Gates of Paradise

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘Tha’s true, too,’ Johnnie said. ‘But then again, if we says nothin’ that means the trooper will win. He’s got a mortal loud voice an’ the regiment behind him an’ he means to have his revenge. He never made no secret of it.’

  ‘He’s got the duke on his side too, don’t forget,’ Mr Hosier said. ‘Mr Hayley was sure of it. Soon as he saw the letter he said the duke took a poor view of him an’ a poor view of Mr Blake an’ ’twas a bad day when he was chose to sit in the seat a’ judgement. I’m for silence too in the light a’ that opinion. There’s no sense courtin’ disaster.’

  ‘What we got to consider,’ Johnnie told them, thinking hard, ‘is what will happen if we do keep quiet. An’ I tell you, that what will happen is that Mr Blake will be sent to prison. If we keeps our mouths shut an’ says nothin’ we might just as well lock the prison door on him. Which to my way a’ looking at it, would be a cowardly act. Fact, the more I think of it, the more cowardly it looks, an’ foolish besides, if you considers it. The truth of it is, if we keeps our mouths shut we’ll be letting that Scolfield bully us, an’ I’m damned if I wants to be bullied by a drunken soldier. Why should we do his work for him? What’s he ever done for us, besides get drunk an’ spew in the hedges? Is that the sort a’ man you wants to see get his own way? No, you don’t an’ no more do I, an’ that’s the truth of it. Whereas Mr Blake’s a different kettle a’ fish altogether. We knows Mr Blake. We’ve known him for years. He’s been a good neighbour an’ a fine upstandin’ hardworkin’ man, what never put a foot out a’ line in all the years he was here, which you got to admit. Well, now we got to make a choice between ’em, whether we likes it or not. Stay silent an’ give Private Scolfield what he wants and be known for a pack a’ cowards, or speak up an’ show our mettle, an’ keep our neighbour out a’ prison.’

  They were rallying. He could see from the expressions on their faces that they were shifting their opinions. ‘But what if we stands up for him an’ the duke don’t take no notice an’ he gets sent to prison just the same?’ Mrs Taylor wanted to know.

  ‘He won’t be,’ Betsy said, finding her voice at last. ‘On account of ’tis trial by jury, twelve good men an’ true, an’ if the jury says you’re innocent, tha’s what you are an’ the judge can’t sentence you.’

  Mrs Taylor was surprised and impressed. ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘So,’ Johnnie urged, ‘if we all stand together an’ we all says the same thing, we can prove the troopers wrong no matter how loud they shout. It’ll be their word against ours and there’s two of them and nine of us. Yes, the duke can pick us off one by one, or any of our other landlords can, come to that, like they done in Bersted, there’s no arguin’ with that, but not all of us and not all at once. There’s nine of us here and nine’s a fair number. Enough to be safe in.’

  The nine faces looked round at one another, sensing the power of their number. And watching them, Johnnie knew that they were going to agree, despite what it might cost them, and he was full of admiration for them.

  Christmas was quiet that year, for Mr Hayley only had half a dozen guests and was miserable at the thought of what might happen to his dear friend Blake and distressed to have heard how ill poor Catherine was.

  ‘Sick with worry,’ he explained to his guests. ‘Brought to death’s door by it. Oh, what a weary world this is.’

  ‘Come riding,’ they suggested. ‘’Twill cheer you.’

  So they went riding every day and he told them he was obliged to them for their care of him and admitted that he felt happier on horseback than anywhere else on earth, ‘even in these dark days’ and when they parted from him at the end of their stay, he smiled and joked and told them he had been much improved by their kindly company. It was no surprise to anyone in the house that he decided to go for a good long invigorating ride on the day before the trial.

  ‘All is prepared,’ he said to Mrs Beke. ‘The witnesses are to travel in Mr Cosen’s wagon and I shall ride. Johnnie Boniface will accompany me on Bruno and then Mr Blake can have him when the trial is over. Miss Poole has agreed to have supper ready for us when all is done and we shall ride across to Lavant together. All will be well, I am sure of it.’

