Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
He
was listened to with breathless attention, and, when he had concluded, the
coroner, with a preparatory hem! said to him,
"And
you have reason to suppose, sir, that this person was out of his senses?"
"It
seemed to me so; he talked wildly and incoherently, and in such a manner as to
fully induce such a belief."
"You
left him on the beach?"
"I
did. I found when I got there that it was only a very small portion, indeed, of
Anderbury House that was visible; and, although the moon shone brightly, I must
confess I did not see, myself, any signs of deviation from the perpendicular;
and, such being the case, I left the spot at once, because I could have no
further motive in staying; and, moreover, it was not pleasant to be out at
night with a man whom I thought was deranged. I regretted, after making this
discovery, that I had come from home on such a fool's errand; but as, when one
is going to invest a considerable sum of money in any enterprise, one is
naturally anxious to know all about it, I went, little suspecting that the man
was insane."
"Did
you see him after that?"
"Certainly
not, until to-day, when I recognised in the body that has been exhibited to me
the same individual."
"Gentlemen,"
said the coroner to the jury, "it appears to me that this is a most
mysterious affair; the deceased person has a wound in his throat, which, I have
no doubt, you will hear from a medical witness has been the cause of death; and
the most singular part of the affair is, how, if he inflicted it upon himself, he
has managed to dispose of the weapon with which he did the deed."
"The
last person seen in his company," said one of the jury, "was the
baron, and I think he is bound to give some better explanation of the
affair."
"I
am yet to discover," said the baron, "that the last person who
acknowledges to having been in the company of a man afterwards murdered, must,
of necessity, be the murderer?"
"Yes;
but how do you account, sir, for there being no weapon found by which the man
could have done the deed himself?"
"I
don't account for it at all—how do you?"
"This
is irregular," said the coroner; "call the next witness."
This
was a medical man, who briefly stated that he had seen the deceased, and that
the wound in his throat was amply sufficient to account for his death; that it
was inflicted with a sharp instrument having an edge on each side.
This,
then, seemed to conclude the case, and the coroner remarked,—
"Gentlemen
of the jury,—I think this is one of those peculiar cases in which an open
verdict is necessary, or else an adjournment without date, so that the matter
can be resumed at any time, if fresh evidence can be procured concerning it.
There is no one accused of the offence, although it appears to me impossible
that the unhappy man could have committed the act himself. We have no reason to
throw the least shade of suspicion or doubt upon the evidence of the Baron
Stolmuyer of Saltzburgh; for as far as we know anything of the matter, the
murdered man may have been in the company of a dozen people after the baron
left him."
A
desultory conversation ensued, which ended in an adjournment of the inquest,
without any future day being mentioned for its re-assembling, and so the Baron
Stolmuyer entirely escaped from what might have been a very serious affair to
him.
It
did not, however, appear to shake him in his resolution of taking
Anderbury-on-the-Mount, although Mr. Leek very much feared it would; but he
announced to that gentleman his intention fully of doing so, and told him to
get the necessary papers drawn up forthwith.
"I
hope," he said, "within a few weeks' time to be fairly installed in
that mansion, and then I will trouble you, Mr. Leek, to give me a list of the
names of all the best families in the neighbourhood; for I intend giving an
entertainment on a grand scale in the mansion and grounds."
"Sir,"
said Mr. Leek, "I shall, with the greatest pleasure, attend upon you in
every possible way in this affair. This is a very excellent neighbourhood, and
you will have no difficulty, I assure you, sir, in getting together an
extremely capital and creditable assemblage of persons. There could not be a
better plan devised for at once introducing all the people who are worth
knowing, to you."
"I
thank you," said the baron; "I think the place will suit me well;
and, as the Baroness Stolmuyer of Saltzburgh is dead, I have some idea of
marrying again; and therefore it becomes necessary and desirable that I should
be well acquainted with the surrounding families of distinction in this
neighbourhood."
This
was a hint not at all likely to be thrown away upon Mr. Leek, who was the grand
gossip-monger of the place, and he treasured it up in order to see if he could
not make something of it which would be advantageous to himself.
He
knew quite enough of the select and fashionable families in that neighbourhood,
to be fully aware that neither the baron's age nor his ugliness would be any
bar to his forming a matrimonial alliance.
"There
is not one of them," he said to himself, "who would not marry the
very devil himself and be called the Countess Lucifer, or any name of the kind,
always provided there was plenty of money: and that the baron has without
doubt, so it is equally without doubt he may pick and choose where he
pleases."
This
was quite correct of Mr. Leek, and showed his great knowledge of human nature;
and we entertain with him a candid opinion, that if the Baron Stolmuyer of
Saltzburgh had been ten times as ugly as he was, and Heaven knows that was
needless, he might pick and choose a wife almost when he pleased.
