David stood looking on at the slaughter with a helpless puzzled air.
At last he seemed to have an idea, he caught Jack up by the throat and knee, lifted him with gigantic strength above his head, and was just going to hurl him shrieking into the sea, when a dozen strong hands interfered, and saved the man. Then they were going to bind Billy hand and foot; but he was discovered to be perfectly calm; so they remonstrated instead, and presently Billy"s commander-in-chief, a ship-boy called Georgie White, shoved in and asked him in a shrill haughty voice how he dared do that. "My dear," said Billy, with great humility and placidity, "he was killing G.o.d"s creatures, no allowance: *
so, ye see, to save their lives, I was _obliged._"
*Nautical phrase, meaning without stint or limit, or n.i.g.g.ardly admeasurement as there is of grog.
At this piece of reasoning, and the simplicity and gentle conviction with which it was delivered, there was a roar. It subsided, and a doubt arose whether Billy was altogether in the wrong.
"Well," said one, "I daresay life is sweet to them little creatures, if they could speak their minds."
"I"ve known a ship founder in a fair breeze all along of killing "em,"
said one old salt.
Finally, several sided with Billy, and intimated that "it served the lubber right for not listening to _reason._" And, indeed, methinks it was lovely and touching that so divine a ray of goodness and superior reason should have shot from his heart or from Heaven across that poor benighted brain.
But it must be owned his mode of showing his humanity was somewhat excessive and abnormal, and smacked of lunacy. After this, however, the affection of his messmates was not so contemptuous.
Now the captain of the _Vulture_ was Billy"s cousin by marriage.
Reginald Bazalgette. Twenty years ago, when the captain was a boy, they were great friends: of late Bazalgette had seen less of him; still it seems strange he did not recognise him in his own ship. But one or two causes co-operated to prevent that. In the first place, the mind when turned in one direction is not so sharp in another; and Captain Bazalgette had been told to look for David in a merchant ship bound for the East Indies. In the next place, insanity alters the expression of the face wonderfully, and the captain of a frigate runs his eye over four hundred sailors at muster, or a hundred at work, not to examine their features, but their dress and bearing at the one, and their handiness at the other. The worst piece of luck was that Mrs. Dodd did not know David called himself William Thompson. So there stood "William Thompson" large as life on the ship"s books, and n.o.body the wiser.
Captain Bazalgette had a warm regard and affection for Mrs. Dodd, and did all he could. Indeed, he took great liberties: he stopped and overhauled several merchant ships for the truant; and, by-the-by, on one occasion William Thompson was one of the boat"s crew that rowed a midshipman from the _Vulture_ alongside a merchant ship to search for David Dodd. He heard the name and circ.u.mstance mentioned in the boat, but the very name was new to him. He remembered it, but only from that hour; and told his loving tyrant, Georgie White, they had been overhauling a merchant ship and looking for one David Dodd.
It was about Midsummer the _Vulture_ anch.o.r.ed off one of the South Sea islands, and sent a boat ash.o.r.e for fruit. Billy and his dearly beloved little tyrant, Georgie White, were among the crew. Off goes Georgie to bathe, and Billy sits down on the beach with a loving eye upon him. The water was calm: but the boy with the heedlessness of youth stayed in it nearly an hour: he was seized with cramp and screamed to his comrades.
They ran, but they were half a mile from the boat. Billy dashed into the water and came up with Georgie just as he was sinking for the last time; the boy gripped him; but by his great strength he disentangled himself and got Georgie on his shoulders, and swam for the sh.o.r.e. Meantime the sailors got into the boat, and rowed hastily towards them.
Now Billy was undermost and his head under water at times, and Georgie, some thought, had helped strangle him by gripping his neck with both arms. Anyway, by the boy"s account, just as they were getting into shallow water, Billy gave a great shriek and turned over on his back; and Georgie paddled with his hands, but Billy soon after this sunk like a dead body while the boat was yet fifty yards off. And Georgie screamed and pointed to the place, and the boat came up and took Georgie in; and the water was so clear that the sailors saw Billy lie motionless at the bottom, and hooked him with a boat hook and drew him up; but his face came up alongside a deadly white, with staring eyes, and they shuddered and feared it was too late.
