HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
Henry Northcote 
 
 By jM- 
 
 JOHN COLLIS gjSTAITH 
 
 Juthor of ^^ Broke of Covenden^^ ^^Miss Dorothy 
 Marvin" etc. 
 
 
 Boston 
 
 HERBERT B. TURNER & CO, 
 
 1906 
 
%i 
 
 '*1 
 
 Copyright, 1906 
 
 By John Collis Snaith 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall 
 
 London 
 
 Published September, 1906 
 
 Second Edition, October 1, 1906 
 
 COLONIAL PRESS 
 
 EUctroiyPed and Printed by C. H. Simonds &f Co. 
 
 Boston, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 Shepherd's Inn, Fleet Street 
 
 
 II. 
 
 Retrospection 
 
 
 III. 
 
 Summoning the Genie 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 Enter Mr. Whitcomb 
 
 
 V. 
 
 An Aristocrat of Aristocrats 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 A Prophecy . . . • . 
 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Offer of a Brief . 
 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Equity a Fruit of the Gods 
 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Brief Withdrawn . 
 
 
 X. 
 
 The Ride to Norbiton . 
 
 
 XI. 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb's Foibles . 
 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Faith of a Siren . 
 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Be Bold, Wary, Fear Not . 
 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A Jury of Two 
 
 
 XV. 
 
 Truth's Champion . 
 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A Jury of One. 
 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Messrs. Whitcomb and Whitcomb 
 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 To the Prison .... 
 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Accused .... 
 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Interview .... 
 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The Talisman Which Transcend; 
 
 PERIENCE .... 
 
 3 Ex- 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Life or Death .... 
 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Preparation .... 
 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The Trial .... 
 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Mr. Weekes, K. C. . 
 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The Plea 
 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The Peroration 
 
 i:: 
 
 
 111 
 
 Q^ri/inn 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 
 PAGX 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 The Summing Up . 
 
 . 
 
 268 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 The Verdict .... 
 
 . 
 
 278 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Sir Joseph Brudenell . 
 
 . 
 
 285 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Mediocrity versus Genius . 
 
 . 
 
 297 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Mediocrity Aspiring to Virtue. 
 
 306 
 
 XXXIII.' 
 
 The Highway of the Many 
 
 . 
 
 313 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Magdalene or Delilah 
 
 • • 
 
 320 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Delilah 
 
 
 341 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 The Honorable Secretary 
 
 
 351 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Indelible Evidence 
 
 
 363 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Cleansing Fire 
 
 
 368 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Without Fear and Without 
 
 Stain . 
 
 380 
 
SHEPHERDS INN, FLEET STREET 
 
 North COTE sat in his chambers in Shepherd's 
 Inn. Down below was Fleet Street, in the thrall of 
 a bitter December twilight. A heavy and pervasive 
 thaw pressed its mantle upon the gaslit air; a 
 driving sleet numbed the skin and stung the eyes 
 of all who had to face it. Pools of slush, com- 
 posed in equal parts of- ice, water, and mud, im- 
 peded the pavements. They invaded the stoutest 
 boots, submerged those less resolute, and imposed 
 not a little inconvenience upon that section of the 
 population which, unaddicted to the wearing of 
 boots, had dispensed with them altogether. 
 
 The room in which Northcote kept was no more 
 than a large and draughty garret, which abutted 
 from the northern end of a crazy rectangular build- 
 ing on this curious byway of the world's afifairs. 
 Only a few decrepit tiles, a handful of rotten laths, 
 and a layer of cracked plaster intervened between 
 him and the night. The grate had no fire in it; 
 there was no carpet to the floor. A table and two 
 chairs were the sole furniture, and in a corner 
 could be heard the stealthy drip of icy water as it 
 percolated through the roof. 
 
 The occupant of the room sat in a threadbare 
 overcoat with the collar turned up to his ears. His 
 hands, encased in a pair of woollen gloves, which 
 were full of holes, were pressed upon his knees; 
 
...... HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 a pipe was Wweefi his teeth ; and while he sucked 
 at it with the devout patience of one to whom it has 
 to serve for everything that the physical side of his 
 nature craved, he stared into the fireless grate with 
 an intensity which can impart a heat and a life of 
 its own. 
 
 Now and again after some particularly violent 
 demonstration on the part of the weather he would 
 give a little stoical shudder, fix the pipe in the op- 
 posite corner of his mouth, and huddle away invol- 
 untarily from the draught that came from under the 
 door. 
 
 Northcote was a man of thirty who found him- 
 self face to face with starvation. He had been six 
 years at the bar. Friendless, without influence, ab- 
 jectly poor, he had chosen the common law side. 
 Occasionally he had been able to pick up an odd 
 guinea in the police courts, but at no time had he 
 earned enough to meet his few needs. He was now 
 contemplating the removal of the roof from over 
 his head. Its modest rental was no longer forth- 
 coming; and there was nothing remaining among 
 his worldly possessions which would induce the 
 pawnbroker, the friend of the poor, to advance it. 
 
 " I wonder how those poor devils get on who 
 live in the gutter," he muttered, grimly, as he 
 shuddered again. " You will soon be able to find 
 an answer to that question," he added, as he 
 stamped his frozen toes on the hearthstone and 
 beat his fingers against his knees. 
 
 Quite suddenly he was lifted out of the abyss of 
 his reflection by the sound of a footfall in the 
 room. Jerking up his head, he peered through the 
 darkness towards the door whence the sound had 
 
SHEPHERD'S INN, FLEET STREET 
 
 come, but the shadows were so thick that he could 
 see nothing. 
 
 ** Hullo!" he called. 
 
 " Hullo ! " came back a wholly unexpected re- 
 sponse. 
 
 "Who are you? What do you want?" cried 
 Northcote, with a thrill in his voice. 
 
 The young man rose to his feet to summon the 
 commoner faculties. For a voice to have invaded 
 his garret at this hour and in this fashion seemed 
 to presage a new epoch to his life. 
 
 " Who are you ? " he demanded again, having 
 received no reply to the former demand. ^ 
 
 " Nobody much," said the voice, which sounded 
 unlike anything he had ever heard before. 
 
 " ni strike a match before I get a blow from 
 a bludgeon." 
 
 " Pray do so," said the voice, quietly. 
 
 Northcote began to fumble for the matches and 
 found them on the mantelpiece. He obtained a 
 light and applied it to the wick of the lamp which 
 was on the table, and was then able to read his 
 visitor. 
 
 The flicker of the lamp declared him to be a man 
 of forty, of pale and attenuated figure, clad in rags. 
 
 " To what am I indebted for the honor of this 
 visit ? " said Northcote, with slightly overempha- 
 sized politeness. 
 
 " Curiosity, curiosity," muttered his visitor, with 
 the quietness of one who is acquainted with its 
 value. 
 
 Northcote turned up the lamp to its highest point 
 and resumed his scrutiny. The voice and manner 
 were those of a man of education; and although 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 the garb was that of a scarecrow, and the face was 
 wan with hunger and sHghtly debased by suffering, 
 a strange refinement was underlying it. 
 
 " This is all very mysterious," said the young 
 advocate ; and indeed the wretched figure that con- 
 fronted him appeared to have no credentials to 
 present. " May I ask who and what you are? " 
 
 " How race reveals itself ! " said the visitor, with 
 a faint air of disappointment. " Even the higher 
 types among us cannot cast their shackles away. 
 When we go down into Hades, we are at once 
 surrounded by the damned souls of our country- 
 men, clamoring to know mho and what we 
 are." 
 
 " Well, who are you, at any rate? " said North- 
 cote, oppressed with an acute sense of mystery. 
 
 " My name is Iggs," said the scarecrow. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Iggs, I am sorry to say that to me 
 your name conveys nothing." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 For an instant the scarecrow peered in a strange 
 and concentrated manner into the face of the advo- 
 cate. He then sighed deeply and rose from his 
 chair. 
 
 " With all the learning we acquire so painfully," 
 he whispered, " we cannot enjoy a perfect immunity 
 from error. Good night, sir. I offer my apologies 
 for having invaded your privacy." 
 
 With a bow of grave deference the strange figure 
 proceeded to glide from the room in the noiseless 
 manner in which it had entered it. 
 
 By the time his visitor had reached the door, 
 Northcote called after him hastily : " Come back, 
 
 8 
 
SHEPHERD'S INN, FLEET STREET 
 
 Mr. Iggs. I have not expressed myself — not ex- 
 pressed myself adequately. Come back." 
 
 His visitor, with the same air of deference and 
 the same noiselessness of movement, returned to 
 the chair. Northcote fixed two eyes of a devour- 
 ing curiosity upon his bloodless face. They re- 
 coiled with a shock of encounter; two orbs flaming 
 out of it in all their sunken brilliancy had looked 
 within them. Also he beheld a mouth whose lips 
 were curved with the divine mobility of a passion. 
 The advocate clasped his hands to his sides to re- 
 press a fierce emotion of pain. 
 
 " Perhaps, Mr. Iggs," he said, " you have been 
 down into the depths of the sea ? " 
 
 His visitor brushed the green canopy of his 
 mutilated bowler hat slowly and delicately upon 
 the threadbare sleeve of his coat. 
 
 " That is true," he said; " but I would have you 
 not forget that I have also walked upon the peaks 
 of the highest mountains." 
 
 The roar of Fleet Street, the sough of the icy 
 wind through the telegraph wires, the driving of 
 the sleet against the window, and the drip drip of 
 the water through the ceiling seemed to blend with 
 the rich and full tones enveloping these words. A 
 sensation of awe began to surmount the pity and 
 the patronage that the outer semblance of his vis- 
 itor had first aroused in the breast of the young 
 man. 
 
 " With your permission, sir," he said, " I will go 
 back to my original question, and I will frame it 
 with a deeper sincerity : To what does Henry 
 Northcote owe the honor of this visit ? " 
 
 ** This visit is paid to you, my friend, because for 
 
 9 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 some inscrutable reason Nature mixed blood and 
 fire with your brains. You, too, will go down into 
 the depths of the sea and ascend also into the moun- 
 tain places." 
 
 " You cannot know that," said Northcote, with 
 his heart beginning to beat violently. 
 
 " Reflect a moment," said his visitor. " Do you 
 not know as well as I that it is the privilege of us 
 to know everything?" 
 
 " True, true ! But in what manner has one so 
 obscure as myself been brought to your notice? " 
 
 ** Every Sunday afternoon for a year past I have 
 been a member of the audience your oratory has 
 enchanted in Hyde Park." 
 
 " How comes it, sir, that one of your condition 
 can bring himself to listen to a mob orator ? " 
 
 " How comes it that one of a like condition can 
 bring himself to preach to the mob ? " 
 
 " Primarily, I suppose, that my powers may de- 
 velop. One day I shall hope to turn them — that 
 is, if it is given to me to survive the present snap 
 of cold weather — to higher things and larger is- 
 sues." 
 
 " And I, my friend," said his visitor, " who by 
 no human possibility can survive the present snap 
 of cold weather, I come to tell the young Demos- 
 thenes that he can seek no higher thing, no larger 
 issue than to preach to the mob. All the great move- 
 ments the world ever saw began from below. The 
 power of the sea lies in its depths. Jesus was able 
 to invent a religion by preaching to the mob." 
 
 " There are some who think," said the young 
 man, " that for one who was ambitious the career 
 of Jesus was a partial failure." 
 
 10 
 
SHEPHERD'S INN, FLEET STREET 
 
 " The age is crying out for another such failure," 
 said his visitor. 
 
 " Because the old has betrayed them ? " said the 
 young man, with fear in his voice. 
 
 His visitor left the question unanswered. 
 
 " They await the advent," he said, after a silence 
 in which both breathed close, " of a second Failure 
 to save them from themselves. Only that can pre- 
 vent them dashing out their brains against the blank 
 wall that has come to stand before them." 
 
 " I believe you to be right, sir," said the advocate, 
 slowly, as his eyes traversed the chaste delicacy of 
 the face which was framed in shadows. 
 
 " The Great Renunciator who first reduces this 
 failure to terms," said the scarecrow, " will have a 
 sterner task than Jesus had." 
 
 " Yet, sir, you come to one who is almost fainting 
 by the bleak wayside." 
 
 "Have I not listened to your oratory? Do I 
 not discern you to stand at the parting of the 
 ways?" 
 
 " Yes, at the parting of the virays," said the young 
 man heavily. " The hour is at hand when one 
 whose poverty is bitter must make his choice." 
 
 " I have prayed for you," said his visitor, with 
 such a perfect simplicity that it filled the eyes of 
 the young advocate with tears. " Your ordeal is 
 terrible, for I discern you to be a man of great 
 power." 
 
 " Poverty is a deadly evil," said Northcote. 
 
 " Yet I would have you beware of riches," said 
 his visitor. ** Think of the cruel treachery with 
 which they use so many. See how they have be- 
 trayed our own fair land. And it is one such as 
 
 II 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 you, in his virgin immunity, who is called upon to 
 release her from their false embraces." 
 
 " I, sir ! " exclaimed the young man, with wild 
 eyes and his heart beating violently. " I, without 
 clothes to my skin, without food in my belly, and 
 who to-morrow will have no roof under which to 
 rest his head ! " 
 
 The wan smile of the scarecrow embraced his 
 own mutilated hat, broken boots, and ragged con- 
 dition. 
 
 " You may or you may not be the emancipator," 
 said the scarecrow, peering at him earnestly, " yet 
 the veritable great one whom I see configured be- 
 fore me is some such man as you. I have listened 
 many weeks to your oratory, and you have a 
 strange power. Your voice is noble, and speaks 
 words of authority. Even if you are not the demi- 
 god for whom the age is asking, — and, my dear 
 friend, far be it from me to say you are not, — you 
 were yet formed by Nature to do a momentous 
 work for your country." 
 
 " In its casual wards," said the young man, with 
 an outburst of bitterness. 
 
 "The elect upon whom Nature confers true 
 power are generally safeguarded in this wise man- 
 ner. The ambitions of the market-place are set 
 beyond their reach. I lie down to-night with a 
 paean of thanksgiving upon my lips. May the hour 
 dawn when you also may consign your bones to 
 the snow. But in the meantime you have a great 
 work to do in the world. Nature has filled you 
 with speech ; therefore you have the burden of im- 
 mense responsibilities, for speech is the most signal 
 of her gifts. You may or you may not be the great 
 
 12 
 
SHEPHERD'S INN, FLEET STREET 
 
 renunciator whom millions of your countrymen 
 await with fevered looks; but it lies within your 
 province, as it lies within that of every mariner, 
 to array yourself among those of humble prophecy 
 who read the meaning of the star in the east. At 
 least, my friend, all who allow themselves to antici- 
 pate a divine appearance are the servants of truth." 
 With these words the scarecrow rose from his 
 chair, and, bowing to the young man with an aus- 
 tere bTit kind dignity, left the room as suddenly and 
 noiselessly as he had entered it. 
 
 13 
 
n 
 
 RETROSPECTION 
 
 Left alone in the coldness of his garret, North- 
 cote felt a stupefaction steal upon him. The phase 
 of his own circumstances had lent force to this 
 bizarre incident. Spectral as this apparition was, 
 however, the gestures, the tones, the mean garb 
 were those of a living man. 
 
 The coming of such a mariner who had been 
 down into the depths of the sea appeared for a 
 moment to turn his eyes inwards. Seated again 
 before the empty grate with his hands on his knees, 
 he saw his life and its surroundings with a sharp- 
 ness of vision which hunger had seemed to render 
 more definite. He saw himself as the full-blooded 
 turbulent man, tormented by desires, thwarted by 
 fortune, yet yearning to express a complete, moral, 
 intellectual, and physical life. He was so strong, 
 yet so impotent ; so expansive, yet so circumscribed ; 
 loving all the colors of the sun and the bright face 
 of heaven, yet condemned to a prison, and perhaps 
 the more dreadful darkness of the lazar-house. He 
 saw himself as the wholesome, simple-hearted citi- 
 zen, yet as the man of imagination also, the poet 
 and the dreamer formed to walk upon the heights, 
 who, oppressed by the duality of his nature, was in 
 danger of succumbing to weariness, disillusion, and 
 a remorseless material need. 
 
 He saw himself as a bov roaming the fields, cast- 
 14 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 ing up the soft loam with his feet, spending long 
 clays in dreams of the miraculous future, and eve- 
 nings in conversation with his mother, — that won- 
 derful mother whose mind was so secure, whose 
 conceptions of the heavy duties that wait upon the 
 gift of life were so odd, yet so exact. He recalled 
 her as a gaunt, strong, and tall woman, with a red 
 face, rather coarse hands, and a shabby black hat 
 tied in a frayed velvet bow under her chin. 
 
 He could never remember to have heard her com- 
 plain of life and fortune. She wore the same clothes 
 year after year; sought no amelioration from her 
 wearisome and unremitting labors ; never seemed to 
 vary in her sturdiness of health and temper; and 
 always maintained plain, robust, material opinions. 
 Her life had been a sordid and continuous struggle 
 for the acquisition of money, a pound here and a 
 pound there, but there was no trace of avarice in her 
 character. She had educated him wholly beyond 
 her means, but permitted herself no romance about 
 it. She believed that being her son, and the son 
 of the man she had married, — whom life had cut 
 off in an arbitrary manner before he had had a 
 chance to display his gifts, — he would be a man 
 of sound abilities. She had decided in her own 
 mind three months before he was born that to have 
 a fair field for his talents he must go to the bar. 
 
 *' I have a little imagination, but not enough," 
 she would say to him, as he sat with her an hour 
 after supper in the winter evenings. " Your father 
 was a man of good imagination, and used to read 
 the best authors to me. My mental limitations did 
 not permit me to understand their truth, but I al- 
 ways felt their power. Your father was a brilliant 
 
 IS 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 man in some ways, but the clock of his intellect was 
 always set a little too fast. If he had not decided 
 early in life to be a bishop, I think he would have 
 been a writer of books. Even as it was, he wanted 
 sometimes to write them. However, I managed to 
 dissuade him. ' No, Henry,' I said, * stick to your 
 trade. You cannot combine the two. To write 
 books you would have to look at things so closely 
 that it would unfit you for your calling.' All the 
 same, your father was a man of remarkable natural 
 force. He would have succeeded in anything he 
 had undertaken." 
 
 Northcote never recalled his mother — and it was 
 seldom that a day passed in his life unless he did 
 recall her in one shape or another — that this speech, 
 and a hundred that were similar, did not fill his ears, 
 his memory, and his imagination. As he sat now 
 with his hands and feet growing colder, the pool 
 on the floor growing larger, his vitality becoming 
 less and with despair advancing upon him silently 
 like the army of shadows that pressed every minute 
 more strongly upon the feeble lamp, he saw that 
 dauntless countenance, the firm lips, the gray eyes 
 which darkened a little in the evenings as though 
 accompanied by thought; the precise but inhar- 
 monious voice came into his ears; the vigorous 
 intelligence was spread before him, calm but un- 
 beautiful, full of massive courage, but deficient in 
 the finer shades of life. 
 
 At those seasons when the young advocate sat 
 in his isolation and despair, that arch-enemy of high 
 natures crept into his veins like a drug; he would 
 seek the antidote in that courageous life. This pen- 
 niless widow of a clergyman in a small village in 
 
 i6 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 a remote part of the world had fitted her son for 
 the only sphere in which she looked for distinction 
 for him, by many years of Spartan hardihood in 
 thought and deed. The few pounds the Reverend 
 Henry Northcote had laid by from his pittance, 
 wherewith to provide an education for his son, had 
 been lost in a building society within three months 
 of his own departure from the world. From the 
 date of the disaster his widow had restricted the 
 hours she spent in bed to five out of the twenty- 
 four; had renounced the eating of meat and the 
 most commonplace luxuries; and had practised a 
 thousand and one petty economies in order that 
 her husband's son should not lack the educational 
 advantages of those with whom he would have to 
 compete. She had maintained him at a public 
 school, and afterwards, for a short period, at the 
 university, by translating classics out of foreign lan- 
 guages for scholastic publishers, and by conveying 
 the rudiments of knowledge to the young children 
 of the landholders who lived in her neighborhood. 
 
 This stalwart figure formed a wonderful back- 
 ground to his youth. He was filled with awe by 
 a simplicity that was so unconquerable, a self-reli- 
 ance that was so majestic. All the subtle implements 
 of his nature could not resolve such a potency as 
 that. He himself was so much less and so much 
 more. 
 
 Strange homage was paid to this unlovely but 
 august woman by the privy council which sat in 
 eternal session in his intellect. The favorite guise 
 in which she was presented to it was as the mother 
 of Napoleon, that *' Madame Mere " who in the 
 trenches conceived the Man of Destiny, and walked 
 
 17 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 to church an hour before she gave him to the world. 
 Her martial bearing, large bones, strong country 
 speech, clothed the idea with the flesh of the hard 
 fact; her consciousness of purpose, power of will, 
 ennobled and quickened it with the hues of poetry. 
 
 Homer must have had some such woman for a 
 mother, in whose womb the Iliads were born pre- 
 natally. All that sped, flew, or swam in the aerial 
 kingdom of the Idea must first have had its pinions 
 fixed and pointed by some inarticulate goddess who 
 laid upon herself the humblest functions, the mean- 
 est offices, in order that nature might not lack lusty 
 and shrewd servants in the time to be. The teeming 
 millions of creatures who spawned in the darkness, 
 who lifted their scaled eyes to where the light might 
 be found, according to those who had skill in 
 prophecy, yet who themselves were so uncertain of 
 its presence that, when it shone straight before them 
 through the fissures in their cave, they passed it by 
 as a chimera, or the iridescence of some bird, rep- 
 tile, piece of coal, or winged snake, — these cried 
 out continually for some true-born Child of the Sun 
 to lead them out of that gross night into the molten 
 plains of beauty which ran down to the sea. And 
 it was given to some stalwart creature with a red 
 face and coarse hands and a shabby black hat tied 
 in a bow under the chin, who herself was purblind, 
 yet with knees ever pressed to the flags of the tem- 
 ple, to dream of the light in her prayers, and pres- 
 ently, out of her own strong, rustic body, to furnish 
 forth to her kind a guide, a prophet, and a leader. 
 
 As hunger, that exquisite, but cruel, sensation, 
 grew upon Northcote, and caused fierce little 
 shivers to run through his bones, he awoke to the 
 
 i8 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 fact that all the tobacco in his pipe had been con- 
 sumed, and further, that there was not a grain 
 left in his pouch. In this extremity he had re- 
 course to his evening meal. It was contained in 
 a confectioner's paper, and consisted of a large 
 "Bath bun embellished with currants. He plucked 
 out the currants carefully, and laid them apart as 
 dessert. After half an hour's deliberate munch- 
 ing, a little of the well-being of the nourished man 
 returned. 
 
 He opened a drawer in the table, and took out 
 a handful of foolscap pages covered with writing 
 in a small and not very visible hand. These were 
 but a few among some two thousand others, which 
 embodied " A Note towards an Essay on Opti- 
 mism," the fruit of the leisure of six years. It had 
 had the honor of being rejected, promptly and un- 
 compromisingly, by the publishers of London. Only 
 one among this autocracy had condescended to 
 supply a reason. It was brief but ample : " Phi- 
 losophy does not pay." 
 
 As Northcote held these pages beneath the un- 
 certain rays of the lamp, and for the thousand and 
 first time their quality was revealed to his gaze, a 
 profound excitement spread through his being. 
 What had the degradation of his poverty enabled 
 him to compass for mankind? These magic pages 
 were so quick with authenticity that he was forced 
 to regard them as the gage of one who was about 
 to offer a universal sanction to the human heart. 
 
 After awhile he returned these papers to the 
 drawer and addressed himself to one of the dusty 
 manuals of jurisprudence that adorned his table. 
 But strange shapes were in his mind to-night; and 
 
 19 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 these would not be harnessed to the dead letter of 
 the law. A torrent had been unloosed which bore 
 his thoughts in every direction save that in which 
 he would have them go. After a time the lamp 
 burned so low that it was no longer necessary to 
 make a pretence at reading. Therefore he closed 
 the book and lifted up his ears to the night. The 
 faint, consistent drip drip of the water from the 
 ceiling to the pool it had formed on the floor stole 
 upon him with a sense of the uncanny. The room 
 itself was draughty and decrepit, and in common 
 with others in that neighborhood, particularly on 
 the waterside, was inhabited by rats. He could 
 hear them now in the crevices behind the wainscot. 
 He took from the table a piece of lead which he 
 used as a paper-weight, and waited grimly for one 
 to appear. 
 
 Crouching upon the hearth with this deadly in- 
 strument in his hand, his thoughts strayed again 
 to the country, again to his mother, and from her 
 to the young girl whom he had hoped to make his 
 wife. This slender and straight and joyous crea- 
 ture, with the supple limbs of a fawn and com- 
 plexion of a dairymaid, had the seemliness and 
 purity which was so essential in one who would 
 be called to the function of completing his life. 
 She was as sweet and choice as a lily, for her only 
 gift was the serenity which has its seat in superb 
 physical health and freedom from the penalties 
 that wait upon intelligence. 
 
 She had seen nothing, knew nothing; there was 
 nothing for her to see or to know. Her simplicity 
 was so naive that it was a perennial delight to 
 a sophiscated nature. He never summoned her 
 
 20 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 image except to cherish it. In his direst mood, 
 in his straitest hour, when life blew barb after 
 barb into his skin, he felt that to possess her was 
 to keep a talisman in his spirit which could un- 
 weave the knots in the conspiracies of fate. Those 
 lines in her shape, those curves which were so 
 arch, so free, yet qualified so finely, seemed to 
 bring healing and refinement to him; while those 
 eyes, soft and luminous, yet lacking in expression, 
 seemed to chasten his power without impairing it. 
 
 At this moment a sound for which he had been 
 listening broke his reverie. An enormous she-rat, 
 heavy with young, entered the room. He watched 
 it waddle out of a dark corner and emerge slowly 
 towards him along the floor. As it came near he 
 could discern the gleam of its red eyes, its nose, 
 its wide-spreading whiskers. They filled him with 
 an indescribable ferocity. He poised the piece of 
 lead in his hand, and took aim with close-breath- 
 ing and deliberate care. Suddenly he hurled it with 
 the strength of a giant, the creature was struck 
 in the flank and lay dead before it knew that any- 
 thing had occurred. 
 
 With a grunt of satisfaction amounting almost 
 to joy he picked up the animal by the tail. ** What 
 a beauty ! " he muttered, *' and what a shot ! I 
 might try that a thousand times and not bring it 
 off." He opened the window, flung out the carcass, 
 and heard it drop in a puddle of water in the 
 middle of the traffic. 
 
 The perfectly successful accomplishment of this 
 callous feat seemed to give his senses the exhilara- 
 tion of strong wine ; and the effect was heightened 
 by a blast of icy air which was dashed on to his 
 
 21 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 face when he opened the window. The mighty 
 engines of his imagination were set in motion. He 
 leaned out of the window and snuffed the brutal 
 weather; and through the fierce sleet which stung 
 his eyes and froze on his lips he looked down 
 into London with its lights, its vehicles, and its 
 chaos; unknowing, unheeding, and unseeing, yet 
 in itself magnetic and so mysterious. He felt like 
 an eagle who peers out of his eyrie in the cliffs in 
 the midst of winter to witness the fury of the sea, 
 dashing itself to pieces upon his paternal rocks, 
 and is himself assaulted by the eternal ferocity of 
 nature. 
 
 22 
 
Ill 
 
 SUMMONING THE GENIE 
 
 The passion of Lear when on the heath he 
 bares his head to the storm mounted in his veins. 
 Leaning far out of the window of his garret to 
 confront the rage of heaven, with the unbridled 
 insolence of his youth he called upon the elements 
 to wreak themselves upon him. Let them stab his 
 eyes with tears, let them curdle the breath upon 
 his lips. Nature had charged his being with that 
 dynamic force which makes the world vibrate, only 
 to withhold the master-key without whose aid his 
 quality could not announce itself. All — all was 
 furnished in the armory of the spirit. He asked 
 no more than one brief occasion, and clad in his 
 demonic power he would shake the pillars of so- 
 ciety with that passion which was preying now 
 upon his flesh and blood. 
 
 Such occasions were not denied to those who did 
 not comprehend their use. How often with scorn- 
 ful eyes was he to watch in the courts of justice 
 mediocrity, primed with privilege and favor, mis- 
 conducting itself amid the purlieus of the law. 
 Every week he was affronted with the spectacle of 
 this hydra-headed monster toying with the life and 
 liberty of the subject. At the worst it was no 
 more than another " miscarriage of justice ; " some 
 other unseemly wretch offered upon the altars of 
 incompetence. 
 
 23 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Many times of a night when alone and hungry 
 had he conjured up a vision of the judge calling 
 from the bench for a tyro to undertake the defence 
 of one too poor to purchase an advocate. " You, 
 sir — will you undertake the defence of this un- 
 fortunate woman ? " And over and over again had 
 he broken the silence of his room with a carefully 
 modulated, " It will give me great pleasure, m'lud, 
 it will give me great pleasure." 
 
 However, no judge had made the call. How nar- 
 rowly had some old and obtuse public servant es- 
 caped unlocking the lips of a Milton, mute and 
 inglorious, who sat in a shiver of hope awaiting 
 the summons. To be sure, no judge had known 
 of so strange a presence, but had one of these ven- 
 erable guardians been aware of it, in the public 
 interest he would still have passed him by. For 
 what is more contemptible than elevation of any 
 kind when it seeks a platform on which to declare 
 itself? 
 
 Suppose the call came to-night! The suggestion 
 was conveyed in the rages of the wind buffet- 
 ing the cheeks of the unhappy man. Gasping, 
 drenched, and excited almost beyond the verge of 
 reason, he withdrew his face from the elements 
 and closed the window. The lamp on the table 
 had gone out, the few ashes in the grate gave a 
 mere feeble spark. In spite of the overcoat and 
 thick gloves which he wore, the coldness of the 
 room oppressed him like a sepulchre. His feet 
 were frozen; he had no tobacco; the clock at the 
 Law Courts was chiming nine. Yet suppose it 
 came! Why not? Why not demand it with all 
 
 24 
 
SUMMONING THE GENIE 
 
 the fervor of his nature, Hke others who had sought 
 their opportunity had done so often? 
 
 He could not understand this fever which had 
 stretched him upon the rack. It might be that the 
 lack of the meanest necessaries had told too se- 
 verely upon his frame. Indeed, he was starving by 
 degrees. His limbs — huge, knotted things — had 
 withered until he was ashamed. His skin was so 
 pale, his cheeks so wasted, that when his eyes 
 flamed out in all their cadaverous lustre the pros- 
 perous shrank from him as though he were a ghost 
 or a leper. 
 
 However, he did not covet the heritage of others. 
 Sharp as his belly was to-night, ragged as was 
 his back, he must not purchase the cuisine and 
 raiment of princes at the price that was asked. 
 Were he to inhabit the body of Croesus, he would 
 have also to inhabit his soul. Throned amid pomp, 
 he would have dined that evening to the strains 
 of Beethoven under the shadows of Velasquez and 
 Raphael. He would have eaten the manna of the 
 wilderness served upon gold plate; have drunk 
 the fabulous Falernian, with pearls from the Orient 
 dissolved in it to heighten the bouquet. Gorgeous 
 houris, whose eyes and jewels were jealous of one 
 another, whose breaths were perfumed, whose lips 
 were laden with music, would have been on his 
 right hand and on his left. Yet he would neither 
 have seen, nor heard, nor felt, nor tasted; for 
 those who partook of such a feast could neither 
 know nor understand. 
 