  His horse was in a sprightly mood that Mrs Beke found rather alarming, especially as her master had that dratted umbrella slung over his arm. ‘Would you not be better to wear your new hat,’ she suggested. ‘It is stronger than the old one and would offer you more protection – should it come on to rain.’

  He allowed himself to be persuaded, not because the hat was stronger but because it was more becoming. As he rode out of the gates, he lifted it from his head and waved it jauntily.

  Half an hour later he was back, slumped over the saddle, white in the face and with blood streaming from his forehead. ‘Johnnie must ride into Chichester for Doctor Guy, I fear,’ he said. ‘I am not well.’

  Then what a coming and going there was, with the master led into the front parlour and eased into a chair by the fire where he groaned and held his head, and servants dispatched in every direction: Susie to the bedroom for the brandy bottle, Johnnie to the stables to saddle Bruno, Nan to the kitchen to fetch a bowl of warm water and towels and a length of lint to staunch the bleeding and the boot boy to the store cupboard for a roll of drugget to protect the carpet.

  ‘Such a thing!’ Mrs Beke said, as the required goods were brought into the parlour and placed before her, ‘and for it to happen today of all days. I don’t know what the world is coming to, indeed I don’t. Hold your head quite still Mr Hayley, dear, while I get this dressing in place and then you shall have some brandy. Dearie, dearie me what a thing to have happened.’

  Dr Guy was remarkably quick, following Bruno in at the gate after little more than half an hour, and once he was in the parlour he set to work at once to reassure his old friend as he examined his bleeding head.

  ‘You must patch me up, my dear friend,’ Hayley said to him, adding dramatically, ‘for living or dying I must make a public appearance at the trial of my friend Blake.’

  ‘If that is so,’ the doctor smiled, reaching for a length of catgut, ‘I must make speed to insert such stitches as are needful to ensure that you are delivered to the Guildhall alive.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  William Blake took the stagecoach to Chichester on the day before his trial so as to be in good time to attend. He booked a room in one of the cheaper hotels, spent an anxious night watching the moon describe its long parabola across the Sussex sky and rose early to prepare himself for his ordeal. But his careful planning came to nothing, for when he presented himself at the Guildhall at the appointed time, clean, newly shaved and having wound himself up to a high pitch of emotional preparedness, he discovered that the trial was to be delayed until four o’clock on the following day, which meant that he had to kick his heels in Chichester for more than twenty-four hours. He wrote to his poor Catherine to explain the delay and to hope she was feeling a little better, and then walked about the town, prowling up and down its four main streets and circling its walls, round and round and round, getting steadily more depressed and agitated, until darkness forced him to retreat to his hotel room again and to the bed in which he still couldn’t sleep. By the time he finally walked across the park to his fate on the following afternoon, he was in a very poor state indeed.

  The Guildhall stood in damp and disconcerting isolation under a grey sky in the middle of a grey field. In ordinary circumstances he would have enjoyed the sight of it for, having been the chancel of an ancient monastery, it was built in the Gothic style, which he’d always admired, but on that day it seemed forbidding in the extreme, its stone walls a sign of entrenched and implacable power, its stone-flagged floor and high Gothic windows cold as the punishment that was sure to come. With every single one of those windows shuttered, it was dark inside the building even with a flutter of candles on every table, and it took a minute or two for him to become accustomed to the change of light and even longer to take
in all the details of the busy scene before him.

