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“You knew Carew intimately, Parsons?” asked one.

“Watty! to be sure I did. We were class-fellows at school and at college.”

“And liked him, I have heard you say?”

“Extremely. There was no better fellow to be found. He had his weaknesses like the rest of us; but he was a true-hearted, generous friend, and a resolute enemy also.”

“Were you acquainted with his wife, Ned?” asked another.

“I was presented to her the day he brought her over,” replied he; “we all lunched with him at the hotel, but I never saw her after. The fact was, Watty made a foolish match, and never was the same man to his old friends after. Perhaps we were as much in fault as he was; at all events, except MacNaghten and a few who were very intimate with him, all fell off, and Carew, who was a haughty fellow, drew back from us, and left the breach still wider.”

“And what’s your opinion of this claim?” asked another, who had not spoken before.

“That I ‘d not give sixpence for the chance of its success,” said he, laughingly. “Why, everybody knows that no trace of any document establishing Carew’s marriage could be found after his death. Some went so far as to say that there never had been a marriage at all; and as to the child, Dan MacNaghten told me years ago that the boy was killed in some street skirmish in Paris, – so that, taking all the doubts and difficulties together, and bearing in mind that old Joe Curtis has a strong purse and is in possession, is there any man with common sense to guide him would think the contest worth a trial?”

“Have you seen this young fellow yet?”

“No; and I am rather curious to have a look at him, for there were strong family traits about the Carews.”

As I heard these last words, I walked boldly out upon the balcony as if to examine the state of the weather. There was a slight murmur of voices heard beneath as I came forward, and one speaker exclaimed, “Indeed!” to which Parsons quickly replied, —

“Positively astounding! It is not only that he has Carew’s features, but the carriage of the head and a certain half supercilious look are exactly his!”

The words sent a thrill of hope through me, more than enough to recompense me for the pain his former speech had inflicted; and as I left the window, I felt a degree of confidence in the future that never entirely deserted me after.

CHAPTER XLIX. THE FIRST DAY

I can more easily imagine a man being able to preserve the memory of all his sensations during some tremendous operation of surgery than to recall the varied tortures of his mind in the progress of a long and eventful trial. Certain incidents will impress themselves more powerfully than others, not always those of the deepest importance, – far from it; the veriest trifles – a stern look of the presiding judge, a murmur in the court – will live in the recollection for long years after the great events of the scene; and a casual glance, a half-uttered word, become texts of sorrow for many a day to come.

I could myself be better able to record my sensations throughout a long fever than tell of the emotions which I suffered in the three days of that trial. I awake occasionally from a dream full of every circumstance all sharply defined, clear, and distinct. My throbbing temples and moist brow evidence the agonies I have gone through; my nerves still tingle with the torture; but with the first moments of wakefulness the memory is gone! – the sense of pain alone remains; but the cause fades away in dim indistinctness, and my heart throbs with gratitude at last to know it was but a dream, and has passed away.

But there are days, too, when all these memories are revived; and I could recount, even to the slightest circumstance, the whole progress of the case, from the moment when a doorkeeper drew aside a heavy curtain to let me pass into the court, to the dreadful instant when – But I cannot go on; already are images and forms crowding around me. To continue this theme would be to call up spirits of torture to the bedside, or the lonely chamber where, friendless and solitary, I sit as I write these lines.

I owe it to him whose patience and sympathy may have carried him so far as my listener, to complete this much of the story of my life; happily a few words will now suffice to do so.

A newspaper of “Old Dublin,” a great authority in those days, the “Morning Advertiser,” informed its readers on a certain day of February that the interesting events of a recent trial should be its apology for any deficiency in its attention to foreign news, or even the domestic occurrences of the country, since the editor could not but participate in the intense anxiety felt by all classes of his fellow-citizens in the progress of one of the most remarkable cases ever submitted before a jury.