 He must not barter his hunger for a feast such 
 as that. No ray of meaning ever invaded this 
 crapulous Barmecide. All that he saw was that 
 
 25 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 the color of money was yellow; all that he knew 
 was that its possession oiled the wheels of life. 
 The starving man crouched upon his knees and 
 buried his burning face in the dust of the table. 
 He must make his apology to Nature for having 
 reviled her. Nothing was more imperfect than 
 this handmaid; yet how patient, how obedient was 
 this Unanswering One! She did not deserve to 
 be abused. For all at once, with a prophetic shud- 
 der of his doom, he recognized that he had only 
 to make his demand of her to receive all that he 
 asked. 
 
 If his nature craved the material, let him seek 
 it and it should be given. He need not starve in 
 his garret; his prayers would be heard. If Suc- 
 cess with all her penalties must be his, let him pros- 
 trate himself before her; was she not a courtezan 
 that none need to woo in vain? But crouching 
 thus in wretchedness, his frame shivering and burn- 
 ing by turns, the price of such a triumph was 
 before his eyes, written in garish letters upon the 
 dismal walls. He was hungry to the point of death 
 almost, yet if he satisfied that hunger with a mess 
 of pottage he would be destroyed. 
 
 How unhappy is he who becomes the witness of 
 his own dread passions determining an issue on 
 the battle-ground of his nature! If the mere act 
 of volition was still to remain with him, the choice 
 must be made; yet if he made that which had 
 grown so imminent he would lose whatever status 
 or sanction he derived from the elevation of his 
 aims. This bundle of forces within him, to whom 
 after all he held the master-key did he but dare 
 to use it, was driving him pitilessly. Already he 
 
 26 
 
SUMMONING THE CENIE 
 
 seemed to be losing his fineness of perception. The 
 point at issue was already half-erased. Those im- 
 mensely powerful engines which drove the blood 
 so furiously through his veins were in revolt. Let 
 him find employment for them ; let them fulfil their 
 appointed ends, or woe betide him. 
 
 He had only to press his eyes to the table to 
 summon the genie. Occasion would wait upon him 
 if he sank to his knees. Let him harness his will 
 to his common needs and the power would be ren- 
 dered to him to achieve them. His imagination 
 had no trammels; it was burning with a volcanic 
 activity; by its light he could enter any kingdom 
 in the material world. Let him ask, and all should 
 be given. 
 
 He had fallen into a kind of trance in which im- 
 mediate sensations of place and time were sus- 
 pended. The cold room, now wrapped in an almost 
 complete darkness in which rats were scratching 
 and scuttling; the drip drip of the water to the 
 floor; the rattle of the windows against the rising 
 gale; the roar of the traffic in the street — all had 
 become submerged, had lost their form, had been 
 blended into a strange yet not inharmonious some- 
 thing else. A pageant was passing before his 
 mind. He was powerless to identify himself with 
 it, to fix its colors, to catch the expressions of the 
 fleeting faces of those who mingled in it, yet de- 
 spite the suspension of the functions of the will, 
 he was conscious of what was taking place. 
 
 He was not in a dream, because his eyes were 
 open, he knew where he was, and he was in pos- 
 session of the sense of hearing. But he had surren- 
 dered the control of the will ; and although he was 
 
 27 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 on his knees with his face pressed to a dusty table 
 before a dead fire, the mind was become divorced 
 from the body and was cast into the vortex of in- 
 describable scenes. It drifted about among them 
 helplessly. It bore no relation to actors or events. 
 All was the weirdest panorama, crammed with 
 hurry and wild inconsequence; and yet the spec- 
 tator was filled with an exhilaration which was as 
 remote from the province of reality as a drunkard's 
 delirium. 
 
 He began to make frantic efforts to fix and locate 
 this phantasmagoria. He stretched every nerve to 
 catch the import of the word that was spoken; he 
 craned his whole being to wrest a single incident 
 from this wild confusion. He strove as fiercely 
 for a thread of meaning as though he were fight- 
 ing against the operations of an anaesthetic, but 
 he could reclaim nothing from the chaos in which 
 he was enveloped. He was like a drowning man 
 with the heavy yet not unpleasant rush of water 
 in his ears. 
 
 Suddenly his mind was invaded by a distinct 
 sound. It had the dull sense of finality of a blow 
 on the head. The door of the room had been 
 flung open. And then came a voice through the 
 shadows which encompassed the last feeble gutter- 
 ings of the lamp : 
 
 '' Anybody at home? " 
 
 Northcote rose from his knees in a wild and 
 startled manner. 
 
 " Who — who is that ? ** he cried, in a hollow 
 tone. 
 
 " Is that Mr. Northcote ? " said the obscure 
 presence which had entered the room. 
 
 28 
 
IV 
 
 ENTER MR. WHITCOMB 
 
 For the second time that evening Northcote 
 peered through the gloom of his chamber with a 
 thrill of curious expectancy. The visit of the scare- 
 crow had been forgotten in the torments of his 
 passion, but the sound of his own name on the lips 
 of the unknown resummoned that phantom to his 
 mind. But in the room of one so frail was a robust 
 and spreading presence. 
 
 "To whom do I owe a welcome?" muttered 
 Northcote, and as he rose from his knees his words 
 seemed to be lost in the vibrations of his heart. 
 
 " Mr. Northcote it is," said the round and full 
 tones of the invader. 
 
 The advocate, trembling in every limb, was con- 
 scious of a powerful and confident grasp of the 
 hand. And then as his eyes encountered the out- 
 lines of his visitor, he was seized with a pang of 
 disappointment, for he had looked to see something 
 different. 
 
 "Don't you know me, Mr. Northcote?" said 
 the voice — the conventional voice which had al- 
 ready smote the starving man with a sense of the 
 intolerable. 
 
 " I am afraid I do not," he said, heavily. 
 
 " Well, I thought Samuel Whitcomb was known 
 to every member of the bar." 
 
 29 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb's whimsical air strove to cloak a 
 wound to his professional feelings. 
 
 *' Ah, yes, of course, Mr. Whitcomb ; of course," 
 said the young" man, with a deeper disappointment 
 fixing its talons upon him. " Of course — Mr. 
 Whitcomb, the solicitor," he added, hastily, as 
 through the haze of the unreal which still enveloped 
 his amazed and stupefied senses he caught a famil- 
 iar aspect and a tone that he recalled. 
 
 " The same." 
 
 " Excuse this inhospitable darkness," said North- 
 cote. *' Here is a chair; and try, if you please, to 
 keep your patience while I put some oil in the lamp 
 and seek a piece of coal for the fire." 
 
 " No elaborate scheme of welcome, I beg. Your 
 client is not a prince of the blood, but a common 
 lawyer." 
 
 A well-fed and highly sagacious chuckle accom- 
 panied this sally on the part of the solicitor. 
 
 Still in the throes of his stupefaction, Northcote 
 addressed himself to the oil-can and the coal-box, 
 that as far as the circumstances would permit a 
 reception might be accorded to this unexpected 
 guest, whose common and prosaic quality had al- 
 ready jarred upon every fibre of his being. And 
 these preparations, diffidently conducted, kindled 
 again the well-fed chuckle of the solicitor; and so 
 ingratiating was it that it seemed to banish all 
 appearance of constraint by imparting an air of 
 equality to everything in the world. 
 
 The lamp flared up under the influence of the 
 dregs of fuel that had been added to it, and revealed 
 the pale and wasted features of the garret's inhabit- 
 ant. The solicitor, with the quickness of the 
 
 30 
 
ENTER MR. WHITCOMB 
 
 trained observer, pursed up his lips in a suppressed 
 whistle. A kind of pity softened the relentless com- 
 posure of his eyes as they beheld the haggard and 
 unkempt bearing of the man before them. *' Poor 
 devil," he muttered ; " literally starving." It was 
 in this succinct yet compendious manner that Mr. 
 Whitcomb filed for reference all facts which are 
 sufficiently obvious to stand as knowledge. 
 
 *' Do you know," said Northcote, suddenly, " I 
 was half-expecting somebody to-night." 
 
 '' Sitting in state to receive him, evidently," the 
 solicitor muttered, as he sniffed the temperature of 
 the garret and glanced oddly from the fireless grate 
 to the gloves and overcoat that Northcote was 
 wearing. 
 
 '* Dining out together, were you?" 
 
 " To speak the truth," said the advocate, with an 
 odd laugh, " I had hardly got so far as to consider 
 the personage I was half -expecting in such a grossly 
 material aspect." 
 
 '' Personage, eh ? " said the solicitor. " They're 
 out of my line. I only have to do with persons, 
 quite ordinary people, who are mightily interested 
 in their meals." 
 
 " Well, you see," said Northcote, " I had hardly 
 got so far as to formulate my expected visitant in 
 actual terms of flesh and blood." 
 
 " You deal in spooks ! " said the solicitor. " A 
 likely pitch for them, too." Mr. Whitcomb began 
 to stroke his moustache pensively, his invariable 
 habit when confronted by the danger of going 
 beyond his limit. " A creepy hole, by God ! " he 
 said, in another of his asides, for the simplicity and 
 
 31 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 matter-of-factness of the advocate had a Httle dis- 
 composed him. 
 
 " I was half-expecting a genie," said the advo- 
 cate. 
 
 " A genie ! " said the soHcitor, with a laugh of 
 embarrassment, for his surroundings oppressed 
 him, and his vitality was impaired by not having 
 yet had his dinner. " I never heard of a genie 
 except in the ' Arabian Nights.' " 
 
 " They abound in London," said the advocate. 
 " They are all about us." 
 
 '* You are right, I dare say," said the solicitor, 
 with a puzzled air. " The latest discovery of sci- 
 ence, is it? They have found such marvellous 
 things lately, even in the water we drink and the air 
 we breathe. But if you will just stick on your hat, 
 and do me the honor of eating a bite of supper, — I 
 have had a deplorable day, which has ended by rob- 
 bing me of my dinner, — I will talk to you of the 
 business that has brought me here at such an odd 
 sort of hour." 
 
 " A bite of supper ! " These magic words caused 
 the advocate to enfold his visitor in a melancholy 
 smile. 
 
 " Upon my soul," said he, " you are the genie." 
 
 The solicitor gave a laugh as ponderous as 
 Gargantua's. 
 
 " Have it your own way," he said ; " but for the 
 love of heaven put on your hat and let us heed the 
 intimations of Nature. Perhaps if we pet her a 
 little she may do us well in this somewhat remark- 
 able affair. Come, let us away." 
 
 That robustness of bearing which made half the 
 stock in trade of the first criminal lawyer in London 
 
 32 
 
ENTER MR. WHITCOMB 
 
 had already an effect upon the advocate. Those 
 luscious tones had dispelled his comatose condition. 
 And who should say, after all, that this was not the 
 genie; at least, here was the living embodiment of 
 success, that jovial and gigantic swaggerer. What 
 a smugness and sagacity were in the heavy inflec- 
 tions of this prosperous man ! " A fellow is not fit 
 to pare his own nails when he's sharp-set, and I had 
 my chop at a quarter-past one," he chuckled, as he 
 watched the advocate grappling with his boots. 
 *' Now, on with your hat, and we'll take a cab to I 
 know where." 
 
 '* As you will," said the young man, reaching for 
 his hat. 
 
 A reaction was stealing along his veins. Already 
 his passionate despair had begun to cower. It 
 looked like wizardry that one so famous should 
 have been borne in person, dinnerless, at ten o'clock 
 at night, up flight after flight of dark stairs, to the 
 crazy fifth floor of that decrepit building in quest of 
 one so poor and so obscure. 
 
 " I am sure you are the genie," said Northcote, 
 carrying the lamp to the door to light the distin- 
 guished visitor to the head of the rickety stairs. 
 ** Strike a match, sir, if you respect your neck." 
 
 Northcote turned the key of his door, and Mr. 
 Whitcomb descended, step by step, in a gingerly 
 fashion. 
 
 " If there is the slightest fear," said Northcote, 
 pressing on behind the solicitor, " of burning your 
 fingers with that match, I shall urge you not to 
 stop to examine the array of old masters that line 
 this perfectly damnable staircase of mine." 
 
 " Is that an ' Adoration of the Magi ' above me 
 
 33 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 on the right ? " said Mr. Whitcomb, with his jovial 
 air. 
 
 " No ; only a crack in the plaster and a cobweb. 
 And that weird splotch to the left, which, at this 
 distance, might stand for * Hercules Wrestling with 
 Death for the Body of Alcestis,' is the damp strik- 
 ing through the wall." 
 
 When at last they had crept down these noisome 
 stairways into the street, they found that the sleet 
 had yielded to a light, murky rain. The solicitor 
 summoned imperiously a passing hansom, and sent 
 a thrill through the heart of his starving companion 
 by naming for the cabman's guidance one of the 
 most luxurious restaurants in the world. 
 
 34 
 
AN ARISTOCRAT OF ARISTOCRATS 
 
 A SWIFT journey of a thousand yards in this 
 enchanted vehicle along slushy and dangerous 
 pavements into the West End, that magic region 
 and golden home of the marvellous, saw the bewil- 
 dered young man and his companion, a veritable 
 prince who had stepped out of some fairy romance, 
 deposited before the portals of a palace raised by a 
 wizard in the centre of the streets of London. A 
 master-stroke of malice had placed this temple of 
 choiceness and rarity in the midst of acres of dis- 
 ease, penury, and polluted air. The faces of the 
 ghostly denizens of these regions broke through 
 the shadows with dumb malevolence as the solicitor 
 and the advocate leaped to the portico. Hardly had 
 they reached it when they were assailed by light 
 and color, glittering liveries, gorgeous women. A 
 stealthy and perfumed warmth had even invaded 
 the outer atmosphere. The starving man opened 
 his lips and nostrils, and flung wide all the doors 
 of the senses in order to drink the sheen and scents, 
 the hues and odors. Like a poet of the Latin races 
 he sought to feed upon animal sensations. Here in 
 these bright saloons was the reverse of the medal, 
 of which in his garret that evening he had dreamed. 
 By no more than the wave of a wand he had been 
 transported into the plaisances of success. 
 
 As he entered this domain he was enchanted with 
 
 35 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 everything, — the tread of the carpets, the hang of 
 the curtains, the clothes of the people, the sounds 
 of the music, the mien of the waiters. Ali Baba 
 did not illicitly enter the Cave of the Forty Robbers 
 with a more profound bewilderment, a sharper 
 curiosity. 
 
 Northcote followed his companion into one of the 
 smaller and quieter but not the less gilded and 
 luxurious rooms. Mr. Whitcomb, who even in his 
 own person did not disdain the panoply of fashion, 
 had the unconquerable nonchalance of bearing 
 which is the first credential to the public respect. 
 
 " I want Jools," he said to the first waiter he met. 
 
 The waiter bowed low and said ingratiatingly, 
 " Yes, sare." He darted away in quest of that per- 
 sonage without an attempt to maintain the few 
 rags of dignity that attend his calling. There was, 
 indeed, a strain of the magician in this wonderful 
 Mr. Whitcomb. It would not have occurred to 
 Northcote to use the formula " I want Jools," any 
 more than it did to Ali Baba to cry " Open Ses- 
 ame!" at the portals of the cave of the Forty 
 Robbers. 
 
 Jools was the head waiter, a man of the first 
 distinction, with a small imperial, the envy and 
 the proud despair of all the compatriots who shared 
 his exile in an alien country. It had the choice per- 
 fection which art is sometimes able to superimpose 
 upon nature. Jools was of slight, even mean, 
 physique, but he had the ease of bearing which 
 comes of having been somebody for several gen- 
 erations. He held the key to the finest cellar in 
 London, as his father before him had held the key 
 to the finest cellar of Paris, and his grandfather of 
 
 36 
 
AN ARISTOCRAT OF ARISTOCRATS 
 
 that of Vienna. Jools was an aristocrat of aristo- 
 crats, and one versed in the ways of his order 
 would almost have divined it from the amiable 
 humility with which he came forward to receive 
 one of other clay. 
 
 " How do, Jools ? " said Northcote's companion, 
 with his inimitable gift of manner. '' Nasty night. 
 Let us have a quart of your Chateau Margaux. 
 What was that you gave me before ? " 
 
 Jools screwed up his furtive brown eyes in deep 
 contemplation. '^ Et would be a seventy-one, sare,'' 
 he said, rubbing softly a forefinger along his chin. 
 
 " I don't know what it was," said Mr. Whitcomb, 
 royally, " and I don't care, so long as it is the best 
 you have in the place." 
 
 An air of magnificence which prosperity had con- 
 ferred upon the solicitor touched a chord in the 
 proud soul of Jools. 
 
 *' I haf a seventy-three, sare," said this aristo- 
 crat, with a not too ductile absence of condescen- 
 sion, which he reserved for the society of his equals. 
 
 " That sounds all right," said the solicitor. 
 " We still number you among the few eminent 
 Christians we have in London at the present time." 
 
 Jools bowed and smiled softly, but an expression 
 of sorrow was seen to overspread his mat com- 
 plexion. 
 
 " Ef I had known before, sare, I would haf had 
 it decanted." 
 
 " We must all abase ourselves before the despot- 
 ism of necessity," said the solicitor's hollow-eyed 
 companion, who was already under the stimulus of 
 an intense anticipation. *' She has reverence for 
 nothing.. Even your Chateau Margaux '73, which 
 
 37 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 no doubt is divine, must forego the rights and trap- 
 pings of its royalty." 
 
 " You must forgive him, Jools," said the solici- 
 tor, enjoying the effect upon the waiter of these 
 deep tones. " He is talking prose, although, unlike 
 your immortal compatriot, I am afraid he knows 
 it." 
 
 Jools summoned one of another mould to receive 
 the baser order of a thick soup and a cut from the 
 saddle, while he himself, beaming with pleasure 
 and shrugging his shoulders furiously, went forth 
 accompanied by an awe-stricken satellite personally 
 to select one of those royal wines, which lent a 
 touch of romantic grace to the exile of this artist 
 in a foreign country. 
 
 Seated on cushions in the cosiest of all imagi- 
 nable corners, with spotless lawn and bright silver 
 before him, the starving man enveloped his nostrils 
 in the delicious fumes that arose from his plate. 
 These aromatic vapors seemed to pervade his being 
 like some intoxicating hashish, or a pungent but 
 subtle Arabian tobacco. He toyed with the pepper 
 and salt, and crumbled his bread with a devouring 
 eagerness, which he kept in check sufficiently to 
 refuse at first to swallow a spoonful of the magic 
 food, in order that he might obtain this sense of 
 inebriation to the full. His companion, whose per- 
 fectly normal and healthy hunger permitted no such 
 refinements as these, had already tasted and en- 
 joyed. 
 
 " Excellent soup," he said. " It's got quite a 
 bouquet to it. I'm almost glad I missed my dinner. 
 One of these days I shall do it again." 
 
 The satisfaction which in these circumstances 
 38 
 
AN ARISTOCRAT OF ARISTOCRATS 
 
 consumes the average sensual person grew so 
 acute, that by the time he had swallowed half of his 
 plateful, he cried out to the nearest waiter : ** Hi ! 
 you, Alphonse — have the goodness to tell the chef 
 to step this way, will you?" 
 
 Northcote placed the first spoonful on his tongue, 
 and indescribable pangs seemed to mount to his 
 brain. A fierce desire overpowered him. He de- 
 voured another spoonful, and then another. Sud- 
 denly he was overcome by a strange fury of greed. 
 His plate was empty, and his palate had lost its 
 original fineness, before he was able to impose 
 a check upon his passion. 
 
 Great, however, as his expedition had been in its 
 later stages, it had scarcely surpassed that of Mr. 
 Whitcomb, who from the first had been devouring 
 steadily. No sooner had that gentleman eaten his 
 final mouthful than he ordered both plates to be 
 replenished. 
 
 At this moment, by one of those significant co- 
 operations of events which form the basis of the 
 drama, a large, fat, frock-coated, and pomatumed 
 gentleman appeared, a little sheath of quiet smiles 
 twinkling all over his person, as though the playful 
 god of love was in hiding behind his ample shirt- 
 front and slyly tickling his bosom with feathers. 
 
 " Hommage, monsieur le chef, hommage ! " cried 
 Mr. Whitcomb. " Cette consomme est delicieuse. 
 Vous etes un vrai ruban bleu." 
 
 The chef emitted a loud purr of satisfaction like 
 an unusually large Persian cat. And then by a still 
 more exquisite cooperation of events than that 
 which had already preceded this incident, who 
 should appear but Jools, behind whom his attend- 
 
 39 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 ant satellite was mincing with a warmed decanter 
 of wine. 
 
 " Two more glasses, Jools, if you please,'* said 
 the solicitor. " Monsieur le chef and your worthy 
 self will honor us, I hope. The first product of 
 your country will not prove unworthy of two of its 
 most distinguished sons." 
 
 A look of rapture sprang to the proud eyes of 
 Jools, and he measured four glasses of wine with an 
 agitation that was more dignified than perfect com- 
 posure. 
 
 '' To I'Entente Cordiale, messieurs," said Mr. 
 Whitcomb, raising his glass. 
 
 " L'Entente Cordiale ! " chimed the others. 
 
 *' It is part of my religion," said Mr. Whit- 
 comb, " never to encounter the artistic temperament 
 without rendering my homage. If we had only a 
 trace of it in this country to fuse and rarefy our 
 other manifold gifts and blessings, I believe we 
 should become the most perfect nation upon the 
 earth." 
 
 " Is it not, sir, the absence of it that makes you 
 English so perfect ? " said the chef, who had all the 
 alert intelligence of his race. 
 
 "That is not a thrust, monsieur?" 
 
 " Ah, no. As a citizen of the world I make it 
 my duty never to wound the English. I respect 
 your country; there are seasons when I adore it." 
 
 " Ees it not the land of justice, order, and lib- 
 erty?" said Jools. 
 
 *' Justice we have for those who can afford to 
 pay for it," said the solicitor ; "' that is to say, the 
 poor man is quite unable to purchase it, and even 
 the rich finds it costs a great deal of money. Order 
 
 40 
 
AN ARISTOCRAT OF ARISTOCRATS 
 
 we have ; it is the birthright of us all — an adum- 
 bration of our exaggerated reverence for mud, and 
 stones, and bricks, and mortar. Liberty, Jools, I 
 regret to say, we have not. We are all base 
 slaves — " 
 
 " Of the External," said Northcote, with a lustre 
 in his eyes that the wine had kindled. " There is 
 no slave like a Saxon. In his scheme of sense the 
 eye takes precedence. Even his religion is Money." 
 
 " Ah, no," said the chef, with much amiability, 
 " you English have no avarice like we have in my 
 native Normandy." 
 
 " An Englishman's avarice is not of the heart, 
 but of the spirit," said Northcote, with the melan- 
 choly calmness of one who knows everything. 
 
 " You haf your Shakespeare, your Milton," said 
 Jools. 
 
 " I think sometimes we could afford to exchange 
 them both for your Honore Balzac," said North- 
 cote. 
 
 " You would be unwise to do so," said the chef. 
 " Your Shakespeare is among the first order of 
 mankind. He is greater than Moliere; my faith! 
 he is as great as Napoleon." 
 
 " Perhaps you are right, but your Honore Balzac 
 showed the bourgeoisie its every form and fea- 
 ture." 
 
 " Truly," said the chef, with a sly laugh ; " but 
 you have ceased to be bourgeois in your England 
 nowadays." 
 
 "Since when, sir?" said the young advocate, 
 with a flame in his eyes. " Since we have learned 
 the trick of calling our mean ambitions by high- 
 sounding names ? " 
 
 41 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 The solicitor filled up the glasses of Northcote 
 and the chef. 
 
 " You speak well, my friends," he said, with his 
 richest chuckle ; " although myself being a middle- 
 class Englishman, I am sorry to say your discourse 
 is over my head. But if it is to be my privilege to 
 maintain the talk upon this extremely high level, 
 it will cost me, Jools — " 
 
 " It will cost him, Jools," interrupted Northcote, 
 with a truculent glance at the waiter. 
 
 '* It will cost me, Jools," said the solicitor, with 
 an imperturbable smile, " an extra quart at least 
 of your Chateau Margaux." 
 
 At the moment this order fell on deaf ears, for 
 the lips of Jools were trembling with speech like 
 those of Socrates. 
 
 " We will give you our Honore de Balzac, sare," 
 he said, with a heavy sigh, " ef you will part wiz 
 your Shikspeare." 
 
 " Also our Voltaire," said the chef, with a leer 
 at his melancholy compatriot, "if they will part 
 with their Shakespeare." 
 
 " Your Honore Balzac is only just coming into 
 his own," said Northcote, with immense solemnity. 
 
 " That is to say, sir," said the chef, " a reputa- 
 tion must be established at least a hundred years 
 in the arts before the world can be decorated with 
 the radiance that proceeds from the enormous fire 
 it holds in its bowels." 
 
 " True, monsieur," said Northcote. " It is like 
 a new-born planet. It has to be allowed to cool 
 a little before it can assume a shape, and the won- 
 derful vegetation begins to appear upon it. It can- 
 not be approached at first; it is a mere ball of fire 
 
 42 
 
AN ARISTOCRAT OF ARISTOCRATS 
 
 in the heavens, without form and without meaning 
 to the human eyes." 
 
 "Or it ees like a young wine, sare; it must be 
 allowed time to mature," said Jools. 
 
 " It is the worst feature, Jools," said the solici- 
 tor, " of this claret of yours, that it always unlocks 
 the door for these pleasantries. And this British 
 skull of mine is so packed with business, that with 
 our shopkeeping instinct of transacting a little of it 
 whenever and wherever we can, before we fall upon 
 the latest theories in regard to the composition of 
 matter, with every reluctance, I shall ask you and 
 your distinguished compatriot to withdraw for the 
 space of one hour." 
 
 " Personally," said Northcote, " I believe the 
 universe is not made up of matter at all." 
 
 " In other words, sir," said the chef, ** matter 
 is — " 
 
 " I ask your pardon, my friends," said the solic- 
 itor ; " but with true Britannic effrontery, this 
 business of mine even seeks to take precedence of 
 the mystery of the universe." 
 
 " There is no such thing as the universe," said 
 Northcote, draining his glass with great decision. 
 " The whole of it is contained within ourselves." 
 
 *' Peace, peace ! " said the solicitor. " We will 
 resume our speculations, with the permission of 
 our good friends, in the space of one hour." 
 
 Filled with every fraternal and complacent feel- 
 ing, Jools and his distinguished compatriot bowed 
 smilingly, and with a profound regard for the solic- 
 itor and the advocate, retired, in opposite directions, 
 to those spheres of activity in which there was none 
 to dispute their supremacy. 
 
 43 
 
VI 
 
 A PROPHECY 
 
 " And now," said the solicitor, " as the decks 
 are clear, let me say this is a rather odd affair 
 which has sent me hungry about the streets of 
 London at an unpleasant hour." 
 
 "Am I not surprisingly cool about it?" said 
 Northcote, with a flushed face, balancing his empty 
 wine-glass on the handle of a knife, '* considering 
 that this business of yours is destined to mark the 
 turning-point in my career." 
 
 " When a man begins to talk of his career," said 
 the solicitor, " it is safe to infer that he has taken 
 the wrong quantity of liquor. Waiter ! " 
 
 "Sare?" 
 
 " Tell Jools we want another pint of this filthy 
 stuff — this what-do-you-call-it ? — with which he 
 is poisoning us. And, Alphonse, have a couple of 
 Welsh rarebits ready by the time we want them." 
 
 The waiter withdrew, walking delicately; and 
 the solicitor bent across the table towards his com- 
 panion in a manner of confidential gravity. 
 
 " Correct me if I am wrong," said he, " but you 
 have done no circuit work ? " 
 
 " Hitherto I have not soared beyond a police- 
 court," said the young man, with perfect frank- 
 ness. '' And even there I have only made a public 
 display of my incapacity on half a dozen occa- 
 sions." 
 
A PROPHECY 
 
 " A beginner one might say, yet an ambitious 
 one." 
 
 *' Where do you get the ambition from ? " 
 
 ** It is in the color of your eyes. Besides, have 
 you not a habit of turning your phrases? " 
 
 " If I did not know you to be a connoisseur in 
 men of promise I should not be convinced." 
 
 " That's my foible, right enough," said the solic- 
 itor, with a laugh. " A connoisseur in men of prom- 
 ise. Samuel Whitcomb owes his own reputation to 
 that, and he is proud to believe that the reputations 
 of half a score of those who are in every way his 
 superiors are to be traced to that source." 
 
 " Laying aside the question of superiority, all the 
 world knows it." 
 
 " I gave Finnemore Jones his first brief," said the 
 solicitor, immodestly. " I provided Cooper, How- 
 ard, and Harrington with the opportunities that 
 made them famous." 
 
 " And above all," said the young advocate, meas- 
 uring with a stealthy eye the man before him, " are 
 you not the discoverer of Michael Tobin ? " 
 
 '' Ha ! " cried the solicitor, as he brought his fist 
 upon the table with an air of unmistakable triumph, 
 " I was holding that back." 
 
 " As the crown of your achievement? " 
 
 " Yes ; Michael Tobin is almost here. But how 
 do you come to suspect it, when at present his qual- 
 ity is only known to the few ? " 
 
 " I am one of them," said Northcote, looking his 
 companion imperturbably in the eyes. 
 
 Such a cool affirmation seemed to delight the 
 solicitor. 
 
 " Well, I should not be surprised if you were," 
 
 45 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 he said, with a violent chuckle. " If I had not had 
 some such suspicion I might not have climbed up 
 all those dark stairs at a quarter-past ten of a win- 
 ter's night/' 
 
 " Without your dinner/' 
 
 " Without my dinner. Why, if that fellow hasn't 
 forgotten the black currant jelly. But here he comes 
 with his poisonous claret." 
 
 " fobin is a brilliant man," said Northcote, pois- 
 ing his glass after having replenished it. " Irish 
 to the bone; a real discovery; ought to go far. 
 But far as he ought to go and will go, there is one 
 name in your list that will surpass him." 
 
 " That is where I cannot agree with you, my son," 
 said the solicitor, with confidential and parental bon- 
 homie, for this subject lay at the source of his in- 
 tellectual pride. " You must know somewhat to 
 have found out about Tobin; but when you name 
 his superior you betray your youth." 
 
 " I concede it is quite impossible for me to name 
 Tobin's superior without betraying my youth." 
 
 " Go to," said the solicitor, with an air of indul- 
 gence that he reserved for the young and promising. 
 *' Don't labor the point. It wants experience to de- 
 tect greatness in the shell. Michael Tobin will easily 
 be the first upon my list." 
 
 " There is one who will surpass Michael Tobin," 
 said the young man. 
 
 " Not among those I have mentioned." 
 
 " True. As is usual with the prophet, you don't 
 dare to affirm the authentic name." 
 
 " Upon my word I can't think who you mean ! " 
 
 " One Henry Northcote." 
 
 46 
 
A PROPHECY 
 
 The solicitor broke forth in a suppressed shout 
 of laughter. 
 
 " Good ! " he said ; " you'll do. Fill up your 
 glass and we'll get to work. And I'm glad your 
 talent is so remarkable, because I've got some busi- 
 ness here that is likely to tax it." 
 
 "It is increasingly clear to me that you are the 
 genie," said the young advocate in a low voice, and 
 fetching a deep breath. 
 
 47 
 
VII 
 
 THE OFFER OF A BRIEF 
 
 The solicitor drew from an inner pocket of his 
 coat a bundle of papers tied with red tape. He 
 placed them on the table at the side of his plate, 
 
 ** At the eleventh hour/' he said, speaking coolly 
 and distinctly, " I am going to ask you to undertake 
 the defence in a trial for murder.'' 
 
