Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Not one word of invective, of eloquence, of ornament, or of any attempt at pathos, did our barrister mix with this statement. It was his object to put the jury and the court clearly in possession of facts, which, unadorned, he knew would appear stronger than if encumbered by any flowers of oratory.

  Having produced the deed, conveying the Hampshire estate to his father, Alfred called evidence to prove the signature of Sir John Percy, and the handwriting of the witnesses. He farther proved that this conveyance had been formerly seen among his father’s papers at Percy-hall, showed it had been recently recovered from Mr. Falconer’s box of papers, and explained how it had been put there by mistake, and he supported this fact by the evidence of Commissioner Falconer, father-in-law to the defendant. — Alfred rested his cause on these proofs, and waited, anxious to know what defence the defendant was prepared to make.

  To his astonishment and consternation, Sir Robert’s counsel produced another deed of Sir John Percy’s, revoking the deed by which Sir John had made over his Hampshire estate to his younger grandson, Mr. Percy; it appearing by a clause in the original deed that a power for this purpose had been therein reserved. This deed of revocation was handed to the judge and to the jury, that it might be examined. The two deeds were carefully compared. The nicest inspection could not discover any difference in the signature or seal. When Mr. Friend examined them, he was in dismay. The instrument appeared perfect. Whilst the jury were occupied in this examination, Mr. Friend and Alfred had a moment to consult together.

  “We are undone,” whispered Mr. Friend, “if they establish this deed of revocation — it sets us aside for ever.”

  Neither Mr. Friend nor Alfred had any doubt of its being a forgery, but those, who had plunged thus desperately in guilt, would probably be provided with perjury sufficient to support their iniquity.

  “If we had been prepared!” said Mr. Friend: “but how could we be prepared for such a stroke? Even now, if we had time, we could summon witnesses who would discredit theirs, but—”

  “Do not despair,” said Alfred: “still we have a chance that their own witnesses may cross each other, or contradict themselves. Falsehood, with all its caution, is seldom consistent.”

  The trial proceeded. Alfred, in the midst of the fears and sighs of his friends, and of the triumphant smiles and anticipating congratulations of his enemies, continued to keep both his temper and his understanding cool. His attention was fixed upon the evidence produced, regardless of the various suggestions whispered or written to him by ignorant or learned advisers.

  William Clerke, the only surviving witness to the deed of revocation produced by Sir Robert, was the person on whose evidence this cause principally rested. He was now summoned to appear, and room was made for him. He was upwards of eighty years of age: he came slowly into court, and stood supporting himself upon his staff, his head covered with thin gray hairs, his countenance placid and smiling, and his whole appearance so respectable, so venerable, as to prepossess, immediately, the jury and the court in his favour.

  Alfred Percy could scarcely believe it possible, that such a man as this could be the person suborned to support a forgery. After being sworn, he was desired to sit down, which he did, bowing respectfully to the court. Sir Robert Percy’s counsel proceeded to examine him as to the points they desired to establish.

  “Your name, sir, is William Clerke, is it not?”

  “My name is William Clerke,” answered the old man, in a feeble voice.

  “Did you ever see this paper before?” showing him the deed.

  “I did — I was present when Sir John Percy signed it — he bid me witness it, that is, write my name at the bottom, which I did, and then he said, ‘Take notice, William Clerke, this is a deed, revoking the deed by which I made over my Hampshire estate to my youngest grandson, Lewis Percy.’”

  The witness was going on, but the counsel interrupted.

  “You saw Sir John Percy sign this deed — you are sure of that?”

  “I am sure of that.”

  “Is this Sir John Percy’s signature?”

  “It is — the very same I saw him write; and here is my own name, that he bid me put just there.”

  “You can swear that this is your handwriting?”

  “I can — I do.”

  “Do you recollect what time Sir John Percy signed this deed?”

  “Yes; about three or four days before his death.”

  “Very well, that is all we want of you, Mr. Clerke.”

  Alfred Percy desired that Clerke should be detained in court, that he might cross-examine him. The defendants went on, produced their evidence, examined all their witnesses, and established all they desired.

