The Secretary : or, Circumstantial evidence. A domestic romance

Front matter

THE SECRETARY; *£ CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. A DOMESTIC ROMANCE. "What demon prompted you to this?*] LONDON : PUBLISHED BY E. LLOYD SALISBURY-SQUARE, FLEET-STREET. r ft E F A C E. Tiie Romance of "The Secretary ; on. Circumstantial Evi dote," fcas been written to show how, step by step, it is possible tbat, for a time, the greatest excess of villany may succeed in compromising I be bappiness, and even the lives, of the most innocent persons, at the same lime tbat tbe intricale web of disBimulatiou by whieh the false tc-etiinony is sought to be supported is at the mercy of the slightest occidcDt tbat may arise to unmask its insidious aspect. For the credit of bumien nature we will believe tbat there are few such men as John Oxley, and few such women as Mrs. Lerew and Miss Wicks j but tbat there are such, however grievous such opinion of Ae great human family may be, experience is a sufficient proof of.

Wilh many thanks to the press and to the public for tbe many eulogies parsed upon the work, and the great success that has attended its production, the Author presents it in a complete form to the public. London, THE LITTLE CRAFT RIDES GALLANTLY THROUGH THE WATERS WITH THE CORSE. THE SECRETARY; OR, THE VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. A ROMANCE OF DEEP INTEREST. No.l < are coming up per favour of some indepen dent current of air from the south, and they would bedew the earth with plentiful showers, if that north-east wind did not meet them, and nip up the soft drops into hail and snow. CHAPTTER I. MORRIS COURTLEY IS HUNO ON SOUTH- AMPTON COMMON. On Southampton Common, one bleak day in July, Anno Domino 1751, such an as semblage of persons had collected, that, when you looked from an elevation at the monster gathering, it seemed to extend for miles into the open country, while from every road and lane, fresh contingents were each moment arriving to swell the concourse.

Many feathery particles of snow are al ready in the air, floating hither and thither, as if enjoying a gambol before they plunged down upon the sea of upturned faces that crowd the old common. And now a cry arises from ten thousand throats — " They come ! They come 1 Here they are I They are coming now I" Oh, what a striving, and trampling, and pushing there was now for a better place than those who strove and pushed though* they already had. The mob seemed to be having throughout its length and breadth a fight of its own, for no other earthly purpose than to celebrate the arrival of the malefactor, who, then and there, upon that spot, and on such a day, was to make re paration with his life for the evil he had done to society — that society that had come, roaring and shouting, to see him die.

Chapter II. The

8N0W FALLS UPON THE DEAD BODY. The shrieking boy was carried away from the side of the cart, and Morris Courtley, for a few moments, covered his face with his hands, and wept. The clergyman was kneeling, and appeared to be completely absorbed in prayer, and in sensible to all tbat was going on around him. It is possible that, in the abundance of his faith, he yet looked for some miracle by which the innocent should be saved-f rom the death of the guilty. The mounted policeman resumed his place by the side of the condemned cart, and said, in a voice which showed that he was much affected — But, after all, the hearts of the bluff farmers who composed the troop of county cavalry were not with the business they had in hand, and the people knew it, so they did not much heed the demonstration ot the horses after all.

" Hats off! Hats off!" suddenly was the cry that arose from many throats, and the multitude at once uncovered as Morris Courtley appeared upon the scaffold. Oh ! what a strange unearthly flush was upon tbe face of the young man 1 Hdw his eyes now sparkled, as if lit up with an intelligence that was not of this world. " I pity you, Morris Courtley, from my soul. I did not stand in the way of Roots and Ned. I am glad he saw you." " Thank you, John Appleby. You have been a friend to me from the first to the last. I thank you." " Now, sir," said the executioner. He started at the touch whicb the minister of the law laid upon his arm. "No— no!" he said. "No— ob, God — no!" " My dear sir," said the sheriff, "really this is, permit me to say, a kind of a — a— you see." " I am ready," said Courtley, and the slush was gone from his face, like mist before the blaze of a noon-day sun.