  The space inside the building was divided by a wooden screen, in the centre of which was a double gate, which now stood open to admit the participants. Beyond it, and in front of what had once been the high altar, there was a dais where the judge and his six accompanying magistrates were sitting, he in his red robes and full-bottomed wig, looking larger and more powerful than anyone else at the hall, they in top coats, winter hats and stout boots, for it was as cold inside the building as it had been out in the field, and all of them talking and laughing together as if they were members of a club at some happy social gathering. The sight of them was more chilling to Blake than the cold air. Below the dais was another long table where the two counsels, also wigged and gowned, were pretending to ignore one another, while their solicitors sat beside them shuffling papers, and behind them were the benches for the witnesses. He was encouraged to see so many of his old neighbours: Mr Grinder in a huge winter coat with a triple collar like a coachman; Betsy in her scarlet cloak sitting beside her mother who was wearing a hat like the one Mary Wollstonecraft used to wear; William the ostler bundled up in waistcoats and jackets like an over-wrapped parcel; Johnnie Boniface blowing on his hands to warm them. He tried to catch their eyes but they were all too busy talking to one another or looking round them at the judge and jury, who were ranged on two long benches, to the left of the judgement seat, looking like the tradesmen and labourers they were and plainly overawed by all the pomp and importance that surrounded them. And in the middle of it all, set apart and facing the judges and lawyers, was an empty box just big enough for a single occupant, where the witnesses would take the stand. Without doubt or any possibility of avoidance, he was in a court of law.

  He stood before the gate, trying to still the anxious trembling of his heart, and emanations rose ice-white and sinister to coil about his body and numb his limbs. But then his counsel looked up, saw him and strode across the stone flags to welcome him. ‘Mr Blake, my dear sir, I trust I see you well.’

  ‘I am the better for seeing you, Mr Rose,’ Blake said, ‘although I could have wished our meeting anywhere but here.’

  ‘Tush man, have no fear,’ the counsellor said. ‘We are well prepared and will prevail.’ His Scottish accent was a comfort to Blake for it showed that he was an outsider too and not a member of the club at the high table. ‘However,’ he went on, ‘I should tell you that one of our judges is Mr Quantock who, as you probably remember, is the magistrate who took Scolfield’s original deposition.’

  ‘A bad omen,’ Blake said.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ his counsellor said. ‘Do not forget that you are being tried by jury and juries are unpredictable by their nature. That is their great strength.’

  The two soldiers were arriving, pushing through the wooden doors as if they were storming a citadel, bright in their red jackets, blue facings rich in the candlelight, buttons polished to a gleam, epaulettes dangling gold, wearing their white doeskin trousers for the occasion with their red greatcoats slung about their shoulders and looking extremely tall and imposing under their black cocked hats. Their counsel was on his feet at once to greet them, which he did very loudly, and to lead them in military procession to the seats beside him. They were causing a stir and they knew it and enjoyed it.

  Blake sat beside Counsellor Rose, as far away from his adversaries as he could get and tried to appear unconcerned. But the usher was calling the court to order, banging on the flagstones with his staff and singing ‘Silence in the court!’ in a very loud voice. ‘The case of William Blake engraver versus Private Scolfield of His Majesty’s First Regiment of Dragoons, His Honour the Duke of Richmond presiding.’ His ordeal was about to begin.

  It was humiliating to be named so publicly and loudly, alarming to watch the gates being closed and to know that they were all shut in, demoralising to realise that all eyes had turned in his direction and that most seemed unfriendly. He looked along the line of judges, trying to guess which one was Mr Quantock and saw that the gentleman sitting at the end of the table was Mr Poynz, who lived in Aldwick and was an old customer of his, and that encouraged him a little. But even so the chains of torment held him shackled and his heart shook in his breast.

  The formalities were gone through, the two counsels were required to identify themselves, as Counsellor Rose and Counsellor Bowen, and the charge was read. ‘That on the twelfth day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and three, War was carrying on between the persons exercising the powers of Government in France and our said Lord the King, to wit, at the parish of Felpham in the County of Sussex, one WILLIAM BLAKE, late of the said Parish of Felpham in the said County of Sussex, being a Wicked Seditious and Evil disposed person and greatly disaffected to our said Lord the King and Wickedly and Seditiously intending to bring our said Lord the King into great Hatred Contempt and Scandal with all his liege and faithful subjects of this realm and the Soldiers of our said Lord the King to Scandalize and Vilify and intending to withdraw the fidelity and allegiance of his said Majesty’s Subjects from his said Majesty and to encourage and invite as far as in him lay the enemies of our said Lord the King to invade this Realm and Unlawfully and Wickedly to seduce and encourage his Majesty’s Subjects to resist and oppose our said Lord the King.’

