Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)

Upon this there ensued one of those sharp altercations between Bench and Bar which seem the “complement” of every eventful trial in Ireland; and which, after a brief contest, usually leave both the combatants excessively in the wrong.

The present case was no exception to this rule. The Judge was heated and imperious; the counsel flippant in all the insolence of mock respect, and ended by the stereotyped panegyric on the “glorious sanctity that invests the counsel of a defence in a criminal action – the inviolability of a pledge which no member of the Bar could suffer to be sullied in his person” – and a great many similar fine things, which, if not “briefed” by the attorney, are generally paid for by the client! The scrimmage ended, as it ever does, by a salute of honor; in which each, while averring that he was incontestably right, bore testimony to the conscientious scruples and delicate motives of the other; and at last they bethought them of the business for which they were there, and of him whose fate for life or death was on the issue. The examination of Mr. Goring was renewed.

“You have told us, sir,” said Jones, “that immediately after the terrible tidings had reached Tubbermore of Mr. Kennyfeck’s death, suspicion seemed at once to turn on Mr. Cashel. Will you explain this, or at least let us hear how you can account for a circumstance so strange?”

“I did not say as much as you have inferred,” replied Goring. “I merely observed that Mr. Cashel’s name became most singularly mixed up with the event, and rumors of a difference between him and his agent were buzzed about.”

“Might not this mention of Mr. Cashel’s name have proceeded from an anxious feeling on the part of his friends to know of his safety?”

“It might.”

“Are you not certain that it was so?”

“In one instance, certainly. I remember that a gentleman at once drew our attention to the necessity of seeing after him.”

“Who was this gentleman?”

“Mr. Linton, – a near and intimate friend of Mr. Cashel.”

“And he suggested that it would be proper to take steps for Mr. Cashers safety?”

“He did so.”

“Was anything done in consequence of that advice?”

“Nothing, I believe. The state of confusion that prevailed; the terror that pervaded every side, the dreadful scenes enacting around us, – prevented our following up the matter with all the foresight which might be desired.”

“And, in fact, you sought relief from the unsettled distraction of your thoughts, by fixing the crime upon some one – even though he should prove, of all assembled there, the least likely.”

“We did not attach anything to Mr. Cashel’s disfavor until we discovered that he was in his dressing-room, and in the manner already stated.”

“But you certainly jumped to your conclusion by a sudden bound?”

“It would be fairer to say that our thoughts converged to the same impression at the same time.”

“Where is this Mr. Linton? Is he among the list of your witnesses, Mr. Attorney?”

“No, we have not called him.”

“I thought as much!” said Jones, sneeringly; “and yet the omission is singular, of one whose name is so frequently mixed up in these proceedings. He might prove an inconvenient witness.”

A slight murmur here ran through the court; and a gentleman, advancing to the bar, whispered some words to the Attorney-General, who, rising, said: —

“My Lord, I am just this instant informed that Mr. Linton is dangerously ill of fever at his house near Dublin. My informant adds, that no hopes are entertained of his recovery.”

“Was he indisposed at the period in which my learned friend drew up this case? or was there any intention of summoning him here for examination?” asked Jones.

“We did not require Mr. Linton’s testimony,” replied the Attorney-General.

“It can scarcely be inferred that we feared it,” said a junior barrister, “since the first palpable evidences that implicated the prisoner were discovered by Mr. Linton: the wadding of the pistol; part of a letter in Mr. Cashel’s own handwriting; and the tracks corresponding with his boots.”

“This is all most irregular, my Lord,” broke in Jones, eagerly. “Here are statements thrown out in all the loose carelessness of conversation, totally unsupported by evidence. I submit that it is impossible to offer a defence to a cause conducted in this manner.”

“You are quite right, Mr. Jones; this is not evidence.”

“But this is, my Lord!” said the Attorney-General, in a heated manner; “and for motives of delicacy we might not have used it, if not driven to this course by the insinuations of counsel. Here is a note in pencil, dated from the ‘Pass of Ennismore,’ and running thus: ‘It looks badly; but I fear you have no other course than to arrest him. In fact, it is too late for anything else. Consult Malone and Meek.’ And this can be proved to be in Mr. Linton’s handwriting.”