He was now so white, oh, so white ! The mob gave a great sobbing kind of groan, and then one voice cried — Morris shook hands with John Appleby, and then the crowd raised another shout. What it was they shouted at, thougb, it is highly probable not one of them could have told satisfactorily. Now, tbe sheriff, who had, at some risk to his neck, tottered along the unsteady platform to that end of the scaffold which was the nearest to the approaching cavalcade, stood with his huge watch in his hand, and shook his head at the governor of the prison, who, as he wiped the sleet and the snow from his face, just said — "I could not help it, sir. There have ebeen all sorts of delays." " Well, well— be quick, now. We shall have a snow-storm, as sure as fate." " Not a doubt aboutthat, sir— with a little hail, too, to keep it company."

"Yes — yes — no doubt. Now, Mr. Crackles." Tbis was to the hangman, who jumjied from the cart on to the scaffold. " Did you do it?" The doomed man started as though elec trified, and throwing all his strength into his voice, he shouted — "No, I did not do the deed for which I am condemned 1" It was frightful now to hear the shouts from the mob. Tbe govenor of the prison got alarm' d, and caught hold of the captain of the yeomanry by the shoulder as he said — " You will have to charge 1" ii I'm d dis I do," said the captain. The sheriff, ia dumb show, urged the hangmau to more expedition ; but Morris Courtley stepped forward to the front of the scaffold, and raised his hand. " No — no," said the sheriff, " my dear sir, this is no time for a speech. Besides, after all, dear me, what is the good ?

I beg that you will consider, my good sir, the peace of the county. Now don't— don't, I beg of you." " Now, sir," said the hangman. " Hear him— hear him 1" yelled the mob. " Hear him first, if you hang him afterwards I Hear him 1" The rage of the vast assemblage terrified the hangman, who crouched at the feet of Morris Courtley as he shook off the odious /grasp that had been laid upon him by those dreadful hands. The sheriff shook so that he actually stopped the watch that he held in his hands, and then, as Morris Courtley still held up his right hand for silence, a universal shudder came over the multitude, and all was in a few moments as still as that grave to which the doomed man seemed so fast to be hurrying. the people swayed to and fro, and the yeomanry looked grim and sulky ; but they did their duty so far, that they kept the people from actually pressing on to the scaffold, which otherwise they would have done.

Had there been anything like unity of design among the mob — hail there been a leader, who, with a full knowledge of the populace, could have given expression to it by a judicious use of the immense force there collected, the execution of Morris Courtley might have been stayed in a moment ; but a mob is but a mob, and whenever did on achieve any great or useful purpose? The people yelled and snouted, and the snow now came down in a dense drift in their upturned faces ; but the yeomanry and the constabulary kept their ground. A couple of constables had come upon the platform, for the sheriff was quite unnerved, and the executioner was trembUng per ceptibly. " Come," they said to Courtley, and one took his right arm and the other took his left, and they tied his wrists, and then they led him beneath the gallows.

The hangman approached to perform his hideous office. The sheriff looked about him restlessly. " The clergyman ! Good gracious ! where is he?" " He has fainted away in the cart, if you please, sir," said one of the constables. " Dear me, how very wrong. How could he think of such a thing just now ? Oh, dear — oh, dear, what can be done ?" " I am here," said the clergyman ; and he tottered up the steps to the platform. " Well, my dear sir, now do say the prayers for the defunct, you know, and let us get this job over." " Oh, Heaven ! is there no hope ?" " No what? No rope ?" " Hope, sir, I said — hope !" " I beg your pardon, there is sueh a noise. No. All we have to do, is our duty. Now, reverend sir, for goodness gracious sake let us get this job over." The cleregyman fell upon his eknees on the scaffold, and beat his breast.