  Then it came to Alfred’s turn to cross-examine the witnesses that had been produced by his adversary. When William Clerke re-appeared, Alfred regarding him stedfastly, the old man’s countenance changed a little; but still he looked prepared to stand a cross-examination. In spite of all his efforts, however, he trembled.

  “Oh! you are trembling on the brink of the grave!” said Alfred, addressing him in a low, solemn tone: “pause, and reflect, whilst you are allowed a moment’s time. A few years must be all you have to spend in this world. A few moments may take you to another, to appear before a higher tribunal — before that Judge, who knows our hearts, who sees into yours at this instant.”

  The staff in the old man’s hand shook violently.

  Sir Robert Percy’s counsel interrupted — said that the witness should not be intimidated, and appealed to the court. The judge was silent, and Alfred proceeded, “You know that you are upon your oath — these are possibly the last words you may ever utter — look that they be true. You know that men have been struck dead whilst uttering falsehoods. You are upon your oath — did you see Sir John Percy sign this deed?”

  The old man attempted in vain to articulate.

  “Give him time to recollect,” cried the counsel on the opposite side: “give him leave to see the writing now he has his spectacles.”

  He looked at the writing twice — his head and hands shaking so that he could not fix his spectacles. The question was repeated by the judge. The old man grew pale as death. Sir Robert Percy, just opposite to him, cleared his throat to catch the witness’s attention, then darted at him such a look as only he could give.

  “Did I see Sir John Percy sign this deed?” repeated William Clerke: “yes, I did.”

  “You hear, my lord, you hear,” cried Sir Robert’s counsel, “the witness says he did — there is no occasion farther to intimidate this poor old man. He is not used to speak before such an audience. There is no need of eloquence — all we want is truth. The evidence is positive. My lord, with your lordship’s leave, I fancy we may dismiss him.”

  They were going to hurry him away, but Alfred Percy said that, with the permission of the court, he must cross-examine that witness farther, as the whole event of the trial depended upon the degree of credit that might be given to his evidence.

  By this time the old man had somewhat recovered himself; he saw that his age and reverend appearance still prepossessed the jury in his favour, and from their looks, and from the whispers near him, he learned that his tremor and hesitation had not created any suspicion of guilt, but had been attributed rather to the sensibility of virtue, and the weakness of age. And, now that the momentary emotion which eloquence had produced on his mind had subsided, he recollected the bribe that had been promised to him. He was aware that he had already sworn what, if he contradicted, might subject him to be prosecuted for perjury. He now stood obstinately resolved to persevere in his iniquity. The first falsehoods pronounced and believed, the next would be easy.

  “Your name is William Clerke, and this,” said Alfred (pointing to the witness’s signature), “is your handwriting?”

  “Yes, I say it is.”

  “You can write then?” (putting a pen into his hand) “be so good as to write a few words in the presence of the court.” He took t
he pen, but after making some fruitless attempts, replied, “I am too old to write — I have not been able to write my name these many years — Indeed! sir, indeed! you are too hard upon one like me. God knows,” said he, looking up to Heaven, some thought with feeling, some suspected with hypocrisy—”God knows, sir, I speak the truth, and nothing but the truth. Have you any more questions to put to me? I am ready to tell all I know. What interest have I to conceal any thing?” continued he, his voice gaining strength and confidence as he went on repeating the lesson which he had been taught.

  “It was long, a long while ago,” he said, “since it had all happened; but thank Heaven, his memory had been spared him, and he remembered all that had passed, the same as if it was but yesterday. He recollected how Sir John looked, where he sat, what he said when he signed this deed; and, moreover, he had often before heard of a dislike Sir John had taken to his younger grandson — ay, to that young gentleman’s father,” looking at Alfred; “and I was very sorry to hear it — very sorry there should be any dispute in the family, for I loved them all,” said he, wiping his eyes—”ay, I loved ’em all, and all alike, from the time they were in their cradles. I remember too, once, Sir John said to me, ‘William Clerke,’ says he, ‘you are a faithful lad’ — for I was a lad once—”

  Alfred had judiciously allowed the witness to go on as far as he pleased with his story, in the expectation that some exaggeration and contradiction would appear; but the judge now interrupted the old man, observing that this was nothing to the purpose — that he must not take up the time of the court with idle tales, but that if he had any thing more to give in evidence respecting the deed, he should relate it.