After a brief announcement of the trial, he proceeds:

“Mr. Foxley opened the plaintiff’s case, in the absence of Serjeant Hanchett; and certainly even the distinguished leader of the Western Circuit never exceeded in clearness, accuracy, or close reasoning the admirable statement then delivered, – a statement which, while supported by a vast variety of well-known incident, may yet vie with romance for the strangeness of the events it records.

“Probably, with a view of enlisting public sympathy in his client’s behalf, not impossibly also to give a semblance of consistency to a narrative wherein any individual incident might have startled credulity, the learned counsel gave a brief history of the claimant from his birth; and certainly a stranger tale it would be hard to conceive. Following all the vicissitudes of fortune, fighting to-day in the ranks of the revolutionists in Paris, we find him to-morrow the bearer of important despatches from crowned heads to the members of the exiled family of France. Ever active, ever employed, and ever faithful to his trust, this extraordinary youth became mixed up with great events, and conversant with great people everywhere. If a consciousness that he was a man of birth, and with just claims to station and property, often sustained him in moments of difficulty, there were also times when this thought suggested his very saddest reflections. He saw himself poor, and almost unfriended; he knew the scarcely passable barriers the law erects against all pretenders, whatever the justice of their demands; he was aware that his adversary would have all the benefit which vast resources and great wealth can command. No wonder, then, if he felt faint-hearted and dispirited! Another and a very different train of reasoning may, possibly, have also had its influence on his mind.

“This boy grew up to manhood in the midst of all the startling theories of the French Revolution. He had imbibed the doctrines of equality and universal brotherhood; he had been taught that a state was a family, and its population were the children, amongst whom no inequality of condition should prevail. To sue for the restitution of his own was, then, but a sorry recognition of the principles he professed. The society of the time enjoined the theory that property was a mere usurpation; and I say it is by no means improbable that, educated in such opinions, he should have deemed the prosecution of such a suit a direct falsification of his professions. The world, however, changed.

“After the Revolution came the reaction of order. To the guillotine succeeded the court-martial; then the Consulate, then the Empire. All the external forms of society underwent a less change than did the very nature of men themselves.

“Wearied of anarchy, they sought the repose of a despotism. With monarchy, too, came back all the illusions of pomp and splendor, all the tastes that wealth fosters and wealth alone confers. Carew, who had never bewailed his condition when a ‘sansculottes,’ now saw himself degraded in the midst of the new movement. He knew that he had been born to fortune and high estate. He had heard of the vast domains of his ancestry, from his cradle. He had got off by heart the names of townlands and baronies that all belonged to his family; and though, at the time he learned the lesson, the more stern teaching of democracy instilled the maxim that ‘all property was a wrong,’ yet now another impression had gained currency in the world, and he saw that even for the purposes of public utility, and the benefit of society, a man was powerless who was poor.

“Alas, however, for his prospects! every document, every letter, every scrap of writing that could have authenticated his claim was gone. Of the very nature of these papers he scarcely retains a recollection himself; he only knows that Madame de Gabriac, whose name I have already introduced to your notice, deemed them all-sufficient, if only backed by one essential document, – the certificate of his father’s marriage with his mother. To obtain this had been the great object of her whole life.

“With a heroic devotion to the cause of her friend’s orphan child, she had travelled over Europe in every direction, and during times of the greatest peril and disturbance. Accompanied by one trusty companion, Mr. Raper, she had never wearied in her pursuit.

“Probably, if the occasion permitted, the story I could tell of her efforts in this cause would surprise you not less than that of my client himself. Enough that I say that she stooped to poverty and privation of the very severest kind; she toiled, and labored, and suffered for years long; and, when having exhausted every resource the Old World seemed to offer to her search, she set out for the New! Since that she has not been heard of. The solicitors with whom she had corresponded have long since ceased to receive tidings of her. The belief in her death was so complete that her father, a well-known citizen of Dublin, who died two years back, bequeathed his vast fortune to various charitable institutions, alleging his childless condition as the cause.

