the fluent fiery eloquence of Colt, Q. C., when
he got a great chance like this. _Tonat, fulgurat, et rapidis eloquentiae
fluctibus cuncia proruit et proturbat._ Bursts of applause, that neither
crier nor judge could suppress, bore witness to the deep indignation
Britons feel when their hard-earned liberties are tampered with by power
or fraud, in defiance of law; and, when he sat down, the jury were ready
to fly out at him with L. 5000 in hand.

Then rose the passionless voice of "justice according to law." I wish I
could give the very words. The following is the effect as _I_ understood
it. Lawyers, forgive my deficiencies.

"This is an important, but not a difficult case. The plaintiff sues the
defendant under _the law of England_ for falsely imprisoning him in a
madhouse. The imprisonment is admitted, and the sufferings of the
plaintiff not disputed. The question is, whether he was insane at the
time of the act? Now, I must tell you, that in a case of this kind, it
lies upon the defendant to prove the plaintiff's insanity, rather than on
the plaintiff to prove his own sanity. Has the defendant overcome this
difficulty? Illusion is the best proof of insanity; and a serious
endeavour was certainly made to fasten an illusion on the plaintiff about
a sum of L. 14,000. But the proof was weak, and went partly on an
assumption that all error is hallucination; this is illusory, and would,
if acted on, set one half the kingdom imprisoning the other half; and
after all, they did not demonstrate that the plaintiff was _in error._
They advanced no _undeniable proof_ that Mr. Richard Hardie has not
embezzled this L. 14,000. I don't say it was proved on the other hand
that he did embezzle that sum. Richard Hardie sueing Alfred Hardie for
libel on this evidence might possibly obtain a verdict; for then the
burden of proof would lie on Alfred Hardie; but here it lies on those who
say he is insane. The fact appears to be that the plaintiff imbibed a
reasonable suspicion of his own father's integrity; it was a suspicion
founded on evidence, imperfect, indeed, but of a sound character as far
as it went. There had been a letter from Captain Dodd to his family,
announcing his return with L. 14,000 upon him, and, while as yet unaware
of this letter, the plaintiff heard David Dodd accuse Richard Hardie of
possessing improperly L. 14,000, the identical sum. At least, he swears
to this, and as Richard Hardie was not called to contradict him, you are
at liberty to suppose that Richard Hardie had some difficulty in
contradicting him on oath. Here, then, true or false, was a rational
suspicion, and every man has a right to a rational suspicion of his
neighbour, and even to utter it within due limits; and, if he overstep
those, the party slandered has his legal remedy; but if he omits his
legal remedy, and makes an attempt of doubtful legality not to confute,
but to stifle, the voice of reasonable suspicion, shrewd men will suspect
all the more. But then comes a distinct and respectable kind of evidence
for the defendant; he urges that the plaintiff was going to sign away his
property to his wife's relations. Now, this was proved, and a draft of
the deed put in and sworn to. This taken singly has a very extraordinary
look. Still, you must consider the plaintiff's reasonable suspicion that
money belonging to the Dodds had passed irregularly to the Hardies, and
then the wonder is diminished. Young and noble minds have in every age
done generous, self-denying, and delicate acts. The older we get, the
less likely we are to be incarcerated for a crime of this character; but
we are not to imprison youth and chivalry merely because we have outgrown
them. To go from particulars to generals, the defendant, on whom the
proof lies, has advanced hearsay and conjecture, and not put their
originators into the box. The plaintiff, on whom the proof does not lie,
has advanced abundant evidence that he was sane at the time of his
incarceration: this was proved to demonstration by friends, strangers,
and by himself." Here the judge analysed the testimony of several of the
plaintiff's witnesses.