This
is a general rule; and as, of course, to all general rules there are
exceptions, this one cannot be supposed to be free from them. Under all
circumstances, and in all classes of society, there are single-minded beings
who consult the pure dictates of their own hearts, and who, disdaining those
things which make up the amount of the ambition of meaner spirits, stand aloof
as bright and memorable examples to the rest of human nature.
Such
a being was Flora Bannerworth. She would never have been found to sacrifice
herself to the fancied advantages of wealth and station, but would have given
her heart and hand to the true object of her affection, although a sovereign
prince had made the endeavour to wean her from it.
THE END
BETWEEN the 10th
and 13th centuries Civilisation withdrew from Egypt and Syria, rested for a
little space at Constantinople, and then passed sway to the western climes of
Europe.
From that period these climes have been the grand laboratory
in which Civilisation has wrought out refinement in every art and every
science, and whence it has diffused its benefits over the earth. It has taught
commerce to plough the waves of every sea with the adventurous keel; it has
enabled handfuls of disciplined warriors to subdue the mighty armaments of
oriental princes; and its daring sons have planted its banners amidst the
eternal ice of the poles. It has cut down the primitive forests of America;
carried trade into the interior of Africa; annihilated time - and distance by
the aid of steam; and now contemplates how to force a passage through Suez and
Panama.
The bounties of Civilisation are at present almost
everywhere recognised.
Nevertheless, for centuries has Civilisation established,
and for centuries will it maintain, its headquarters in the great cities of
Western Europe : and with Civilisation does Vice go hand-in-hand.
Amongst these cities there is one in which contrasts of a
strange nature exist. The most unbounded wealth is the neighbour of the most
hideous poverty; the most gorgeous pomp is placed in strong relief by the
most deplorable squalor; the most seducing luxury is only separated by a narrow
wall from the most appalling misery.
The crumbs which fall from the tables of the rich would
appear delicious viands to starving millions; and yet those millions obtain
them not!
In that city there are in all districts five prominent
buildings: the church, in which the pious pray; the gin-palace, to which the
wretched poor resort to drown their sorrows; the pawn-broker's, where miserable
creatures pledge their raiment, and their children's raiment, even unto the
last rag, to obtain the means of purchasing food, and - alas! too often -
intoxicating drink; the prison, where the victims of a vitiated condition of
society expiate the crimes to which they have been driven by starvation and
despair; and the workhouse, to which the destitute, the aged, and the
friendless hasten to lay down their aching heads - and die!
And, congregated together in one district of this city, is
an assemblage of palaces, whence emanate by night the delicious sounds of
music; within whose walls the foot treads upon rich carpets; whose
sideboards are covered with plate; whose cellars contain the choicest nectar of
the temperate and torrid zones; and whose inmates recline beneath velvet
canopies, feast at each meal upon the collated produce of four worlds, and
scarcely have to breathe a wish before they find it gratified.
Alas! how appalling are these contrasts! And, as if to hide
its infamy from the face of heaven, this city wears upon its brow an
everlasting cloud, which even the fresh fan of the morning fails to disperse
for a single hour each day!
And in one delicious spot of that mighty city - whose
thousand towers point upwards, from horizon to horizon, as an index of its
boundless magnitude - stands the dwelling of one before whom all knees bow, and
towards whose royal footstool none dares approach save with downcast eyes and
subdued voice. The entire world showers its bounties upon the head of that
favoured mortal; a nation of millions does homage to the throne whereon that
being is exalted. The dominion of this personage so supremely blest extends
over an empire on which the sun never sets - an empire greater than Jenghiz
Khan achieved or Mohammed conquered.
This is the parent of a mighty nation; and yet around that
parent's seat the children crave for bread!
Women press their little ones to their dried-up breasts in
the agonies of despair; young delicate creatures waste their energies in toil
from the dawn of day till long past the hour of midnight, perpetuating their
unavailing labour from the hour of the brilliant sun to that when the dim
candle sheds its light around the attic's naked walls; and even the very
pavement groans beneath the weight of grief which the poor are doomed to drag
over the rough places of this city of sad contrasts.
For in this city the daughter of the peer is nursed in
enjoyments, and passes through an uninterrupted avenue of felicity from the
cradle to the tomb; while the daughter of poverty opens her eyes at her birth
upon destitution in all its most appalling shapes, and at length sells her
virtue for a loaf of bread.
There are but two words known in the moral alphabet of this
great city; for all virtues are summed up in the one, and all vices in the
other: and those words are
WEALTH. POVERTY.
Crime is abundant in this city: the lazar-house, the prison,
the brothel, and the dark alley, are rife with all kinds of enormity; in the
same way as the palace, the mansion, the club-house, the parliament, and the
parsonage, are each and all characterised by their different degrees and shades
of vice. But wherefore specify crime and vice by their real names, since in
this city of which we speak they are absorbed in the multi-significant words -
WEALTH and POVERTY.