“I have told you how, originally, my client, then a mere boy, became separated from her he had ever regarded as his mother; I have traced him through some, but far from the whole, of the strange incidents of his eventful career; and it now only remains that I should speak of the extraordinary accident by which he came upon the clew to his long sought-for, long despaired-of, inheritance.

“A short statement will suffice here, since the witnesses I mean to call before you will amply elucidate this part of my case. It was while travelling with despatches to the North of Europe my client formed acquaintance with a certain Count Ysaffich, at that time himself employed in the diplomatic service; and though at the period a warm friendship grew up between them, it was not till after the lapse of many years that the Count came to know that a large mass of papers – copies of documents drawn out by Raper, and which had come into the Count’s hands in a manner I shall relate to you – actually bore reference to his former acquaintance, – the casual intimate of a journey.

“These two men, thrown together by one of the most extraordinary chances of fortune, sit down to recount their lives to each other. Beside the fire of an humble chalet, in a forest, Carew hears again the story he had once listened to in his infancy; the very tale his dear mother had repeated to him in the midst of the Alps, he now hears from the lips of one almost a stranger. Names once familiar, but long forgotten, come back to him. The very sounds thrilled through his heart like as the notes of the Swiss melody awaken in the far-away wanderer thoughts of home and fatherland. In an instant he throws off the apathy of his former life, he ceases to be the sport and plaything of fortune, and devotes himself heart and soul to the restitution of the ancient name of his house and the long dormant honors of a distinguished family.

“We cannot,” writes the journalist, “undertake at this late hour to follow the learned counsel into the minute enumeration he went into, of small circumstances of proof, memoranda of conversations, scraps of letters, allusions in the course of correspondence, and so on; the object of which was to show that although the late Walter Carew had some secret reason of his own for maintaining a mystery about his marriage, that of the fact of the marriage there could be no doubt, – nor of the legitimacy of him who claimed to be his heir; neither are we able to enter upon the intricate question of establishing the identity of the present claimant; suffice it to say that he succeeded in connecting him with a number of events from the days of his earliest childhood to a comparatively recent period, all corroboratory of his assumption; the possession of the seal and arms of his family, his name, and, above all, the unmistakable traits of family resemblance, being wonderful evidences in his favor. Indeed, we are not aware of a more dramatic incident in the administration of justice than our court presented yesterday, when, at the close of his seven hours’ speech, full of all its details, narrative and legal, the able counsel suddenly paused, and, in a voice of subdued accent, asked if there chanced at that moment to be present in the court any of those who once enjoyed the friendship or even the acquaintance of the late Walter Carew. He was one, continued he, not easily to be forgotten, even by a casual observer. His tall and manly figure, the type at once of dignity and strength, his bold, high forehead, his deep-set blue eyes, soft as a child’s in their expression, or sparkling like the orbs of an eagle; his mouth more characteristic than all, since, though marked by an air of pride, it never moved without an expression of genial kindliness and good-humor, – the traits that we love to think eminently national; the mingled nature of daring intrepidity with a careless ease; the dash of almost reckless courage with a still milder gayety, – these were all his. Are there not some here, is there not even one who can recall them? And if there be, let him look there! and he pointed to the gallery beside the jury-box, at the end of which was seated a young man, pale and sickly-looking, it is true, but whose countenance at once corroborated the picture. The vast multitude that filled the body of the court, crowding every avenue and space, and even invading the seats reserved for the Bar, rose as one man, and turned to gaze on the living evidence of the description. It would be difficult to conceive a more striking scene enacted within walls where the solemnity of the law usually represses every semblance of popular emotion; nor was it till after several seconds had elapsed that the judges were enabled to recall the Court to the observance of the rigid propriety of the justice-seat.

“Himself exhausted by his efforts, and really overborne by feeling, the counsel was unable to continue his address, and the Court, willingly granting an indulgence that his exertions amply deserved, adjourned till to-morrow, when at ten o’clock this remarkable case will be resumed; though it is believed, from the number of witnesses to be examined, and the necessary length of ‘the reply,’ the trial cannot be completed before Saturday evening.”