"As to the parties themselves, it is curious how they impersonated, so to
speak, their respective lines of argument. The representative of evidence
and sound reasoning, though accused of insanity, was precise, frank,
rational and dignified in the witness-box; and I think you must have
noticed his good temper. The party, who relied on hearsay and conjecture,
was as feeble as they are; he was almost imbecile, as you observed; and,
looking at both parties, it really seems monstrous that the plaintiff
should be the one confined as a lunatic, and the defendant allowed to run
wild and lock up his intellectual superiors. If he means to lock them
_all_ up, even you and I are hardly safe. (Laughter.) The only serious
question, I apprehend, is on what basis the damages ought to be assessed.
The plaintiffs counsel has made a powerful appeal to your passions, and
calls for vengeance. Now I must tell you, you have no right to make
yourselves ministers of vengeance, nor even to punish the defendant, in a
suit of the kind: still less ought you to strike the defendant harder
than you otherwise would--in the vague hope of punishing indirectly the
true mover of the defendant and the other puppets. I must warn you
against that suggestion of the learned counsel's. If the plaintiff wants
vengeance, the criminal law offers it. He comes here, not for vengeance,
but for compensation, and restoration to that society which he is every
way fitted to adorn. More than this--and all our sympathies--it is not
for us to give him. But then the defendant's counsel went too far the
other way. His client, he says, is next door to an idiot, and so,
forsooth, his purse must be spared entirely. This is all very well if it
could be done without ignoring the plaintiff and his just claim to
compensation. Why, if the defendant, instead of being weak-minded, were
an idiot or a lunatic, it would protect him from punishment as a felon,
but not from damages in a suit. A sane man is not to be falsely
imprisoned by a lunatic without full compensation from the lunatic or his
estate: _a fortiori,_ he is not to be so imprisoned by a mere fool
without just compensation. Supposing your verdict, then, to be for the
plaintiff, I think vindictive damages would be unfair, on this feeble
defendant, who has acted recklessly, but under an error, and without
malice, or bad faith. On the other hand, nominal or even unsubstantial
damages would be unjust to the plaintiff; and perhaps leave in some minds
a doubt that I think you do not yourselves entertain, as to the
plaintiff's perfect sanity during the whole period of his life."

As soon as his lordship had ended, the foreman of the jury said their
minds were quite made up long ago.

"Si-lence in the court."

"We find for the plaintiff, with damages three thousand pounds."

The verdict was received with some surprise by the judge, and all the
lawyers except Mr. Colt, and by the people with acclamation; in the midst
of which Mr. Colt announced that the plaintiff had just gained his first
class at Oxford. "I wish him joy," said the judge.

CHAPTER LIV

THE verdict was a thunder-clap to Richard Hardie: he had promised Thomas
to bear him blameless. The Old Turks, into which he had bought at 72,
were down to 71, and that implied a loss of five thousand pounds. On the
top of all this came Mr. Compton's letter neatly copied by Colls: Richard
Hardie was doubly and trebly ruined.

Then in his despair and hate he determined to baffle them all, ay, and
sting the hearts of some of them once more.

He would give Peggy his last shilling; write a line to Alfred, another to
Julia, assuring them he had no money, and they had killed him. And with
that leave them both the solemn curse of a dying father, and then kill
himself.

Not to be interrupted in his plan, he temporised with Mr. Compton; wrote
that, if the Receipt was really signed by his agent, of course the loss
must fall on him; it was a large sum, but he would sell out and do his
best, in ten days from date. With this he went and bought a pistol, and
at several chemist's shops a little essential oil of almonds: his plan
was to take the poison, and, if it killed without pain, well and good;
but if it tortured him, then he would blow his brains out at once.

He soon arranged his worldly affairs, and next day gave Peggy his L. 500,
and told her she had better keep it for fear he should be arrested. He
sent her on an errand to the other part of the town: then with his poison
and the pistol before him on the table, wrote a brief but emphatic curse
for his son and Julia; and a line to Peggy to thank her for her fidelity
to one so much older than herself, and to advise her to take a
tobacconist's shop with his money. When he had done all this, he poured
out the fragrant poison and tasted it.

Ere he could drink it, one of those quidnunes, who are always
interrupting a gentleman when he has important business on hand, came
running in with all manner of small intelligence. Mr. Hardie put down the
glass, and gave him short, sullen answers, in hopes he would then go away
and let him proceed to business. And at last his visitor did rise and go.
Mr. Hardie sat down with a sigh of relief to his fragrant beverage.

Doesn't the door open, and this bore poke in his head: "Oh I forgot to
tell you; the Old Turks are going up today, like a shot." And with this
he slammed the door again, and was off.