  The judge was thought to be severe; and the old man, after glancing his eye on the jury, bowed with an air of resignation, and an appearance of difficulty, which excited their compassion.

  “We may let him go now, my lord, may not we?” said Sir Robert Percy’s counsel.

  “With the permission of his lordship, I will ask one other question,” said Alfred.

  Now it should be observed, that after the first examination of this witness, Alfred had heard him say to Mr. Sharpe, “They forgot to bring out what I had to say about the seal.” To which Sharpe had replied, “Enough without it.” Alfred had examined the seal, and had observed that there was something underneath it — through a small hole in the parchment he saw something between the parchment and the sealing-wax.

  “You were present, I think you say, Mr. Clerke, not only when this deed was signed, but when it was sealed?”

  “I was, sir,” cried Clerke, eager to bring out this part of the evidence, as it had been prepared for him by Sir Robert; “I surely was; and I remember it particularly, because of a little remarkable circumstance: Sir John, God bless him! — I think I see him now — My lord, under this seal,” continued the old man, addressing himself to the judge, and putting his shrivelled finger upon the seal, “under this very seal Sir John put a sixpence — and he called upon me to observe him doing it — for, my lord, it is my opinion, he thought then of what might come to pass — he had a sort of a foreboding of this day. And now, my lord, order them, if you please, to break the seal — break it before them all, — and if there is not the sixpence under it, why this deed is not Sir John’s, and this is none of my writing, and,” cried he, lifting up his hands and eyes, “I am a liar, and perjured.”

  There was a profound silence. The seal was broken. The sixpence appeared. It was handed in triumph, by Sir Robert Percy’s counsel, to the jury and to the judge. There seemed to be no longer a doubt remaining in the minds of the jury — and a murmur of congratulation among the partisans of Sir Robert seemed to anticipate the verdict.

  “’Tis all over, I fear,” whispered Friend to Alfred. “Alfred, you have done all that could be done, but they have sworn through every thing — it is over with us.”

  “Not yet,” said Alfred. Every eye turned upon him, some from pity, some from curiosity, to see how he bore his defeat. At length, when there was silence, he begged to be permitted to look at the sixpence. The judge ordered that it should be shown to him. He held it to the light to examine the date of the coin; he discovered a faint impression of a head on the sixpence, and, upon closer inspection, he made out the date, and showed clearly that the date of the coin was later than the date of the deed: so that there was an absolute impossibility that this sixpence could have been put under the seal of the deed by Sir John.

  The moment Alfred stated this fact, the counsel on the opposite side took the sixpence, examined it, threw down his brief, and left the court. People looked at each other in astonishment. The judge ordered that William Clerke should be detained, that he might be prosecuted by the crown for perjury.

  The old man fell back senseless. Mr. Sharpe and Sir Robert Percy pushed their way together out of court, disclaimed by all who had till now appeared as their friends. No farther evidence was offered, so that here the trial closed. The judge gave a short, impressive charge to the jury, who, without withdrawing, instantly gave their verdict in favour of the plaintiff, Lewis Percy — a verdict that was received with loud acclamations, which not even respect to the court could restrain.

  Mr. Percy and Alfred hastily shook hands with their friends, and in the midst of universal applause hurried away to carry the good news to Mrs. Percy and Rosamond, who were at Alfred’s house, waiting to hear the event of the trial.

  Neither Alfred nor Mr. Percy had occasion to speak — the moment Mrs. Percy and Rosamond saw them they knew the event.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Percy, “our fortune is restored; and doubly happy we are, in having regained it, in a great measure, by the presence of mind and ability of my son.”

  His mother and sister embraced Alfred with tears of delight. For some moments a spectator might have imagined that he beheld a family in deep affliction. But soon through these tears appeared on the countenance of each individual the radiance of joy, smiles of affection, tenderness, gratitude, and every delightful benignant feeling of the human heart.