  The sonorous words and the convoluted manner of their delivery were enough to strike terror into any one, let alone an accused man, and, as if that weren’t enough, Counsellor Bowen stood up at once to underline the severity of the charge and spell out its implications.

  He would, he said, produce incontrovertible proof that the accused had uttered an abominable and seditious calumny upon His Majesty the King and all his subjects, that the words he had uttered were: – damn the King (meaning our said Lord the King) and Country (meaning this Realm) his Subjects (meaning the subjects of our said Lord the King) and all you Soldiers (meaning the Soldiers of our said Lord the King) are sold for slaves. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, inclining his bulk towards the jury, ‘this is a very uncommon accusation. It is foreign to our natures and opposite to our habits. Do you not hear every day, from the mouths of thousands in the streets, the exclamation of “God Save the King!” It is the effusion of every Englishman’s heart. The charge therefore laid in the indictment is an offence of so extraordinary a nature, that evidence of the most clear, positive, and unobjectionable kind will be necessary to induce you to believe it, which I shall presently lay before you. Extraordinary vices, gentlemen, are very rare, which is all the more reason why they should be dealt with swiftly and decisively, that their malignancy – for that is what it is – should be rooted out from our loyal and God-fearing society and that any unprincipled, malignant and evil wretch, such as the man who stands here accused, should, if found guilty, as I truly believe will be the case, be punished for his seditious utterances. Truly, I wonder that a counsellor of such eminence as my esteemed colleague, Mr Rose, should undertake to defend such a wretch, when he must surely be aware of the atrocity and malignity of the crime of which he is accused.’ Then, looking plumply pleased with himself, he smiled at the jurymen, bowed to the duke and sat down.

  There was a flutter of interest as Mr Rose stood to make his opening statement. He began smoothly and with great courtesy. ‘I perfectly agree with my learned friend,’ he said, ‘with regard to the atrocity and malignity of the charge now laid before you. I am also much obliged to him for having given me the credit that no justification or extenuation of such a charge would be attempted by me, supposing the charge could be proved to your satisfaction – and I must be permitted to say, that it is a credit which I deserve. If there be a man, who can be found guilty of such a transgression, he must apply to some other person to defend him. My task is to show that my client is not guilty of the words imputed to him. We stand here not merely in form, but in sincerity and truth, to declare that we are not guilty. There is no doubt that the crime which is laid to the charge of my client is a crime of the most e
xtraordinary malignity – I chose the term malignity purposely – for if the offence be clearly proved I am willing to allow that public malignity and indelible disgrace are fixed upon my client. If on the other hand when you have heard the witnesses, which I shall call, you should be led to believe that it is a fabrication for the purpose of answering some scheme of revenge, you will have little difficulty in deciding that it is a still greater malignity on the part of the witness Scolfield.’

  It was a skilled answer and Blake was cheered by it, but the chains still bit, for now Private Scolfield was being asked to take the stand. There was much neck craning on the public benches, as the soldier removed his cocked hat, put it under his arm and marched to the witness box.

  He agreed to his name and rank and allowed that Mr Bowden should take him back ‘to the day in question, when you were in Mr Blake’s garden, were you not?’

  ‘I was, sir.’

  ‘Would you tell the court what took you there?’

  ‘Well, sir, I walked across from The Fox Inn…’

  ‘Where you were billeted.’

  ‘Where I was billeted, yes, sir. I walked across, like I said, sir, with a message for the ostler. He was helping in the garden on account of there wasn’t much work in the inn at the time.’

  ‘Did you deliver your message?’

  ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘And what then?’

  ‘Well, then, sir, Mr Blake, he come out the cottage and he sees me there and starts shouting at me.’

  ‘Had you said anything to him to occasion such behaviour?’

  ‘No, sir. I had not.’

  ‘Quite. Pray continue. Can you recall the words he used when he started to shout at you?’

  ‘I can indeed, sir, on account of they was such shameful words, seditious words, words against King and Country, sir, words what in my opinion, ought never to have been said.’