" Just Heaven !" he cried, "acquit me of any part or paticipation m this deep iniquity." "Amen!" said the sheriff, who did not hear what he said. i " I have little to say," began Morris, "very little; but that little I feel that, for the sake of those whom I leave behind me, and who claim kindred with me, I ought not to leave unsaid." " Hear him— hear him 1" " Oh, dear," said the sheriff, " be quiet !" " I stand here to meet death," added Courtley, " a shameful death in the faoe of hundreds, perhaps thousands, who know me, for an alleged offence that I never even dreamt of. I am innocent. I leave the legaoy, not of vengeance, but of justice, to all those who love me. The day will come when my innocence will be apparent ; and that it may come the sooner, let all who know me, and who bold out the right hand of fellowship to me in this world, do their Utmost " " Now — now," said the sheriff.

" I am ready," said Morris, and his hand dropped to his side. " Don't hang the man if he didn't do it," cried a voice, and then, as with one will, the crowd cried out — " Save him — save him 1" " There, yon see," said the sheriff to the governor, "that comes of these sort of people making speeches." " It could not be helped," said the governor. " God help us all, if he be innocent !" " Innocent, my good sir? Why, you saw the judge's black cap as well as I, and if that will not convince you that it is all according to law, I don't know what will." " I die for the alleged murder of Lord Francis Bloxdale," said Morris Courtley. " But I loved him ; I never lifted my hand against him, so help me, Heaven I" Now the sky got darker and darker still, and the wind was hushed, and the snow began to come down in targe frothy flakes — " Oh, let not the innocent perish."

" Amen ! Goodness gracious, Crackles, I be quick." The rope was adjusted around the neck of Morris Courtley ; and then you might have heard his heart beat, so still did the mob be come. One voice only bad called out—" They will do it I "and that voice seemed tohave fallen like a spell upon every heart. The horror, however, of the scene, appeared as though it had deprived all present of the power to interfere by word or action. " Are you ready," said the sheriff. " Yes, sir," said the hangman, as he dropped from the scaffold to go underneath it, and get hold of the shifting board. VICTIM OP CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. 7 " Innocent I — innocent " cried Courtley, as getting one hand free, he tore the nightcap from his face, and cast it at his feet, i "I am innocent!" " Now, Crackles, if you please.

Amen 1 Yes, good-day— I mean, now for it." " Yes, sir." The clergyman made a dart forward to catch Morris Courtley, but he ran against the sheriff, and they both fell. There was one shriek from the crowd, and the body of Courtley swung by the rope, as the board was dragged from beneath his I feet. The snow fell fast and thick, and the seasi fold, the body, the multitude, the common, and all beneath the influence of the dense drift, were powdered with the white particles. And so they hanged Morris Courtley, on a ■ cold day in February, Anno Domino 1751, on Southampton Common, for a murder, kind; reader, that he no more committed than you or I.

Chapter III. They Hans Morris Courtley's Body In Chains

Nobody who thought at all about the matter considered that young, handsome, brave, and accomplished Morris Courtley would, after all, be hanged upon Southampton Common. Those who came to see the sight, perhaps, were not of the most thinking class. And, indeed, some of them of the very lower order, indeed, felt a secret satisfaction at the idea that the civil law, as they called it, sacrificed the rich and the educated, as well as the poor and the ignorant. This they thought, before they saw poor Morris Courtley upon that temporary scaffold. But when they looked in his noble, handsome countenance — when they heard his few candid and earnest words, they could not think him guilty ; and so it was with anguish that all in that great 3welling multitude saw him die. Swinging to and fro in the keen wind, covering up fast with snow, till scarcely an outline of the human form was risible, the body hung.