 Northcote was conscious of no more than a slight 
 sharp throb of the pulses as he met the shrewd, even 
 cunning, eyes of the man who sat opposite. 
 
 " Yes, that's a chance for Henry Northcote," 
 were his first words, uttered under the breath. 
 
 '* The fee is not much," said the solicitor, with 
 the precision of the man of affairs entering his fat 
 voice. " You will not be briefed at more than 
 twenty guineas." 
 
 " To-night I think I would sell my soul for half 
 that sum," said the young man, with an excited 
 laugh. 
 
 " Is not that a somewhat damaging admission 
 for you to make? " said the solicitor. 
 
 "I agree, I agree," said the young man; "but 
 the truth is never discreet." 
 
 " There's no money in this case," said the solicitor, 
 " and I'm afraid there is no kudos. It is one of 
 those disagreeable cases which are not only irre- 
 claimably sordid, but also as dead as mutton. In 
 order to obtain a small sum of money, a woman 
 
 43 
 
THE OFFER OF A BRIEF 
 
 of the ' unfortunate ' class has poisoned a man with 
 whom she Hved. She is one of those cold-blooded 
 persons who are born for the gallows. There is 
 enough evidence to hang her ten times. We shall 
 be forced to submit to the inevitable." 
 
 " You disappoint me," said Northcote. " I was 
 thinking of a real fighting case." 
 
 The solicitor smiled, with a faint suggestion of 
 patronage. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Vm sure," said the young 
 man, quickly. " Had there been any life in the case 
 you would not have carried it to one so obscure. 
 Even as it is, I ought to be grateful to you — and 
 I am grateful indeed — for putting it in my 
 way." 
 
 ^' The circumstances of this case are somewhat 
 peculiar," said the solicitor. " We are under rather 
 severe pressure in the matter of time. The case will 
 be called on the day after to-morrow at the Central 
 Criminal Court." 
 
 " That hardly explains away your kindness 
 towards myself. Even at this short notice you 
 could have got plenty of men to have consented to 
 a verdict." 
 
 " I am aware of it, but then it is not quite the 
 method of Whitcomb and Whitcomb. We like 
 * Thorough ' to be our motto. If we accept a client, 
 we feel we owe it to ourselves to leave no stone 
 unturned, irrespective of position or emolument." 
 
 " But I understand this case is too dead to be 
 fought?" 
 
 " Ah, we are now about to approach the first of 
 the ' peculiar ' circumstances. At five o'clock this 
 evening Tobin himself was holding this brief, but 
 
 49 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 at that hour his bicycle had the misfortune to colHde 
 with a motor-car, and the poor fellow now lies in 
 hospital with a compound fracture of the right 
 thigh." 
 
 " Poor fellow, poor fellow ! " 
 
 " I think you and I are agreed that Tobin is with- 
 out a rival in a case of this nature." 
 
 " You must forgive me if I express surprise that 
 Tobin should have accepted the brief." 
 
 " That is easily explained. Tobin is the generous- 
 hearted Irishman who is never weary of affirming 
 that Whitcomb and Whitcomb gave him his start. 
 He never refuses us, and I am afraid we, in the 
 interests of a client, trade occasionally on his good 
 nature." 
 
 *' Then the practitioners of law are sometimes 
 more disinterested than they seem." 
 
 " My dear fellow, among a considerable body of 
 men must there not be a leaven of human nature? 
 And my own experience is that human nature is 
 so much more disinterested than the young and 
 cynical like to consider it." 
 
 " That is well said," replied Northcote, feeling 
 the rebuke to be merited. 
 
 " And so you see," said the solicitor, " in regard 
 to this wretched woman whom we had undertaken 
 to defend, we were in the position of being able 
 to brief a first-rate man for a third-rate fee." 
 
 " Yet a third-rate man would have served your 
 purpose equally well, if one is allowed to hazard 
 the remark." 
 
 " No ; for this reason : the woman has long been 
 of intemperate habits. Prior to the commission of 
 the crime she was known to be drinking heavily, 
 
 50 
 
THE OFFER OF A BRIEF 
 
 and Tobin, who is a real fighting man, if ever there 
 was one, had decided to take the line of insanity." 
 
 " As the only possible means of saving her neck? " 
 
 " There is no other. And even in the hands of 
 such a man as Tobin, the chance is remote. He 
 has his witnesses to call, of course, in support of 
 his plea, but they cannot be considered as entirely 
 satisfactory. And, unfortunately, their evidence 
 will be rebutted by that of the prison doctors, who 
 are against us." 
 
 '* Then, after all," said the young man, with a 
 sunken eagerness appearing in his eyes, " there will 
 be opportunities for advocacy." 
 
 " Pretty considerable opportunities, if we are to 
 save her neck." 
 
 " Then forgive me if again I put the question, 
 Why did you come to a tyro with a case of this 
 nature ? " 
 
 '* How can you ask," said the solicitor, with an 
 arch smile, " when the tyro happens to be one Henry 
 Northcote?" 
 
 " Upon your own admission that is a name that 
 has no particular significance for you." 
 
 " Nay, you go too fast, my friend. It must be 
 left to the future to place the name of Henry North- 
 cote, but let me confess that in the meantime the 
 bearer of it has not wholly escaped my vigilance." 
 
 " In your capacity as a connoisseur in young men 
 of promise ? " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " Upon what data have you built, when you have 
 never seen him in open court ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow, you are as curious as a 
 woman." 
 
 51 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " Every comprehensive mind is partly feminine." 
 
 " No mind can be in any sense feminine. It is 
 a contradiction in terms." 
 
 " Well, well ! From what data have you derived 
 the courage to entrust an untried man with the de- 
 fence in a trial for murder ? " 
 
 "To be perfectly frank, it was Tobin who found 
 the courage for me." 
 
 "Tobin!" 
 
 " No less." 
 
 " Why, Tobin doesn't know me from Adam." 
 
 " Not so fast, my friend ; don't come to conclu- 
 sions so abruptly. Tobin has his eyes about him." 
 
 " Well, yes, that is an attribute that is common 
 to all who become first-rate in anything." 
 
 " Let me tell you exactly what occurred. I was 
 on the point of leaving Chancery Lane about six, 
 and beginning to think about my dinner, when I 
 received poor Tobin's telegram to say he was tucked 
 up in hospital with a broken thigh, and would I 
 come to him at once. Of course I went; and there 
 the poor fellow was in a devilish uncomfortable 
 attitude, as white as the sheets, face drawn with 
 pain, but himself as cool as ice. 
 
 " * We shall have to apply for a postponement,' 
 were his first words. 
 
 " ' In any case, old boy,' said I, * I shall relieve 
 you of further responsibility.' 
 
 " * Not much ! ' said he. ' Get a postponement 
 until next sessions; I am going to save the poor 
 beggar's neck.' 
 
 " * Why, old boy,' I said, fixing him up with a 
 cigarette, * you will be lying here in your little bed 
 until next sessions.' 
 
 52 
 
THE OFFER OF A BRIEF 
 
 ** * Not for me/ he said ; ' not for Michael. I shall 
 be in court on two sticks a-saving the poor beggar's 
 neck.' 
 
 " * Now, look here, old son,' said I, * just let the 
 whole thing go, and we'll put up somebody else.' 
 
 '' * If you do,' said he, ' as sure as a gun she's a 
 gonner." 
 
 " ' I am afraid I agree,' said I ; ' but if our fair 
 client is not a fit subject for the rope, upon my soul 
 there's no need to hang anybody.' 
 
 ** Well, the next thing I saw was that his eyes 
 were full of tears. 
 
 " ' Oh, damn it all ! ' he said, ' I can't stand this 
 hanging of women.' 
 
 " * She's an out-and-outer,' said I. 
 
 " ' That doesn't alter her sex,' said the Irishman. 
 
 " * Well,' said I, ' who can you suggest to put up 
 in your stead with your plea of insanity? The dif- 
 ficulty is the brief is only marked twenty guineas, 
 and you can't get much for that money with you 
 fellows.' 
 
 *' * You can't,' said he ; * besides, this is a case 
 for Michael. Unless it is handled in a certain way 
 she is certain to hang. Apply for a postponement.' 
 
 " * Why, you old sentimentalist, I don't think we 
 could get one,' said I, having pretty well made up 
 my mind that we could not. 
 
 " * Who is the judge? ' said he. 
 
 '' * Bow-wow Brudenell,' said I, ' the most pedan- 
 tic and cantankerous old man on the bench. And 
 Weekes is leading for the Crown. There will not 
 be much in the way of accommodation in that quar- 
 ter.' 
 
 " * Oh, come, old Bow-wow is not such a bad old 
 
 53 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 sportsman,' said the Irishman. * Tell him just how 
 it is ; tell him I'm suddenly laid by the wing, and it 
 will be all right.' 
 
 " ' But,' said I, ' even if we get a postponement, 
 we shall be none the better for it. It can't be ex- 
 tended indefinitely; and I am afraid, old boy, this 
 is going to be a long business of yours. I think 
 I shall hand the brief over to Harris.' 
 
 '* At first I was afraid the wild Irishman was 
 going to jump out of his plaster of Paris. 
 
 " ' Harris ! ' said he. ' My aunt ! I wouldn't brief 
 Harris to defend a fox-terrier for worrying a tor- 
 toise-shell kitten.' 
 
 " ' I'll admit,' said I, ' that Christopher is not a 
 genius, but at least he will get our unfortunate client 
 hanged like a Christian and a gentleman.' 
 
 '* I spent nearly an hour arguing the point with 
 the poor old fellow. * I don't hold with dumb ani- 
 mals performing on the stage, and I don't hold 
 with the hanging of women,' he kept saying, in 
 that odd way of his which one doesn't know exactly 
 how to take. 
 
 " ' Look here, old son,' I said at last, growing 
 impatient, ' this will have to be fixed up with Harris 
 to-night; and if I can't get Harris, I shall get 
 Westby.' 
 
 " ' She can hand in her checks if you get either,' 
 said he. ' She'll be hanged by the neck without even 
 a run for her money.' 
 
 " * Well, you can't get " silk " for twenty guin- 
 eas,' said I ; * and you can't get a really useful 
 junior.' 
 
 " Now, here follows another of the ' peculiar ' 
 circumstances. Suddenly the wild Irishman lifted 
 
 54 
 
THE OFFER OF A BRIEF 
 
 himself in his bed, and again there was that odd 
 look in his eyes. 
 
 '' ' I'll tell you who you can get/ said he ; * he's 
 come to me in a flash. Get that fellow Northcote.' 
 
 " ' Northcote? ' said I; ^ never heard of him.' 
 
 " ' Never mind, get him,' said the wild Irishman. 
 * He's young, and they say he's mad, but he might 
 bring us luck.' 
 
 " * For a chap with as brilliant a set of brains as 
 are to be found in London,' said I, * you do come 
 out with some of the oddest suggestions. How 
 did you come to think of this fellow Northcote, 
 when you won't allow Harris and Westby to be 
 good enough ? ' ' 
 
 " ' Oh,' said he, * he's one of my inspirations.' 
 
 " * Inspiration my foot ! ' said I. * I'm off to 
 Christopher Harris.' 
 
 " Well, as I was about to go, poor Tobin raised 
 himself again, and those queer eyes came at me 
 in a way I don't like. 
 
 " ' Look here, Whitcomb,' he said ; ' you were 
 a pal to me when I had hardly a boot to my foot, 
 but if you go to Harris I'll never speak to you 
 again.' 
 
 " ' Lie down, you damned Celt, and go to sleep,' 
 I said, * and I'll come and talk to you another day.' 
 
 " ' I won't lie down until you promise to go to 
 Northcote at No. 3 Shepherd's Inn.' 
 
 " ' King's Bench Walk,' I assured him, * will be 
 far better. If I can't have a reckless fellow like 
 you, I mean to play for safety.' 
 
 " * All the safety in the world,' said he, ' won't 
 save the poor beggar's neck.' 
 
 *' * That's all very well,' said I, * but an inexperi- 
 
 55 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 enced man might come a dreadful cropper in a case 
 of this kind. I beHeve myself in a moderate amount 
 of speculation, but not in a capital charge.' 
 
 '* ' It's her only chance,' said the Irishman. 
 
 " * I am afraid,' said I, ' her attorneys are not 
 willing to provide her with it at the risk of decency.' 
 
 " * There's your Saxon,' said he. ' Even when 
 they hang a woman, they insist on decency. Praise 
 be to the saints, we haven't got any decency in our 
 dirty old island.' 
 
 " * No,' said I ; ' but you've got a good deal of 
 superstition. Whatever put this fellow Northcote 
 into your wild head? I never remember to have 
 heard of him in court.' 
 
 " * I don't care what you've heard of him,' said 
 the Irishman, * this is where he gets his chance. 
 He'll bring us luck.' 
 
 " ' Luck ! ' said I. * A lawyer's luck is based on 
 common sense and the capacity to see into the fu- 
 ture.' 
 
 " * We crack-brained Celts possess that capacity,' 
 said Tobin. ' You can come and tell me on Monday 
 whether I've been wrong.' 
 
 " * Is Northcote an Irishman, too ? ' I asked, feel- 
 ing myself beginning to waver; and I don't mind 
 confessing that I have never been able to withstand 
 Michael Tobin from the first hour I met him. 
 
 " * I've only seen the man twice,' said he ; * but 
 if he doesn't carry a drop of the Celt under his 
 waistcoat, Cork was not my birthplace.' 
 
 " * Have you seen him in court ? ' 
 
 " * Not I. The first time I saw him he was ad- 
 dressing a few well-chosen remarks, quoting the 
 pagan philosophers, to a select gathering of the un- 
 
 56 
 
THE OFFER OP A BRIEF 
 
 employed in Hyde Park. M'Murdo was with me. 
 " My hat," said he, " that's a fellow called North- 
 cote; he's at the bar. A nice place for a barrister, 
 isn't it?" "Personally," said I, *' I don't care a 
 curse about the place, but I'd give ten years of my 
 life to have his voice." There the thing was boom- 
 ing like an organ, and we stayed half an hour lis- 
 tening to rhetoric that might have come out of 
 Burke.' 
 
 " * And the second time? ' 
 
 " ' I have only the haziest recollection of the oc- 
 casion. Where it was I can't recall, but the mob 
 orator was paraphrasing *' Hamlet " to gain facility 
 of expression. But I remember thinking, " My 
 son, you will be bursting upon an astonished world 
 one of these fine afternoons, and then we shall all 
 be complaining about your luck for being born so 
 gifted." ' 
 
 " And so, my dear Northcote, to round up a long 
 story, thus it was I came to stand in your chambers, 
 dinnerless, at a quarter-past ten of a winter's 
 night." 
 
 As is not uncommon with those who possess men- 
 tal energy, the solicitor, under the stimulus of wine 
 and events, had an immense volubility. During 
 this recital the claret had circulated freely between 
 his companion and himself. Both their faces were 
 flushed, and, moreover, the emotions which had been 
 excited in the young advocate had filled him with 
 a kind of vertigo. 
 
 " After all," said he, resting his forehead on his 
 hand and staring into vacancy, " it is most probably 
 Tobin who is the genie." 
 
 " Set a thief to catch a thief," laughed the solic- 
 
 57 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 itor. " Michael Tobin and yourself are well 
 matched — a pair of deuced odd fellows." 
 
 " In any case/' persisted Northcote, ** if a genie' 
 you are, you would say you are a genie in spite of 
 yourself." 
 
 " I say nothing at all when it comes to genies, 
 said the solicitor with emphasis. '* I don't know 
 anything about them; they are not in my line. 
 They don't trouble the common lawyer in the pur- 
 suit of his bread. What does trouble him is time, 
 for time is money." 
 
 The solicitor took out his watch, a thing of value. 
 
 " Twenty past eleven," he said. " There's a for- 
 tune awaiting the fellow who invents an automatic 
 brake to slip on old Father Time. I've got to get 
 out to Norbiton to-night, — I promised my little 
 girl, and she will be sitting up. But before I go 
 I wish you would cast your eyes over your brief, 
 and tell me precisely what you think about it." 
 
 The solicitor handed to Northcote the document 
 tied with red tape, and called again for the waiter. 
 
 " You'll have a liqueur ? — they've got some 
 white curagao that might be worse. And perhaps 
 some coffee might help us at this stage. Fortu- 
 nately, this is the one place in London where they 
 know how it's made. And, Alphonse, you might 
 bring some of those fireworks that you call cigars." 
 
 5« 
 
VIII 
 
 EQUITY A FRUIT OF THE GODS 
 
 By the time the waiter had returned, the young 
 advocate was addressing himself to the bundle of 
 papers with a remarkable energy. Already a fierce 
 mental excitement had stirred him. His senses, 
 over stimulated by a wine of great potency, and by 
 a too sudden reaction from a state of actual bodily 
 starvation, a fever had been kindled in his frame. 
 And those high ambitions which had reconciled him 
 to existence through so long a period of the most 
 abject penury, yet whose only home had been his 
 wild dreams, had suddenly, at the touch of the magic 
 wand of the enchanter, acquired a name and a local 
 habitation. 
 
 It was no wonder that to the eyes of the solicitor, 
 that cool, mature, and rather cynical man of the 
 world, this young man, in whom strong and deep 
 emotions had been let loose, soon became an object 
 of scientific interest. Mr. Whitcomb felt himself 
 to be even a little disconcerted by the feverish man- 
 ner in which the young advocate tossed about the 
 pages of his brief. As he came to note the vivid 
 pallor of the face before him, the burning of the 
 eyes, the twitching of the lips, he felt a qualm of 
 uneasiness. Perchance it had been neither wise nor 
 kind to be so lavish of the Chateau Margaux. 
 Blood which had been deteriorated by a course of 
 insuflficient food was only too likely to be over- 
 
 59 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 charged by an unaccustomed accession of heat. Al- 
 ready it had seemed to be waxing too high. 
 
 " Here is your liqueur," said Mr. Whitcomb, with 
 a slight perturbation, " and here's a cigar I've 
 chosen for you. And here's a nice black coffee that 
 may steady you a bit." 
 
 " Thanks, thanks," muttered Northcote, nodding 
 his head in a mechanical manner. 
 
 The solicitor gulped his liqueur, and cut off the 
 end of his cigar. 
 
 " Well, old boy," he said, letting a somewhat 
 whimsical gaze fall upon the man who sat opposite, 
 *' do you feel like giving us a bit of a run for our 
 money at the hour of ten-thirty at the Central Crim- 
 inal Court on Friday morning next, or would you 
 prefer that the chance should be offered to Harris ? " 
 
 The advocate swallowed his coffee. 
 
 " You will have a run for your money all right," 
 said he, " on Friday morning next. Upon my soul, 
 I believe you have given me a start with the most 
 fascinating case in the world." 
 
 The solicitor pursed up his lips in an expression 
 of genial contradiction. 
 
 "If you find fascination in a thing like that," 
 he said, " you must look very deep. The whole 
 business is sordid, atrocious, bestial. The crime is 
 brutal and perfectly commonplace." 
 
 *' Is it not a mere question," said the advocate, 
 " of the fashion in which one uses one's eyes, of 
 the plane over which one permits them to stray ? " 
 
 " There is only one plane, my friend," said the 
 solicitor, *' over which an attorney permits his eyes 
 to stray. That is the obvious diurnal one of matter- 
 of-fact common sense." 
 
 60 
 
EQUITY A FRUIT OF THE GODS 
 
 " Yet it may happen," Northcote rejoined, " that 
 the plane of matter-of-fact common sense may not 
 be identical in the eyes of attorney and advocate." 
 
 '' Is not the hour somewhat advanced for a So- 
 cratic dialogue ? " said the solicitor. 
 
 " Also," persisted Northcote, " the plane of mat- 
 ter-of-fact common sense, in whatever it may con- 
 sist, may not prove identical in the eyes of the jury 
 and the judge; also in the eyes of the person who 
 committed the crime, and the person who was the 
 victim of it." 
 
 " We are not here to traverse the moral code," 
 said the solicitor, " or to enter the domain of ab- 
 stract reason. The English penal law is perfectly 
 explicit upon the point at issue, as I think you will 
 find on Friday." 
 
 Of a sudden Northcote struck the table a violent 
 blow. 
 
 " This unhappy woman has been deeply wronged 
 by circumstance," he said, with a vehemence that 
 was totally unexpected. 
 
 " It will do your case no harm to show that to 
 the jury," said the solicitor, sucking quietly at his 
 cigar. " There is not a scrap of evidence to sup- 
 port such a contention, but it might be of service 
 if it could be upheld." 
 
 " Is it not here that we enter on the higher func- 
 tion of the advocate's art?" said the young man. 
 " Does it not consist in the evocation of that which 
 lies outside the obvious?" 
 
 " You must have it entirely your own way, my 
 dear fellow," said the solicitor warily. " I don't 
 propose to play the role of Adeimantus at this hour 
 of the night. But I don't mind remarking that you 
 
 6i 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 will have to evoke that which is very far outside 
 the obvious to secure the acquittal of my client on 
 Friday.'' 
 
 " That is viewing the subject from the plane of 
 matter-of-fact common sense which you are content 
 to inhabit?" 
 
 " That is so ; I can view it from no other. But 
 may I remark in parenthesis that you are also likely 
 to find the judge and jury inhabiting that plane on 
 Friday." 
 
 ** You permit yourself a greater definiteness than 
 I dare to employ," said Northcote. " But the point 
 I would like to fix is this : Assuming that I am able 
 to evoke that which in your view lies so far outside 
 the obvious as to be non-existent, will you counte- 
 nance my so doing in the prisoner's interest? " 
 
 The solicitor gave a short nervous jerk to his 
 mustache. 
 
 *' That is a rather extraordinary proposition to 
 advance," he said disconcertedly ; *' and as you 
 are a young man, a beginner, perhaps you will for- 
 give my saying that I consider you hardly wise to 
 advance it." 
 
 '* Because we cannot contrive to keep our corns 
 out of the way, eh? We would look upon equity 
 as a sort of fruit of the gods, which mankind may 
 eat of, but may not analyze." 
 
 " I shall not attempt to follow you. But what 
 I would like to say is this, — and I hope, my dear 
 fellow, you, as an advocate, will not consider this 
 as a breach of etiquette on the part of your client, 
 • — I don't like your question at all. In a word, 
 speaking with twenty years' experience behind me, 
 I hardly think it ought to have been put." 
 
 63 
 
EQUITY A FRUIT OF THE GODS 
 
 The accession of somewhat strenuous solemnity 
 to a manner which a minute ago had been grossly, 
 carelessly genial, filled Northcote with a heavy 
 mocking laughter. 
 
 " I don't like it at all ; oughtn't to have been 
 put," Mr. Whitcomb reaffirmed, with a curious 
 admixture of nervousness and sternness, 
 
 " I wonder if I shall ever acquire the most val- 
 uable of all the arts," said the young man, with 
 an arch smile; "the art of knowing where not to 
 look." 
 
 " That art comprises the first law of success," 
 said the solicitor sententiously. 
 
 " I omitted to append a rather important corollary 
 to that extraordinary proposition of mine," said 
 Northcote, with a mischievous air. " It is this : 
 Is the advocate entitled to evoke what is non-ex- 
 istent in the eyes of his client, providing it has an 
 existence in his own ? " 
 
 " I hope to be spared anything further upon the 
 subject," said the solicitor. " I don't aspire to be 
 a casuist; I'm a common lawyer. But I feel I am 
 entitled to say this: use this subtlety of yours on 
 Friday to a full advantage, and you will have no 
 cause to regret having done so." 
 
 " Yes, it's the voice of the genie, right enough," 
 said the young man, in a hollow voice, as he toyed 
 with an empty wine-glass. 
 
 " And I feel I am also entitled to say," said 
 the solicitor, with emphasis, " since your mind ap- 
 pears to be exercised by the question, that when 
 an advocate accepts a brief, his whole duty is to 
 his client." 
 
 " And in the case of this unfortunate woman, 
 
 63 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 will serve the interests of his client by securing her 
 acquittal ? " 
 
 " Unquestionably." 
 
 "If the ends of justice are thereby defeated?" 
 
 ** Well, since you force one to say it, the in- 
 terests of the prisoner's attorney may not always be 
 coincident with those of justice." 
 
 '' My dear Adeimantus, that is well said," the 
 young man exclaimed. " Yet I have your assur- 
 ance that the interests of client and advocate should 
 be always identical ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think you are entitled to say that," said 
 the solicitor; "although understand, if you please, 
 I speak entirely in my capacity as an attorney." 
 
 " From which I gather that as a unit of mankind, 
 as a subscriber to the common equity, you reserve 
 to yourself the right to appease your private gods 
 subsequently in your own private fashion?" 
 
 " I suppose one does." 
 
 " And in the meantime, you and I, attorney and 
 advocate, must compass the liberation of this foul 
 murderess, must, if we can, give her back to so- 
 ciety? " 
 
 " Personally, I shall be content if we enable her 
 to escape the extreme penalty." 
 
 " You balk my question." 
 
 " Pray have it as you choose. Thank God, I am 
 only a common lawyer ! " 
 
 " My dear Samuel Whitcomb," said the young 
 man, peering at him with gaunt eyes, " you would 
 do well to get down here and now on your knees, 
 and thank Him for a dispensation of that kind." 
 
 64 
 
IX 
 
 THE BRIEF WITHDRAWN 
 
 " Waiter ! " called the solicitor at this point. 
 " More coffee, if you please. Let it be hot and 
 strong." Turning to Northcote, he added : " Our 
 minds have grown so subtle with that claret we've 
 got to find out where we are." 
 
 " Narcotics are not usually the friends of truth," 
 said his companion. 
 
 " My worthy Samuel Taylor," laughed the 
 solicitor, " I hope you will not forget I want to 
 get to Norbiton to-night." 
 
 " There is one other point," said the young 
 man imperturbably, " on which I wish to render 
 myself clear." 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb permitted himself a shrug of un- 
 mistakable expostulation. 
 
 " What, another ! " he muttered under his breath. 
 '* This fellow is the devil ! " 
 
 " I do not propose to take the line of insanity." 
 
 Northcote spoke with a quietness which seemed 
 to deepen the reverberation of Mr. Whitcomb' s 
 subsequent exclamation. 
 
 "Then you hang her!" 
 
 ** On the contrary," said Northcote, " I promise 
 an acquittal." 
 
 For a moment the solicitor was robbed of speech 
 by this extraordinary announcement. 
 
 " Upon my word," he exclaimed, with a more 
 6s 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 manifest impatience than any he had yet shown, 
 "you can hardly have read your brief. There is 
 nothing to extenuate the crime; and the evidence 
 of it is overwhelming." 
 
 " Circumstantial, apparently." 
 
 " You must know that in a capital charge the 
 prosecution relies almost invariably upon circum- 
 stantial evidence." 
 
 " So much the worse for it in this particular in- 
 stance." 
 
 " I am at a loss to understand." The solicitor 
 spoke in accents of alarm. " There is not a man 
 living who could overthrow the present evidence." 
 
 The young man smiled darkly. The symptoms 
 of his inebriation had yielded to the clarifying in- 
 fluence of a liqueur and two cups of strong black 
 coffee. His calmness was now forming a mem- 
 orable contrast to the marked excitement of the 
 older man. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Whitcomb," he said, " I suggest, 
 as you wish to get to Norbiton, that we adjourn 
 this discussion until Friday evening, by which time 
 Emma Harrison, alias Cox, alias Marshall, will be 
 restored to society." 
 
 " Such an undertaking is entirely reckless," said 
 the solicitor bluntly. " Quite the last thing that 
 Tobin himself would attempt would be to upset the 
 theory of the prosecution. The chain of evidence 
 could not be more complete. Even he, in the opin- 
 ion of many the most brilliant common law man 
 we have at the present moment at the bar, would 
 be content to urge extenuating circumstances, and 
 call witnesses in their support." 
 
 " Since you have seen fit to entrust the conduct 
 66 
 
THE BRIEF WITHDRAWN 
 
 of this case to me," said Northcote, " I shall beg 
 to be conceded as free a hand as would have been 
 conceded to Michael Tobin." 
 
 " Is your request quite reasonable ? " said the 
 solicitor. " Tobin has years of experience and suc- 
 cess behind him." 
 
 " You can trust me not to attempt more than I 
 can perform," said Northcote. 
 
 " Really, sir," said Mr. Whitcomb, genuinely 
 alarmed by such an obduracy, " I cannot admit your 
 right, in the circumstances in which you stand at 
 present, to overstep the bounds that are so clearly 
 indicated by persons of experience." 
 
 " I take this brief into court free of all restric- 
 tion," was the young man's rejoinder. 
 
 " That one can hardly consent to," said the solic- 
 itor. " Would you say it is quite legitimate to make 
 such a stipulation? We have our witnesses on the 
 line of insanity, and we must ask to have them 
 called." 
 
 " But do you not see," said Northcote, " that if 
 we call those witnesses we admit the theory of the 
 prosecution, and cut the ground from under our 
 own feet? " 
 
 " Certainly, certainly. One would have thought 
 that so much would be self-evident." 
 
 " Yet you sought me out in the capacity of a 
 fighter. I take it that had you not desired to fight 
 you would have gone straightway to Harris." 
 
 " I can only admit the possibilities of a fight 
 within limits. The woman's guilt is established be- 
 yond question; our only concern is to mitigate its 
 degree." 
 
 " For my own part," said the advocate, " I am 
 67 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 not prepared to accept your proposition. To my 
 mind, so far is the woman's guilt from being al- 
 ready established, that I am prepared to give an 
 undertaking that it never will be established." 
 
 The solicitor drummed his fingers on the table- 
 cloth. 
 
 " I should like Tobin to hear you say that. I 
 wish you had been at the police-court when the 
 case came before the magistrate. There is enough 
 evidence to hang an archdeacon." 
 
 '' Very likely. But we shall be getting back to 
 those abstract principles for entertaining which I 
 have already suffered reproof." 
 
 The solicitor gave an uneasy eye to his watch. 
 
 " You force me to deliver an ultimatum," said 
 he, in an uncompromising tone. " Please have the 
 goodness to give an undertaking to conduct the de- 
 fence on the lines indicated by Tobin, or return the 
 brief." 
 
 A wave of blood surged through the brain of the 
 young advocate. A dismal sickness overspread his 
 veins. Tantalus was about to pluck away that which 
 he had fasted and prayed for before he could take 
 it in his grasp. 
 
 " You have entrusted it to me already," he said, 
 in a dull, dry voice. 
 
 '* In a case of this magnitude," said the solicitor, 
 with an almost brutal precision, " I reserve to myself 
 the right to alter my mind. You have forced me 
 to issue an ultimatum. Accept or reject it, which- 
 ever you choose." 
 
 The solicitor called for his bill in a hectoring 
 manner, and threw a bank-note on the waiter's 
 salver. 
 
 68 
 
THE BRIEF WITHDRAWN 
 
 The young advocate, in the meantime, buttoned 
 the brief in the breast-pocket of his somewhat 
 threadbare black coat. 
 
 " What is your decision ? " said the soHcitor, re- 
 garding the young man with an insolent coolness. 
 
 " You can't have back your brief," said North- 
 cote. " You gave it to me." 
 
 " It can only be held conditionally," said Mr. 
 Whitcomb, " and the conditions are perfectly easy 
 to accept." 
 
 " The brief was delivered unconditionally into 
 my keeping," said Northcote, in an arid voice. 
 " And," he added, with a sudden gleam of the eyes 
 as an overpowering recollection of his destiny came 
 back to him, " you will have no reason to regret 
 your act." 
 
 Before the solicitor had framed a reply the waiter 
 had returned with the receipted bill. 
 
 *' Keep the change," said the solicitor, " and call 
 a hansom." 
 