CHAPTER L. A TRIAL – CONCLUSION

The second day was chiefly occupied in examining witnesses, – old acquaintances of my father’s, for the most part, who had known him on his return to Ireland, and who could bear their testimony as to the manner in which he lived, and the acceptance he and my mother had met with in the best society of the capital. Though their evidence really went no further than a mere impression on their part, it was easy to perceive that its effect was most favorable on the jury; nor could cross-examination elicit the slightest flaw in the belief that they lived amongst their equals, without the shadow of aspersion on their honor.

An uninterested spectator of the scene might have felt amusement in contrasting the description of manners and habits with the customs of the present time; for although the evidence referred to a period so recent, yet were all the details mixed up with usages, opinions, and ways that seemed those of a long-past epoch. Men were just then awakening after that long and splendid orgie which had formed the life of Ireland before the Union. With bankrupt fortunes and ruined estates, they saw themselves the successors of a race whose princely hospitalities had never known a limit, and who had really imparted a character of barbaric splendor to lives of reckless extravagance.

A certain Mr. Archdall was examined as to his recollection of Castle Carew and the company who frequented there. He had been my father’s guest when the Viceroy visited him; and certainly his account of the festivities might well have startled the credulity of his hearers. It was not at first apparent with what object these revelations were elicited by the cross-examination; but at length it came out that they were intended to show that my father, having no heir, nor expecting to have any, suffered himself to follow a career of the wildest wastefulness. With equal success they drew forth from the witness stories of my mother’s unpopularity with the ladies of her own set in society, and the suspicion and distrust that pervaded the world of fashion that she had not originally been born in, or belonged to, the class with which she was then associating.

It was but too plain to what all this pointed; and although old servants of the family were brought forward to show the deference with which my mother’s position was ever regarded, and the degree of respect, almost amounting to state, with which she was treated, yet the artfulness of the cross-examiner had at least succeeded in representing her to the jury as self-willed, vain, and capricious, constantly longing for a return to France, and cordially hating her banishment to Ireland. My mother’s friendship and attachment to Polly Fagan was ingeniously alluded to as a strange incident in the life of one whose circumstances might seem to have separated her from such companionship; and the able counsel dwelt most effectively on the disparity which separated their conditions.

These circumstances were, however, not pressed home, but rather left to make their impression, with more or less of force, while other incidents were being related. To rebut in some measure these impressions, Foxley showed that my mother had been a guest at the Viceroy’s table, – an honor which could not have been conferred on her on any questionable grounds. Unimportant and trivial as was the fact, the mode of eliciting it formed one of the amusing episodes of the trial, since it brought forward on the witness-table a well-known character of old Dublin, – no less a functionary than Samuel Cotterell, the hall trumpeter, now pensioned off and retired, but still, with all the weight of nearly fourscore-and-ten years, bearing himself erect, and carrying in his port the consciousness of his once high estate and dignity.

It was some time before the old man could be persuaded that in all the state and pomp of the justice-seat there was not occasion for some exercise of his ancient functions.

He seemed ashamed at appearing without his tabard, and looked anxiously around for his trumpet; but once launched upon the subject of his recollections, he appeared to revel with eager delight in all the associations they called up. It was perfectly miraculous to see with what tenacity he retained a memory of the festivities of old Viceregal times; they lived, however, in his mind like distinct pictures, unconnected with all around him. There was a duke in his “garter,” and a duchess in her diamonds; a gorgeously decked table; pineapples that came from France; and a dessert wine newly arrived from Portugal, some of which Sir Amyrald Fitzgerald spilled on Madame Carew’s dress; at which she laughed pleasantly, and, in showing the stains, displayed her ankles to Barry Rutledge, who whispered his Grace that there was not such a foot and leg in Ireland. Lord Gartymore backed Kitty O’Dwyer’s for fifty pounds, and lost his wager.

“How, then, was the bet decided, Mr. Cotterell?”

“We saw her dance the minuet with Colonel Candler, and my Lord said he had lost.”