Crimes borrow their comparative shade of enormity from the
people who perpetrate them: thus is it that the wealthy may commit all social
offences with impunity; while the poor are cast into dungeons and coerced with
chains, for only following at a humble distance in the pathway of their lordly
precedents.
From this city of strange contrasts branch off two roads,
leading to two points totally distinct the one from the other.
One winds its tortuous way through all the noisome dens of
crime, chicanery, dissipation, and voluptuousness: the other meanders amidst
rugged rocks and wearisome acclivities, it is true, but on the wayside are the
resting-places of rectitude and virtue.
Along those roads two youths are journeying.
They have started from the same point; but one pursues the
former path, and the other the latter.
Both come from the city of fearful contrasts; and both
follow the wheels of fortune in different directions.
Where is that city of fearful contrasts? - Who are those
youths that have thus entered upon paths so opposite the one to the other?
And to what destinies do those separate roads conduct them?
THE OLD HOUSE IN SMITHFIELD
OUR narrative opens at the commencement of
July, 1831.
The night was dark and stormy. The sun had set behind huge
piles of dingy purple clouds, which, after losing the golden hue with which
they were for awhile tinged,
became sombre and menacing. The blue portions of the sky that here and there
had appeared before the sunset, were now rapidly covered over with those murky
clouds which are the hiding-places of the storm, and which seemed to roll
themselves together in dense and compact masses, ere they commenced the
elemental war.
In the same manner do the earthly squadrons of cavalry and
mighty columns of infantry form themselves into one collected armament, that
the power of their onslaught may be the more terrific and irresistible.
That canopy of dark and threatening clouds was formed over
London; and a stifling heat, which there was not a breath of wind to allay or
mitigate, pervaded the streets of the great metropolis.
Everything portended an awful storm.
In the palace of the peer and the hovel of the artisan the
windows were thrown up; and at many, both men and women stood to contemplate
the scene - timid children crowding behind them.
The heat became more and more oppressive.
At, length large drops of rain fell, at intervals of two or
three inches apart, upon the pavement.
And then a flash of lightning, like the forked tongue of one
of those fiery serpents of which we read in oriental tales of magic and enchantment,
darted forth from the black clouds overhead.
At an interval of a few seconds the roar of the thunder,
reverberating through the arches of heaven - now sinking, now exalting its
fearful tone, like the iron wheels of a chariot rolled over a road with patches
of uneven pavement here and there - stunned every ear, and struck terror into
many a heart - the innocent as well as the guilty.
It died away, like the chariot, in the distance; and then
all was solemnly still.
The interval of silence which succeeds the protracted
thunder-clap is appalling in the extreme.
A little while - and again the lightning illuminated the
entire vault above: and again the thunder, in unequal tames, - amongst which
was one resembling the rattling of many vast iron bars together, - awoke every
echo of the metropolis from north to south, and from east to west.
This time the dread interval of silence was suddenly
interrupted by the torrents of rain that now deluged the streets.
There was not a breath of air; and the rain fell as
perpendicularly straight as a line. But with it came a sense of freshness and
of a pure atmosphere, which formed an agreeable and cheering contrast to the
previously suffocating heat. It was like the spring of the oasis to the wanderer
in the burning desert.
But still the lightning played, and the thunder rolled,
above.
At the first explosion of the storm, amidst the thousands of
men and women and children, who were seen hastening hither and thither, in all
directions, as if they were flying from the plague, was one person on whose
exterior none could gaze without being inspired with a mingled sentiment of
admiration and interest.
He was a youth, apparently not more than sixteen years of
age, although taller than boys usually are at that period of life. But the
tenderness of his years was divined by the extreme effeminacy and juvenile
loveliness of his countenance, which was as fair and delicate as that of a
young girl. His long luxuriant hair, of a beautiful light chestnut colour, and
here and there borrowing dark shades from the frequent undulations in which it
rolled, flowed not only over the collar of his closely-buttoned blue frock
coat, but also upon his shoulders. Its extreme profusion, and the singular
manner in which he wore it, were, however, partially concealed by the breadth
of the brim of his hat, that was placed as it were entirely upon the back of
his head, and, being thus thrown off his countenance, revealed the high,
intelligent, and polished forehead above which that rich hair was carefully
parted.
His frock-coat, which was single-breasted, and buttoned up
to the throat, set off his symmetrical and elegant figure to the greatest
advantage. His shoulders were broad, but were characterised by that fine fall
or slope which is so much admired in the opposite sex. He wore spurs upon the
heels of his diminutive polished boots; and in his hand he carried a light
riding-whip. But he was upon foot and alone; and, when the first flash of
lightning dazzled his expressive hazel eyes, he was hastily traversing the foul
and filthy arena of Smithfield -market.