 The waiter withdrew. 
 
 " Do I take it," said the solicitor, with an in- 
 cisive drawl in his speech as he turned to Northcote, 
 *' that you have said no? " 
 
 " I have said no in the first place to your restric- 
 tions," said Northcote, looking him full in the eyes, 
 " and in the second to your ultimatum." 
 
 " Then with all possible reluctance I must ask 
 you to have the goodness to return the brief." 
 
 " With an equal reluctance I feel I must decline 
 to do so," said Northcote, speaking through tight 
 lips. 
 
 For a moment the solicitor was taken aback by 
 this pointblank refusal. 
 
 69 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " But — but — " he stammered, " surely this is 
 most unprofessional. Such a thing has never hap- 
 pened to me in all my twenty years of practice." 
 
 " And I don't suppose," rejoined the young advo- 
 cate, " it vi^ill ever happen to you again. But sup- 
 pose we leave the plane of our professionalism, step 
 down from our platform, and approach the preju- 
 dices of each other in a rational spirit." 
 
 " No more argument, I beseech you," said the 
 solicitor sternly ; *' I've got to get to Norbiton. 
 Return the brief, and we will say no more. You 
 are not the man for this case. You have a bee in 
 your bonnet; you have too many brains. I think 
 none the worse of you, mind; I respect you; you 
 have your ideas ; one day they may prove valuable, 
 but not in common law. You have mistaken your 
 metier, that is all. We will say you are above your 
 work; at any rate, with all deference to Michael 
 Tobin, I shall prefer to see Harris holding briefs 
 of ours before a common-sense English jury and 
 a matter-of-fact English judge when it comes to the 
 capital charge." 
 
 ''If you are present in court on Friday," said 
 Northcote, " you will find that I, not Harris, will 
 still be holding the brief you entrusted to my care." 
 
 " Upon my word," muttered the solicitor to him- 
 self, " this fellow is a madman, a lunatic. I dare 
 say he's been starving so long that a square meal 
 has turned his brain.". 
 
 Involuntarily his eyes began to traverse the face 
 of the man who sat bolt upright with arms folded 
 at the other side of the table. It was excessively 
 pale, flushed with wine and conversation, and 
 strangely, exquisitely mobile. It had a kind of 
 
 70 
 
THE BRIEF WITHDRAWN 
 
 gaunt delicacy, but the obvious traces of suffering 
 were permeated by a remarkable power. The fea- 
 tures were irregular yet not unpleasing, the nose 
 was straight and incisive, the eyes deep and lumi- 
 nous, the mouth large and full-lipped. The general 
 expression was sombre, because it was so bluntly 
 dominating, yet it was rendered memorable by many 
 subtle qualities. Clearly it was one of those faces 
 which to see was never to forget. 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb, in spite of his desire to get to 
 Norbiton, and the severe tests to which his con- 
 stitutional arrogance as an immensely successful 
 man of the world had been subjected, owed too 
 much to his trained powers of observation to lay 
 them aside at a moment so remarkable. 
 
 " This fellow is cut to a big pattern," was his 
 mental comment. " That is a splendid mask for an 
 advocate. Upon my soul, if he were not so mad I 
 think I should be inclined to back him heavily. Yet 
 I believe he is literally starving." 
 
 The solicitor rose abruptly from the table to dis- 
 pel his reverie. 
 
 " Rather than you should feel you have ground 
 for complaint," said he abruptly, as if touched by 
 compassion, " I shall ask you to allow me to advance 
 half of your fee; and to-morrow I will send you 
 some other sort of work." 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb unrolled a note for ten pounds 
 and gave it to Northcote. 
 
 " Now," he said, " kindly return the brief and 
 I will go." 
 
 Northcote crumpled up the note and thrust it in 
 his pocket. 
 
 " I accept half my fee," said he, " not as a bribe, 
 
 71 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 but as a retainer. By this means I pledge myself 
 to conduct the case to its appointed issue." 
 
 '' Pray do not let us misunderstand one another," 
 said the solicitor, with a sense of being trapped. 
 " This brief is withdrawn definitely ; I ask you to 
 return it to me. I give you ten pounds as a sola- 
 tium for losing your fee." 
 
 " I cannot construe the situation in that fashion," 
 said the young man calmly. 
 
 " This is not a question of construction," said 
 the solicitor, with his anger beginning to announce 
 itself ; '* it is a question of hard fact. Your brief 
 is withdrawn." 
 
 '* And I," said Northcote, with expansive blunt- 
 ness, " do not submit to its withdrawal." 
 
 Before this impasse which had presented itself in 
 a manner so definite, the solicitor, whose patience 
 had been strained beyond the breaking-point, could 
 only take refuge in a series of imprecations. 
 
 *' Fellow's drunk," he muttered. *' Shall have to 
 see him first thing to-morrow. But it is most irri- 
 tating that he should refuse to give up the papers 
 when time is so short. It looks like an application 
 for a postponement after all." 
 
 The solicitor turned for the last time to the advo- 
 cate. 
 
 " It is a quarter-past twelve," he said brusquely, 
 " and I am going home. And I would like to urge 
 you to gain reflection by the aid of a few hours' 
 sleep, because I shall look for that brief to be deliv- 
 ered at my offices at a quarter-past ten to-morrow 
 morning. Good night." 
 
 He held out his hand ; Northcote ignored it. 
 
 " You appear to impugn my sobriety," said the 
 72 
 
THE BRIEF WITHDRAWN 
 
 latter, " and that is a pity, because in all my life 
 I have never felt my mind to be quite so clear as 
 it is to-night. Perhaps it it not fair to expect you 
 to appreciate the point at which I have arrived, and 
 why it is impossible for me to restore your brief." 
 He pressed his hands over the bundle of papers in 
 his coat. " You see your brief is my destiny." 
 
 A final expression of somewhat forcible disap- 
 proval escaped Mr. Whitcomb, and he moved away 
 to the room in which he had deposited his hat and 
 coat. 
 
 As an attendant was assisting to envelop the so- 
 licitor's portliness in these articles, it annoyed him 
 to find that Northcote had followed him. 
 
 '' Why not spare one this trouble to which you 
 are putting one?" he said reproachfully. "Why 
 not be moderately reasonable about it ? " 
 
 " Ah, you see," said Northcote with a smile, as 
 he presented the ticket for his own extremely time- 
 worn hat and coat, " even a thing so primitive as 
 ' the moderately reasonable ' must submit itself to 
 the peculiarly elusive mental plane one is doomed 
 to inhabit." 
 
 " Peace ! peace ! " said the solicitor. " No more 
 of that!" 
 
 " Attorney and advocate, judge and jury," said 
 the young man, as he rummaged in vain among 
 his pockets to find a tip for the attendant, " justice 
 and equity, the prisoner at the bar and the victim 
 of circumstance, — one and all are to be poised 
 upon the same arbitrary moral elevation, to submit 
 to the mandates of a tribunal which is the creation 
 of that egregiously warped and time-serving thing 
 upon which we bestow the name of The Majority." 
 
 73 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " Peace ! peace ! " said the solicitor, unable in 
 spite of himself to repress a laugh at the amazed 
 face of the cloak-room attendant, and moving to 
 where his hansom awaited him ; " give up those 
 papers here and now like a good fellow, and save 
 me a great deal of time and worry. If Harris 
 doesn't see them first thing to-morrow it means a 
 postponement, and we don't want that.'* 
 
 " There is need for neither," said Northcote, but- 
 toning up his threadbare overcoat. " But, ye gods 
 and little fishes! what is the name for the total 
 blindness, the pathetic obtuseness, which has eclipsed 
 the faculties of this connoisseur, this expert? Here 
 is one who has been angling for years for a real 
 authentic fish from the sea, yet when one plumps 
 into his net, being accustomed to nothing but the 
 sight of minnows, he doesn't even guess at his 
 travaille." 
 
 By this time the solicitor had fled precipitately 
 through the vestibule of the restaurant, and stood 
 in the portico awaiting his hansom. 
 
 U 
 
X 
 
 THE RIDE TO NORBITON 
 
 As he was entering the vehicle Northcote came 
 to his side. 
 
 " Good night," said Mr. Whitcomb. *' In the 
 morning, perhaps, when you see things a bit clearer 
 you will think better of this. In fact I am sure 
 of it ; and I hope you will not forget to send round 
 the brief." 
 
 Before he could close the door of the hansom, 
 the young man had joined him in its interior. 
 
 " I "hope you don't mind my coming with you,'* 
 he said, entirely at his ease. " This matter is far 
 too momentous for all concerned to be left in the 
 unsatisfactory stage at which it has now arrived." 
 
 " This fellow is the devil," muttered the solicitor, 
 suppressing a groan. 
 
 ** Where, sir? " said the cabman through the hole 
 in the roof. 
 
 " Norbiton." 
 
 " Norbiton ! Not to-night, sir ; the 'oss is tired." 
 
 " Take me to Norbiton," said the solicitor sharply, 
 " and never mind about your horse." 
 
 " Very sorry, guv'nor — " 
 
 " Well, if you can afford to lose a sovereign — " 
 
 The cabman's head disappeared immediately, and 
 the horse started on its journey at a good round 
 pace. 
 
 " These cabmen are the greatest robbers in Eu- 
 
 75 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 1 
 
 cor-i 
 ouldl 
 
 rope/' said the solicitor, settling himself in his 
 ner. *' They are a disgrace to London. One would 
 like to see them taken over by the state." 
 
 Although Mr. Whitcomb was ruffled by his com- 
 panion's strange pertinacity, his philosophic habit 
 soon came to his aid. 
 
 ''Have a weed?" he said, offering his cigar- 
 case. 
 
 By the time each had lighted a cigar and en- 
 sconced himself in a measure of comfort in a corner 
 of the vehicle, the irritation of the one and the 
 aggressive tenacity of the other had been somewhat 
 allayed. 
 
 " There are several points that still remain dark 
 to me," said Northcote, " in this odd affair. Hav- 
 ing come in a moment of high inspiration to the 
 attic of the obscure, having discovered its occupant 
 to be of an uncommon faculty, having entrusted 
 him with your business, all of a sudden, because 
 of a singular revelation of his talent, you discard 
 him and have recourse to an abject mediocrity." 
 
 " You are certainly a queer fellow," said the 
 solicitor, amused by this piece of egotism. " A 
 most unconventional fellow — quite the most un- 
 conventional fellow I have ever met." 
 
 '* Ah, there is my offence," said the young man ; 
 " I have outraged the gods, I have disregarded the 
 proprieties. Yet I would ask you, are not all con- 
 ventions for the common vulgar ? Are not nature's 
 most authentic specimens, those pioneers in every 
 sphere of mundane activity who add the little more 
 that means so much, are not these to walk about the 
 earth just as nature fashioned them?" 
 
 " I am pleased to say," said Mr. Whitcomb, emit- 
 76 
 
THE RIDE TO NORBITON 
 
 ting a soft purr of contentment, '' I am a common 
 lawyer. The whys and wherefores are not my 
 province; I take things as they are." 
 
 "That does not prevent all your instincts being 
 up in arms when you encounter the unusual. How 
 curious it is that the most deadly sin in the eyes 
 of the average person is that shameless egotism 
 which transacts the real business of the world." 
 
 *' If there were no rules to which one had to 
 conform," said the solicitor, " there would be no 
 living in the world. Conventions to my mind are 
 highly necessary. Of course every man has a per- 
 fect right to consider himself a tremendous fellow, 
 but that is no reason why he should say as much 
 to his neighbor. H he does, his neighbor will want 
 to refute it." 
 
 " And if he should throw down his gage, and 
 prove to his neighbor in a perfectly logical and 
 scientific manner that he is a tremendous fellow, 
 his neighbor will not be content with wanting to 
 refute him; his neighbor will want to shoot him, 
 or hang him, or burn him, or crucify him, and it 
 is long odds that his neighbor will succeed in so 
 doing." 
 
 " I am afraid I don't follow you." 
 
 " I am speaking of the fate that awaited upon 
 the majority of the tremendous fellows whom we 
 discover in the pages of history; the founders of 
 the religions, the saints, the heroes, the discoverers, 
 the makers of the philosophical systems." 
 
 '* One suspects," said the solicitor, *' it was be- 
 cause they made the world so uncomfortable while 
 they were living in it." 
 
 77 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 ** I agree. But what a world we should have if 
 they had not." 
 
 " It is not at all clear to my mind," said the 
 solicitor, " that in the long run these fellows of 
 whom you are speaking have not done more harm 
 to the world than they have done good. Not only 
 did their abnormal egotisms run amok during their 
 own lives, but after their deaths, which as you sug- 
 gest were often brutal and unnecessary, they contin- 
 ued in the guise of saints and martyrs, and inspired 
 teachers to wreak iconoclasm and discomfort upon 
 mankind." 
 
 " One can readily believe," said the young man, 
 '' that you, sir, in your capacity of a member of the 
 comfortable classes, to which by fortune and edu- 
 cation you belong, would fetter the march of ideas 
 by every means in your power." 
 
 " Yes," said the solicitor, drawing peacefully at 
 his cigar; ^* few things are more distasteful to me 
 personally than ideas. Particularly those lawless 
 ones which proceed from ill-regulated and ill-bal- 
 anced natures. It seems to me that they are respon- 
 sible for nine-tenths of the misery that is in the 
 world." 
 
 " Do I take it that, in your opinion, so far from 
 these so-called * great men ' of whom we are speak- 
 ing meriting esteem from their fellows, their doc- 
 trines as well as their persons should be pursued 
 with the fire and the sword ; and that means should 
 be adopted to exterminate the growth of these 
 * great ' ones from the comfortable republic which 
 is inhabited by the average person ? " 
 
 " I would suggest it. I have given little thought 
 to this subject, but I cannot think of a single his- 
 
 78 
 
THE RIDE TO NORBITON 
 
 torical personage of whom I do not consider that 
 in the long run mankind would have gained im- 
 measurably had he never been born into its midst." 
 
 "This is extreme doctrine," said Northcote; 
 " and may I pay you the compliment, sir, of saying 
 that I find you to be one of a greater courage than 
 I had suspected." 
 
 " All the so-called ' greatness ' one finds en- 
 shrined in history," the solicitor continued, " pro- 
 ceeds from an abnormal egotism; and I think even 
 a perfectly commonplace mind such as my own, 
 which is content with the obvious, has only to take 
 a most superficial look around to see that the ab- 
 normal is the only evil against which mankind has 
 to contend." 
 
 *' Necessarily," said Northcote, " since the self- 
 consciousness of matter is the ugliest phenomenon 
 known to natural law. But to follow the line of 
 your reasoning, the abnormal person, whatever the 
 sphere of his activity, is invariably the enemy of 
 his kind?" 
 
 " That is my suggestion ; the suggestion of an 
 average mind that is content to rest on the plane 
 of matter-of-fact common sense." 
 
 " You would say that it would have been better 
 for mankind had the poet Shakespeare never been 
 given to it? " 
 
 " Unquestionably. In my view, all poetry, even 
 in what we are pleased to call a sublime and con- 
 centrated form, is a direct emanation of morbid 
 sensibility. It stimulates those already sufficiently 
 irritable faculties of the mind which call for a 
 never-ceasing vigilance to hold in check. Poetry 
 
 79 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 is the chief enemy against which rational common 
 sense has to contend." 
 
 " Then in your view the greatest enemy of the 
 human race of which history has taken cognizance 
 is Jesus Christ? " 
 
 " I will not say the greatest ; but He shares the 
 opprobrium that attaches to His class. It was that 
 type of abnormalism which developed the religious 
 sense in man; and any sense more calculated to 
 provoke infinite misery, any sense more completely 
 out of harmony with the facts of existence, one can- 
 not conceive." 
 
 " In a word, excess of any kind is repugnant to 
 the average person?" 
 
 " One would say so ; mainly, I think, because 
 it extorts such heavy toll of all who are brought 
 in contact with it." 
 
 " Then elevation of feeling, profundity of 
 thought, subtlety of insight, austerity of morals, 
 heroism, beauty, in short, the superlative in any 
 guise whatever, should be eliminated from the re- 
 public of the average sensual person ? " 
 
 "If the average sensual person could contrive 
 a republic for himself, that would be its first de- 
 cree." 
 
 " Hence his hostility to those abnormal egotisms 
 which are known as ' greatness ' ? " 
 
 " As far as the average person can see, that ap- 
 pears to go down to the root of the matter." 
 
 " Well, sir," said the young advocate, " permit 
 me to take a slight parable out of my own experi- 
 ence to refute this supposition." 
 
 " Pray do so." 
 
 The advocate selected as a preliminary a second 
 80 
 
THE RIDE TO NORBITON 
 
 cig-ar from the case of the solicitor, and reset- 
 tled himself in comfort in the corner of the ve- 
 hicle. 
 
 '' All my life," said Northcote, " from the far- 
 thest day to which my memory goes back, I have 
 been persecuted with the consciousness of my own 
 importance. In all my dealings with others, in the 
 daily outlook upon my surroundings, not only have 
 I been unable to detach myself from my own pri- 
 vate entity, but I have also been obsessed with the 
 knowledge that that entity was so much more pow- 
 erful than any with which it happened to come in 
 contact. As you will believe, a feeling of that kind 
 spelt serious inconvenience to its possessor. At my 
 private school I was the recipient of many cuffs 
 in my capacity of a shy, nervous, and intensely self- 
 centred child who detested games. It grew to be 
 a special function of my youthful companions, and 
 also that of every self-respecting master, to ^ knock 
 the nonsense out of Northcote.' However, so far 
 from knocking it out, these disinterested efforts 
 appeared to knock it farther in. And when in the 
 fulness of time I ascended to the ampler region of 
 a public school, my sufferings were materially in- 
 creased. I was shunned, I was tormented, an op- 
 probrious name was fastened upon me ; and had not 
 the fire which burned so intensely at the centre of 
 myself kept me warm in spirit, life would have 
 become intolerable. 
 
 " It was a consciousness of personal power haunt- 
 ing me day and night which caused me to scorn 
 the gods of the little world in which I found myself, 
 and to disregard the petty conventions which mean 
 so much in every phase of human life. Accord- 
 
 8i 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 ingly I was marked out as an object of hatred and 
 ridicule. However, as years went on, and I came 
 to be endowed with the somewhat unusual physical 
 frame which you may have observed I possess, I 
 determined in a somewhat cynical spirit of revenge 
 to devote myself to one of those stupid and un- 
 meaning exercises, my contempt for which was one 
 of the most potent causes of my unpopularity. 
 Never before had I condescended to approach one 
 of the usual school * games,' other than in a spirit 
 of levity; but when I awoke to the discovery that 
 nature had somewhat ironically endowed me with 
 a power of muscle, a suppleness of limb, and a bulk 
 of inches which would in themselves make me the 
 envy of every athlete in the school, I determined to 
 turn them to account. It was in no spirit of open 
 competition with those whom I despised that I 
 resolved to become the most accomplished football 
 player who had ever appeared in the school. It was 
 my somewhat curious method of avenging all the 
 insults, all the barbarous forms of injustice, that 
 had been wreaked upon me. I might have requited 
 my assailants in other ways, but I was too proud 
 to employ the methods of those whom I felt to be 
 my mental, physical, and moral inferiors. There- 
 fore I gave myself up to this mechanical exercise, 
 and an abnormal concentration of will-power which 
 I have always possessed, in conjunction with re- 
 markable physical gifts, had the result for which 
 I had prayed. 
 
 " When this new prowess was first bruited 
 abroad it was received with derision. But in spite 
 of an organized public opinion which in every walk 
 pf life assails the unconventional, this ability be- 
 
 82 
 
i 
 
 THE RIDE TO NORBITON 
 
 came a source of distress to the expert. * It comes 
 to this,' said the captain of the School Fifteen, after 
 a House cup-tie in which dismay had been carried 
 into the camp of the opposition, * if this sort of 
 thing goes on, we shall have to think about playing 
 " Cad " Northcote for the School/ The shouts of 
 derision with which this prophecy was received are 
 still in my ears. However ' this sort of thing ' 
 continued to go on, and sure enough, to the amaze- 
 ment of men and gods, the day dawned on which 
 * Cad ' Northcote did play for the School. He 
 dominated the scene of action in every game in 
 which he took part; but such was the strength of 
 public opinion that the ruling powers withheld his 
 ' cap ' until the very last moment, the eve of the 
 chief game of the year. It was the match against 
 our great school rivals, a neighboring seminary, 
 of which, sir, I discern by certain unfortunate 
 tricks of manner that you are an alumnus." 
 
 " Never mind about that," said the solicitor ; 
 '* get on with your story. It is enormously inter- 
 esting. Did you play against us in the great 
 match ? " 
 
 " Yes, I played against you in the great match. 
 The * f ez ' of the School Fifteen, which should 
 have been mine weeks before, was duly presented 
 to me on the eve of * Waterloo,' for although it 
 was a dreadful crime to be * unpopular,' it was yet 
 highly necessary to ' take on ' the French. And I 
 recall now with some amusement the manner in 
 which I contrived to flout the amour pro pre of the 
 venerable institution into whose service I was 
 pressed. Instead of turning out in the garish col- 
 ors with which I had been honored at the eleventh 
 
 83 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 hour, I appeared upon the scene in a costume of 
 the most immaculate whiteness. As soon as the 
 captain beheld this apparition on the field of play, 
 he came to me and said insolently : ' Northcote, 
 what do you mean by getting yourself up like this? 
 Go back at once and put on the School colors.' I 
 rejoined : ' I play for the School in my own colors 
 on my own terms. I would like you to understand 
 that if I am with you, I am not of you.' There 
 was a hurried consultation among my fourteen fel- 
 low players, and although their sense of outrage 
 was enormous, that was neither the time nor the 
 place to indulge it. 
 
 " The French were * taken on ' as they had never 
 been ' taken on ' before. But the debacle was the 
 work of one man. Such a game as was played on 
 that occasion by Cad Northcote was never seen 
 before or afterwards. According to tradition, 
 which to this day invests his pious memory, he 
 spent half his time in crossing the line of his ad- 
 versaries, and the other half in standing the op- 
 posing three-quarters on their heads. He felt 
 himself to be equipped for the part of the man 
 of destiny. I believe the rout of our hereditary 
 rivals on that occasion came near to approaching 
 three figures." 
 
 " You don't mean to say," exclaimed the solic- 
 itor, " that you are the great Northcote, the fellow 
 who led the English pack while he was still at 
 school?" 
 
 " No less." 
 
 " Why, then I saw you play at the Rectory 
 Field sometime in the 'nineties. I remember you 
 had those damned Welshmen over the line three 
 
 84 
 
THE RIDE TO NORBITON 
 
 times in the first five minutes. You pushed them 
 all over the place." 
 
 " Yes, we pushed them all over the place. You 
 saw me at the summit of my fame. And I am 
 now coming to the point of my parable. From 
 those days of my inordinate success, which con- 
 ferred not only lustre upon myself, but upon my 
 school and all who were associated with me, I 
 became not only a hero, but a figure of legend. 
 The opprobrious title ' Cad ' Northcote was 
 dropped as completely as though it had never been. 
 My lightest opinion was treasured, and heaven only 
 can tell us how many they were on every point 
 under the sun. I became a dictator where for- 
 merly I had suflFered infinite misery and persecution. 
 By a display of personal force criticism was laid 
 low; yet, sir, according to this theory of yours, 
 it must have been inimical to all who came within 
 its sphere of influence." 
 
 ** I would say so certainly ; demoralizing alike 
 to its possessor, and to those who despised it in 
 its growth and abased themselves before it in its 
 flower." 
 
 "Yet was it not with bated breath that you 
 inquired whether I was the ' great ' North- 
 cote?" 
 
 " Pray do not overlook the fact, my dear fellow, 
 that however much the average sensual mind may 
 deplore the false gods before which it kneels, it 
 has not the power to deliver itself from their thrall. 
 This passion to * excel ' is a flaw inherent in the 
 race." 
 
 " It is at least pleasant to discover," said North- 
 cote, "that the average sensual mind is unable 
 
 85 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 to banish the sentiment of admiration from its 
 republic." 
 
 '* If it could," said the solicitor, " there would 
 be an end of these abnormal egotisms of which 
 we have been speaking." 
 
 " I do not agree," said Northcote. " It is not 
 a thirst for admiration from which they spring, 
 but a thirst for power. And it is an uncomfort- 
 able reflection for those who belong to your re- 
 public that the world has been so arranged that 
 mere power will always have its devotees. How 
 lamentably your own practice breaks down before 
 your theory. You have reverence for me as a 
 player of football, and Tobin's powers as an ad- 
 vocate fill you with enthusiasm." 
 
 "True; and it is men like Tobin and yourself 
 who forbid any reconciliation between theory and 
 practice. A phenomenon is always inimical to the 
 society in which it appears. It may stand forth 
 as memorable and fascinating as you please, but 
 it does so at the expense of balance, law, and 
 reason. Your presence in the football match 
 ruined the game as a game, just as I have ob- 
 served that the presence of Tobin in a case has 
 been disastrous to the cause of justice." 
 
 " Nevertheless, you invoke the aid of Tobin on 
 every possible occasion." 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " Upon what pretext, may I ask, since you de- 
 plore his gifts so deeply?" 
 
 " The answer is simple. To whatever extent 
 I may deplore the condition of things into, which, 
 through no fault of my own, I have been pro- 
 jected, beyond everything I am of a comfortable 
 
 86 
 
1 
 
 THE RIDE TO NORBITON 
 
 and conforming disposition. Therefore I make my 
 subscription to the things that are. I have none 
 of the reformer's zeal; and it is one of the things 
 for which I am thankful." 
 
 At this stage of the conversation the voice of 
 the cabman was heard from the roof. 
 
 " We're in Norbiton, sir. Which house ? " 
 
 " Straight on to the end of the road," said Mr. 
 Whitcomb; "then first to the right, second to the 
 left, and it is the first house you come to at the 
 corner of Avenue Road." 
 
 " How quickly we've come," said Northcote. 
 '* One would not have thought it possible to cover 
 the distance in this time; with a tired horse, 
 too." 
 
 " The sound of your own voice may have been 
 as agreeable to you," said the solicitor, " as it has 
 been to me. I confess it has passed the time very 
 well." 
 
 Northcote deduced from the more indulgent air 
 of his companion that this imperious personality 
 of his, of whose possession he was so conscious 
 and upon which he built so much, had not been 
 without an effect. He was thinking of the victory 
 that he felt sure would crown his tenacity, when 
 the hansom drew up at the gate of a very comfort- 
 able-looking suburban residence. It was girt with 
 a high stone wall, and stood in a pleasant plot of 
 ground amid tall trees. 
 
 As they got out of the hansom, the solicitor, 
 after searching his pockets in leisurely fashion, 
 collected four shillings and a sixpence and handed 
 them up to the cabman on his perch. 
 
 " Wot's this 'ere?" said the cabman gruffly. 
 
 87 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " This ain't no use ter me, guv'nor. Yer promised 
 me a quid." 
 
 '' In one's dealings with the criminal classes," said 
 the solicitor, " one finds that the only method of 
 self -protection is the use of their own weapons." 
 
 '* Yer promised me a quid, guv'nor," said the 
 cabman, who was too excited to follow the course 
 of this reasoning. 
 
 " May I say," rejoined the solicitor, with great 
 suavity, '' that a promise is considered to be a 
 thing of no particular value among the members 
 of the criminal classes." 
 
 " Criminal classes ! Wot ! " cried the cabman, 
 in a gust of fury. " Breaks yer promises and 
 calls yerself a toff! Not a-going to part with that 
 quid. Well, guv'nor, we'll just see abaht it." 
 
 Emitting a string of foul expressions, the cab- 
 man hopped down from his perch. 
 
 '* Call yerself a toff? Give me that quid or I'll 
 knock out yer eye." 
 
 '' Try," said the solicitor, with a coolness that 
 his companion felt to be inimitable. 
 
 Inflamed a little by drink as well as by a sense 
 of injury, the cabman prepared to exact a sum- 
 mary vengeance. Breathing slaughter he came at 
 Mr. Whitcomb with his fists in the air; and that 
 gentleman, stepping aside coolly and nimbly, hit 
 him' with a hand ungloved for the purpose 
 a heavy blow in the face. The cabman dropped 
 like a log in the slush of the gutter. 
 
 " A broken nose," said Mr. Whitcomb, turning 
 to his companion, while they stood watching the 
 unfortunate cabman gather himself slowly and 
 painfully together. 
 
 88 
 
THE RIDE TO NORBITON 
 
 " I feel for you, cabby," said the solicitor, to 
 his rueful assailant, " but I can assure you this 
 is wholly in the public interest. Thieves and bul- 
 lies, as well as fools, have to be taught by ex- 
 perience." 
 
 "Why the 'ell didn't yer sye so?" whimpered 
 the cabman, as he strove in vain to stanch the 
 blood that poured from his nose. " 'Ow the 'ell 
 should I know yer could use 'em? I piked yer 
 fer a toff in yer 'igh 'at and yer fur coat and yer 
 glass eye; 'ow the 'ell should I know yer could 
 use 'em ? " 
 
 " That is for you banditti to discover," was the 
 rejoinder of his fare. " It is perhaps my chief 
 recreation to thrash hansom cabmen in the in- 
 terests of society. I am proud to say your case is 
 one of many." 
 
 " Blow me tight, a prize-fighter ! " 
 
 " It is not too much to say I might have aspired 
 to that calling, if the somewhat material nature 
 of my ambitions had not summoned me to a more 
 lucrative if less honorable practice. Twenty years 
 ago I was considered rather useful with the 
 gloves." 
 
 " Not so rusty nah, guv'nor," said the cabman, 
 imperfectly mollified, and stanching his nose with 
 his sleeve. " Give us a extra bob an' I'll drive to 
 the 'orspital." 
 
 " Here is your sovereign," said Mr. Whitcomb. 
 " Training and education make one so punctilious 
 in regard to one's word, although common sense 
 assures one that like the majority of your class 
 you are a rogue, a liar, and a bully; in a word, 
 a common pirate. Here is your money; and have 
 
 89 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 the goodness to take yourself off as reticently as 
 you can." 
 
 There was not a more astonished Jehu amid 
 the ranks of his London brethren than this un- 
 fortunate specimen, as he climbed into the seat he 
 had left so injudiciously. Bestowing a succession 
 of brutal strokes of the whip upon his even more 
 unfortunate horse, he was lost immediately in the 
 sleet and darkness of the morning, leaving North- 
 cote, who was only slightly less astonished than 
 his bleeding and blasphemous self, standing at the 
 side of the solicitor against the gate of the latter' s 
 residence. 
 
 90 
 
XI 
 
 MR. WHITCOMB's foibles 
 
 " In moments of relaxation from my studies/' 
 said' Northcote, taking his companion by the arm, 
 " I like to look upon myself as something of an 
 amateur of the human mind. I find a great fascina- 
 tion in the endless nuances of the human character. 
 Permit me to say that I have never come across a 
 more promising subject than is offered by your own 
 personal complexity. Why in the name of the mar- 
 vellous did you batter that poor devil if you had no 
 intention of cozening him out of his money ? " 
 
 " He suffered for one of my foibles. I am con- 
 vinced that a society of banded robbers is at work 
 to blackmail, bully, and despoil the peaceable citi- 
 zens of London. The law is powerless to touch 
 them, their operations are so cunning and are 
 ordered on so mean a scale. Therefore it would 
 seem to behove every stalwart private individual to 
 make war upon them openly; and I am proud to 
 affirm that a good measure of success has attended 
 my own puny efforts. It is quite possible that in 
 the course of these labors I may happen upon a re- 
 tired champion who chooses to eke out a well- 
 deserved leisure in a manner so unsavory, but in 
 the meantime I deal out a dozen broken noses a 
 year to this banditti." 
 