Horrible I — oh, most horrible I What potent spell will restore motion and sensation to those limbs again ? — what medicament —what skill of learned men ? — what subtle secrets of science will open those eyes again upon the world ? All, all is over ! The pure spirit has gone surely, with all its wrongs, to its God, there to find no false accusers — no fallible judges, but that holy calm — that exquisite serenity which is not of this world, and which the turbulent spirit, vexed by the strifes and the collisions of life, may not comprehend. The snow-drift and the north-west wind — it was only the merest trifle westerly — came OD savagely now ; aud amid a whirl of snow, sleet, and misty vapours, the dense multitude took its way from the Common. To and fro gently swayed the body. Tho carts and the temporary platform had all disappeared.

The hangman alone, with a strange, wild-looking lad, whom he called Jokes, no one knew why, for his appearance was anything but provocative of a joke, remained. The lad was about sixteen years of age. He was preternaturally tall for his age, and his limbs, and body, and head appeared to be so much at variance with each other in his attitudes, that if tbe hangman had picked him np by fragments in some churchyard, and had the art to put them together, and then to imbue the hideous creation with a 6trange vitality, he could not have contrived a more odd-looking specimen of humanity than Jokes. An immense shock of red hair covered the head and shoulders of this lad ; and what with the snow and the cold, his eyes were bloodshot and watery; and he made the most hideous grimaces as be dodged round the gallows-tree to protect himself as much as it was possible to do from the cutting blast.

The hangman had a sack over his head and shoulders, and squatted upon the ground, smoking a short, black pipe, and looking tolerably composed, as his work was all but done for the day. "Jokes," he siad. " Yah 1" howled Jokes, " it's in my eye again." ". Hold your row. Look along the road, and see if you can see Tom Miller, with his donkey-cart." " Shan't 1" "How dare you? Now, for half a pin I'd — But no matter. The time will come. We shall see, my boy — we shall see how much you will make by such behaviour to me — Hal we shall see." " I don't care whether we see or not," said Jokes. The hangman now rose, and shading his eyes as well as he could with his hand, he said — " Ah, he is coming. I can just see the glimmer of his pipe through the snow-drift. What would a man do without his pipe ou such a day as this ?"

" They will fit me, I know," said Jokes. " What are you talking about?" " His boots. The boots of the dead man. When you cut him down you must give me his boots." " Idiot, don't you know as well as I do, that he is to be hung in chains ?" "Oh, is he? Ah I" " Oh, is he, ah, indeed ? I thought every fool knew that, but it appears that you didn't, so I tell you he is. That's the sen tance. Do you think I would have stood here in all this rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, and I don't know what beside, if it wasn't my duty to do so, eh, stupid ?" Number ary Pr»«.nt.-LJ faT»ATTg ■>rr— y » „„j <« t.^^.t-.^. ■ «■. t.i^t,^ "Go along I" " I tell you what it is, young fellow, I am bringing you up to a profession tbat will make a man of you, and if you don't behave yourself a little, more genteeler, 111 let you go, and you will be a vagabond.

Do you hear that ? — a vagabond !" " Oh, don't bother." " Ah ! that's all very well, when you have — Oh, here is Tom Miller at last — I can't take up my time with you ; but I tell you what you will have to do, Jokes." Jokes shook himself like an angry bear, and egrowled out something quite unintelligi bly. " Yon will have," continued the hangman, " to climb up to the top of tbat tree." "What, up there?" "Just so, and then you will have to put the mask on him." let us set about it now at once, and get it over, as you say. Jokes ?" " What now ?" " Get up. You can climb like a squirrel, when you like." "Shan't!" " What's that you say ?" " That I shan't ; so don't bother. Go along with you, do.' The hangman caught up a piece of iron, and advanced on the boy. " Say that again, Will you ?" " Give me the boots, then.