At this the cup began to tremble in the resolute wretch's hand. The Old
Turks going up! He poured the poison back into the phial, and put it and
the pistol and all the letters carefully into his pocket, and took a cab
to the City.

The report was true; there was an extraordinary movement in the Old
Turks. The Sultan was about to pay a portion of this loan, being at six
per cent.; this had transpired, and at four o'clock the Turks were quoted
at 73. Mr. Hardie returned a gainer of L. 5000 instead of a loser. He
locked up the means of death for the present.

And now an ordinary man would have sold out, and got clear of the fatal
trap: but this was not an ordinary man: he would not sell a share that
day. In the afternoon they rose to 74. He came home, unloaded his pistol,
and made himself some brandy-and-water, and with a grim smile, flavoured
it with a few drops of the poison--that was a delicious tumbler. The
Turks went up, up, up, to 82. Then he sold out, and cleared L. 49,000,
and all in about ten days.

With this revived the habits of his youth; no more cheating: nothing
could excuse that but the dread of poverty. He went to his appointment
with Mr. Compton; asked to see the Receipt; said "Yes; that was his form,
and Skinner's handwriting; he had never personally received one farthing
of the money; Skinner had clearly embezzled it: but that did not matter;
of course, Captain Dodd must not lose his money. Send your bill of costs
in Hardie _v._ Hardie to me, Mr. Compton," said he, "they shall not be
taxed: you have lost enough by me already."

There was an air of dignity and good faith about the man that half
imposed even on Compton. And when Mr. Hardie drew out the notes and said,
"I should be grateful if you would forgive me the interest; but for a
great piece of good fortune on the Stock Exchange, I could never have
paid the whole principal," he said warmly, "the interest should never be
demanded through him."

He called in Colls, delivered up the Receipt, and received the L. 14,010,
12s. 6d. from Mr. Hardie.

O immortal Cash! You, like your great inventor, have then a kind of
spirit as well as a body; and on this, not on your grosser part, depends
your personal identity. So long as that survives, your body may be
recalled to its lawful owner from Heaven knows where.

Mr. Compton rushed to Pembroke Street, and put this hard, hard Cash in
David Dodd's hands once more.

Love and Constancy had triumphed: and Julia and Alfred were to be married
and go down to Albion Villa to prepare it for the whole party: tenants no
more: Alfred had bought it. The Commissioners of Lunacy had protected his
L. 20,000 zealously from the first: and his trustees had now paid the
money over.

Alfred consulted by Mrs. Dodd, whose pet of pets he now was, as to the
guests to be asked to the wedding breakfast, suggested "None but the
tried friends of our adversity."

"What an excellent idea!" said Mrs. Dodd naively.

Dr. Sampson being duly invited asked if he should bring his Emulsion.

This proposal puzzled all but Mrs. Dodd. She was found laughing heartily
in a corner without any sound of laughter. Being detected and pointed out
by Julia, she said, with a little crow, "He means his wife. Yes,
certainly, bring your Emulcent"--pretending he had used that more elegant
word--"and then they will all see how well you can behave."

Accordingly he brought a lady, who was absurdly pretty to be the mother
of several grown young ladies and gentlemen, and two shades more quiet
and placid than Mrs. Dodd. She quietly had her chair placed by Dr.
Sampson's, and, whenever he got racy, she put a hand gently on his
shoulder, and by some mesmeric effect it moderated him as Neptune did the
waves in the AEneid. She was such a mistress of this mesmeric art, that
she carried on a perfect conversation with her other neighbour, yet
modulated her lion lord with a touch of that composing hand, in a
parenthetical manner, and even while looking another way.

This hand, soft as down, yet irresistible, suppressed the great art of
healing, vital chronometry, the wrongs of inventors, the collusions of
medicine, the Mad Ox, and all but drawing-room topics, at the very first
symptom, and only just allowed the doctor to be the life and soul of the
party.

Julia and Mrs. Dodd had a good cry at parting. Of course Alfred consoled
them: reminded them it was only for a week, and carried off his lovely
prize, who in the carriage soon dried her eyes upon his shoulder.

Then she applied to her new lord and master for information. "They _say_
that you and me are one, now," said she interrogatively.

He told her triumphantly it was so.

"At that rate you are Julius and I am Elfrida," said she.