 " You are an enigma, indeed," said the young 
 man. " You professed just now to accept the things 
 
 91 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 that are, that your last intention is to effect any sort 
 of social reform; yet look what you do. Again, 
 you profess to be a connoisseur in men of promise, 
 yet with your eyes open you reject the most au- 
 thentic specimen that has ever swum into your ken. 
 Further, you deride every form of ' greatness,' 
 and despise every manifestation of the force that it 
 is your daily business to employ." 
 
 " I am an enigma, right enough," said the solic- 
 itor; "yet, for that matter, so are we all. Who 
 shall explain himself? Who shall attempt it? I 
 preach one thing in all sincerity, yet with an equal 
 sincerity I practise another. Nature designed the 
 lymphatic Samuel Whitcomb to be the most con- 
 sistent man alive, yet see, my friend, how malleable 
 he is, how mobile, how entirely at the mercy of the 
 caprices that whirl about in himself. It gives me 
 an indescribable pleasure to thrash hansom cabmen ; 
 my being craves for that form of relaxation; it is 
 its conception of true physical and intellectual en- 
 joyment." 
 
 " Did I not understand you to say," asked the 
 astonished young man, " that these Promethean 
 labors were undertaken in the service of society?" 
 
 " Do not believe me," said the solicitor, with his 
 rich laugh floating melodiously into the chill night 
 air. " I would deceive others with that pleasant 
 figment, but I do not impose on myself. It is a 
 sheer animal impulse, which I am powerless to 
 withstand, that causes me to break the noses of this 
 banditti." 
 
 '* Well, sir," said Northcote, " I will wish you 
 good night. It has been a real pleasure to have met 
 you. The enchanting complexity of your personal 
 
 92 
 
MR. WHITCOMB'S FOIBLES 
 
 character will beguile me during my long walk 
 home. As for the brief that I hold, unless a whim 
 should cause you to obtain a postponement of the 
 trial, you will find it in my custody at the Old 
 Bailey on Friday morning/' 
 
 " Not so fast, my friend,'' said Mr. Whitcomb, 
 as Northcote turned on his heel. " You had better 
 come in and have a drink before you start. It will 
 be a dreadfully cold and wearisome tramp back to 
 town through this slush in the small hours of the 
 morning." 
 
 " My own foible is to walk the streets at night," 
 said Northcote. " That is the only taste of real 
 freedom one enjoys in a city. It is only during 
 the middle of the night in a place like London that 
 one can think one's own thoughts and breathe 
 God's air. But as we do not appear quite to have 
 settled this momentous business of the brief, which 
 may mean so much more to society at large than 
 you can imagine, I will enter your domain and 
 drink one glass of your whiskey." 
 
 The solicitor led the way thereto, unlocked the 
 front door with a latch-key, and Northcote found 
 himself in the interior of a modern dwelling-house. 
 It was furnished with perfect taste, fitted with every 
 luxury. The heavy mats on the floors muffled the 
 sounds of his feet ; the warmed air that assailed his 
 nostrils was seductive and delicate after the bitter 
 inclemency from which he had taken refuge. Nu- 
 merous objects of vertu were scattered in every 
 nook, and the walls were lined with pictures that 
 astonished him beyond measure. 
 
 " Why, that is a Whistler — one of the two or 
 
 93 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 three! " he exclaimed, as he passed in the hall an 
 unpretentious-looking portrait. 
 
 '' I got it years ago for a song, before they began 
 to be bought," said Mr. Whitcomb modestly. 
 
 " And what is that stuck over the stairs ? From 
 this distance it looks suspiciously like a Velasquez. 
 But surely that is in the Prado ? " 
 
 " Aren't you confounding it with the companion 
 picture? " 
 
 " I had no idea we had this in England." 
 
 " We have many things in England which for- 
 tunately are not matters of common knowledge. 
 Every year they are becoming rarer, owing to that 
 scourge of nations, the press. If you value my re- 
 gard, you will forget that you have noticed it." 
 
 " Did you get that also before they began to be 
 bought?" 
 
 " There is rather a strange story attaching to 
 that picture." 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Northcote, with an anticipa- 
 tory eagerness ; '* that is where pictures are so 
 unlike women — they are worthless if they have no 
 history." 
 
 ** Possess your soul in patience, my friend," said 
 the solicitor, with his rich chuckle ; " the history of 
 the lady in the blue dress is not going to be told." 
 
 " I must get a bit nearer," said the young man, 
 with shining eyes. " Eh, she's authentic ! You 
 should be a proud man to keep that little lady under 
 your own roof." 
 
 " As proud," said the solicitor, in his unctuous 
 voice, " as any other Goth of a householder in his 
 snug suburban residence. Conceive the feelings of 
 the Huns when they overran Rome." 
 
 94 
 
MR. WHITCOMB'S FOIBLES 
 
 " Or the mob," said the young man, " when they 
 sacked the Tuileries." 
 
 " Is she not precious, the Httle girl in the blue 
 frock?" 
 
 At the sound of soft accents, Northcote, a 
 little startled, swung round to confront a lady. 
 She had come upon him noiselessly, and was stand- 
 ing at his side. 
 
 " Hullo, Angel ! " said Mr. Whitcomb, bestowing 
 a kiss upon her ; " this is late for you. Allow me 
 to present Mr. Northcote, England's future Lord 
 Chancellor." 
 
 Northcote found himself to be holding the hand 
 of a singularly beautiful woman. All that art can 
 devise to enhance the sure, strong, and original 
 groundwork of nature was displayed about her, 
 chastely yet abundantly. Diamonds were strewn 
 in the flounces of her gown; three tight bands of 
 pearls clasped her throat; her shoulders gleamed; 
 her hair had the evanescent hues of the fleeciest silk 
 — each tress was the fruit of cunning and labor. 
 Yet through every curve of her gorgeous fairness 
 there peeped forth an almost quaint simplicity. 
 Her eyes were bright; her features, each of which 
 seemed to add a personal brilliancy to her expres- 
 sion, had a lustre at once na'ive and opulent, as be- 
 comes one who accepts greedily all the thousand 
 and one glittering and delightful minutiae that 
 money adds to life; who has both hands out- 
 stretched to receive them; who carries them joy- 
 ously, like a child, to her bosom; who presses them 
 to her lips. 
 
 " His name is Northcote," said the solicitor, pat- 
 ting her white arm. " From the window of his 
 
 95 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 garret in Fleet Street he surveys the universe with 
 the haughtiest eyes imaginable." 
 
 " How clever of him," said the lady, in a little 
 melodious accent. 
 
 " Those eyes of his know everything," said the 
 solicitor. " Before them human nature unveils the 
 whole of its mysteries. They range over the stars 
 in their courses, and he himself is familiar with 
 spirits. They have already promised to enable him 
 to conquer the world." 
 
 " He must be what they call a favorite of for- 
 tune," said the lady, with engaging laughter. '' He 
 must be clever." 
 
 " Yes ; he confesses it." 
 
 " He is young," said the lady, with a tender little 
 sigh. 
 
 She half-turned to meet the eyes of the young 
 man, and looked straight into their sombre depths. 
 Her own had a steadiness that was not at all im- 
 perious — they were not even faintly insolent ; the 
 candor of their inquiry was not so much as tinged 
 with encounter. An infant staring with its ruthless 
 curiosity into the human soul could have hardly 
 dealt less in implication. Yet the act itself seemed 
 to acquire for the young man the nature of a feat 
 so meaningless, yet so charged with meaning did it 
 appear. Only the support of a confident personal 
 beauty rendered it possible; yet it was nothing at 
 all, not even a comment, nor the formation of an 
 opinion, hardly the faint awakening of an interest; 
 all the same the blood had invaded Northcote's ears. 
 
 " You mustn't look at him so long," said Mr. 
 Whitcomb, laughing. " You are making him shy." 
 
 " Pray look at me as long as you please," said 
 96 
 
MR. WHITCOMB'S FOIBLES 
 
 Northcote, who had recovered already his self- 
 possession. ** And if you do really succeed in mak- 
 ing me shy, it may be shown to you one day as not 
 the least of your works." 
 
 Her laughter rang out pure and clear like the 
 tinkling of steel. 
 
 " Yes, he is clever," she said, " although he is so 
 young. I am so pleased. I am sure to like you, Mr. 
 Northcote; I like all men who are clever." 
 
 " Is it that you have so little to fear? " 
 
 Northcote was now returning her frank look of 
 inquiry with a gaze of equal candor. 
 
 *' Yes, there is truth in that," she said sagely. 
 
 '* Are not the powerful among us the most vul- 
 nerable to your sex?" said Northcote gently. 
 
 '' Yes, that is true also," she exclaimed, in a sort 
 of glee. " Why has it not occurred to one be- 
 fore?" 
 
 " If you speak much with this gentleman," said 
 Mr. Whitcomb, " he will tell you a large number of 
 things that you will be surprised to think have not 
 occurred to you before." 
 
 " He looks like that," said the lady, betraying a 
 dimple. " I hope you don't mind my looking so 
 much at your face, Mr. Northcote. It is one of 
 those fascinating faces that seem to give a new 
 meaning to old ideas." 
 
 " Yes, you are very well matched," said Mr. 
 Whitcomb cheerfully ; " and doubtless you will find 
 a great deal to say to one another. But it will not 
 be to-night, madam. Are you aware it is a quarter 
 to two? Now suppose you play us a bit of a tune 
 while we take a much-needed drink, and then I 
 shall send you to bed." 
 
 97 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 The lady led the way to a drawing-room. Lux- 
 ury and taste appeared there to have been carried to 
 their highest point. Northcote, whose delicately 
 poised sensibilities vibrated to the simplest of exter- 
 nal things, was fain to believe that paradise itself 
 could not have shaped a bolder contrast to that 
 bleak squalor which he had been doomed to inhabit 
 year after year. Somewhere apart in the sanctuary 
 of the spirit, the home of so many complex and 
 marvellous things, were chords responsive to the 
 challenge of the beautiful. They could thrill be- 
 fore the manifestation of its power, even in that 
 which was exterior, material, unmeaning. These 
 cushioned enchantments, this bright bower, with so 
 exquisite an occupant casting slim jewelled fingers 
 across a wonderful instrument, sent a shock of in- 
 toxication into his blood. At the same instant he 
 was conscious of a stab of shame. It was the flesh, 
 the draperies, the trappings to which his pulses 
 responded ; it was not the magical secret which was 
 contained in the miniatures upon the walls, in the 
 passionate delicacy of the cadences which sobbed 
 themselves out.liquidly under the siren's touch of 
 this beautiful woman. 
 
 He stood in front of the cosy fire, glass in hand. 
 A soft warmth overspread his being. His eyes 
 glanced from the white shoulders of the enchantress 
 to the thousand and one hues which were blended so 
 cunningly in the carpets and tapestries. The subtle 
 playings of light and shadow, the mellow effects 
 of the atmosphere, the softness of the music, began 
 to assail his senses with indescribable pangs. He 
 feasted his eyes, his ears, his nostrils; they re- 
 
 98 
 
MR. WHITCOMB'S FOIBLES 
 
 warded him with gladness. His heart beat vio- 
 lently. 
 
 " These rare kinds of genius, are they not bar- 
 barous ? " he said, when the siren had ceased to 
 cast her fingers. 
 
 " It is like children lisping," she said, half-turn- 
 ing her head, with a smile that curved her mouth 
 entrancingly. 
 
 " Yes," said the young man, " poetry, romance, 
 imagination are primitive ; they belong to the child- 
 hood of nations, to the dawn of new worlds. What 
 a divine inspiration these sweet-voiced children of 
 nature who are bought out of due time, these un- 
 happy Poles, Germans, and Frenchmen bring to 
 their despair. Instead of sitting down in black 
 coats to make their music into beef and mutton, 
 they should be tripping through the glades piping 
 to the birds, the trees, the bright air." 
 
 " This is a mad fellow, my angel," said Mr. 
 Whitcomb indulgently, " but if you are gentle with 
 him you may find him amusing." 
 
 *' Mr. Northcote will amuse me enormously," 
 said the lady, with a demure glance. 
 
 " Is it thus you rebuke his madness ? " the young 
 man asked. 
 
 " On the contrary, I don't think I have ever seen 
 a sanity that is quite so perfect." 
 
 " Drop it," said the solicitor, roguishly pinching 
 her ear. " Beware of dangerous turnings, my son. 
 She is quite prepared to play George Sand to any- 
 body's Alfred de Musset. She even does it to the 
 greengrocer when he comes round with his bar- 
 row. I understand they discourse divinely together 
 upon the subject of cabbages." 
 
 99 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " But Witty is too much the man of the world to 
 be jealous about it," she purred. 
 
 " If Pussy hasn't the opportunity to sharpen her 
 claws on a sofa or an ottoman, she doesn't mind a 
 wicker-work chair." 
 
 " Witty, darling," said the lady, " I hate to find 
 rudeness keeping company with real distinction of 
 mind." 
 
 " Upon my word," expostulated Northcote, seek- 
 ing to measure her depth, " I consider that rebuke 
 to be much prettier than the one bestowed upon 
 me. 
 
 " When, Mr. Northcote, did I rebuke you? " 
 
 " Did you not say I should amuse you enor- 
 mously?" 
 
 " Is not that the only compliment a woman has 
 the power to pay nowadays ? " 
 
 " Yes, Noodle," said Mr. Whitcomb, laughing ; 
 " but don't you see how young he is, and therefore 
 how serious ? Who would call * enormously amus- 
 ing' a fitting compliment for one of the seven 
 champions of Christendom? This is a devil of a 
 fellow." 
 
 " I can roar you like any sucking dove," said the 
 young man. 
 
 "How it would thrill one to hear you do it!" 
 said the lady, enfolding him with large eyes. 
 
 " He is a man of destiny," said Mr. Whitcomb ; 
 " he carries a genie in his pocket." 
 
 " Oh 1 " said the lady, with clasped hands. 
 
 " One of these fine mornings he will stand the 
 world on its head." 
 
 " O-o-o-o-h ! " said the lady. 
 
 " And having done that," said Northcote, " tbi$ 
 
 199 
 
MR. WHITCOMB'S K)IBLES 
 
 amazing fellow will dig a hole in the universe for 
 to bury the moon." 
 
 " I would that all men had ambition, " said the 
 lady, looking down at her shoe. "If Witty had 
 only a little of that precious salt which forms a 
 sediment at the bottom of every fine action he 
 would be one's beau-ideal of a hero, a Christian, 
 and a philosopher." 
 
 " Minx ! " exclaimed the solicitor. " If it were 
 not for my ambition I should never rise from my 
 bed." 
 
 " So this wonderful Mr. Whitcomb has no am- 
 bition!" said Northcote. "You see I have found 
 his character so complex, that in my capacity of an 
 amateur of the human mind I am picking it out, 
 here a little, there a little, piece by piece." 
 
 " You must give him no marks for ambition," 
 said the lady. " But since when did you become 
 acquainted with him not to have found out that ? " 
 
 " Since this evening at ten." 
 
 " Ah, then, you are absolved. He will certainly 
 baffle you at first." 
 
 " He is wholly incomprehensible to me. He is a 
 man of moods who oughtn't to have any." 
 
 The lady clapped her hands in a little ripple of 
 glee. 
 
 " How right," she cried. " In a dozen little 
 words you have shown me the nothingness of my 
 own knowledge." 
 
 " Of course he has. Vapid One," said Mr. Whit- 
 comb. " Have I not told you he carries a genie in 
 his pocket? " 
 
 " Then that is why his eyes are so deep and 
 bright," said the lady, turning to peruse Northcote 
 
 191 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 again with an unfathomable coquetry ; " and would 
 you not say, Witty, that the genie is in some sort 
 responsible for his mouth ? '' 
 
 '* Is this public laying of one another upon the 
 dissecting-table a new parlor-game that has been 
 brought into vogue by the long winter evenings, 
 may I ask?" said Mr. Whitcomb, concealing a 
 yawn. 
 
 " Pray do not be insolent. Witty. The proper 
 study of mankind is Man." 
 
 " In the words of Pope," said the solicitor, turn- 
 ing to replenish his glass. 
 
 " You can see how Mr. Whitcomb bafflles me," 
 said Northcote, who did not propose to lose the op- 
 portunity of following up his clue. 
 
 " Is it his attitude to hansom cabmen that makes 
 him so dark? " 
 
 " That is contributory. But it is mainly because 
 he has come before me in the guise of a waverer 
 that I stand so much at fault. If one knows any- 
 thing about anything one would be prepared to 
 affirm that nature had designed Samuel Whitcomb 
 to know his own mind." 
 
 " He does as a rule. I have never known him 
 waver in anything; but then, of course, it is only 
 quite recently that he has begun to associate with 
 dangerous persons who keep a genie." 
 
 " Do you suggest that he is susceptible to such 
 a thing as a genie ? Would it have a malign influ- 
 ence upon him, do you suppose?" 
 
 "I would suggest it to be likely in the highest 
 degree." 
 
 " Now, look here, my young friends," interposed 
 the solicitor at this point, with a broad good humor, 
 
 1 02 
 
MR. WHITCOMB'S FOIBLES 
 
 " Samuel Whitcomb does not propose to play the 
 part of the corpse at the lecture on anatomy." 
 
 " You will help yourself to another drink like a 
 good boy," said the lady severely; "and you will 
 please to say nothing until we have dealt with your 
 ' case.' Your character need not fear the lancet and 
 bistoury of true science. Tell me, Mr. Northcote, 
 wherein he is a waverer." 
 
 " I am rejoiced to hear you put that question," 
 said the young man, with a gesture of triumph he 
 did not try to conceal, " for now it is that I unfold 
 my tale." 
 
 103 
 
XII 
 
 THE FAITH OF A SIREN 
 
 " At about ten o'clock this evening," Northcote 
 began, '* as I was kneeling in front of the fire — 
 there was not any fire, by the way, as it costs too 
 much to afford one sometimes — in my miserable 
 dwelling at the top of Shepherd's Inn, the oldest 
 and most moribund of all the buildings in Fleet 
 Street, who should come climbing up to the topmost 
 story of the rickety and unwholesome stairs, under 
 which the rats have made their home for many 
 generations, but Mr. Whitcomb. And what do you 
 suppose was his business? " 
 
 " He wished to buy one of your pictures." 
 
 " Ah, no, I am not a painter." 
 
 " I thought there was a chance of it, since they 
 say all very good painters are so poor. But perhaps 
 you are a little too fierce, although I am told these 
 impressionists are terrible men." 
 
 " The painting of pictures is one of the few 
 things I have not attempted," said the young man, 
 consenting to this interruption that he might sit for 
 his own portrait. 
 
 " Well, I should not say you are a writer of 
 fiction. They are so tame. Besides they are all 
 nearly as rich as solicitors." 
 
 "Why not a poet?" 
 
 " Why not ? although your fierceness would make 
 you a dramatic, not a lyric one. Still it is impos- 
 
 104 
 
THE FAITH OF A SIREN 
 
 sible for you to be a poet, because I am sure that 
 Witty would never have climbed up all those stairs 
 to your miserable garret — I feel sure it is a garret 
 with a sloping roof with a hole in it — " 
 
 " There is a pool under the hole which has been 
 caused by the percolation of water — " 
 
 "On to the atrocious bare boards, its occupant 
 being much too poor to afford a carpet. Yes, Witty 
 would never have climbed up to your garret if you 
 had been a poet. Or stay, he might, had you been 
 Mrs. Felicia Hemans. As you are a seeker of doc- 
 umentary evidence, he has been known to recite her 
 poems, at the request of the rector of this parish, to 
 a Sunday-school party." 
 
 " Base woman," said the solicitor, with an air of 
 injury; "I claim to be an admirer of the poet 
 Longfellow." 
 
 " Never, Witty, in your heart; it is merely your 
 fatal craving to be respectable in all things. But in 
 the matter of poetry you must be content to remain 
 outside. You would never have climbed those 
 rickety stairs to that cold garret to see John 
 Keats." 
 
 " Well, now, Featherhead, did I not tell you at 
 the first that our young friend was England's future 
 Lord Chancellor?" 
 
 " I will never believe that ; I will never believe 
 that his destiny is the law. His eye has amazing 
 flashes ; and is there not a beautiful eloquence burn- 
 ing in his mouth? I cannot think of him as rich 
 Witty, and successful Witty, and smug Witty, like 
 you atrocious lawyers. He is one who would be an 
 overthrower of dynasties, a saviour of societies." 
 
 " You are letting your tongue wag, Noodle. If 
 I OS 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 you talk so much it will take the young man until 
 daybreak to unfold his story." 
 
 " I am an advocate," said Northcote. 
 
 "An advocate," said the lady softly; "yes, I 
 think you may be that. One no more associates 
 an advocate with the law than one associates a 
 poet with a publisher." 
 
 " You would say," said Northcote, " that it is the 
 function of an advocate to draw his sword for the 
 truth, for progress, for justice, for every human 
 amenity ? " 
 
 " I would, indeed. Why, if one thinks about it, 
 surely it is nobler to be an advocate than to be a 
 poet or a soldier. One might say it was the highest 
 calling in the world." 
 
 " Then let us say it," said the young man, " for 
 I verily believe it to be so." 
 
 " And what, pray, was Witty's business with this 
 advocate? " 
 
 "They are going to hang a woman; and Mr. 
 Whitcomb, who to his infinite complexities and 
 many-sidedness as a citizen of the world adds a 
 leaven of the finest humanitarian principles, has 
 undertaken to save the poor creature from a fate 
 so pitiful." 
 
 " To hang a woman ! " said the lady, drawing in 
 her breath with a sharp sound. " Is it still possi- 
 ble to hang a woman at this time of day?" 
 
 " Perfectly," said the young man. " They do it 
 in every Christian country." 
 
 " Then the world has need for an advocate," said 
 the lady, with horror in her eyes. " It is necessary 
 that we should have yet another champion for our 
 sex in Christendom. Yes, this was he whom Witty 
 
 1 06 
 
THE FAITH OF A SIREN 
 
 came to seek in that garret at the top of all those 
 rickety stairs." 
 
 " He came to seek, and found no less a person," 
 said Northcote. " And having found this authen- 
 tic champion of your sex, he gave him a mandate 
 to plead on behalf of this unfortunate creature, the 
 least happy of all its members." 
 
 " What a moment of high inspiration for us 
 and for him," said the lady, with a glance of ten- 
 derness. 
 
 " It was even as you say. But I would have 
 you mark what follows. Scarcely has he bestowed 
 these high plenary powers upon one whom he has 
 ventured to select from among all the great mul- 
 titude to champion your sex in the name of hu- 
 manity, than for a whim he withdraws his man- 
 date." 
 
 " Impossible; it would be an outrage upon 
 us." 
 
 " Yes; unconditionally and peremptorily he with- 
 draws his mandate." 
 
 ** Impossible ; they will do the poor creature to 
 death." 
 
 " Yes, they will do her to death. He who has 
 been called to the office of averting her doom has 
 decreed that she must walk to embrace it without 
 a friend to plead her cause before humanity." 
 
 " Surely this cannot be; society itself must pro- 
 test." 
 
 "One expects it; yet things are as they are." 
 
 The beautiful creature turned to the solicitor with 
 an almost royal air. 
 
 " What, sir, can you find to say in your de- 
 fence?" 
 
 107 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb gave a short laugh. 
 
 " I yield," said he. 
 
 " You restore the mandate ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes ! My blood be on my own head, 
 but so it must be. It is beyond flesh and blood to 
 withstand such a pair. You, madam, are a socer- 
 ess; and this fellow is the devil." 
 
 *' I am content to be a sorceress in the cause of 
 my unfortunate sex," cried the lady; and turning 
 to Northcote added gravely : " And is it not high 
 time that we acquired a devil for our advo- 
 cate?" 
 
 Northcote, who from the moment of her first 
 appearance had foreseen a victory, took her hand 
 to his lips impulsively, with an expression of grati- 
 tude. 
 
 *' I hope this will be all right," said the solicitor, 
 viewing his surrender with a rueful smile. '' You 
 see it is the first time in my life that a foreboding 
 has overtaken me in the midst of action. Whether 
 it is the importance of the case, the obscurity of 
 the advocate, or a certain flamboyancy in his bear- 
 ing which is so repugnant to an English common 
 lawyer, I cannot tell; but let me confess that I 
 have already a premonition that I have been guilty 
 of a mistake. And I will go farther," said Mr. 
 Whitcomb, with a wry laugh ; *' I even see ruin, 
 blue ruin for all concerned, hidden in this irreso- 
 lute act. Sharp little shivers go down my spine." 
 
 " It is no more than the reaction," said North- 
 cote, " which attends our highest resolves. Is it 
 not in such moments that a man truly measures 
 himself? It must have been at the fall of the 
 barometer that Samson was shorn of his locks." 
 
 1 08 
 
THE FAITH OF A SIREN 
 
 " Is there not always a woman in these cases? " 
 said the lady. " This unfortunate creature whom 
 our advocate is to deliver from the gallows, may 
 she not be a Delilah of some kind? " 
 
 I 
 
 109 
 
XIII 
 
 BE BOLD, WARY, FEAR NOT 
 
 At these words, lightly spoken, Northcote grew 
 conscious of an indescribable sensation which he 
 had never experienced before. 
 
 "If it were one's custom," he said, with a laugh 
 as wry as the solicitor's, " ever to heed the note of 
 prophecy, one might discern it in your words. But 
 I will not do so. Since that dark hour in which 
 I summoned the genie, have I not adopted as my 
 device, * Be bold, wary, fear not ' ? " 
 
 " Now you come to mention it," said the solic- 
 itor, " it may be this talk of the genie that has 
 filled me with these forebodings." 
 
 *' That is very foolish. Witty," said the lady. 
 " You have but to look into the eyes of our advo- 
 cate to know what it is and where it dwells." 
 
 " He is quite entitled to keep one, of course, but 
 it is not usual to take it into society. I sometimes 
 think I may have a bit of a genie myself, but I do 
 what I can to keep it a profound secret from the 
 world." 
 
 " Should a man venture to compliment himself, 
 Witty, upon the score of his reticence ? " 
 
 " Would you not say," inquired Northcote, " that 
 all our reticences had their roots in our cowardice? " 
 
 " I would love to say it if I dared. And I would 
 love to say of our advocate that his genie enables 
 him to fear nothing." 
 
 no 
 
BE BOLD, WARY, FEAR NOT 
 
 " Yes," said Northcote, " you shall say that." 
 
 " A man must have fear of some kind," said 
 the solicitor, " if he is to succeed against enormous 
 odds." 
 
 " There may be a place for it in his reflections, 
 but never in his resolves. Hence you will discern 
 how our reticence has its basis in our cowardice." 
 
 " Subtle brute," said Mr. Whitcomb, giving his 
 mustache a tug of perplexity. " He is entering 
 upon his special function of turning black into 
 white." 
 
 " Nay," said Northcote, " the subtlety is not 
 mine, but Francis Bacon's." 
 
 " Good, O Advocate ! " said the lady, as she re- 
 warded him with bright eyes. " You do well to 
 confute the Philistine with a learned name." 
 
 Again the young man carried the jewelled hand 
 to his lips. He felt the lithe fingers respond with 
 a sweet and secret motion. 
 
 *' Rogue ! " said the solicitor, laughing. " George 
 Sand and De Musset — Polly Whitcomb and the 
 greengrocer at the back door. Well, Mischief, as 
 you have entered into a compact with this fellow 
 to get him his way, play us another bit of a tune, 
 he shall keep his brief, and we will go to bed." 
 
 " I knew we should force him to capitulate," said 
 Northcote to the siren, as he arranged the stool 
 before the piano. 
 
 ** What must I play?" she said, looking down 
 at her hands. 
 
 " Play me a bit of Beethoven, so that I may 
 take him out with me into the darkness of the 
 streets." 
 
 She played three movements of a symphony, and 
 III 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 all his senses were submerged in the colors of ro- 
 mance. These fragrant hues which had a delicate 
 aroma and pungency the imagination alone can 
 impart were of no time or country. There was 
 nothing that the mind could render as belonging 
 to itself; the faculties which embody the technical 
 were overcome by the tumultuous surgings with 
 which they were oppressed. He seemed to be trans- 
 figured with the sense of joy, to be overpowered 
 with the knowledge that he was a living man, able 
 to breathe and to perform. The room had grown 
 small and heavy. He was consumed with an over- 
 mastering desire for the spacious streets, for the 
 largeness of the universe. 
 
 " There is a bed for you here," said the beautiful 
 player, almost before the last phrase had ceased to 
 vibrate under her touch. '' We could not think of 
 turning you out at this hour." 
 
 " I have not the least intention of staying," said 
 Northcote. " The hospitality you have given me 
 already has been too profuse. I feel that I must 
 roam for the rest of the night in the open streets, 
 a Flying Dutchman of the London slush. Perhaps 
 I shall fancy myself to be the mad music-maker 
 of Leipsic, who walked at night on the ramparts 
 to weave his harmonies." 
 
 *' We cannot consent to your leaving us in this 
 manner," said the hostess. " As for roaming 
 through the night, it will not be good for you. Nor 
 is there the least necessity why you should." 
 
 " You forget his genie," laughed the solicitor. 
 " The infernal thing will drive him all over the 
 suburbs of south London and send him home via 
 the Crystal Palace and Blackfriars Bridge." 
 
 112 
 
BE BOLD, WARY, FEAR NOT 
 
 " He must not go to-night," said the lady. " It 
 will be a perfectly horrid walk, and I believe the 
 sleet has turned into rain. It will be awfully cold 
 and unpleasant. Besides, if anything happens to 
 our advocate he will not be able to deliver this 
 unfortunate creature from her doom." 
 
 "It is useless to argue with a man who has got 
 a genie," said the solicitor. " I have tried the 
 experiment and therefore am in a position to give 
 evidence. What will overtake him in the way of 
 adventures I dare not conjecture; but of one thing 
 I am assured — no earthly power will cause him 
 to alter his determination." 
 
 *' Alas ! I know it," said the lady, sighing. " He 
 has a face that will yield to nothing." 
 
 This diagnosis proved to be correct, at least as 
 applied to this instance, as in spite of the humane 
 entreaties of the lady, supported by a banter which 
 Mr. Whitcomb did not attempt to dissemble. North- 
 cote insisted on faring from their roof at a quarter- 
 past three. He bade them adieu with a cordiality 
 that was eloquent of a deep sense of friendship. 
 
 When Mr. Whitcomb returned to the drawing- 
 room after having shown the young man over the 
 threshold of his residence, he faced the lady with 
 a half-smile of bewilderment. 
 
 " Extraordinary chap," he said. " He frightens 
 me, takes me out of my depth. There is such a bee 
 buzzing about in his bonnet that he might come 
 wofully to grief on Friday. If he does, there will 
 be none but myself to blame, for he is wholly with- 
 out experience." 
 
 " I think you may trust him," said the woman 
 softly. 
 
 "3 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " Well, you are a mass of instincts, Miss Pussy. 
 And you counsel me to stick to your advocate? " 
 
 " I do. Witty ; closer than a brother. I think 
 he is perfectly amazing. I think he will make the 
 fortunes of all who are connected with him." 
 
 " Another Michael Tobin, would you say ? " 
 
 " What a dunce it is," said the lady, with an 
 indulgent sigh. " Michael and this man don't inhabit 
 the same hemisphere. Michael is a dear fellow, 
 brilliant, clever, but only surface deep; this is an 
 ogre of a creature, a monster, deep as the sea, 
 of the proportions of the universe." 
 
 " Come, I say, Mrs. Noodle ; they don't call that 
 sort to the bar. They might find the purlieus of 
 the law too confining." 
 