Mr. Clare Jones did not speak a word as the note was handed up to the Bench, and then to the jury-box; he even affected to think it of no importance, and did not deign to examine it for himself.

“You may go down, Mr. Goring,” said he, after a slight pause, in which he appeared deliberating what course to follow.

Making his way to the side of the dock, Jones addressed himself to Cashel in a low, cautious voice: —

“It now remains with you, Mr. Cashel, to decide whether you will intrust me with the facts on which you ground your innocence, or prefer to see yourself overwhelmed by adverse testimony.”

Cashel made no reply, but leaned his head on his hand in deep thought

“Have you any witnesses to call?” whispered Jones. “Shall we try an alibi?”

Cashel did not answer.

“What is your defence, sir, in one word?” asked Jones, shortly.

“I am not guilty,” said Cashel, slowly; “but I do not expect others to believe me so.”

“Is your defence to rest upon that bare assertion?” asked the lawyer; but Roland did not seem to heed the question, as, folding his arms, he stood erect in the dock, his attention to all appearance bestowed upon the ceremonial of the court.

Jones, at once turning to the Bench, expressed his regret that, neither being able, from the shortness of the time, to obtain proper information on the case, nor being honored by the confidence of the accused, he must decline the task of commenting on the evidence; and would only entreat the jury to weigh the testimony they had heard with a merciful disposition, and wherever discrepancies and doubts occurred, to give the full benefit of such to the prisoner.

“You have no witnesses to call?” asked the judge.

“I am told there are none, my Lord,” said Jones, with an accent of resignation.

A brief colloquy, in a low voice, ensued between the Crown lawyers and Clare Jones, when, at length, a well-known barrister rose to address the jury for the prosecution. The gentleman who now claimed the attention of the Court was one who, not possessing either the patient habits of study, or that minute attention to technical detail which constitute the legal mind, was a fluent, easy speaker, with an excellent memory, and a thorough knowledge of the stamp and temperament of the men that usually fill a jury-box. He was eminently popular with that class, on whom he had often bestowed all the flatteries of his craft; assuring them that their “order” was the bone and sinew of the land, and that “our proudest boast as a nation was in the untitled nobility of commerce.”

His whole address on the present occasion tended to show that the murder of Mr. Kennyfeck was one among the many instances of the unbridled license and tyranny assumed by the aristocracy over the middle ranks.

Mr. Kennyfeck was no bad subject for such eulogium as he desired to bestow. He was the father of a family; a well-known citizen of Dublin; a grave, white-cravated, pompous man of respectable exterior, always seen at vestries, and usually heading the lists of public charities. Cashel was the very antithesis to all this: the reckless squanderer of accidentally acquired wealth; the wayward and spoiled child of fortune, with the tastes of a buccaneer and the means of a prince, suddenly thrown into the world of fashion. What a terrible ordeal to a mind so untrained – to a temper so unbridled! and how fearfully had it told upon him! After commenting upon the evidence, and showing in what a continuous chain each event was linked with the other, – how consistent were all, – how easily explicable every circumstance, he remarked that the whole case had but one solitary difficulty; and although that was one which weighed more in a moral than a legal sense, it required that he should dwell a few moments upon it.

“The criminal law of our land, gentlemen of the jury, is satisfied with the facts which establish guilt or innocence, without requiring that the motives of accused parties should be too closely scrutinized. Crime consists, of course, of the spirit in which a guilty action is done; but the law wisely infers that a guilty act is the evidence of a guilty spirit; and therefore, although there may be circumstances to extenuate the criminality of an act, the offence before the law is the same; and the fact, the great fact, that a man has killed his fellow-man, is what constitutes murder.

“I have said that this case has but one difficulty; and that is, the possible motive which could have led to the fatal act Now, this would present itself as a considerable obstacle if the relations between the parties were such as we happily witness them in every county of this island, where the proprietor and his agent are persons linked, by the sacred obligation of duty, and the frequent intercourse of social life, into the closest friendship.