"That is a bargain," said he, and sealed it on the sweet lips that were
murmuring Heaven so near him.

In this sore-tried and now happy pair the ardour of possession lasted
long, and was succeeded by the sober but full felicity of conjugal love
and high esteem combined. They were so young and elastic, that past
sorrows seemed but to give one zest more to the great draught of
happiness they now drank day by day. They all lived together at Albion
Villa, thanks to Alfred. He was by nature combative, and his warlike soul
was roused at the current theory that you cannot be happy under the same
roof with your wife's mother. "That is cant," said he to Mrs. Dodd; "let
us, you and I, trample on it hand in hand."

"My child," said poor Mrs. Dodd sorrowfully, "I am a poor hand at
trampling; and everybody says a mother-in-law in the house bores a young
gentleman sadly."

"If a young gentleman can't live happy with you, mamma," said he, kissing
her, "he is a little snob, that is all, and not fit to live at all.
_Delenda est Cantilena!_ That means 'Down with Cant!'"

They did live together: and behold eleven French plays, with their
thirty-three English adaptations, confuted to the end of time.

Creatures so high-bred as Mrs. Dodd never fidget one. There is a repose
about them; they are balm to all those they love, and blister to none.
Item, no stranger could tell by Mrs. Dodd's manner whether Edward or
Alfred was her own son.

Oh, you happy little villa! you were as like Paradise as any mortal
dwelling can be. A day came, however, when your walls could no longer
hold all the happy inmates. Julia presented Alfred with a lovely boy;
enter nurses, and the villa showed symptoms of bursting. Two months more,
and Alfred and his wife and boy overflowed into the next villa. It was
but twenty yards off; and there was a double reason for the migration. As
often happens after a long separation Heaven bestowed on Captain and Mrs.
Dodd another infant to play about their knees at present, and help them
grow younger instead of older: for tender parents begin life again with
their children.

The boys were nearly of a size, though the nephew was a month or two
older than his uncle, a relationship that was early impressed on their
young minds, and caused those who heard their prattle many a hearty
laugh.

"Mrs. Dodd," said a lady, "I couldn't tell by your manner which is yours
and which is your daughter's."

"Why they are both mine," said Mrs. Dodd piteously, and opening her eyes
with gentle astonishment.

As years rolled on Dr. Sampson made many converts at home and abroad. The
foreign ones acknowledged their obligations. The leading London
physicians managed more skilfully; they came into his ideas, and bit by
bit reversed their whole practice, and, twenty years after, Sampson began
to strengthen the invalid at once, instead of first prostrating him, and
so causing either long sickness or sudden death. But, with all this, they
disowned their forerunner, and still called him a quack while adopting
his quackery. This dishonesty led them into difficulties. To hide that
their whole practice in medicine was reversed on _better information,_
they went from shuffle to shuffle, till at last they reached this climax
of fatuity and egotism--THE TYPE OF DISEASE IS CHANGED.

Natura mutatur, non nos mutamur.

O, mutable Nature and immutable doctors!

O, unstable Omniscience, and infallible Nescience!

The former may err; the latter never--in its own opinion.

At this rate, draining the weak of their life blood was the right thing
in Cervantes' day: and when he observed that it killed men like sheep,
and said so under the head of Sangrado, he was confounding his own age
with an age to come three hundred years later, in which coming age
depletion was _going_ to be wrong.

Moliere--in lashing the whole scholastic system of lancet, purge, and
blister as one of slaughter--committed the same error: mistook his
century for one to come.

And Sampson, thirty years ago, sang the same tune, and mistook his
inflammatory generation for the cool generation as yet unborn. In short,
it is the characteristic of a certain blunder called genius to see things
too far in advance. The surest way to avoid this is not to see them at
all; but go blindly by the cant of the hour. _Race moutonuiere va!_

Sampson was indignant at finding that these gentry, after denouncing him
for years as a quack, were pilfering his system, yet still reviling him.
He went in a towering passion, and hashed them by tongue and pen: told
them they were his subtractors now as well as detractors, asked them how
it happened that in countries where there is no Sampson the type of
disease remains unchanged, depletion is the practice, and death the
result, as it was in every age?