 "If you have not yet learned to scorn my advice, 
 Witty, take care never to have this man against 
 you. If you have him on your side every time 
 you go into court, you will not have many lost 
 causes to record." 
 
 " He is clever, I grant you, but the worst of it 
 is he knows it." 
 
 " He is arrogant with power. Witty, which is 
 somewhat different, although it sounds the same. 
 I think he is a perfectly terrible man, and he looks 
 so big and great and deadly. Did you notice his 
 enormous hands ? Did you observe his chest ? And 
 that voice as soft as a flute yet as deep as an 
 organ? " 
 
 " You are completely conquered, Featherhead. 
 Yet you would not call this phenomenon precisely 
 beautiful?" 
 
 " Strength is more beautiful than symmetry, I 
 think; although I grant you that huge square jowl 
 
 114 
 
BE BOLD, WARY, FEAR NOT 
 
 verges upon the horrible. It is far worse than 
 yours, my dear, although the poor hansom cabmen 
 are constantly mistaking it for that of an eminent 
 pugilist." 
 
 " Well, little gal," said the solicitor, " I shall heed 
 you once more, since your luck is proverbial. I 
 am prepared to back our latest discovery pretty 
 heavily, although I must confess that when in cold 
 blood I catch myself thinking of his infernal genie 
 he frightens me to death." 
 
 «»5 
 
XIV 
 
 A JURY OF TWO 
 
 In the meantime the subject of these speculations 
 had entered the night. Food and wine in unac- 
 customed quantities, the romance of events, the 
 spells cast by music and by a woman of signal 
 beauty and accomplishment, had provoked his ener- 
 gies to an insurgency that had rendered them over- 
 bearing. He walked like a whirlwind, up one 
 street and down another, in the chill wet darkness, 
 not knowing whither he was bound. Soft yet wild 
 strains of melody which still floated through his 
 brain mingled with a swarm of ideas which were 
 whirling about in it like so many atoms in a pro- 
 toplasm. He moved so fast in the endeavor to 
 keep abreast of his thoughts that at times he broke 
 into a run. 
 
 The seductive, amiable, and brilliant woman, who 
 had so nearly succeeded in casting over him a de- 
 licious spell, began to fade from his consciousness 
 like the intangible occupant of a dream. She had 
 no appeal for him now. The feast at the restau- 
 rant, that phase of color, warmth, and splendor 
 in which for an hour the squalor of his existence 
 had been dispelled ; the struggle to retain the treas- 
 ure which had been entrusted to his keeping by a su- 
 pernatural agent ; the bizarre incident of the hansom 
 cabman; and the personality of the genial god out 
 of the machine had now ceased to have significance. 
 
 ii6 
 
A JURY OF TWO 
 
 Indeed one thing alone merged his faculties in 
 his overstimulated thoughts. It was the packet 
 which he could feel in the breast-pocket of his coat, 
 towards which his hands were straying constantly. 
 These pages of foolscap bound with red tape, were 
 they not his magic talisman? By that occult pres- 
 ence had not his thwarted bleak and empty life 
 been changed into an electrical existence crowded 
 with glory? 
 
 His brain bursting with ideas, he began to run 
 faster and faster through the maze of endless 
 streets, lined with high garden walls, portentously 
 respectable dwelling-houses, lamps, shops, and se- 
 cretive silent-footed policemen. These frequently 
 flashed their lanterns upon him, for the manner of 
 his progress had an illegal air. Even at the height 
 of this orgy of freedom, the question shaped itself 
 with the oddest definiteness as to whether it would 
 not be expedient to curb his paces, since if he were 
 stopped, he feared lest he should be able to render 
 an account of himself that would be sufficiently 
 lucid to commend itself to the myrmidons of the 
 law. 
 
 When at last his exertions had thrown him out 
 of breath, and his frame did not respond with 
 quite the same unanimity to his passion, he stopped 
 under a lamp in the middle of a street on the side 
 of a steep hill, took out the precious document he 
 carried, and began to peruse it for sheer human 
 pleasure. He even pressed his lips to this prosaic 
 thing, with no less of fervor, indeed with more 
 abandonment than he had saluted the hand of the 
 sorceress who had been the means of restoring it 
 to his care. 
 
 117 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " I must make her my saint, I must burn candles 
 to her," he muttered, recalling her image with a 
 sense of rapture. 
 
 As he stood under the lamp, a very large and 
 slow-footed policeman waddled up towards him, 
 trying doors and casting the light of his lantern 
 down the areas he passed. As he went by, keenly 
 scrutinizing the figure of the young man, yet pre- 
 tending not to notice it, Northcote hailed him. 
 
 "Where might I be, policeman? I am strange 
 to these parts." 
 
 " Well," said the policeman slowly and with 
 effort, *' you might be in Balham, but you ain't. 
 Likewise, you might be at Charing Cross, but you 
 are not there, nuther." 
 
 " I observe, policeman, that you have graduated 
 in the school of judicial humor," said Northcote, 
 delighted by the suavity of outline of X012. " If 
 every man had his rights, which of course it is 
 Utopian to expect, you would be adding lustre to 
 the bench. Your mental gifts fit you equally to be 
 a judge, a recorder, or a stipendiary magistrate." 
 
 Such an exaggerated view of his merits pro- 
 duced a deep- founded suspicion in the honest breast 
 of X012. 
 
 "If every man had 'is rights," said the custodian 
 of the peace, speaking slowly and with effort, and 
 eying Northcote with the solemnity of a horse, 
 " you'd be took up on suspicion, young feller, and 
 charged with loitering with intent." 
 
 Northcote dispelled the suburban quietude with 
 a guffaw. 
 
 " Being unwilling," said he, " to impale myself 
 upon that spiked railing which calls itself the law, 
 
 118 
 
A JURY OF TWO 
 
 I ought to be extremely careful to refrain in its 
 presence from the vexed and overmuch discussed 
 question of whether the badinage of its minions 
 is wit, wisdom, humor, or a veritable cesspool of 
 human inanity." 
 
 X012 was so much astonished by these words 
 and the forcible mode of their delivery that he 
 pulled his whistle out of his coat, and proceeded 
 to toy with it in an irresolute fashion. Before he 
 had decided to summon aid by blowing it, there 
 appeared round the corner of an adjacent street 
 a second constable, in all essentials of bearing, 
 physique, and mental energy the perfect replica 
 of himself. 
 
 " I'm glad you've come, Bill," said X012. " I've 
 got a rum one 'ere. I don't know what he's been 
 drinking, but you should just hear his languidge. 
 Here he was under this lamp, a-purtendin' to read 
 a newspaper at twenty past four by the mornin'." 
 
 "Noticed his mug?" said his confrere Z9. 
 " Bob Capper, the 'ousebreaker, who just done in 
 'is last seven stretch an' was let out on license last 
 Tuesday." 
 
 "Got it in one!" said X012, not without en- 
 thusiasm. " We 'ad better take him to the station 
 and have 'im searched." 
 
 " This is the result of a misplaced jocularity in 
 the presence of professional wits," said Northcote, 
 with an amiability that was viewed with consid- 
 erable disfavor by both constables. " I hope you 
 will forgive me, my friends. The only excuse I 
 can urge for impinging upon the prerogative of the 
 legal supernumerary, if I may so express myself, 
 is that as one day I am certain to be a judge, I feel 
 
 119 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 it to be due to the lofty elevation I shall be called 
 to occupy, and of which I intend to be so signal an 
 ornament, to neglect no opportunity of acquiring 
 these cardinal principles of humor, dangerous, 
 double-edged implement though it be, which can 
 only be done by association with those past-masters 
 who as the crowning glory of our admirable legal 
 system inhabit it in choice perfection in all its 
 branches. I hope, my friends, I have made myself 
 perfectly clear." 
 
 *' Clear as mud," said Z9. 
 
 "Impidence!" exclaimed X012; "downright 
 impidence ! Certin to be a judge ! Why, Lord love 
 me, young feller, if ever they ax you to be the judge 
 of a pair o' pullets at a poultry show you'll be 
 lucky." 
 
 " Balmy," said Z9, tapping his forehead with an 
 air of Christian pity. 
 
 " You are very probably right," said Northcote. 
 " I suspect there is a basis of truth in this scien- 
 tific opinion which you have embodied in so expres- 
 sive an idiom. But at the same time I would ask 
 you, is it not a somewhat extreme view to take of 
 the mental condition of a barrister-at-law who has 
 been nominated to appear at the court of the Old 
 Bailey to-morrow morning at the hour of ten- 
 thirty to defend one Emma Harrison, who at that 
 time and in that place will stand her trial for wilful 
 murder ? " 
 
 " A-going to defend Emma Harrison ! " ex- 
 claimed the constables. " Why, what will he be 
 saying next? " 
 
 " I do say that, my friends," said Northcote, 
 with a note of imperiousness in his voice that was 
 
 120 
 
A JURY OF TWO 
 
 not without its effect on these astonished minions 
 of the law. " And I want you both to stand back 
 a yard or two against the railings, while I advance 
 to the curb; and further, I want you for a few 
 minutes to imagine that you are the jury, and I will 
 rehearse the opening of my speech for the defence. 
 I shall begin something like this." 
 
 " Oh, will you now? " muttered Z9 to his com- 
 panion. "Well, if this don't beat cock-fighting!" 
 
 Both these constables, overawed already by the 
 authentic manner of the advocate, were now de- 
 voured by curiosity, 
 
 " Listen," said he. " I rise in my place with this 
 bundle of papers in my hand, which I shall not 
 consult, but shall cling to to gain confidence, and 
 I shall say: May it please your lordship and gen- 
 tlemen of the jury, this is a dreadful issue you are 
 sworn to try. Indeed it would be difficult for the 
 human conscience to conceive an ordeal more re- 
 pugnant to the moral nature of man, one in sharper 
 antagonism to those principles that are his priceless 
 inheritance, than is revealed to you by the situation 
 in which you stand. It is not by your own choice 
 that you come to take your places in this assem- 
 bly. It is not in obedience to your own instincts 
 that you have left your toil to subscribe to a law 
 which is not of your own making. I venture to 
 affirm this without fear, for is not this ordeal into 
 which you are thrown in deadly conflict with the 
 behests of that unfearing spirit who, nineteen cen- 
 turies ago, discovered the only possible faith for 
 His kind? 
 
 *' It is as the inheritors, gentlemen, of an inim- 
 itable tradition, not as administrators of a penal 
 
HENRY NORl^HCOTE 
 
 code, that I venture to address to you these word§. 
 And let me tell you why I venture to address you 
 in this fashion. It is because the life of a fellow 
 creature is at stake; it is because sitting here in 
 conclave in this place you are enmeshed in the most 
 grievous ordeal that the fruit of human imperfec- 
 tion is able, at this time of day, to impose upon 
 you. For that reason, gentlemen, I conceive that 
 you are entitled to take your stand upon a lofty and 
 secure platform to survey this issue, a platform 
 which has been raised for the oppressed, the un- 
 happy, and those who are doubtful of their way, 
 by the travail of the choicest spirit in the annals 
 of human nature. 
 
 " Gentlemen, you are called upon to adjudicate 
 upon the life of a woman. You are called upon 
 to do so at the bidding of a formula, whose hideous 
 and obsolete enactments are the fruit of an imper- 
 fect culture of a partial and unsympathetic inter- 
 pretation of those laws to which every civilized 
 community owes its name. Gentlemen, you are 
 called upon to adjudicate upon the life of a woman; 
 you rate-payers of London, you gentle and devout 
 citizens, you to whom life has given as the crown 
 of your endeavor, as the consecration of your pain- 
 ful daily labor, mothers, wives, and daughters of 
 your own. 
 
 " Yes, gentlemen, we must indeed ascend the 
 loftiest and most secure platform known to us, to 
 survey the ordeal that our own imperfection has 
 presented to us. 
 
 " You have heard the words that have fallen 
 from the lips of my learned friend, the counsel for 
 the Crown. You have examined the facts which 
 
 122 
 
A JURY OIF TWO 
 
 he has marshalled before you. You have noted th^ 
 inferences which he has not been afraid to draw. 
 You have been thrilled by the union of a consum- 
 mate skill with a consummate learning. All that is 
 base, sordid, and unworthy in the human heart has 
 been stripped naked before your eyes. The small- 
 est acts of this unfortunate woman have been 
 shown to you as vile; even the aspirations which 
 are allowed to ennoble her sex have been rendered 
 abominable. Every kind of mental and moral 
 degradation has been made to defile before you; 
 for verily there is no Hmit to the talent of this 
 accomplished gentleman. 
 
 " That such a talent should have taken service 
 with an outworn formula is a great public danger. 
 For just as our common humanity is able to as- 
 sure us that the acts of the most wicked are not 
 always wrong, so those of the finest integrity would 
 not bear dissection at the hands of a cold and sci- 
 entific cynicism. Our every act has two faces. 
 One is presented to belief, the other to unbelief; 
 one is presented to truth, the other to error. And 
 as this penal code of ours, which we traverse con- 
 stantly with searchings of heart, is itself a survival 
 of a time of gross darkness, called into being by 
 unbelief and fostered by error, the acts of the best 
 and worthiest among us are Hable to be visited by 
 the sword of the avenger, in other words by jus- 
 tice. I am convinced that if any one of you gen- 
 tlemen, or any private citizen, was called upon to 
 rebut the most awful charge that can be levelled 
 against him, innocent as you might be, innocent 
 as he might be, it would be found immensely diffi- 
 cult, I will not say impossible, to combat the deadly 
 
 123 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 array of inferences which would be marshalled 
 against you in the interests of this penal code by 
 one of the most talented of its servants. The mere 
 fact that you had come to stand your trial in this 
 noisome chamber, itself stained with a thousand 
 crimes committed in the name of justice, and that 
 a cruel chain of events had forced you to vindicate 
 your kinship with the divine will in the precincts 
 of this charnel-house — it is well, gentlemen, that 
 the windows are kept so close, for who would have 
 this foulness mingle with the air of London?" 
 
 For the best part of an hour in that raw winter 
 morning, with a drizzling rain falling incessantly, 
 did Northcote continue to rehearse his address to 
 the jury. The amused intolerance of his hearers 
 yielded to an intense interest. They had been pres- 
 ent in court on many occasions and had heard these 
 things for themselves, but never had they listened 
 to a voice of such dominion, of such volume and 
 majesty, a voice capable of such burning appeal. 
 They stood merely at the threshold of the argu- 
 ment, it was true; but the art of the orator un- 
 folded it, made it clear. His natural magic, his 
 incommunicable gift, rendered it with the harmony 
 of music, so that before the end these oxlike cus- 
 todians of the peace, far from growing weary of 
 their situation, began to view with emotion the 
 injury that threatened an outcast from society. 
 
 '* Go on, sir," said Z9 humbly; " youVe the gift 
 and no mistake. They'll not be able to hang her if 
 you talk to 'em that way." 
 
 '' This is not quite the form it will take, you 
 know," said Northcote, whose exertions had been 
 so great that he was breathing heavily and drip- 
 
 124 
 
A JURY OF TWO 
 
 ping with perspiration. " It is only a sort of open- 
 ing roughly blocked out. It will have to be ren- 
 dered a bit finer, so that it pins them like a fly on 
 a card." 
 
 "You'll pin them to-morrow, sir," said Z9; 
 " you'll get your verdict, see if you don't ! " 
 
 Z9 spoke with the proud consciousness of one 
 who can respond to an intellectual pleasure. X012, 
 with a mental organization of less delicacy, al- 
 though impressed by so rare a personality, yet re- 
 tained the reverence for facts of the honest Eng- 
 lishman. 
 
 " He've a gift right enough. Bill," said X012 
 magisterially, " but the law is the law to my mind ; 
 and black's black an' white's white. If this woman 
 done the crime —   I don't say she did, mind — the 
 law will 'ang her. An' rightly, too. This gentle- 
 man is a book-learned man and a horator, — I 
 know that because I heard Gladstone on Black- 
 heath, — but the law is the law and horatory ain't 
 a-going to alter it." 
 
 " I am obliged to you both for your courtesy," 
 said Northcote, with a perfect gravity, " and my 
 obligation is even the deeper for the opinions you 
 have been good enough to express. You are pro- 
 totypes of the twelve honest men I am going to 
 sway; and I take it that if my address were to 
 be launched in its present immature shape, you, sir, 
 would record your vote for an acquittal, and you, 
 sir, for the severity of the law ? " 
 
 " The law is the law I say," said X012, inflating 
 his chest before the honor of this direct canvass 
 of his intelligence, " an' words is words, although. 
 
 125 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 mind you, sir, I respec's you, because I heard Glad- 
 stone on Blackheath." 
 
 " I assume," said Northcote, " that although you 
 admired Gladstone's oratory, you did not allow it 
 to influence your judgment?" 
 
 " That's 'is pig-headedness, sir," said Z9. 
 "That's just like a Tory; great horators can talk 
 till all's blue, and then they can't get daylight into 
 a Tory. 'The law is the law,' says he; an' if it 
 come to, he'd hang his own fayther." 
 
 " I take it, policeman, that you try to keep an 
 open mind, a mind accessible to new impressions ? " 
 
 " That is so, sir," said Z9. " I say with you, 
 sir, that although the law is the law, human natur' 
 is human natur'. And although Bill 'Arper is just 
 a common p'liceman with on'y one stripe, an' not 
 a lawyer like you, sir, nor a beak, nor a judge, 'e 
 never goes into court and a-takes off 'is 'elmet but 
 what 'e feels 'igh-minded." 
 
 " Then, policeman, regarding you in the light 
 of a juryman, it is most probable that you would 
 want mercy to be extended to the prisoner, in spite 
 of the law, if you happened to be in your present 
 frame of mind ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, I should in my present frame o' 
 mind." 
 
 "More shame to you, Bill," said X012; "you 
 are a nice bloke to be a copper, an' no mistake." 
 
 " Close it, 'Orrice," said Z9, with a restrained en- 
 thusiasm ; " you bloomin' Tories are so thick'eaded 
 you don't know nothing." 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," interposed the advocate, 
 brushing the water from his brief, " as I observe 
 you to be on the brink of an altercation, I will 
 
 126 
 
A JURY OF TWO 
 
 hasten to discharge you with my best thanks for 
 your kind attention in order that you may have it 
 out. For the subject will engage your powers 
 worthily; pursue it, and it will take you into 
 strange places. But before I leave you to do so, 
 may I ask where I am ? " 
 
 " Bottom o' Sydenham 'ill, sir," chimed both 
 constables as one. 
 
 " Good morning, my friends. I must leave you 
 to ponder this subject or I shall not get home to 
 breakfast." 
 
 The two myrmidons of the law stepped together 
 into the middle of the road to watch this astonish- 
 ing figure ascend out of their ken. 
 
 " Well, if 'e don't beat all as ever I 'card! " was 
 the comment of Z9. 
 
 " 'E's not got 'er off yet, and 'e won't nuther," 
 rejoined X012. "She's a wrong un; an' if they 
 let 'er off, it won't be fair to peace." 
 
 " Well, 'e can talk. 'E kind of got 'old of me. 
 I could ha' stood there all day." 
 
 " 'E kind o' did me too, but I should shake him 
 off in court. You'll see the beak will put a muzzle 
 on 'im. He warn't talkin' law, and you're no good 
 in court unless you talk law. The old bloke and 
 them K. C.'s will not stand that sort o' lip, see if 
 they does." 
 
 " Well, 'ere's the sergeant comin'. But just to 
 show there's no ill-feelin', I'll 'ave 'arf a pint with 
 you, mate, that 'e gets her off." 
 
 " Make it a pint, matey. A pint seems more 
 legal." 
 
 127 
 
XV 
 
 truth's champion 
 
 NoRTHCOTE had only a hazy notion of his where- 
 abouts. He had never been in these high latitudes 
 before. He had a dim idea that London lay " over 
 there ; " but upon ascending the steep hill that lay 
 before him, he found that " over there " was 
 merged in the dark and enormous bulk of the 
 Crystal Palace. 
 
 " Whitcomb was right in his topography," he 
 laughed. " This is the route he predicted I should 
 take; therefore it is a perfectly fair inference to 
 regard it as the wrong one." 
 
 He hailed yet another minion of the law, who 
 no less than his brethren was communicative. 
 
 " You are going away from London as fast as 
 your legs will take you," said Z201, and proceeded 
 to set a course which in itself was so intricate that 
 the young man by no means pledged himself to 
 follow it. 
 
 The terrific central energy still driving him, the 
 wayfarer strode forth through the rain with an 
 undiminished vigor. By now his clothes were sat- 
 urated and lay upon him heavily. But nothing 
 could abate the force of these concentrated fires 
 which bore him so lightly mile after mile. Not 
 only did they burn with splendor, but also with a 
 vital clarity. His lips moved with the phrases that 
 sprang upon them; the sense of dull power, of 
 
 128 
 
TRUTH'S CHAMPION 
 
 unused native force, which had oppressed him like 
 a nightmare during many nights and days, had 
 been fused all at once into an immense fecundity 
 of expression. Each minute blood-vessel that 
 formed a web round the ball of crystallized energy 
 that was his brain was big with its own peculiar, 
 original, and special idea. The strangest vistas 
 had opened before his eyes. His faculties in the 
 first flush of their self -consciousness had grown 
 insolent and overbearing. 
 
 How could a body of common citizens hope to 
 stand against the battery that would be directed 
 upon them! All the subtleties of the sophists, all 
 the enthusiasms of the creeds would be as naught 
 in the presence of such an overweening personal 
 force. How could such insignificant fragments 
 as these, the mere excrescences of the universal 
 scheme, who could not make a mind among them, 
 hope to retain the all-too-precarious standard of 
 their probity when touched by the wand of the 
 magician? He laughed aloud to the rain when his 
 thoughts reverted to the two perplexed constables 
 he had left at the bottom of Sydenham Hill; and 
 how, in spite of the tentativeness of the effort, as 
 his talent had mounted in him, so that presently 
 its irresistible force had seemed even to surprise 
 himself, these two stolid, unemotional Englishmen 
 had nodded their heads in approval, and had hung 
 breathless upon his words. Only one of God's 
 great advocates could hope to perform that miracle 
 under a gas-lamp in the wind-swept streets on a 
 wet and chill winter's morning. The old mystics, 
 delivering with a divine naivete their surprising 
 
 129 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 message to mankind, could never have accom- 
 plished a feat more wonderful. 
 
 His eyes veiled in darkness, his head high-poised 
 yet thrust forward, his mouth and nostrils filled 
 with cold and deep draughts of air, his whole being 
 was surrendered to an orgy of freedom and power. 
 For the first time since he had come to maturity 
 he had found an occupation for his ferocious 
 energies. It was no unworthy task by which they 
 were confronted. Thirty was usually the age at 
 which genius elected to give to the world its first 
 masterpiece. And was it not as seemly that an 
 advocate should rejoice in a theme as the states- 
 man, the musician, or the poet? This first essay 
 should be as complete, as audacious, and as worthy 
 of the sanction of the best minds of the time, as 
 the chefs-d'ceuvres of other representative spirits. 
 It should stand as a landmark in an art as little 
 understood as that of truth itself. 
 
 Old men on the Woolsack, the most reverend 
 seigniors of the law, advocates who had received 
 the homage the age is accustomed to lavish on a 
 scanty pretext, should stand aghast before an 
 alarming iconoclasm of which he would be the 
 pioneer. His ideas should prove so revolutionary 
 that these practitioners, complacently drawing 
 their emoluments, should foregather to turn this 
 magnificent ruffler out of his inn. The scathing 
 criticisms which the elect of all ages launch against 
 a Jesus, a Galileo, or a Wagner, before the world 
 has grown accustomed to their strangeness, he 
 would be called upon to support ; for would not he 
 alone be the true advocate, the heaven-born, im- 
 mortal one, while they would remain, as always, 
 
 130 
 
TRUTH'S CHAMPION 
 
 complacent performers of tricks which they mis- 
 took for the operations of their specific talent, sub- 
 scribers to conventions that were shallow and 
 nonsensical and in open enmity to the idea of jus- 
 tice for which they stood as the self-satisfied 
 expression. 
 
 As he raced along in the company of these won- 
 derful thoughts through the south of London, he 
 recognized in himself all the signs that declare 
 Truth's authentic champion. It would be his to 
 deliver more than one rueful blow upon the close- 
 locked portals of pedantry. " The purblind old 
 man who dares to occupy the seat of judgment, 
 his authority shall be traversed, it shall be rent in 
 pieces. As for that amazing creature who will dare 
 to stand up for the Crown, who will propose to 
 do to death a human being with that bleak and 
 irascible voice, and the operations of that arrested 
 growth he calls his intellect, an awful example will 
 have to be made of him." 
 
 There was no end to the succession of deserted 
 streets. Water swam in shallow pools along the 
 black pavements which seemed to reflect the color 
 of the sky. The numerous lamps, picked out as 
 so many dull, yellow balls in the surrounding black- 
 ness, suffused their oppressive rays along the long, 
 flat surfaces so that they appeared to shine without 
 giving forth a radiance. 
 
 How vague and vast seemed these early hours 
 before the dawn! They did not contain a living 
 soul. The sky, the streets, the dark houses, the 
 bare trees in the gardens and at the sides of the 
 roads were soundless, empty, destitute of life. A 
 quietness so profound appeared uncanny on the 
 
 131 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 outskirts of pandemonium. But astonishing, des- 
 olating as it was, it seemed to aid the furious brain 
 that was borne so fast in its midst. There was 
 only the echo of the advocate's own feet, which 
 came weirdly from across the way, and the high 
 and labored breathing of his own body. 
 
 By the time the hour of seven chimed out from 
 the half-dozen neighboring steeples of a population 
 that was beginning to cluster much closer together, 
 he divined that he was pressing nearer to the heart 
 of the metropolis. He did not stay to inquire of 
 the occasional wayfarer who was abroad in these 
 regions, but set his face into the ruck of the streets, 
 where the dark forms of the houses rose like an 
 impenetrable and endless forest. No fears assailed 
 him as to whether he would reach his home — the 
 coldest, most inhospitable home that was ever called 
 upon to harbor a spirit with such widespread, 
 space-cleaving pinions. 
 
 His feet seemed to devour the pavements. His 
 stride was great, elastic, and unflagging; it was 
 propelled by the lungs, heart, and muscles of the 
 athlete. In the swing of the arms, the lunge of 
 the limbs, the lissom sway of the body, there was 
 fine physical power, and the seething engines that 
 presided over this massive yet elastic framework 
 were like the boilers of a locomotive which eat up 
 the miles without fatigue. When excited into ac- 
 tion on the football field the feeling was always 
 upon him that no puny human agent could stay 
 his course. The feeling was upon him now in an 
 intensified degree. With will and muscle cooper- 
 ating to overstride the darkness, he longed for 
 
 132 
 
TRUTH'S CHAMPION 
 
 opposition to declare itself that he might trample 
 it down. 
 
 Near eight o'clock he recognized Waterloo 
 Bridge and the cold Thames below stealing like 
 a felon through the vapors of the dawn. With 
 a stupefied surprise he awoke to the sensation of 
 being launched once more into the sharp and too- 
 definite business of the time. The pavements 
 were now swarming with people, the roads with 
 omnibuses, cabs, and vans. Traffic was belching 
 out of every street; clerks and seamstresses were 
 scurrying to their employments, masticating their 
 breakfasts as they went. Vendors of newspapers 
 and hawkers of food were tearing the gray air 
 to pieces with their cries. He emerged from the 
 orgy of his passion to find that he was up to the 
 throat and being stifled in pandemonium, even be- 
 fore he was aware that his feet had entered it. 
 
 The lines of palaces across the river, towering 
 tier upon tier above the embankment, with their 
 majestic bulks half -thrust through the curtain of 
 December mist which the first streaks of day had 
 seemed to thicken, fell upon the imagination of the 
 wayfarer, who had slackened his pace all at once 
 to a footsore limp as he crossed the bridge and 
 crept towards them. At a distance they stood in- 
 solent, aloof, and cynical. He could hardly be- 
 lieve that in one of these wonderful caravanserais 
 he, the starving, the friendless, and the solitary, 
 had eaten and drunk only a few hours before. It 
 was not feasible that such palaces as these could 
 touch a life so obscure at any point. Penniless, 
 friendless, lacking even life's common necessaries, 
 in the midst of six millions of people, who con- 
 
 133 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 tended rudely with the first weapons that came to 
 their hands to enforce their claims, how could he, 
 whose coat was in holes, whose pockets were empty, 
 have penetrated to the Mecca of their gods? 
 
 Limping into the Strand as the clock at the Law 
 Courts chimed the hour of eight, his imagination 
 was assailed, not with their unmeaning mass of 
 architecture, but with that unseen and grisly bulk 
 which only the eye of his inner consciousness 
 could apprehend. A shudder convulsed his veins. 
 Less than thirty short hours hence the gladiator 
 would be called into the arena. He would have 
 to face the lions with no defence for his nakedness 
 except a small shield in the use of which he had 
 had no practice, and a sharp but untried spear. 
 
 Climbing up the steep stairs to his garret, his 
 nostrils were affronted as they had been on so many 
 other occasions by the foulness of the heavy and 
 noisome air. What a labor it was to reach the 
 locked door at the top of the highest, the darkest, 
 the most unpleasant story! His fibres had grown 
 strangely slack, his breathing was no longer joy- 
 ous and free. The mighty engines of his mind 
 had ceased suddenly to vibrate; those pulses which 
 had been so overweening in their insolence could 
 only flutter now. He had fallen without a warn- 
 ing from his eminence. His whole being was en- 
 veloped in a despicable flaccidity, a despicable 
 weakness, as he turned the key in the lock and 
 entered his garret. 
 
 He recoiled from the dismal scene that met his 
 eyes with the shudder that one gives in plunging 
 into icy water. As he stood on the threshold all 
 the phantoms of his previous despair sprang upon 
 
 134 
 
TRUTH'S CHAMPION 
 
 him from the walls of his chamber and seemed to 
 throw him down. There was the cold grate with 
 the gray ashes in it still; there the lamp that had 
 left him in the darkness. The table was there 
 with its pile of law-books that he had conned with 
 the sickening patience which tortured him so 
 keenly. Strewn over them were fragments of the 
 writings which had eaten away the flower of his 
 intelligence without bringing him a shilling to fill 
 his belly or to pay his rent. Enveloped within them 
 was the piece of lead by whose aid and with a 
 skill so ferocious he had destroyed the rat. The 
 confectioner's paper was there that had contained 
 his dinner; also the crumbs which remained to 
 testify to its nature. On the mantelpiece was the 
 burned and dirty old pipe which he had cherished 
 so much, the only friend of his adversity; on the 
 floor was the pouch that had not a grain of tobacco 
 in it. The pool of water was still in the corner, 
 underneath the discoloration of the plaster in the 
 low sloping roof. 
 
 How cold it was! Everything in this horrible 
 apartment seemed to be rendered icier, more dismal, 
 by the callous gray beams that stole through the 
 grimy windows with a sullenness that hardly mer- 
 ited the name of. light. Ah, that window with its 
 outlook on oblivion ! It all came back to him with 
 the indescribable pangs of the knife, that the night 
 before he had leaned out of it, bareheaded, open- 
 mouthed, his eyes and nostrils cut by blasts of sleet, 
 and had cried his haughty challenge to a world 
 that grovelled so far below him in the mire. 
 
