Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/507

1866.] groan under his abilities; that was his duty; but he said from the first he would do nothing hard, and he has kept his word; often he might have stopped me; I saw it in his face. But, being a gentleman and a Christian, as well as a learned lawyer, methinks he said to himself, 'This is a poor gentlewoman pleading for her life; let her have some little advantage.' As for my lord, he has promised to be my counsel, so far as his high station, and duty to the crown, admit; and he has supported and consoled me more than once with words of justice, that would not, I think, have encouraged a guilty person, but have comforted and sustained me beyond expression. So then I stand here, the victim, not of man's injustice, but of deceitful appearances, and of honest, but hasty and loose conjectures.

"These conjectures I shall now sift, and hope to show you how hollow they are.

"Gentlemen, in every disputed matter the best way, I am told, is to begin by settling what both parties are agreed in, and so to narrow the matter. To use that method, then, I do heartily agree with the learned counsel that murder is a heinous crime, and that, black as it is at the best, yet it is still more detestable when 'tis a wife that murders her husband, and robs her child of a parent who can never be replaced.

"I also agree with him that circumstantial evidence is often sufficient to convict a murderer; and, indeed, were it not so, that most monstrous of crimes would go oftenest unpunished; since, of all culprits, murderers do most shun the eyes of men in their dark deeds, and so provide beforehand that direct testimony to their execrable crime there shall be none. Only herein I am advised to take a distinction that escaped the learned sergeant. I say that first of all it ought to be proved directly, and to the naked eye, that a man has been murdered; and then, if none saw the crime done, let circumstances point out the murderer.

"But here, they put the cart before the horse; they find a dead body, with no marks of violence whatever; and labor to prove by circumstantial evidence alone that this mere dead body is a murdered body. This, I am advised, is bad in law, and contrary to general precedents; and the particular precedents for it are not examples, but warnings; since both the prisoners so rashly convicted were proved innocent, after their execution."

(The judge took a note of this distinction.)

"Then, to go from principles to the facts, I agree and admit that, in a moment of anger, I was so transported out of myself as to threaten my husband's life before Caroline Ryder. But afterwards, when I saw him face to face, then, that I threatened him with violence, that I deny. The fact is, I had just learned that he had committed a capital offence; and what I threatened him with was the law. This was proved by Jane Bannister. She says she heard me say the constables should come for him next morning. For what? to murder him?"

Judge. Give me leave, madam. Shall you prove Mr. Gaunt had committed a capital offence?

Prisoner. I could, my lord; but I am loath to do it. For, if I did, I should cast him into worse trouble than I am in myself.

Judge (shaking his head gravely). Let me advise you to advance nothing you are not able and willing to prove.

Prisoner. "Then I confine myself to this: it was proved by a witness for the crown that in the dining-room I threatened my husband to his face with the law. Now this threat, and not that other extravagant threat, which he never heard, you know, was clearly the threat which caused him to abscond that night.

"In the next place, I agree with the learned counsel that I was out of doors at one o'clock that morning. But if he will use me as in that matter, then he must not pick and choose and mutilate my testimony. Nay, let