No man, however stout, can help being deeply wounded when he sees his
ideas stolen, yet their author and publisher disowned. Many men's hearts
have been broken by this: but I doubt whether they were really great men.

Don't tell me Lilliput ever really kills Brobdignag. Except, of course,
when Brobdignag takes medical advice of Lilliput.

Dr. Sampson had three shields against subtraction, detraction, and all
the wrongs inventors endure: to wit, a choleric temper, a keen sense of
humour, and a good wife. He storms and rages at his detracting pupils;
but ends with roars of laughter at their impudence. I am told he still
hopes to meet with justice some day, and to give justice a chance, he
goes to bed at ten, for, says he--

"Jinny us, jinny us,
Take care of your carcass,"

and explains that no genius ever lived to ninety without being
appreciated.

"If Chatterton and Keats had attended to this, they would have been all
right. If James Watt had died at fifty he would have been all wrong; for
at fifty he was a failure! so was the painter Etty, the English Tishin."
And then he accumulates examples.

His last distich bearing on Hard Cash is worth recording. "Miss Julee,"
said he, "y' are goen to maerry int' a strange family--

Where th' ijjit puts the jinnyus
In-til a madhus,"

which, like most of the droll things this man said, was true: for Soft
Tommy and Alfred were the two intellectual extremes of the whole tribe of
Hardies.

Mrs. Archbold, disappointed both in love and revenge, posed her
understanding, and soothed her mind, with Frank Beverley and opium. This
soon made the former deep in love with her, and his intellect grew by
contact with hers. But one day news came from Australia that her husband
was dead. Now, perhaps I shall surprise the reader, if I tell him that
this Edith Archbold began her wedded life a good, confiding, loving,
faithful woman. Yet so it was: the unutterable blackguard she had
married, he it was who laboured to spoil her character, and succeeded at
last, and drove her, unwilling at first, to other men. The news of his
death was like a shower-bath; it roused her. She took counsel with
herself, and hope revived in her strong head and miserable heart. She
told Frank, and watched him like a hawk. He instantly fell on his knees,
and implored her to marry him directly. She gave him her hand and turned
away, and shed the most womanly tear that had blessed her for years. "I
am not mad, you know," said poor Frank; "I am only a bit of a muff." To
make a long story short, she exerted all her intelligence, and with her
help Frank took measures towards superseding his Commission of Lunacy.
Now, in such a case, the Lord Chancellor always examines the patient in
person. What was the consequence? Instead of the vicarious old Wolf, who
had been devouring him at third and fourth hand, Frank had two interviews
with the Chancellor himself: a learned, grave, upright gentleman, who
questioned him kindly and shrewdly and finding him to be a young man of
small intellectual grasp, but not the least idiotic or mad, superseded
his commission in defiance of his greedy kinsfolk, and handed him his
property. He married Edith Archbold, and she made him as happy as the day
was long. For the first year or two she treated his adoration with
good-natured contempt; but, as years rolled on, she became more loving,
and he more knowing! They are now a happy pair, and all between her first
honest love, and this her last, seems to her a dream.

So you see a female rake can be ameliorated by a loving husband, as well
as a male rake by a loving wife.

It sounds absurd, and will offend my female readers and their unchristian
prejudices, but that black-browed jade is like to be one of the best
wives and mothers in England. But then, mind you, she had always--Brains.

I do not exactly know why Horace puts together those two epithets, "just"
and "tenacious of purpose." Perhaps he had observed they go together. To
be honest, I am not clear whether this is so on the grand scale. But
certainly the two features did meet remarkably in one of my
characters--Alfred Hardie. The day the bank broke, he had said he would
pay the creditors. He now set to work to do it by degrees. He got the
names and addresses, lived on half his income, and paid half away to
those creditors: he even asked Julia to try and find Maxley out, and do
something for him. "But don't let me see him," said he, trembling, "for I
could not answer for myself." Maxley was known to be cranky, but
harmless, and wandering about the country. Julia wrote to Mr. Green about
him:

Alfred's was an uphill game; but fortune favours the obstinate as well as
the bold. One day, about four years after his marriage with Julia, being
in London, he found a stately figure at the corner of a street, holding
out his hand for alms, too dignified to ask it except by that mute and
touching gesture.