“Madame Carew was, then, much admired at Court?”

“She was.”

“And a favorite guest, too?”

“We asked her on Wednesdays generally; they were the small dinners, but many thought them the pleasantest.”

“Her Grace noticed her particularly, you say?”

“She did so on one Patrick’s night, and said she had never seen such lace before; and Madame Carew told her she would show her some still handsomer, for it had been given by the king to her grandmother, whom I think they called Madame Barry, or Du Barry, or something like that.”

Though little in reality beyond the gossiping revelation of a very old man, Cotterell’s evidence tended to show that my mother had been a welcome and a favored guest in all the best houses of the day, and that, living as she did in the very centre of scandal, not the slightest imputation had been ever thrown upon her position or her conduct.

The counsel probably saw that, not having any direct proof of the marriage, – when, and how, and where solemnized, – it was more than ever necessary to show the rank my mother had always occupied in the world, and the respect with which she was ever received in society.

He had – I know not with what, if any, grounds – a little narrative of her family and birthplace in France, and most conveniently disposed of all belonging to her, – fortune, friends, and home, – by the events of “that disastrous Revolution, which swept away not only the nobles of the land, but every archive and document that had pertained to them.”

When he came to my own birth, he was fortunate enough to obtain all the evidence he wanted. The priest of Rathmullen, who had officiated at my christening, was yet alive, and related, with singular clearness of recollection, every circumstance of that sorrowful night when the tidings of my father’s violent death reached the village beside Castle Carew. Of those present on this occasion, among whom were Polly Fagan and MacNaghten, he could not yet point to where one could be found.

There now only remained to sum up the evidence, and impart that consistency and coherence to the story which should carry conviction to the minds of the jury; and this task he performed with a most consummate ability, concluding all with an account of my own visit to the home of my fathers, and the reception which there had met me. The passionate vehemence of his indignation seemed fired by the theme; and, warming as he proceeded, he denounced the infamy of that morning as not only a stain upon the nation, but the age, and called upon the jury, whatever their decision might be in the cause itself, – whether to restore the heir to his own, or send him a beggared wanderer through the world, – to mark by some expression of their own the horror and disgust this act of barbaric cruelty had filled them with.

A burst of applause and indignation commingled saluted the orator as he sat down; nor was it till after repeated efforts of the criers that silence was again restored, and the business of the trial proceeded with.

Mr. M’Clelland, to whom the chief duty of the defence was intrusted, requested permission of the court to defer the reply to the following day, and, the leave being granted, the court arose.

I dined that day with Mr. Fozley. I would fain have been alone. The intense excitement of the scene had made me feverish, and I would gladly have felt myself at ease, and free to give way, in solitude, to the emotions which were almost suffocating me; but he insisted on my presence, and I went. The company included many very distinguished names, – members of both Houses of Parliament, and men of high consideration; and by all of them was I received with more than kindness, and some went so far as to congratulate me on a victory which, if not yet gazetted, was just as certainly achieved.

I dare not trust myself to dwell on this subject; the tremors of hope and fear I then went through threaten even yet to come back in memory. A few more words, and I have done. Would that I could spare myself the pain of these! But it cannot be so; my task must be completed.

I suppose that very few persons have ever formed a rightful estimate of the extent to which the skill and cleverness of an able lawyer have enabled him to wound their feelings and insult their self-love. I conclude this to be the case, not alone from my own brief and unhappy experience, but from reading a vast number of trials and always experiencing a sense of astonishment at the powerful perversity of these men. The cruel insinuation, the imputed meanness, the perversion of meaning, the insinuations of unworthy motive, are all acquired and cultivated, like the feints and parries of an accomplished fencer. The depreciation of a certain testimony, and the exaggerated estimate of some other; the sneering acknowledgment of this, or the triumphant assertion of that; the dark menace of a hidden meaning here, and the subtle insinuation that there was more than met the eye there, – are all studied and practised efforts, as artificial as the stage-trick of the actor. And yet how little does all our conviction of this artifice avail against their influence!