“That blood should stain the bonds of such brotherhood would be scarcely credible – and even when credible, inexplicable; it would be repugnant to all our senses to conceive an act so unnatural. But was the present a similar case? or rather, was it one exactly the opposite? You have heard that repeated differences occurred between the parties, amounting even to altercations. Mr. Hoare’s evidence has shown you that Mr. Cashel’s extravagance had placed him in difficulties of no common kind; his demands for money were incessant, and the utter disregard of the cost of obtaining it is almost beyond belief. The exigence on one side, the manly resistance on the other, must have led to constant misunderstanding. But these were not the only circumstances that contributed to a feeling of estrangement, soon to become something still more perilous. And here I pause to ask myself how far I am warranted in disclosing facts of a private nature, although in their bearing they have an important relation to the case before us! It is a question of great delicacy; and were it not that the eternal interests of truth and justice transcend all others, I might shrink from the performance of a task which, considered in a merely personal point of view, is deeply distressing. But it is not of one so humble as myself of whom there is a question here: the issue is, whether a man’s blood should be spilled, and no expiation be made for it?”

The counsel after this entered into a discursive kind of narrative of Cashel’s intimacy with the Kennyfeck family, with whom he had been for a time domesticated; and after a mass of plausible generalities, wound up by an imputed charge that he had won the affections of the younger daughter, who, with the consent of her parents, was to become his wife.

“It will not seem strange to you, gentlemen,” said he, “that I have not called to that table as a witness either the widow or the orphan to prove these facts, or that I have not subjected their sacred sorrows to the rude assaults of a cross-examination. You will not think the worse of me for this reserve, nor shall I ask of you to give my statements the value of sworn evidence; you will hear them, and decide what value they possess in leading you to a true understanding of this case.

“I have said, that if a regular pledge and promise of marriage did not bind the parties, something which is considered equivalent among persons of honor did exist, and that by their mutual acquaintances they were regarded as contracted to each other. Mr. Cashel made her splendid and expensive presents, which had never been accepted save for the relations between them; he distinguished her on all occasions by exclusive attention, and among his friends he spoke of his approaching marriage as a matter fixed and determined on. In this state of things a discovery took place, which at once served to display the character of the young gentleman, and to rescue the family from one of the very deepest, because one of the most irremediable, of all calamities. Information reached them, accompanied by such circumstances as left no doubt of its veracity, that this Mr. Cashel had been married already, and that his wife, a young Spanish lady, was still living, and residing at the Havannah.

“I leave you to imagine the misery which this sad announcement produced in that circle, where, until he entered it, happiness had never been disturbed. It is not necessary that I should dwell upon the distress this cruel treachery produced: with its consequences alone we have any concern here; and these were a gradual estrangement, – a refusal, calm but firm, to receive Mr. Cashel as before; an intimation that they knew of circumstances which, from delicacy to him, they would never advert to openly, but which must at once bar all the contemplated relations: and to this sad, humiliating alternative he submitted!

“To avoid the slanderous stories which gossip would be certain to put in circulation, they did not decline the invitation they had before accepted to visit Tubbermore; they came, however, under the express stipulation that no close intimacy was ever to be resumed between Mr. Cashel and themselves; he was not even to use the common privilege of a host, – to visit them in their own apartments. That this degree of cold distance was maintained between them, on every occasion, all the guests assembled at the house can testify; and he neither joined the party in carriage nor on horseback. Perhaps this interdiction was carried out with too rigid a discipline; perhaps the cold reserve they maintained had assumed a character of insult, to one whose blood still glowed with the fire of southern associations; perhaps some circumstance with which we are unacquainted contributed to render this estrangement significant, and consequently painful to a man who could not brook the semblance of a check. It is needless to ask how or whence originating, since we can see in the fact itself cause sufficient for indignant reproof on one side, for a wounded self-love and tarnished honor on the other.

“Are we at a loss for such motives, then, in the presence of facts like these? Ask yourselves, Is a man, bred and trained up in all the riotous freedom of a service scarcely above the rank of piracy, – accustomed to the lawless license of a land where each makes the law with his own right hand, – is such a man one to bear a slight with patient submission, or to submit to an open shame in tame obedience? Can you not easily imagine how all the petty differences of opinion they might have had were merely skirmishes in front of that line where deeper and graver feelings stood in battle array? Can you suppose that, however ruled over by the ordinary courtesies of life, this youth nourished his plans of ultimate revenge, not only upon those who refused with indignation his traitorous alliance, but who were the depository of a secret that must interdict all views of marriage in any other quarter?”