 It was all very hideous, yet this Titanic despair 
 filled him with a deep sense of poetry. He realized, 
 
 ^35 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 even as he stood now confronting it for the thou- 
 sand and first time, that whatever the future might 
 hold in her womb, never again would he be pierced 
 to these depths whose very immensity urged the 
 proud rage to his eyes. Yes, there in the cynical 
 eyes of the morning lay the stained and battered 
 old table to which the previous evening he had 
 pressed his eyes to summon the genie. What tor- 
 ments of impotence, of baffled and thwarted power, 
 must those eyes have undergone before they could 
 prevail upon their royalty to stoop to such an 
 act. 
 
 He took from his pocket the bank-note, half his 
 fee, which the solicitor had given him at the res- 
 taurant, and held it up to a gaze that was as scorn- 
 ful as that of a young god who has not yet learned 
 to accept as a matter of course the powers that 
 render him immortal. 
 
 Not again would he suffer want. He had made 
 his choice. In a tragic moment his faintness had 
 forced him to his knees. He had summoned the 
 mischievous imp who showers gold upon poor mor- 
 tals in order that it shall stultify, poison, and cor- 
 rupt them. Already he could taste success. There 
 was a faint aroma of it in the dregs of the wine 
 he had drained the previous night. There was a 
 slight nausea upon his lips. There had been some- 
 thing beyond mere fatigue in the enervation with 
 which he had climbed those stairs. For once the 
 great muscles had seemed to flag. Yet not again 
 would they know the chastening brutality of want. 
 Indeed his despair already was beginning to seem 
 a holy and pure condition. He foresaw, as he 
 stood gazing upon its pinched face, crinkling as he 
 
 136 
 
TRUTH'S CHAMPION 
 
 did so the bank-note between his hands, that the 
 future would be casting back to it perpetually as 
 the tomb of his godhead, in which he put off those 
 spiritual splendors in which his nature was once 
 enveloped, those sanctified things which were native 
 to himself, in order that he might embrace those 
 other things that were the birthright and the meas- 
 ure of the meanest natures. 
 
 Through the open door came the sound of foot- 
 steps on the stairs. They were shuffling and un- 
 certain, and belonged to an old woman, who wore 
 a shawl and a faded black bonnet, and who crept 
 into the room with little toddling steps. 
 
 " Hullo, Mrs. Brown," said Northcote, turning 
 to confront her ; " rather late, aren't you ? It is 
 a quarter-past eight." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I am," said the old woman, in a pre- 
 cise manner. " My youngest grandchild is dying." 
 
 "How old?" 
 
 " Five and a half, sir." 
 
 " Of what is she dying? " 
 
 " Diphtheria, sir," said the old woman humbly. 
 
 " And if the poor little kid dies that will reduce 
 the number of small orphans in your family to four, 
 will it not?" 
 
 " It will, sir." 
 
 Northcote stood looking at the old woman for 
 a moment and then changed the subject abruptly. 
 
 " Mrs. Brown," he said, " I have had a wind- 
 fall. For the time being I am a rich man; and I 
 may say that one of these days I expect to be very 
 much richer. And although your poor little grand- 
 child is dying, I think we owe it to Providence 
 to celebrate this occasion in a fitting manner. 
 
 137 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Never mind about the fire and the water for my 
 bath. I want you to get a basket and do some 
 shopping, somewhat as follows: one frying-pan, 
 one pound of the choicest Wiltshire bacon, three 
 moderately fresh eggs if money will buy them, 
 which I expect it will not, one pot of marmalade, 
 one pound of the most expensive butter and a loaf 
 of bread, a pound of tea, price half a crown, and 
 a pint of milk. Now get along, if you please, and 
 I will light the fire." 
 
 The blank stupefaction on the face of Mrs. 
 Brown conveyed to Northcote that he had for- 
 gotten to give her the money. 
 
 '' I am so unaccustomed to have the handling of 
 money," he said, '' that I have forgotten to give 
 it to you. This is a note for ten pounds. See that 
 no one robs you of the change." 
 
 The stupefaction on the face of the old woman 
 appeared to deepen as her fingers closed over this 
 unheard-of treasure. 
 
 *' I — I don't know that I dare trust myself with 
 it, sir, along the Strand," she said weakly. 
 
 " Very well," said Northcote. " Just make the 
 fire — a real good one, mind, and you can use all 
 the coal that is laid by, because at one fell swoop 
 I am going to order a ton — and I will do the shop- 
 ping myself. Where is that big basket in which 
 you bring home the washing?" 
 
 " Here, sir," said the old woman, passing behind 
 a curtain at the far end of the room which concealed 
 a bed. 
 
 " Good," said Northcote. ** Providence is work- 
 ing for us. It intends that we shall do ourselves 
 
 138 
 

 TRUTH'S CHAMPION 
 
 well. And my last words to you are, don't spare 
 the coal." 
 
 " I will not, sir," said the old woman, discarding 
 her air of stupefaction in favor of her habitual 
 preciseness. 
 
 h 
 
 139 
 
XVI 
 
 A JURY OF ONE 
 
 When Northcote returned with the basket heav- 
 ily laden in one hand, and a frying-pan, aggres- 
 sively new, in the other, his dismal chamber had 
 already been transformed, for a fire was burning 
 bravely, a kettle was singing upon it, the pool of 
 water in the corner had been mopped up, the floor 
 had been visited with a brush, and books and papers, 
 two tables, and three chairs had received whole- 
 some discipline from a duster. 
 
 " I could have done it all as well myself," said 
 Northcote, surveying this transformation with grim 
 eyes, ^' although I do not deny it has the efficient 
 professional touch. But I would have you to know 
 I am a man of my hands. I am also a man of 
 affairs. I have purchased extensively; and I am 
 proud to say the best goods in the cheapest markets. 
 I have ordered a ton of coal, although where we 
 are going to put it I don't quite know. Now, these 
 things I surrender to your care; and in half an 
 hour you will have the goodness to serve up a royal 
 breakfast for two persons. In the meantime I will 
 have a shave and a tub." 
 
 The young man's operations behind the curtain 
 were conducted on an extensive scale, to judge by 
 the noise and splashing that accompanied them. 
 Yet presently he emerged with a well-scraped chin, 
 a skin glowing with cleanliness, his ragged mass 
 
 140 
 
A JURY OF ONE 
 
 of hair reduced to a semblance of order, and his 
 person arrayed in an extremely shabby and unfash- 
 ionable but perfectly dry suit of clothes. The tea 
 was at hand to be made, the pot heated, the eggs, 
 bacon, and toast were delightfully warm and laid 
 before the fire. And in accordance with instruc- 
 tions the table was set for two persons, with the 
 blunt knives and forks and the decrepit crockery 
 of his establishment. 
 
 " Will you wait till the other gentleman comes, 
 sir ? '' asked the old woman. 
 
 ''What other gentleman, Mrs. Brown?" 
 
 *' The gentleman who is coming to breakfast." 
 
 " Well, I can't very well, seeing that she turns 
 out to be a lady." 
 
 *' I beg your pardon, sir." 
 
 *' You, Mrs. Brown, are that lady. You will 
 please sit just there, as near to the fire as you can 
 get without burning yourself. I propose to make 
 the tea, for I am so expert in the art that I yield 
 to none. And I shall ask you to pour it out, while 
 I proceed to serve the eggs and bacon, which look 
 perfectly delicious." 
 
 The charwoman, however, betrayed no sign of 
 assenting to this arrangement. 
 
 " I am sure, sir, it is meant in great kindness," 
 she said humbly, " but I could not think of such 
 a thing. You see I have been in good service, sir, 
 and I beg your pardon, sir, but it is never done." 
 
 " * Never ' is a dangerous word to employ, Mrs. 
 Brown," said Northcote, towering over the old 
 woman in a formidable manner. " In fact, I allow 
 none to employ it to me. Sit down, if you please, 
 and pour out the tea, and just have the goodness to 
 
 141 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 imagine yourself the Lady Elizabeth Who-was-it, 
 famous alike for her breeding and her beauty, while 
 I shall endeavor to consider myself that distin- 
 guished nobleman, the Earl of What's-his-name." 
 
 " The Lady Elizabeth Plumptre, sir, and the Earl 
 of Widmerpool." 
 
 " Very well. Now I say, * Betty, my gal, have 
 an egg with your bacon ? ' and you reply with a 
 quiet ease and distinction of manner, ' Yes, papa, 
 if you please.' Now then, down you get into your 
 chair, and spare me the necessity of arguing the 
 point. I am so apt to lose my temper if I argue 
 the point." 
 
 The old woman, who was too much in fear of 
 him to risk anything of the kind, took her place 
 at the table immediately. 
 
 " One of these days," said Northcote, handing 
 her an egg and some bacon on the only plate that 
 did not happen to be cracked, '' I should like you 
 to meet my mother. She is a very notable and good 
 woman, with a remarkably resolute conception of 
 her duty, which all her life she has rendered bluntly 
 and directly without ever speaking of it to a human 
 soul. She has ordered her life in the manner that 
 she deems necessary to the role of an eminent Chris- 
 tian. She has brought up her only son in simple 
 and pious resolves, educated him quite beyond her 
 means, has found him money when in order to do 
 so she has been compelled to deny herself life's 
 common necessaries, yet has asked alms of none, 
 and at Christmas time never omits to dispense char- 
 ity to others." 
 
 ** I should like to see your mother, sir," said the 
 charwoman, folding her hands meekly and sitting 
 
 142 
 
A JURY OF ONE 
 
 very upright on her chair. " I am sure she is a 
 very good lady." 
 
 " One of those noble narrow women, Mrs. 
 Brown, upon whom life bears down so heavily. 
 Yet she carries out her programme with a great- 
 ness of spirit which is almost demoralizing to one 
 who tries to look at things as they are. I don't 
 know what there is in her life that carries her on 
 so victoriously; for one never hears her utter a 
 complaint against the buffets she has received from 
 fate, or against the restrictions that her dismal sur- 
 roundings impose on her nature. I have never 
 heard an impatient word upon her lips, yet every 
 morning, summer and winter, she rises at the hour 
 of five, performs those domestic functions that can 
 bring no satisfaction to her, and presently goes 
 forth to labors still more arduous and equally de- 
 void of meaning. What there is to carry her on 
 I don't know. Why that inflexible spirit has not 
 been broken these many years I cannot conjecture." 
 
 " She has got into the habit of going on, sir, 
 I suppose," said the charwoman. 
 
 " The habit must be a very strange one, Mrs. 
 Brown, when to-morrow is always the same as 
 yesterday." 
 
 " It is like being a clock, sir, which goes on 
 because it has been wound up." 
 
 " Yes, but I never found a clock that could wind 
 up itself. Every clock must have some kind of 
 a key." 
 
 " It is God, sir, who is the key," said the char- 
 woman. 
 
 " That throws us back," said Northcote, " to our 
 original necessity to have a religion. To my mind, 
 
 143 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Mrs. Brown, you have indicated that need in a very 
 lucid and practical manner. And how, Mrs. Brown, 
 as you appear to have given some thought to these 
 things, do you suppose this reticent mother of mine 
 views this God who holds the key to the watch, 
 who winds it up and keeps it going? How would 
 you say she regards Him personally?" 
 
 " Perhaps she doesn't think about Him much, 
 sir. Perhaps as a girl she troubled her head about 
 Him a bit ; but when she got older and had to take 
 heavy burdens on her shoulders, she was always too 
 tired to think of Him, except when she said her 
 prayers." 
 
 " Do you suppose there have been times when in 
 her great fatigue she has fallen asleep while she 
 has been in the act of saying them ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, I suppose there may have been," said 
 the old woman. 
 
 ** So, then, you would say there is nothing defi- 
 nite, forceful, all-compelling about this God of 
 hers? You would say He had no particular per- 
 sonality to speak of?" 
 
 " Perhaps He is very real to her, sir, just as to 
 the watch the key must be very real that winds 
 it up and keeps it going." 
 
 " I suppose, Mrs. Brown, you have never by any 
 lucky chance arrived at the reason why He does 
 wind you up and keep you going? Yet surely you 
 have asked yourself the question why it is neces- 
 sary that you should be wound up and kept going." 
 
 " I may have done, sir, now and again. But 
 then it has been a wicked thought." 
 
 " It is an intensely natural thought, and the wick- 
 edness of sheer undraped nature is one of those 
 
 144 
 
A JURY OF ONE 
 
 hard doctrines I have never been able to accept. 
 When in the depth of winter you have laid an old 
 skirt on your bed because you did not happen to 
 possess an extra blanket, and you have crept with 
 your shivering limbs into the cold sheets, I suppose 
 you have asked yourself occasionally why you who 
 do not even perform the humble functions of a 
 clock, since you keep no time, should yet be wound 
 up and set going, when, as a matter of choice, you 
 would prefer to remain in bed in the morning and 
 be allowed to sleep on forever?" 
 
 " There are my five little grandchildren, sir, who 
 have no mother or father." 
 
 " They would go to the workhouse ; and the 
 state would transform them into honorable, capa- 
 ble, and industrious citizens with even greater effi- 
 ciency than you would yourself." 
 
 " The workhouse, sir, is a very disgraceful thing 
 for a respectable family." 
 
 " Ah, you impale me on another spike of your 
 religion. Its points are fixed at a sharper angle 
 than you are willing to allow. For I would ask 
 you, is it not enough to enrich the state with five 
 healthy and able-bodied citizens without being 
 called upon to maintain them at one's own ex- 
 pense ? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," said the old woman, 
 " but when you have children of your own you 
 may not say so." 
 
 " I do not doubt that you are right. By exercis- 
 ing as keenly as possible the very inadequate num- 
 ber of wits with which nature has seen fit to arm 
 me, I am able to discern that the more reasonable 
 we become the less do we order our conduct by the 
 
 145 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 light of reason. As you suggest, it is extremely 
 probable when I become a father, if I am ever called 
 to that beatitude, I shall rise every morning from 
 my bed to prevent my children going to the work- 
 house, however strenuously reason may urge that 
 the workhouse is their natural and appointed home. 
 And assuming, Mrs. Brown, that I am not marked 
 out for the honor of paternity, that crowning 
 achievement of every citizen, why then should I 
 rise from my bed — that is, assuming that I regard 
 the person who presumes to wind up the watch to be 
 a meddlesome busybody, a bore, and a nuisance ? " 
 
 *' If you work very hard, sir, you will have no 
 time to think such thoughts," said the old woman. 
 
 " It is, I suppose, the satisfaction of depriving 
 yourself of the opportunities of thinking such 
 thoughts that brings you here every morning of 
 the year at a quarter to eight to tidy up the garret 
 of a starving materialist who is bleeding to death 
 of his ideals? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, you might say partly that and partly 
 to help to bring up my grandchildren." 
 
 " Well, my good woman, if it is partly to bring 
 up your grandbhildren, why, may I ask, do you 
 continue to toil on behalf of this person, when for 
 two months past he has paid you no wage, and 
 may I ask also why have you lent him sums of 
 money, when you must have been aware that it 
 was in the highest degree unlikely that it would 
 ever be paid to you again ? " 
 
 " I have had no time to think about it like that, 
 sir." 
 
 " That is not a very strong answer, Mrs. Brown. 
 
 146 
 
A JURY OF ONE 
 
 I felt sure I should be able before long to impale 
 this religion of yours upon a paradox. And I sup- 
 pose that when you put this shrivelled old hand 
 that I am holding into that ridiculous old dogskin 
 purse of yours, which must have been an heirloom 
 in your family in the year one, you had not time to 
 reflect that you were robbing your poor little grand- 
 children? You had not time to reflect that the 
 twenty-five shillings which you lent a weak-natured, 
 self-indulgent sentimentalist in order that he might 
 not be turned out into the street would keep them 
 in boots for a year? " 
 
 " I don't say I had not time to think about it, 
 sir, but I could never have seen you turned out into 
 the street without a roof above your head." 
 
 " Why could you not, Mrs. Brown ? It was no 
 part of your duties to provide a home for a stalwart 
 and able-bodied young man who was living in idle- 
 ness, when you had your five little orphan grand- 
 children to consider." 
 
 " I did not look at it in that light, sir." 
 
 " Surely it was very wrong of you to fail to 
 do so. One would think a reasonable, right-minded 
 person would hardly need to have it pointed out." 
 
 " Well, sir," said the old woman nervously, " I 
 beg your pardon, I'm sure; but even if I had seen 
 it in that way I might not have acted upon it." 
 
 " Then I grieve to say, Mrs. Brown, that you 
 appear to have no very exact standard of probity." 
 
 "I — I — I'm sure, sir, I always try to do what 
 is right." 
 
 The charwoman had become the prey of a deep 
 confusion. 
 
 " But," said Northcote, sternly, " I have just had 
 147 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 your own assurance that you do not. You would 
 not, it seems, scruple to rob your poor grandchil- 
 dren to gratify a whim ; indeed, it may be said you 
 have robbed them to gratify one. If I had to pros- 
 ecute you before a jury of twelve of your honest 
 countrymen, I could easily get you put into prison." 
 
 " Well, sir,'' said the old charwoman, beginning 
 to tremble violently before this grim realism, "I — 
 I am sure I have always tried to do my duty." 
 
 " On the contrary, Mrs. Brown, you can scarcely 
 be said to have a conception of what is your duty. 
 At least the best that can be said for that conception 
 is that it is arbitrary, perverse, contradictory. Ex- 
 pedience is the only duty known to the laws which 
 regulate all forms of nature. The man called 
 Jesus, the chief exponent of the contrary doctrine 
 which appears to have had some kind of attraction 
 for you, received a somewhat severe handling when 
 He ventured to show Himself upon the platform; 
 and you who in your dumb and vague and inverte- 
 brate manner have been seeking to imitate Him in 
 one or two minor particulars, owe it to the gener- 
 ous forbearance of the recipient of your charity that 
 you do not find yourself in prison. If the Crown 
 in its expansive vindictiveness were to instruct me 
 to prosecute you in what it is pleased to call ' a 
 court of justice,' woe would betide you." 
 
 The old woman grew as pale as ashes when con- 
 fronted with the stern eyes of this advocate who 
 turned white into black so easily. 
 
 " Why — why, sir," she stammered, " you — 
 you will make me think I have committed a murder 
 if you go on ! " 
 
 " I think I might do that without much diffi- 
 148 
 
A JURY OF ONE 
 
 culty. It would be quite simple to indicate to you 
 in a very few words in what manner the Almighty 
 has already seen fit to mark the sense of His per- 
 sonal displeasure. Is it not your own conduct, do 
 you not suppose, which has provoked Him to strike 
 down your innocent little grandchild with diph- 
 theria? And if the child dies, which we will pray 
 it will not, what would be easier than to render you 
 responsible for its death ? You see that is the worst 
 of evil, it is so cumulative in its effect. Once it has 
 begun its dread courses, who shall predict their 
 end? A good action is self-contained and stops 
 where it began; a bad one fructifies with immortal 
 seed and practically goes on for ever — vide the 
 poet Shakespeare. Why, you are eating nothing. 
 I am afraid I am spoiling your breakfast." 
 
 *' Oh, sir, I didn't know I was so wicked," said 
 the charwoman, with tears in her eyes. 
 
 " Opinions are easily formed. As for reputa- 
 tions, they can be made and unmade and made 
 again in an hour. But might I suggest, Mrs. 
 Brown, that if one happens to be righteous in one's 
 own eyes, it does not very greatly matter if one 
 goes to jail to expiate so pious an opinion. Do I 
 make myself clear?" 
 
 "I — I don't say I am good, sir, but — I hope I 
 am not a downright bad one." 
 
 " Well, to relieve your feelings, we will take it 
 that you are a nebulous half-and-half and somewhat 
 unsatisfactory sort of person who blindly follows a 
 bundle of instincts she knows less than nothing 
 about, just like a dog or a cat or a rabbit. And is 
 not that what this elaborate moral code of ours 
 throws back to if we take the trouble to examine it? 
 
 149 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 And is not one entitled to say that a dog is a good 
 dog, a cat a good cat, a rabbit a good rabbit, just 
 as faithfully as it follows the instincts under its 
 fur, whatever they happen to be ? I have taken this 
 excursus, Mrs. Brown, and have ventured to theo- 
 rize a little, quite unprofitably, I grant, and at the 
 risk of causing you some ill-founded alarm, because 
 to-morrow I have to exercise all the talents with 
 which the good God has endowed me in the cause 
 of an extremely wicked woman who has committed 
 a murder. Her crime is of a vulgar and calculating 
 kind, perpetrated in cold blood; there is not a rag 
 of evidence to save her from the gallows; but 
 Providence has called upon me to attempt to save 
 her from the fate she so richly merits. And there 
 is an instinct within me, her advocate, for which I 
 am at a loss to account by the rules of reason and 
 logic, which calls on its possessor to save this 
 abandoned creature at all hazard. If I obey that 
 instinct I shall be a good advocate and a bad citi- 
 zen; if I disobey it I shall be a good citizen but a 
 bad advocate. Yet if I obey it I shall have fulfilled 
 to the best of my ability the legal contract into 
 which I have entered, and in so doing I shall be 
 called on to commit a serious misdemeanor against 
 human nature. On the other hand, if I disobey it 
 I shall be causing human nature to be vindicated in 
 a becoming manner, yet shall be guilty of an equally 
 serious misdemeanor against myself; and further, 
 I shall be false to the interests of my unfortunate 
 client whose money I have taken, and render my- 
 self indictable for the offence of entering into a con- 
 tract which I have wilfully refrained from carrying 
 
 ISO 
 
A JURY OF ONE 
 
 out. Please have another cup of tea, and kindly 
 pass the marmalade." 
 
 Northcote having shifted the ground of his 
 reasoning from the personal to the abstract, the 
 old woman regained sufficient confidence to pour 
 out the tea without spilling it. 
 
 " Now," said Northcote, " if you were in my 
 position, would you try to enable one whom you 
 knew to be a murderess to escape the gallows? " 
 
 " If I might say so, sir, I would try to have noth- 
 ing to do with her at all." 
 
 " In other words, you would rather starve than 
 take her money ? " 
 
 '' Yes, sir, I think I would." 
 
 " And cause you to rob your poor little grand- 
 children?" 
 
 " I — I — don't say that, sir." 
 
 " Let us be as logical as we can. Again, would 
 it not cause me to rob my poor old mother who has 
 contributed her all towards my education, which I 
 put to no useful end?" 
 
 " You would be honest, sir." 
 
 " Honest, do you say ! Do you call it honest to 
 pervert and misapply the money my mother has 
 lavished on my education?" 
 
 " Might you not use your education, sir, in some 
 other way? " 
 
 " You would have me till the fields or be a clerk 
 in an insurance office. Would that be honest in the 
 sight of God, who has placed an instinct in me 
 which I disobey? Surely one would say the truly 
 dishonest man is he who is unfaithful to his nature. 
 Had we not agreed upon that? If a man knows 
 that he was designed by God to be an advocate, is 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 he not called to practise? Why have the gift to 
 prove that white is black and black is white if that 
 gift is not to be carried to its appointed issue? If 
 I do not barter it for a means of livelihood by prov- 
 ing the guilty to be innocent, how am I to discharge 
 the higher function of proving the innocent to be 
 not guilty? If, in my cowardice, I decline to go 
 into court lest I save those who ought not to be 
 saved, think of the innocent persons who will perish 
 for the lack of a true advocate." 
 
 " If we could only get to the real intention, sir," 
 said the charwoman solemnly, " of Him who winds 
 up the watch and who is Himself the key, perhaps 
 these things might not worry us. But God moves 
 in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform." 
 
 " Yes," said Northcote, rising from the break- 
 fast-table, " there we have the fruit of all that our 
 curiosity can yield to us. The power may be given 
 to us to show that blue is green, but what does it 
 stand for in the presence of the dread materialism 
 of our religions ? " 
 
 The advocate took three sovereigns from his 
 pocket, three sovereigns which he had yet to earn, 
 and placed them in the palm of the old charwoman. 
 
 " Mrs. Brown," he said, " in the bleak and un- 
 comfortable eyes of science your virtue will not 
 bear inquiry ; but if it were possible to take a plebi- 
 scite of the opinions of your fellows as hastily as 
 possible upon the bare facts, before a professional 
 advocate had a chance to pervert them, I do not 
 doubt that you would be voted to a position among 
 the elect. I believe myself that there is a greater 
 amount of purely disinterested nobility among all 
 sections of society than is generally known. Fif- 
 
 152 
 
A JURY OP ONE 
 
 teen shillings I owe you for services rendered; 
 twenty-five for your timely contribution towards 
 my rent ; and here is a pound with which to pay the 
 kind doctor who is going to thwart the Almighty 
 in His intention of causing your small grandchild 
 to die. One of these days, as I say, Mrs. Brown, I 
 hope you may meet my mother, for I would like to 
 render to you the homage that all men desire to be 
 allowed to render to good women." 
 
 He seized the blackened, shrivelled, and not par- 
 ticularly clean hand and carried it to his lips. 
 
 iS3 
 
XVII 
 
 MESSRS. WHITCOMB AND WHITCOMB 
 
 After the old woman had cleared the table of 
 the breakfast things and she had gone away, North- 
 cote sat nearly two hours in his easy chair at the 
 fire, whose grate had never been allowed to con- 
 sume so much fuel since it had been in his occupa- 
 tion, and with the aid of his brief proceeded to re- 
 hearse all the points of the case as they presented 
 themselves to him. Warmth, food, and rest had 
 overthrown his weariness, and his mind which in 
 its operations was habitually so energetic began to 
 shape and docket every conceivable aspect of the 
 matter that could be of the slightest service to the 
 accused. His reasoning was so amazingly copious 
 that he foresaw and proceeded immediately to 
 guard against a very real danger. 
 
 He might easily overdo it. The jury would not 
 be men of education to whom fine points would ap- 
 peal. Most probably they would be petty trades- 
 men whom it would be impossible to touch through 
 the mind at all. He must take aim at their emo- 
 tions. " I must use," he said to himself in his 
 mental analysis, " not a word beyond three syl- 
 lables, and I must keep to the language of the Bible 
 as well as I can. All my little pieces of embroid- 
 ery, all my little bravura passages must bear that 
 singularly excellent model in mind; its power of 
 touching the commonest clay is so unfailing. Hap- 
 
 IS4 
 
MESSRS. WHITCOMB AND WHITCOMB 
 
 pily, in the course of my somewhat eclectic studies 
 it has not been neglected. But beyond -all I must 
 try to get my address quite fine and close. One 
 word too much and the whole thing fizzles out in 
 a haze of perplexity. For that reason I am afraid 
 I must reject some of my choicest and neatest 
 thrusts at the moral code, which ought to tickle to 
 death all minds with a gleam of humor. No, I 
 must deny myself those bright excursions in which 
 the cloven hoof of the artist betrays itself, and put 
 my faith in a few common tricks performed with 
 mastery. They at least should set up the honest 
 English grocer on his hind legs and make him purr 
 like anything." 
 
 Before the ingenuity of this keen intelligence 
 those obstacles which were bristling everywhere 
 in the case, which to the average mind would have 
 appeared insurmountable, began rapidly to melt 
 away. It was with an ill-concealed joy that he shed 
 the lime-light of paradox on each point that pre- 
 sented itself. That array of facts which a judge 
 and jury of his countrymen would hug to their 
 bosoms as so many pearls they could positively hold 
 in their hands he would disperse with a touch of 
 his wand. In the ripeness of his talent he foresaw 
 that it would cost him no labor to demolish the 
 evidence, to turn it inside out. 
 
 The world is full of great masterpieces that have 
 been created out of nothing, haunting and beauti- 
 ful things which have been spun by genius out of 
 the air. And are not feats like these more wonder- 
 ful than the exercise of the natural alchemy of 
 change by which fairness is turned into ugliness, 
 poetry into lunacy, good into evil, truth into error? 
 
 155 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 The constructive faculty is rare and consummate; 
 when it appears it leaves a track of light in the 
 heavens; but the faculty of the demolisher is at 
 work every day. Northcote was conscious that he 
 was a born demolisher of " evidence," of those 
 trite dogmas, those brutalized formulas of the 
 average sensual mind. When he looked for truth 
 he sought it at the bottom of the well. On the 
 morrow for the first time he would give free play 
 to his dangerous faculty. 
 
 When he had blocked out and brought into har- 
 mony the main lines of his address to the jury, it 
 occurred to him that his powers might receive an 
 additional stimulus if he saw the accused, ex- 
 changed a few words with her, brought himself 
 into intimate relation with her outlook. Up to 
 this point she had been no more than an academic 
 figure, around whom he had woven detached, some- 
 what Socratic arguments. He felt that to see and 
 to know her would be to place yet another weapon 
 in his hands, wherewith he would be enabled to dig 
 another pit for those whom he had already come 
 to look on as his, no less than her, deadly adver- 
 saries. 
 
 Already he was a little amused by his own com- 
 placency, the conviction of his own success. There 
 was that curious quality within him that forbade 
 his evoking the possibility of failure in so great 
 an enterprise. He was so grotesquely sure of his 
 own power to triumph over arbitrary material 
 facts. Such a sense of personal infallibility could 
 only spring from the profoundest ignorance, or 
 from talent in its most virile and concentrated 
 form. For what was more likely than that on 
 
 156 
 
MESSRS. WHITCOMB AND WHITCOMB 
 
 inspection the accused would present one of the 
 most abandoned figures of her cahing? Was it 
 not highly probable that nature, who takes such 
 infinite precaution to safeguard her creatures, had 
 caused this woman to assume the shape of a hag, 
 a harpy, a thing of loathsome, terrible abasement? 
 In that case, how would he dispose of evidence in 
 its most salient form? How would he dispose of 
 that immutable instinct, that deep conviction which 
 is conferred by personality? 
 
 On the other hand, if the accused, by the aid 
 of one of those miracles of which the world is so 
 full, were to present the outlines of actual personal 
 beauty, through whose agency common sensual 
 minds are appealed to so easily, how slight would 
 his difficulties be! In that event, so far as her 
 advocate was concerned, the gilt would be off the 
 gingerbread, his achievement would cease to be 
 astonishing. Indeed, so finely tempered was his 
 arrogance that to undertake the defence of one of 
 this kind would be distasteful to it, so small would 
 be the field afforded for personal glory. Rather 
 than have to deal with one who could be trusted 
 to be her own most efficient advocate, he would 
 prefer that a veritable harpy out of a sewer should 
 be placed in the dock. Could he have been allowed 
 the privilege of choosing a theme for his powers, 
 he believed that he should best consult the dictates 
 of his talent by asking for a commonplace, unil- 
 lumined woman of forty to be put up. 
 
 Deciding at last to seek an interview with the 
 accused, he set forth to the offices of his client in 
 Chancery Lane. On his way thither he occupied 
 himself with drawing the portrait of the ideal sub- 
 
 157 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 ject as his mind conceived her. She would be 
 forty, with her hair turning gray. She would 
 be a plain, drab, slightly elusive figure, cowed a 
 little by life, the privations she had undergone, and 
 the ignominy and terror of her situation. The 
 positive, the actual would be to seek in her; she 
 would offer no target for too facile sympathies. 
 Her inaccessibility to all suggestions of romance 
 or of picturesqueness would lend to her predica- 
 ment that extreme peril which it would be her ad- 
 vocate's chief glory to surmount. All the same, 
 he desired no ghoul, but a human being. She 
 might be visibly stained, buffeted, common, broken, 
 devoid of a meaning to eyes that were unacquainted 
 with the poetry of misfortune, the irony of blunt 
 truths; yet let a few rags of her sex remain, let 
 her be capable of humiliation, of being rendered 
 in piteous fear. 
 
 At the offices of Messrs. Whitcomb and Whit- 
 comb in Chancery Lane he was informed that the 
 senior partner was anxiously awaiting him. 
 
 " Ah, here you are at last ! " exclaimed the solic- 
 itor, rising to receive him. " I thought you would 
 have been round before." 
 