They took him into a house and stripped him, and rubbed him, and wrapped him in blankets, and put him by the hot fire. But all would not do.
Then, having dried his clothes, they dressed the body again and laid him in the boat, and cast the Union Jack over him, and rowed slowly and unwillingly back to the ship, Georgie sobbing and screaming over the body, and not a dry eye in the boat.
The body was carried up the side, and uncovered, just as Mrs. Dodd saw in her dream. The surgeon was sent for and examined the body: and then the grim routine of a man-of-war dealt swiftly with the poor skipper. He was carried below to be prepared for a sailor"s grave. Then the surgeon walked aft and reported formally to the officer of the watch the death by drowning of William Thompson. The officer of the watch went instantly to the captain in his cabin and reported the death. The captain gave the stereotyped order to bury him at noon next day; and the body was stripped that night and sewed up in his hammock, with a portion of his clothes and bedding to conceal the outline of the corpse, and two cannon b.a.l.l.s at his feet; and so the poor skipper was laid out for a watery grave, and covered by the Union Jack.
I don"t know whether any of my amorous young readers are much affected by the catastrophe I have just related. If not, I will just remind them that even Edward Dodd was prepared to oppose the marriage of Julia and Alfred, if any serious ill should befall his father at sea, owing to Alfred"s imprudent interference in rescuing him from Drayton House.
CHAPTER L
LAW
MINUTE study of my fellow-creatures has revealed to me that there are many intelligent persons who think that a suit at law commences in court. This is not so. Many suits are fought and decided by the special pleaders, and so never come into court; and, as a stiff encounter of this kind actually took place in Hardie _v._ Hardie, a word of prefatory explanation may be proper. Suitors come into court only to try an issue: an issue is a mutual lie direct: and towards this both parties are driven upon paper by the laws of pleading, which may be thus summed: 1.
Every statement of the adversary must either be contradicted flat, or confessed and avoided: "avoided" means neutralised by fresh matter. 2.
Nothing must be advanced by plaintiff which does not disclose a ground of action at law. 3. Nothing advanced by defendant, which, if true, would not be a defence to the action. These rules exclude in a vast degree the pitiable defects and vices that mark all the unprofessional arguments one ever hears; for on a breach of any one of the said rules the other party can demur; the demurrer is argued before the judges in Banco, and, if successfully, the faulty plaint or faulty plea is dismissed, and often of course the cause won or lost thereby, and the country saved the trouble, and the suitors the expense of trying an issue.
So the writ being served by Plt."s attorney, and an appearance put in by Deft."s, the paper battle began by Alfred Hardie, through his attorney, serving on Deft."s attorney "THE DECLARATION." This was drawn by his junior counsel, Garrow, and ran thus, after specifying the court and the date:
_Middles.e.x to wit_ Alfred Hardie by John Compton his attorney sues Thomas Hardie For that the Deft. a.s.saulted Plt. gave him into custody to a certain person and caused him to be imprisoned for a long s.p.a.ce of time in a certain place to wit a Lunatic Asylum whereby the Plt. was much inconvenienced and suffered much anguish and pain in mind and body and was unable to attend to his affairs and was injured in his credit and circ.u.mstances.
And the Plt. claims L. 5000.
Mr. Compton conveyed a copy of this to Alfred, and said it was a sweet "declaration." "What," said Alfred, "is that all I have suffered at these miscreants" hands? Why, it is written with an icicle."
Mr. Compton explained that this was the outline: "Counsel will lay the colours on in court as thick as you like."
The defendant replied to the above declaration by three pleas.
By statute 8 & 9 Vic., c. 100, s. 105.
1. The Deft. by Joseph Heathfield his attorney says he is not guilty. 2.
And for a further Plea the Deft, says that before and at the time of the alleged imprisonment Plt, was a person of unsound mind and incompetent to take care of himself and a proper person to be taken care of and detained and it was unfit unsafe improper and dangerous that he should be at large thereupon the Deft, being the uncle of the Plt. and a proper person to cause the Plt. to be taken charge of under due care and treatment in that behalf did cause the Plt. to be so taken charge of and detained under due care and treatment, &c. &c.