An imagination poetically inspired would suppose a
similitude of a beautiful flower upon a fetid manure heap.
He cast a glance, which may almost be termed one of
affright, around; and his cheek became flushed. He had evidently lost his way,
and was uncertain where to obtain an asylum against the coming storm.
The thunder burst above his head; and a momentary shudder
passed over his frame. He accosted a man to inquire his way; but the answer he
received was rude, and associated with a ribald joke.
He had not courage to demand a second time the information
he sought; but, with a species of haughty disdain at the threatening storm, and
a proud reliance upon himself, proceeded onwards at random.
He even slackened his pace; a contemptuous smile curled his
lips, and the glittering white teeth appeared as it were between two
rose-leaves.
His chest, which was very prominent, rose up and down almost
convulsively; for it was evident that he endeavoured to master conflicting
feelings of vexation, alarm, and disgust - all produced by the position in
which he found himself.
To one so young, so delicate, and so frank in appearance,
the mere fact of losing his way by night in a disgusting neighbourhood, during
an impending storm, and insulted by a low-life ruffian, was not the mere trifle
which it would have been considered by the hardy and experienced man of the
world.
Not a public conveyance was to be seen; and the doors of all
the houses around appeared inhospitably closed: and every moment it seemed to
grow darker.
Accident conducted the interesting young stranger into that
labyrinth of narrow and dirty streets which lies in the immediate vicinity of
the north-western angle of Smithfield-market.
It was in this horrible neighbourhood that the youth was now
wandering. He was evidently shocked at the idea that human beings could dwell
in such fetid and unwholesome dens; for he gazed with wonder, disgust, and
alarm upon the houses on either side. It seemed as if he
had never beheld till now a
labyrinth of dwellings whose very aspect appeared to speak of hideous poverty
and fearful crime.
Meantime the lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled; and
at length the rain poured down in torrents. Obeying a mechanical impulse, the
youth rushed up the steps of a house at the end of one of those dark, narrow,
and dirty streets the ominous appearance of which was every now and then
revealed to him by a light streaming from a narrow window, or the glare of the
lightning. The framework of the door projected somewhat, and appeared to offer
a partial protection from the rain. The youth drew as closely up to it as
possible; but to his surprise it yielded behind him, and burst open. With
difficulty he saved himself from falling backwards into the passage with which
the door communicated.
Having recovered from the sudden alarm with which this
incident had inspired him, his next sentiment was one of pleasure to think that
he had thus found a more secure asylum against the tempest. He, however, felt
wearied - desperately wearied; and his was not a frame calculated to bear up
against the oppressive and crushing feeling of fatigue. He determined to
penetrate, amidst the profound darkness by which he was surrounded, into the
dwelling; thinking that if there were any inmates they would not refuse him the
accommodation of a chair; and if there were none, he might find a seat upon the
staircase.
He advanced along the passage, and groped about. His hand
encountered the lock of a door: he opened it, and entered a room. All was dark
as pitch. At that moment a flash of lightning, more than usually vivid and
prolonged, illuminated the entire scene. The glance which he cast around was as
rapid as the glare which made objects visible to him for a few moments. He was
in a room entirely empty; but in the middle of the floor - only three feet from
the spot where he stood - there was a large square of jet blackness.
The lightning passed away: utter darkness again surrounded
him; and he was unable to ascertain what that black square, so well defined and
apparent upon the dirty floor, could be.
An indescribable sensation of fear crept over him; and the
perspiration broke out upon his forehead in large drops. His knees bent beneath
him; and, retreating a few steps, he leaned against the door-posts for support.
He was alone - in an uninhabited house, in the midst of a
horrible neighbourhood; and all the fearful tales of midnight murders which he
had ever heard or read, rushed to his memory; then, by a strange but natural
freak of the fancy, those appalling deeds of blood and crime were suddenly
associated with that incomprehensible but ominous black square upon the floor.
He was in the midst of this terrible waking-dream - this
more than ideal nightmare - when hasty steps approached the front door from the
street; and, without stopping, entered the passage. The youth crept silently
towards the farther end, the perspiration oozing from every pore. He felt the
staircase with his hands; the footsteps advanced; and, light as the fawn, he
hurried up the stairs. So noiseless were his motions, that his presence was not
noticed by the new comers, who in their turns also ascended the staircase.
The youth reached a landing, and hastily felt for the doors
of the rooms with which it communicated. In another moment he was in a chamber,
at the back part of the house. He closed the door, and placed himself against
it with all his strength - forgetful, poor youth! that his fragile form was
unavailing, with all its power, against even the single arm of a man of only
ordinary strength.
Meantime the new-comers ascended the stairs.