Don't hit a fellow. Give me the boots, and then I'll do it." " You wretoh ! You have no more feeling than a pig. So you want the dead man's boots, do you ? You unfeeling reprobate 1 You hard-hearted wretch 1" "Get along, do." " Well, well, if you have the heart to take his boots, take them ; and, Jokes, as you are taking his boots, which is one of the coolest and unfeelings things as I know of, why — I — I — think I'll have his stocking, and " "What mask?" " Why the iron — But I forgot, poor infant — he don't know nothing, yet. He never saw a man hung in chains — poor in fant. — Ah, be don't know." "Oh, go along 1" cried Jokes, shaking himself, and blowing upon his blue fingers, for blue they were, with the nipping cold. " Go along, do 1" By this time, a man in a fustian coat, and a moleskin cap on his head, leading a donkey, to which was harnessed a cart of the roughest and rudest construction, reached the foot of the gallows-tree.

"Woa! Won, will you!" The donkey paused, and flapped the snow out of his ears as well as he could. " Well, here I am," esaid Tom Miller, " and the sooner this job is over the better. Here's the irons— Woa, will you!" The man let down the tilt-board of the cart, and there rolled out of it on to the snow-covered ground a quantity of black iron bars, with chains and loose pieces hang ing to oddly-shaped long ribs of metal, an huge rings of the same, for the purpose of encircling the body of the dead man. "Hold hard!" said Tom Miller. "I have a eye to his coat." " His waistcoat !" screamed Jokes. " 111 have his waistcoat. Mind, master, I said his waistcoat first " " Confound your impudence, what do you mean by that?" "Hold hard! Woa I" cried Mr. Miller. 'Somebody is a coming." Scarcely making auy sound upon the snow, although the horse was at a gallop, a mounted man made his way to the spot upon which this horrible wrangle for the habiliments of the dead was going on.

They all knew him. It was the chief constable of the district, and as he reined in his horse, he cried out in a sharp voice — " What, ain't this job done yet ? Come, my men, look alive about it. It's a matter of form, but the law says do it, and it must be done." Upon this the three set to work without making any further remark. Jokes sulkily clambered up to the cross-tree of the gal lows, and, with some assistance from ,the hangman and Miller, placed the rough irons upon the figure, connecting them by chains and hooks, which the smith had made for the purpose. "They ought to be welded," said the haneegman, rubbing his chin in a thoughtful manner. " So they ought," said Tom Miller, " but the smith wouldn't come, and so, what was to be done ? He says they can all be hooked on easy enough, and he said that if he did come there would have been no such a thing as bringing a pot of fire with him thus far, in such a snow as this ; and I don't suppose as there would."

The body now presented a strange appear ance in the irons, but it hung much more steadily, as the additional weight resisted the keen air that before had driven it from side to side. It was only occasionally now that it swayed a little, and then the irons would jingle together with a terrible sig nificance. " It's awkward." "Rather; but the sooner it's done the sooner we shall get back to the Black Lion." "Hal hai" laughed Jokes, "they won't let me and master into the Black Lion. Hal ha! they ? "Hold your tonanie, will youi" shouted the hangman. " I have a house of my own to go to, and I don't want to cross the thresh old of ever a house in all Southampton, not I. Come, if we are to do this piece of work, The snow-drift which seemed for awhile to have paused, came on afresh now with such a fierce and mad vehemence that the officer's horse could hardly egtand against it ; and setting his teeth, he muttered a few hearty curses, and then calling out, " Is it ■AMtft *■«_<■ AAV JV I A W«ifflTta.jCfMfllrff«lfl THE SECRETARY. 9 done?" he turned his horse's head towards the town.

" Yes, sir. All's settled now," said the hangman. Without another word the officer set off at a full gallop. of the face of the haneeging man, It flew off again with a scream of disappointment. There was some strange instinct which Srevented that bird of prey from touching [orris Courtley. The twilight died away quickly, and a dark night shrouded the face of nature. There was quite, for a time, a strange re fleeted radiance from the snow, and then all was gone like a dream ; and earth aad sky appeared mingled together in one black confusion. " The boots 1" cried Jokes. Even as he spoke the sky darkened. Dense masses of clouds, fringed with an ominous yellow-looking edge, covered up the southern sky, and seemed to pause over the common. For a few moments the air was so still that the cutting wind which had made itself so very manifest only a Uttle time before, seemed to be completely stopped in its progress.