Bad as these are, they are as nothing to the resources in store when the object is to assail the reputation and blacken the character; to hold up some poor fellow-man – frail and erring as he may be – to everlasting shame, and mark him with ignominy forever. Alas for the best and purest! what an alloy of meanness and littleness, what vanity and self-seeking mingle with their very noblest and highest efforts. What need, then, to overwhelm the guilty with more than his guilt, and quote the “Heart” in the indictment as well as the Crime? No, no; if the best be not all good, believe me the worst are not all and hopelessly depraved. I have a right to speak of these things, as one who has felt them. For eight hours and more I listened to such a character of myself as made me sick, to very loathing, at my own identity; I heard a man in a great assembly denounce me as one of the most corrupt and infamous of mankind! I felt the eyes that were turned towards me, I almost thought I overheard the muttered reprobation that surrounded me. A number of the incidents of my changeful life – how learned I know not – were related with every exaggeration and every perversion that malice could invest them with. For a while, a sense of guiltlessness supported me; I knew many of the accusations to be false, others grossly overstated. The scenes in which I was often depicted as an actor had either no existence, or were falsehoods based upon some small germ of truth; and yet I heard them detailed with a semblance of reality, and a degree of coherence as to time and place, that smote me with very terror, since, though I might deny, I could not disprove them.

To stamp me as an impostor, and my claim as a cheat, appeared to be the entire line of the defence. Indeed, he avowed openly that with all the evidence so painstakingly elicited by the opposite counsel, he should not trouble the jury with one remark. “When I tell you,” said he, “who this claimant really is, and how his claim originated, you will forgive me that I have not embarrassed you with details quite irrelevant to this action, since of Walter Carew or of any descendant of his there is no question here! I will produce before you on that table, I will leave him to all the ingenuity of my learned friend to cross-examine, one who shall account to you how the first impulse to this daring imposture was conceived. You will be astounded. It will be, I am aware, a tremendous tax upon your credulity to compass it; but I will show to your entire conviction that the man who aspires to the rank of an Irish gentleman, a vast estate, and an illustrious name, is a foreigner of unknown origin who began life as an emissary of the French revolutionary party. When secret treachery superseded the guillotine, he served as a spy; this trade failing, he fell into the straits and difficulties of the most abject poverty; the materials of that period of his history are, of course, difficult to come at. They who walk in such paths, walk darkly and secretly; but we may be able to display some, at least, of his actions at this time, – one of them, at all events, will exhibit the character of the individual, and at the same time put you in possession of an incident which, in all likelihood, originated this extraordinary action.

“There may be some now present in this court sufficiently familiar with London to remember a certain character well known in the precincts of Charing Cross by the nickname of Gentleman Jack. To those not acquainted with this individual I may mention that he swept a crossing in that locality, and had, by a degree of pretension in his appearance, aided by a natural smartness in repartee, attracted notice from many of the idle loungers of fashion who daily passed and repassed there. I am not able to say if his gifts were in any respect above the common. Indeed, I have heard that it was rather the singular fact that a man in such a station should be remarkable for any claim to notice whatever, which endowed him with the popularity he enjoyed. At all events, he was remarkable enough to be generally, I might say universally, known; and it was the caprice of certain fashionable folk to accord him a recognition as they passed by. This degree of attention was harmless, at least, and had it stopped at that point, might never have called for any reprobation; but modish follies occasionally take an offensive shape, and this man’s pretension offered the opportunity to display such.

“You have all heard of Carlton House, gentlemen, – of the society of wits who frequent there, and the charms of a circle in which the chief figure is not more distinguished for his rank than for the gifts which elevate social intercourse. To the freedom which this exalted personage permitted those who approached him thus nearly, there seemed to be scarcely any limit. Admitting them to his friendship, he endowed them with almost equality; and there was not a liberty nor a license which could be practised in ordinary polite intercourse that was not allowed at that hospitable board.