The third plea was the stinger, but too long to cite _verbatim;_ it went to this tune, that the plaintiff at and before the time &c. had conducted himself like a person of unsound mind &c. and two certificates that he was insane had been given by two persons duly authorised under the statute to sign such certificates, and the defendant had believed and did _bona fide_ believe these certificates to be true, &c. &c.
The first of these pleas was a mere formal plea, under the statute.
The second raised the very issue at common law the plaintiff wished to try.
The third made John Compton knit his brows with perplexity. "This is a very nasty plea," said he to Alfred: "a regular trap. If we join issue on it we must be defeated; for how can we deny the certificates were in form; and yet the plaguy thing is not loose enough to be demurred to?
Colls, who drew these pleas for them?"
"Mr. Colvin, sir."
"Make a note to employ him in our next stiff pleading."
Alfred was staggered. He had thought to ride rough-shod over defendant--a common expectation of plaintiffs; but seldom realised.
Lawyers fight hard. The pleas were taken to Garrow; he said there was but one course, to demur to No. 3. So the plaintiff "joined issue on all the defendant"s pleas, and as to the last plea the plaintiff said the same was bad in substance." Defendant rejoined that the same was good in substance, and thus Hardie _v._ Hardie divided itself into two cases, a question of law for the judges, and an issue for the mixed tribunal loosely called a jury. And I need hardly say that should the defendant win either of them he would gain the cause.
Postponing the history of the legal _question,_ I shall show how Messrs.
Heathfield fought off the _issue,_ and cooled the ardent Alfred and sickened him of law.
In theory every Englishman has a right to be tried by his peers: but in fact there are five gentlemen in every court, each of whom has by precedent the power to refuse him a jury, by simply postponing the trial term after term, until the death of one of the parties, when the action, if a personal one, dies too; and, by a singular anomaly of judicial practice, if a slippery Deft. can"t persuade A. or B., judges of the common law court, to connive at what I venture to call
THE POSTPONEMENT SWINDLE,
he can actually go to C., D., and B., one after another, with his rejected application, and the previous refusal of the other judges to delay and baffle justice goes for little or nothing; so that the postponing swindler has five to one in his favour.
Messrs. Heathfield began this game unluckily. They applied to a judge in chambers for a month to plead. Mr. Compton opposed in person, and showed that this was absurd. The judge allowed them only four days to plead.
Issue being joined, Mr. Compton pushed on for trial, and the cause was set down for the November term. Towards the end of the term Messrs.
Heathfield applied to one of the puisne judges for a postponement, on the ground that a princ.i.p.al witness could not attend. Application was supported by the attorney"s affidavit, to the effect that Mr. Speers was in Boulogne, and had written to him to say that he had met with a railway accident, and feared he could not possibly come to England in less than a month. A respectable French doctor confirmed this by certificate. Compton opposed, but the judge would hardly hear him, and postponed the trial as a matter of course; this carried it over the sittings into next term. Alfred groaned, but bore it patiently; not so Dr. Sampson: he raged against secret tribunals: "See how men deteriorate the moment they get out of the full light of publeecity. What English judge, sitting in the light of Shorthand, would admit "Jack swears that Gill says" for legal evidence. Speers has sworn to no facks. Heathfield has sworn to no facks but th" existence of Speer"s hearsay. They are a couple o" lyres. I"ll bet ye ten pounds t" a shilling Speers is as well as I"m."
Mr. Compton quietly reminded him there was a direct statement--the French doctor"s certificate.
"A medical certificut!" shrieked Sampson, amazed. "Mai--dearr--sirr, a medical certificut is just an article o" commerce like an attorney"s conscience. Gimme a guinea and I"ll get you sworn sick, diseased, disabled, or dead this minute, whichever you like best."
"Come, doctor, don"t fly off: you said you"d bet ten pounds to a shilling Speers is not an invalid at all. I say done."