Then there was a strange rushing sound, and down came the snow like a white mantle over all things. As the wind set with a sudden gust from the town, the old clock of St. Mary's Church struck the hour of seven. A faint light showed itself some distance off in the intense darkness. It moved along some two feet from the snowy surface, casting a strange halo around it. After a time it stopped ; but it was not far from the gallows when it did so. The common was devoted to the dead. The snow piled itself up a foot high at the foot of the gallows-tree. It piled itself up upon every ridge and inequality in the dress or the chains in which the mute figure was hung. Into a conical shape it heaped itself on the cross-tree of the gallows ; and gradually then, as minute after minute passed, the strong upright piece of wood to which hung the body, appeared as though it were slowly sinking into the earth.

It was the snow which was piling itself up around it. A few frightened birds screeched past the dismal spectacle. The dense shower of white flakes hardly per mitted the sound to vibrate through the air ; and so for the space of four hours the snow came down upon the common, till the shrubs were all but concealed, and the trees looked short and stunted, as they rose black and wiry and dead looking from the pure white surface around them. There was a faint murmur of voices, and then the light came on again ; and suddenly some one cried — " It is here._ God help us all, it is here 1" A loud shriek rang upon the night air, as the beams of the lantern, for that was what it was, was held up; and the furthest spreading of its beams fell upon the hanged man. "There he is! Oh, there he is ! My brother, Morris I" shrieked the voice again.

" Oh, Morris — Morris I" Those who had heard the voice of the boy who had hung for a brief space round tha neck of the condemned man, as he went to death, would have known those shrieking, wailing tones to be the same. " Don't, Master Ned— don't," said a rough voice ; "you said you wouldn't, and here you are a -doing of it." As for the swinging figure upon the gallows, it seemed as though there would have been no difficulty in standing below and touching it with your hand, so much lower had it seemed to drop to the earth. " Brother Morris!— brother Morris I Come down— oh, come down to me 1" " There you go, again, Ned ; and you premised me as you wouldn't. Come — come, do you want to frighten my two pals here, who, all for the love of me, have come upon this errand?" And now the dim twilight of that winter's day had come.

The brief sun had set, and although the snow-storm had abated, still gi;eat quantities were caught up by a fierce wind that had risen, and dashed hither and thither with mad vehemence. " No— not" sobbed the boy, " but— I— wish I were dead, like poor Morris. Is ha dead, Roots?" " Ay, dead enough, my poor boy." "But — but he was so strong, and so handsome, and he loved us so." "Like enough — like enough; but he's gone his way, for all that" " And we, too, loved him. Oh, how wa did love him I We used to look up to Morris always since father died ; and what he said was always right ; and now he— he will never, never say a word more 1" " Never, my i»or Ned — never ! But come, now ; you wait here, while me and my pals go and do the job." "Yes, I will wait. Oh, God!— oh, God, kill me 1" A dull, heavy booming noise would occasionally, too, make itself heard in the air.

It was the roar of the waters of the Solent, and of Southampton Water, as they were dashed about in wild frenzy by a north-west gale. Oh, that was a fearful night 1 The wind was now fearful enough to swing the body to and fro upon the gallows-tree ; and the chains rattled and jammed against each other. A carrion bird hovered ronnd the head of the hanging man. It was the eyes of the victim tbat it wanted, as a deli cious morsel ere it tried to roost in the depth of the woods across the water. But as often as it flapped its wings almost to the touching " Now, there you go again." "No— noi I won't— I won'^ Roots! Tou No." 2. a glance up and down the upright beam of wood, he said — " Let him come gently, Joe: lay hold of him when you see the consarn on the go. " "All's right." " There you go, then," said Roots, as h« swung the axe once round his head, and then sent its blade deep into the solid timber.