  “Has any body sent to Mrs. Hungerford and to Lady Jane Granville?” said Mr. Percy.

  “Yes, yes, messengers were sent off the moment the verdict was given,” said Erasmus: “I took care of that.”

  “It is a pity,” said Rosamond, “that Caroline is not here at this moment, and Godfrey.”

  “It is best as it is,” said Mrs. Percy: “we have that pleasure still in store.”

  “And now, my beloved children,” said Mr. Percy, “after having returned thanks to Providence, let me here, in the midst of all of you to whom I owe so large a share of my happiness, sit down quietly for a few minutes to enjoy ‘the sober certainty of waking bliss.’”

  CHAPTER XLIII.

  The day after the trial brought several happy letters to the Percys. Rosamond called it the day of happy letters, and by that name it was ever after recorded in the family. The first of these letters was from Godfrey, as follows:

  “Dear father, mother, brothers, and sisters all! I hope you are not under any anxiety about me, for here I am, safe and sound, and in excellent quarters, at the house of Mynheers Grinderweld, Groensveld, and Slidderschild, Amsterdam, the Dutch merchants who were shipwrecked on our coast years ago! If it had happened yesterday, the thing could not be fresher in their memories. My dear Rosamond, when we laughed at their strange names, square figures, and formal advice to us, if ever we should, by the changes and chances of human events, be reduced to distress, we little thought that I, a prisoner, should literally come to seek shelter at their door. And most hospitably have I been received. National prejudices, which I early acquired, I don’t know how, against the Dutch, made me fancy that a Dutchman could think only of himself, and would give nothing for nothing: I can only say from experience, I have been as hospitably treated in Amsterdam as ever I was in London. These honest merchants have overwhelmed me with civilities and substantial services, and still they seem to think they can never do enough for me. I wish I may
ever see them on English ground again. But we have no Percy-hall to receive them in now; and as well as I remember the Hills, we could not conveniently stow more than one at a time. Side by side, as they stood after breakfast, I recollect, at Percy-hall, they would completely fill up the parlour at the Hills.

  “I may well be in high spirits to-day; for these good people have just been telling me, that the measures they have been taking to get my exchange effected, have so far succeeded, they have reason to believe that in a week, or a fortnight at farthest, I shall be under weigh for England.

  “In the mean time, you will wonder perhaps how I got here; for I perceive that I have subjected myself to Rosamond’s old reproach of never beginning my story at the beginning. My father used to say, half the mistakes in human affairs arise from our taking for granted; but I think I may take it for granted, that either from the newspapers or from Gascoigne, who must be in England by this time, you have learned that the transport I was on board, with my division of the regiment, parted convoy in the storm of the 18th, in the night, and at daybreak fell in with two Dutchmen. Our brave boys fought as Englishmen always do; but all that is over now, so it does not signify prosing about it. Two to one was too much — we were captured. I had not been five minutes on the Dutchman’s deck, when I observed one of the sailors eyeing me very attentively. Presently he came up and asked if my name was not Percy, and if I did not recollect to have seen him before? He put me in mind of the shipwreck, and told me he was one of the sailors who were harboured in one of my father’s outhouses whilst they were repairing the wreck. I asked him what had become of the drunken carpenter, and told him the disaster that ensued in consequence of that rascal’s carelessness. My sailor was excessively shocked at the account of the fire at Percy-hall: he thumped his breast till I thought he would have broken his breast-bone; and after relieving his mind by cursing and swearing in high Dutch, low Dutch, and English, against the drunken carpenter, he told me there was no use in saying any more, for that he had punished himself. — He was found dead one morning behind a barrel, from which in the night he had been drinking spirits surreptitiously through a straw. Pray tell this to old John, who used always to prophesy that this fellow would come to no good: assure him, however, at the same time, that all the Dutch sailors do not deserve his maledictions. Tell him, I can answer for the poor fellow who recognized me, and who, during the whole passage, never failed to show me and my fellow-prisoners every little attention in his power. When we got to Amsterdam, it was he reminded me of the Dutch merchants, told me their names, which, without his assistance, I might have perished before I could ever have recollected, and showed me the way to their house, and never rested till he saw me well settled.