 '' I suppose you only honor a silk gown with a 
 consultation in his own chambers ? " said North- 
 cote. 
 
 " Chambers, you call them ! Well, did we not 
 hold it last night?" 
 
 " One cannot very well hold a consultation with 
 one's client before one receives one's brief." 
 
 "What dignity!" 
 
 " Is it not at least half the stock in trade of 
 mediocrity ? " 
 
 158 
 
MESSRS. WHITCOMB AND WHITCOMB 
 
 " What modesty ! Do I take it that the rather 
 formidable 'Ercles vein of last night is really no 
 more ? " 
 
 "You may not. It is waxing higher and 
 higher." 
 
 " Defend us, gentle heaven and pious gods ! " 
 
 " A truce to these pleasantries. Put on your hat 
 and take me to the jail to see the accused." 
 
 " You are going a little fast, my young friend, 
 are you not ? Is it wholly necessary that you should 
 see the accused? Is it wholly to her interest or to 
 yours ? " 
 
 " Wholly, I assure you." 
 
 " Well, before we get as far as that, I am par- 
 ticularly curious to know what line you have de- 
 cided to take. Is it too much to ask that you have 
 decided not to adhere to the acquittal? Speaking 
 for myself, I must confess that the more considera- 
 tion I give to the question, the less do I like that 
 idea. Tobin would certainly have taken the line 
 of insanity." 
 
 " Last night you were good enough to inform 
 me of that." 
 
 " Well, my young friend, what is good enough 
 for Tobin should be good enough for you." 
 
 " That also you were good enough to inform me 
 of last evening. But, my dear fellow, pray do not 
 let us go over this ground again. Unfortunately 
 Tobin and myself do not inhabit quite the same 
 intellectual plane." 
 
 " Unfortunately that appears to be the case," 
 said the solicitor. 
 
 "Tobin's is the lower," said the young man 
 blandly. 
 
 IS9 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " Tobin will be glad to know that.'' 
 
 " I hope he may. After to-morrow he will be 
 the first to admit it. But once more I crave to be 
 allowed to conduct this case in my own way. I 
 can listen to none ; so be a good fellow, put on your 
 hat, and come along to see the lady." 
 
 " Well, I must say that for a youngster who is 
 asked for the first time to conduct the defence in 
 a capital charge you don't lack confidence in your- 
 self." 
 
 " If I did I should not be holding the brief." 
 
 " There is something in that. And in any case 
 you will have to have your way now. It is too 
 late in the day to stand up against you." 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb pressed his bell and a clerk ap- 
 peared. 
 
 " I want permission to interview Emma Harri- 
 son. Will you ring up the prison and see if you 
 can get the governor to give it ? " 
 
 The clerk withdrew. 
 
 " They are not likely to refuse it? " said North- 
 cote. 
 
 " They ought not to be," said Mr. Whitcomb, 
 " but when you are confronted with Mr. Bumble 
 in any shape or form, your motto must always be, 
 * You never can tell.' " 
 
 " Arbitrary brute," said the young man with 
 vehemence, " I hate him altogether." 
 
 " I also ; but one should always do him the jus- 
 tice of conceding that he has arduous duties to per- 
 form." 
 
 " Presumably that is the reason why he aggra- 
 vates difficulties of those who are called to help 
 him in performing them." 
 
 i6o 
 
MESSRS. WHITCOMB AND WHITCOMB 
 
 " Is not that what we agree to call * human na- 
 ture ' ? But really I think it is the duty of every 
 citizen to think of him tenderly. He means well. 
 He is not a bad fellow at bottom.*' 
 
 " I have no patience," said the young man tru- 
 culently. " Mean well ! — not a bad fellow at bot- 
 tom ! Why, he and his satellites are the custodians 
 of the life and liberties of the whole population. 
 One wonders how many innocent lives have been 
 sworn away by this fat-witted blunderer who is 
 barely able to write his own name." 
 
 " You are too strong, my son. His responsibil- 
 ities are immense; the wonder is that he plays up 
 to them in the manner that he does." 
 
 ** You are all members of the same great and 
 far-reaching society; you have all sworn allegiance 
 to one another. Mediocrity arm in arm with Medi- 
 ocrity; Law and Order arm in arm with Law and 
 Order." 
 
 "Insolent dog!" 
 
 " Better the insolence of the dog than the blind 
 ineptitude of the donkey. The barking of a dog 
 can frighten a rogue, but the braying of the ass 
 fills every fool with courage. If he is allowed to 
 lift up his voice, why not If is what Mediocrity 
 is ever asking of itself. And up goes your own 
 private and personal bray. The other ass says, 
 * Good Lord, what a clear and beautiful note! 
 Upon my word, I have never heard anything to 
 compare with it.* And you reply modestly, * My 
 dear fellow, if you could only hear your own 
 clarion tones, you would not say that. My own 
 are modelled upon them, I assure you.* ' Well, 
 my dear friend,* the other ass eagerly rejoins, * if 
 
 i6i 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 that is really the case, you are eligible for election 
 to our Academy.' * Oh, my dear sir,' say you, with 
 your hand on your heart and tears in your voice, 
 
 * you overwhelm me with honor. This is the proud- 
 est moment of my existence.' * Not at all, my dear 
 fellow, tut ! tut ! ' says the other ass ; * great privi- 
 lege to have you among us. And there is only one 
 rule, you know, to which you have to subscribe.' 
 
 * Ah ! ' you exclaim, in an awed whisper. ' The 
 rule is quite simple,' says the other ass, putting his 
 great flabby lips to your long furry ear. ' It is 
 merely that every member of our distinguished 
 brotherhood shall unite in extolling his confreres.' " 
 
 Happily the clerk reappeared at this moment, 
 just as the solicitor, chuckling furiously, was pre- 
 paring to launch a veritable thunderbolt. 
 
 " Well ? " he said to the clerk, and suddenly 
 whisking away his head to laugh. 
 
 " Sir Robert Hickman's compliments, sir, and 
 Harrison's legal advisers may see her in consul- 
 tation at any time." 
 
 " There, what do you say to that ! " said the 
 solicitor, casting a merry glance at the young ad- 
 vocate. 
 
 " Courteous fellow," said Northcote ; " one R. A. 
 to another R. A. ; it is perfectly charming. I trust 
 that in accordance with latter-day practice you keep 
 a reporter on the premises, in order that these high- 
 toned amenities may be communicated to the press." 
 
 *' My dear boy, you are perfectly incorrigible," 
 said the solicitor, sticking his hat on the back of 
 his head and insinuating his portly form within 
 the folds of his imposing outer garment. " But one 
 of these days you will know better." 
 
 162 
 
MESSRS. WHITCOMB AND WHITCOMB 
 
 " When I am old enough to be eligible for elec- 
 tion, I dare say; in the meantime let me rejoice 
 that I am not yet brought to heel." 
 
 Laughing at the vagaries of each other, advocate 
 and client went out together, called a cab, and drove 
 to the prison. 
 
 163 
 
XVIII 
 
 TO THE PRISON 
 
 No sooner had Northcote entered the vehicle 
 than his mood underwent a curious transformation. 
 His heart began to beat rapidly, his hands to shake, 
 his knees to tremble. His brain grew so hot that 
 a vapor was thrown in front of his eyes. Extraor- 
 dinary emotions overcame him to such a degree 
 that he could not discern any of the faces in the 
 street. 
 
 " You are very quiet," said the solicitor, after 
 awhile. 
 
 " Yes, I dare say," said the young man, in a 
 voice which in his own ears sounded thin and high- 
 strung. 
 
 " Why not talk ? That is your metier. You 
 were much more amusing last night on the way 
 to Norbiton." 
 
 " Somehow I don't feel as though I have any- 
 thing to say. My head is so full of this affair." 
 
 " Don't think about it too much or it may get 
 you down," said Mr. Whitcomb, puffing quietly 
 at his cigar; "although to-morrow you are cer- 
 tain to be in a horrible funk, as it is the first job 
 of the kind you have ever had to tackle. Nor will 
 it make it the easier for you when you reflect that 
 the line you have decided to take will add im- 
 mensely to your difficulties." 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb spoke with the quiet incisiveness 
 164 
 
TO THE PRISON 
 
 of one whom experience has rendered callous. 
 From the leisurely candor and nonchalance of his 
 manner a trial for murder was made to appear of 
 rather less moment than the obtaining of a judg- 
 ment in a county court. Such coolness contrasted 
 so oddly with the young man's own perturbation 
 that he was thrown completely out of conceit with 
 himself. 
 
 '* I suppose you played cricket, Whitcomb, at 
 that highly fashionable seminary of yours?" said 
 Northcote abruptly. 
 
 " I was a ' wet bob ' myself," the solicitor re- 
 joined ; " but I think I know why you ask the ques- 
 tion." 
 
 " It is like sitting with your pads on waiting for 
 the fall of the next wicket when you are playing 
 for your ' colors.' " 
 
 " I agree," said the solicitor, " that there are 
 few things so disagreeable as that. But you are 
 bound to have a wretched time until the case is 
 over. It is for that reason that I continue to urge 
 you to heed the counsels of experience." 
 
 '* Well, I will see her first," said Northcote te- 
 naciously. 
 
 That air of self-confidence which had tried the 
 patience of the solicitor so extremely had vanished 
 altogether from the manner of his youthful com- 
 panion; for to Northcote's horror, every phase of 
 the defence which, with so much elaboration, he 
 had already prepared, every word of the memo- 
 rable speech to the jury which had been packed 
 away sentence by sentence had passed away out of 
 his consciousness so completely that it might never 
 have been in it. Pressing through the crowded 
 
 i6S 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 traffic with a vertigo assailing his eyes and his ears, 
 and a paralysis upon his Hmbs, his mind was a 
 blank which might never have been written upon. 
 Pray heaven this would not be his condition when 
 he rose to-morrow in the court; for what is coni- 
 parable to the despair that overtakes an imperious 
 nature when it is publicly abased by a physical 
 failure? In imagination he was already sharing 
 the sufferings of the young Demosthenes when de- 
 rided by the populace. 
 
 At last came the dread incident of the hansom 
 stopping before the gateway of the prison. The 
 portals rose mournfully through the twilight of 
 the December morning. While the hansom stood 
 waiting for them to revolve, a little company of 
 loafers and errand-boys collected about the vehicle, 
 and regarded its occupants with curiosity not un- 
 mingled with awe. 
 
 " Lawyers," said a denizen of the curb to a com- 
 panion, whose world like his own was cut into two 
 halves by the huge wall of the prison. 
 
 " Ugly ! " said his friend, spitting with 
 
 extraordinary vehemence upon the wheel of the 
 vehicle. 
 
 The huge door, studded with brass nails, swung 
 back soundlessly upon its invisible hinges, and the 
 hansom passed over cobbles under an archway that 
 seemed to reverberate so much with the sound of 
 its progress, that Northcote felt his brain to be 
 shattered. He was unable to witness the little 
 drama that was enacted behind him, of the great 
 door shutting out the row of solemn faces, standing 
 upon the dim threshold of the outer world to peer 
 into the gloomy precincts of oblivion. 
 
 i66 
 
TO THE PRISON 
 
 The courtyard seemed to consist of low door- 
 ways with gas lamps burning within them, endless 
 expanses of wall, windows heavily barred, and ex- 
 tremely official-looking police-constables. The little 
 daylight of the streets through which they had 
 passed had diminished sensibly. 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb led the way out of the hansom 
 as it stopped at a doorway at the end of the 
 courtyard, slightly less insignificant than the rest. 
 
 A policeman without his helmet, but with three 
 stripes on the sleeve of his tunic, and whose hair, 
 glossy with grease, fell over his low forehead in 
 the form of a fringe, came out of the semi-darkness 
 to receive them. 
 
 "If you will take my card to the governor I 
 shall be obliged to you," said Mr. Whitcomb. 
 
 " Yessir," said the constable, with a deferential 
 alacrity touched with a slightly abject humility. 
 " Will you please to step this way, sir, and mind 
 your 'at, sir, against the top of the door? " 
 
 They followed the policeman along a gas-lit pas- 
 sage which seemed endless. Their boots echoed and 
 reechoed from its stone flags up to and along the 
 low, white-washed ceiling. Ascending a flight of 
 steps they were shown into a room through the 
 iron bars of whose window a few irregular beams 
 of daylight struggled painfully, and arrived in 
 such an exhausted condition that they appeared to 
 be quite at a loss to know what to do when they 
 had entered. The room was small, warm, and so 
 full of bad air that Northcote found the act of 
 respiration difficult. Three or four massive chairs, 
 covered in brown leather, were disposed in the cor- 
 ners, while the middle was in the occupation of 
 
 167 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 a table, upon which was a bottle filled with water 
 with a glass fitting over the top of it. 
 
 " The atmosphere of this place makes one feel 
 ill," said Northcote, when the constable had borne 
 away Mr. Whitcomb's card. 
 
 " They have another apartment which will make 
 you feel a lot worse than this," said that gen- 
 tleman cheerfully, unbuttoning his coat and pro- 
 viding himself with a chair. " Take a seat and 
 make yourself quite at home. It will take our 
 polite friend with the hair at least three-quarters 
 of an hour to penetrate through morasses of red 
 tape and ofiicialdom in its most concentrated form 
 into the governor's parlor and then to get back 
 again to us. I have known him take an hour." 
 
 " Good Lord," said Northcote, '* I shall be dead 
 long before that." 
 
 " Pretend you are Dante, and try to think out 
 the first canto of your ^ Inferno,' " said Mr. Whit- 
 comb, taking a crumpled copy of the Law Journal 
 out of his coat, fixing his glass, and proceeding to 
 peruse it with admirable spirit and amiability. 
 
 Northcote remained standing. He was too com- 
 pletely the victim of the emotions that had been 
 excited in him to simulate composure. He walked 
 up and down the room in nervous agitation, and 
 examined the bare walls and the grated window. 
 
 "I see they have revived this flatulent contro- 
 versy in regard to the value of circumstantial evi- 
 dence in the capital charge," said Mr. Whit- 
 comb. 
 
 " One would certainly say it ought always to be 
 admitted under the greatest reserve," said North- 
 cote. 
 
 i68 
 
TO THE PRISON 
 
 " It would be impossible to work without it in 
 almost every trial for murder." 
 
 " Well, I shall tell the jury to-morrow, over- 
 whelming as in this case it may seem, to reject it 
 altogether." 
 
 *' And what do you suppose the judge will tell 
 them, may I ask ? " said Mr. Whitcomb. 
 
 " I am expecting a bit of a duel between us," 
 Northcote replied. " But if he can undo the work 
 I have set myself to accomplish, he is a better man 
 than I take him to be, that is all." 
 
 The solicitor did not frame his reply immedi- 
 ately, but a rush of blood to his complexion an- 
 nounced what its nature would have been. The 
 fellow was really like a child in vSome things ! How 
 could he suppose that these outworn pleas that 
 long ago had been worn threadbare by every 
 country attorney could carry the least weight with 
 men who bore sound heads on their shoulders? 
 If he had nothing better on which to base his de- 
 fence than the inadmissibility of circumstantial 
 evidence, there was no need for him to go into 
 court at all. He was declining to call the witnesses 
 who would attempt to prove insanity; he was re- 
 jecting the one natural and reasonable line, which 
 had the sanction of those who were older, wiser, 
 altogether more capable than himself, in favor of 
 a single desperate throw with the dice — and here 
 was what that throw amounted to ! 
 
 " I must venture to say," protested the solicitor, 
 ** you surprise one more and more. If you have 
 nothing more original than that to show the jury, 
 a weaker judge than Brudenell would demolish it 
 in a few minds like a house of cards." 
 
 169 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " We shall see." 
 
 " Why, my dear fellow, all the world knows 
 there is no escape from circumstantial evidence in 
 murder cases. Have you asked yourself the ques- 
 tion how many verdicts could have been taken in 
 recent years upon notorious crimes, had it been 
 ruled out ? " 
 
 " I expect to have my own way of answering 
 the question," said the young man. 
 
 ** Yes, and Brudenell will have his." 
 
 " Quite probably, I grant you," said the young 
 man, with a tenacity that his companion felt to be 
 exasperating; ''but unless one is wholly deceived 
 in the estimate of one's own capacity — forgive 
 this very unprofessional candor in regard to one- 
 self — the jury will answer it in the fashion I ask 
 them to, not in the fashion asked of them by Mr. 
 Justice Brudenell and Mr. Horatio Weekes." 
 
 '' Well, my young friend," said Mr. Whitcomb, 
 scrutinizing him with the patient wonder that is 
 bestowed on a rare quadruped in a zoological gar- 
 dens, '' pray don't think me impertinent if I con- 
 fess that you are the most baffling compound I 
 have ever encountered." 
 
 " Notably," said Northcote, '* of self-conceit, 
 pig-headedness, childishness, ignorance, and effront- 
 ery. I dare say you are right, for have I not 
 committed the unpardonable offence of assuming 
 that I am wiser than Tobin, wiser than yourself, 
 also of considering myself the superior of the 
 judge upon the bench?" 
 
 " You may be perfectly entitled to this self- 
 estimate after the event," said the solicitor, with 
 a candor he was unable to repress ; *' but I would 
 
 170 
 
TO THE PRISON 
 
 like to say that only a very complete, and even 
 astonishing, success to-morrow can possibly justify 
 it." 
 
 " I recognize, I concede that," said the young 
 advocate, with an unexpected humility. He passed 
 his handkerchief across his dripping forehead. " Is 
 it not true of all who undertake to perform a mir- 
 acle that nothing short of a consummate achieve- 
 ment will satisfy those eternally timid ones who 
 have not even the courage to be credulous? It is 
 the fate of all who break with custom to be de- 
 rided, but was anything ever done for the world 
 by conforming to it?" 
 
 " Custom is a useful safeguard against ridicule, 
 at any rate," said Mr. Whitcomb. 
 
 " Ridicule ! " cried the young man. " Would 
 you have one fear it? " 
 
 " Yes, my son," said the solicitor, with calmness 
 and unction, '* one would have every professional 
 man fear it like the plague." 
 
 " God knows we are all susceptible to the fear 
 of ridicule," said the young man, sweating pro- 
 fusely, " but is it not those fearful minds that 
 defer perpetually to custom that build their actions 
 upon it ? Where would the epoch-makers have been 
 had they been weak enough to defer to ridicule? 
 No movement was ever initiated but what in the 
 beginning its progenitor was laughed out of 
 court." 
 
 " Do I understand, my young friend," said Mr. 
 Whitcomb in his suavest accent, " that you pro- 
 pose to elevate the hanging of Emma Harrison 
 into a world movement ? " 
 
 " You may," said the young man, lifting up 
 171 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 his chin, from which great beads were rolling, 
 " for the theme is fit for a world-drama. And he 
 who is cast for the leading role shall make it so." 
 With unsteady steps Northcote passed out of the 
 gloomy corner in which he stood to where the day- 
 light struggled through the grated window. He 
 pressed his forehead against the bars. " One 
 would have preferred Gethsemane," he muttered; 
 " at least there would have been space and air." 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb readdressed himself to the study 
 of the Law Journal. The conquest of that irrita- 
 tion which overcomes on occasion the sternest dis- 
 cipline had long been elevated into a mental habit 
 by this sagacious gentleman, who felt it to be the 
 due of the inimitable coolness with which he looked 
 at life. Yet could he have indulged an explosion 
 without endangering his stupendous dignity, he 
 must have done so here. This ridiculous fellow 
 was getting on his nerves. Whatever could have 
 led him to entrust him with a case of this kind? 
 Was it not an evil hour when he climbed those 
 foul and dark stairs to hale him from the obscurity 
 of his garret? What could be clearer than that 
 this madman was about to make a public exhibition 
 of himself and of his client? After all, the un- 
 earthing of this man Northcote was no more than 
 a whim of Tobin's formed on the spur of the oc- 
 casion. Tobin, it was true, was highly successful, 
 yet he was himself a somewhat odd, whimsical fel- 
 low, a Celt; and really his suggestion ought to 
 have been seen at the deuce. Yet it was no 
 good to repine; he had gone too far to draw back; 
 time, the tyrannical determining factor of every 
 event, allowed him no choice. This man North- 
 
 172 
 
TO THE PRISON 
 
 cote must be Emma Harrison's advocate or she 
 must do without one. 
 
 In the meantime Northcote's tense emotion had 
 been well served by the cold iron against which his 
 face was pressed. It seemed to possess a medicinal 
 quality which entered his arteries. Once more his 
 mind was able to exert its faculty. His courage, 
 his fecundity of idea, the sense of his destiny, had 
 seemed to return. 
 
 The discomposure of the solicitor and the nerv- 
 ous tension of the advocate were intruded upon 
 at last by the constable, who had taken rather more 
 than three-quarters of an hour to perform his mis- 
 sion. 
 
 " Will you come this way, gentlemen? " he said. 
 
 They were conducted along more dark and ap- 
 parently interminable passages, up one flight of 
 stone steps and down two others, until at last they 
 found themselves in a room similar to the one they 
 had left, except that it was larger and gloomier, 
 smelt rather more poisonous, and looked some- 
 what more funereal. 
 
 Northcote's heart was again beating violently 
 as he stepped over its threshold, and his excitement 
 was not in the least allayed when he discovered that 
 there was no one in it. 
 
 "If you will kindly take a seat, gentlemen," said 
 their guide, " Harrison will be here in a few min- 
 utes." 
 
 " In other words, twenty," said Mr. Whitcomb, 
 beginning a tour of inspection of this dismal apart- 
 ment. " These small mementoes may have some 
 slight interest for you, my friend," he said to 
 Northcote. 
 
 173 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 He drew the young man's attention to a row of 
 shelves placed at right angles to the window. They 
 were raised tier upon tier to the height of the ceil- 
 ing, and were crammed with crude staring objects. 
 A close inspection revealed them to be busts made 
 of plaster of Paris. 
 
 " Why, what are these horrible things supposed 
 to represent?" said Northcote, with a thrill in 
 his voice. 
 
 " These," said Mr. Whitcomb cheerfully, " are 
 the casts taken after death of a number of ladies 
 and gentlemen who have had the distinction of 
 being hanged within the precincts of this jail dur- 
 ing the past hundred years. If you will examine 
 them closely, you will be able to observe the inden- 
 tation of the hangman's rope, which has been 
 duly imprinted on the throat of each individual. 
 Also, you may discern the mark of the knot under 
 the left ear. Interesting, are they not? The official 
 mind is generally able to exhibit itself in quite an 
 amiable light when it stoops to the sesthetic." 
 
 " I call it perfectly devilish," said Northcote, 
 shuddering with horror. 
 
 " They must have quite a peculiar scientific in- 
 terest," said Mr. Whitcomb, '' for each lady or 
 gentleman who may chance to enter this apartment 
 to consult his or her legal adviser. Are you able 
 to recognize any of these persons of distinction? 
 If I am not mistaken, the elderly gentleman on the 
 third row on the right towards the door is no less 
 an individual than Cuttell, who poisoned a whole 
 family at Wandsworth. High-minded and cour- 
 teous person as he undoubtedly was, I must say 
 Cuttell certainly looks less outre now he is dead, 
 
 174 
 
TO THE PRISON 
 
 and more in harmony with his surroundings, than 
 when he entered this room, and asked me in a 
 mincing tone, with all the aitches misplaced, 
 whether in my opinion any obstacle would be raised 
 against his getting his evening clothes out of pawn, 
 as he desired to wear them in the dock during his 
 trial." 
 
 " For the love of pity, spare me! " cried North- 
 cote, pressing his fingers into his ears, " or I shall 
 run away." 
 
 " The gentleman with the protruding lip on the 
 second shelf towards the window is, unless my eyes 
 deceive me, one Bateman, who slaughtered his 
 maiden aunt with a chopper and buried her in a 
 drain — " 
 
 Northcote spared himself further details in the 
 history of Mr. Bateman by laying violent hands 
 upon his counterfeit presentment, and hurling it 
 with terrific force against the iron window bar, 
 whence it fell to the floor in a thousand pieces. 
 
 " Upon my soul, I have a great mind to go 
 through the lot," he said, livid with fury. 
 
 " Pray do so, by all means, dear boy," said Mr. 
 Whitcomb, with that unction which never forsook 
 him, " and you will find your art-loving countrymen 
 will avenge this outrage upon the private and pecul- 
 iar form of their culture by one day insisting that 
 your own effigy is placed on these historic shelves." 
 
 175 
 
XIX 
 
 THE ACCUSED 
 
 Renewed assaults upon these interesting objets 
 d'art were averted by sounds outside in the cor- 
 ridor. Northcote imposed a superhuman control 
 on all his faculties that his agitation might be re- 
 strained, when the door opened and two shadowy 
 figures, barely visible at first, crept silently into the 
 darkness of the room. 
 
 The two figures were those of women. By the 
 time Northcote had evoked a sufficient force of 
 will to meet their outline, the one that first en- 
 countered his glance was so brutalized and repul- 
 sive that his eyes were detained with a fascinated 
 sense of horror. It belonged to a creature that was 
 degraded, squat, coarse, insensitive. He felt almost 
 the same reluctance in approaching it as he would a 
 cobra. 
 
 She, however, was not the one whom Mr. Whit- 
 comb, with all the polished readiness of the thor- 
 oughgoing man of the world, had advanced to 
 meet, and to whom he had held out his hand. The 
 young man heard with stupefaction, while his own 
 gaze remained riveted to the features of the sibyl, 
 the bland and courtier-like tones of the solicitor 
 caressing and paying homage to a figure in the 
 background, a figure which was still and silent, 
 which he could not see. 
 
 This person, however, had no interest for North- 
 176 
 
THE ACCUSED 
 
 cote; she was so obviously the female warder who 
 had accompanied the murderess. One so charac- 
 terless, so formless, could not be said to exist in 
 the presence of this detaining horror, whose per- 
 sonality thickened, as with pestilence, the noisome 
 air of the room. And it was this obscene life that 
 he had pledged himself to save! 
 
 Strangely, this blunt fact did not dominate his 
 consciousness in the manner it must have done one 
 of a less alert perception. For with a perversity 
 that transcended the will, at this moment his 
 thoughts were overspread by the comedy that was 
 being enacted by the suave lips of the soHcitor. 
 The harmonious stream of mellow commonplaces 
 that Mr. Whitcomb was pouring into the ear of 
 the shrinking official nonentity who kept in the 
 background accosted his sense of the comic with 
 a kind of lugubrious irony. With a critical detach- 
 ment which even startled himself, he seemed to 
 awake to the fact that he was standing outside his 
 milieu, that he was witnessing a drama within a 
 drama; and he found himself in possession of the 
 singular reflection that here was a robust yet deli- 
 cate adumbration of the farcical which would make 
 the fortune of a writer for the stage. For there 
 was something indescribably ludicrous in the rich 
 voice of the solicitor enunciating his own private 
 opinions upon the weather, the state of trade, the 
 inconvenience of winter and its bearing upon the 
 perennial problem of the unemployed, when the 
 grotesque horror which dominated the room was at 
 his elbow, emitting the glances of a venomous 
 snake. 
 
 177 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Suddenly Northcote heard Mr. Whitcomb call 
 his name. 
 
 " Come here, Mr. Northcote ; I want to introduce 
 you." 
 
 In a hazy, stupefied manner the young man 
 obeyed. 
 
 " Mrs. Harrison," said the solicitor, " allow me 
 to present my friend Mr. Northcote. I feel sure 
 you will find a friend in him too." 
 
 The advocate grew aware that a weak, nerveless 
 hand was resting in his, but his eyes were still 
 riveted on the face of the ghoul. 
 
 " Say something, you fool, and play up a bit," 
 said the solicitor's calm voice in his ear. 
 
 " Er — a nice day, Mrs. Harrison," said the 
 young man, without knowing a word he was utter- 
 ing. 
 
 " Yes," said a hesitating voice, which by no pos- 
 sibility could have proceeded from the tightly 
 closed lips of the creature whom his gaze was de- 
 vouring. 
 
 The words broke the illusion at a blow. The bru- 
 talized countenance under whose dominion he had 
 fallen was that of the female warder. The person 
 with whom the solicitor had been conversing with 
 such cheerful volubility, to whom he was now him- 
 self speaking, was the poisoner, the cold-blooded 
 denizen of the curb and the gutter. He drew his 
 hand away quickly, with an involuntary emotion, 
 from those hot, flabby, and damp fingers that he 
 still detained. 
 
 " I know, I know," the woman seemed to 
 breathe, as though she were interpreting an un- 
 spoken thought. 
 
 178 
 
THE ACCUSED 
 
 " I may tell you, Mrs. Harrison," said the solici- 
 tor, with his well-fed chuckle, " that if your knowl- 
 edge can compare with that of this gentleman, you 
 are one of the wisest persons in the world. He 
 will tell you so himself." 
 
 So crude a gibe had the happy effect of restoring 
 to Northcote his self-possession. 
 
 " My name is not known, Mrs. Harrison," he 
 said, with his fibres stiffening, and his voice grow- 
 ing deeper and falling under control, " but you can 
 trust me to eke out my inexperience with a deter- 
 mination to serve you to the utmost of my power." 
 
 Northcote saw that two luminous orbs were be- 
 ing defined slowly in the centre of the gloom. For 
 an instant no reply was made to his words, and then 
 he was conscious that a faint voice was whispering, 
 "If your friend would go right away with the 
 warder — right away to the end of the room, then 
 perhaps we could speak with one another here 
 where it is so dark." 
 
 " Whitcomb," said Northcote, in a low tone, 
 " please take the warder right up to the window at 
 the other end, where you can see to read, and read 
 the Law journal to her." 
 
 " How d'ye do, ma'am," said the solicitor, turn- 
 ing to the ghoul in his promptest, blandest, and 
 most musical manner. *' I think it has been my 
 privilege to meet you before, although you may not 
 remember me. Is that boy of yours prospering in 
 the police force? " 
 
 '* I haven't got a boy in the police force," said the 
 sibyl, in a loud, strident tone. 
 
 " Then which of your blood relations is it, may 
 
 179 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 I ask, who is connected with the police force? I 
 am sure you have some one." 
 
 " I have an uncle." 
 
 "Ah, to be sure, an uncle ! But it is so easy to 
 make a mistake on a point of official nepotism. 
 Come along this way, ma'am, and tell me all about 
 your uncle." 
 
 x8o 
 
XX 
 
 THE INTERVIEW 
 
 Prisoner and advocate were left together amid 
 recesses of impenetrable gloom in the darkest cor- 
 ner of the large apartment. It seemed to enfold 
 them, and to render the pallor of their faces almost 
 invisible. The eyes alone encountered those of 
 each other, and even these could embody no phase 
 of meaning. A strange continence, as sharp and 
 clean as that of a hero of fable, had begun to 
 cleanse the veins of the advocate. In the presence 
 of this stealthy thing his nature had never seemed 
 so fine, so valiant, so full of subtle penetration ; nor 
 had it ever felt so girt with mastery, so completely 
 enamored of its own security. 
 
 " I shall know what words to speak to-morrow,'' 
 he said, in a hoarse undertone. 
 
 "Will they not be spoken for yourself?" whis- 
 pered the dismal low voice. 
 
 " How ? In what manner ? " 
 
 " You will speak to make a name." 
 
 " Also for the salvation of yours." 
 
 " Mine does not matter; it is not my own." 
 
 " You trust me, do you not? " 
 
 " I trust you ; yet you drew your hand away so 
 quickly when you knew it was not the warder who 
 was the murderess. Give it to me again." 
 
 There was something so curious in the prisoner's 
 fragility, something so strange in her cowed air, 
 
 i8i 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 that it seemed to pervade the advocate with the 
 stealth of a drug. But the emotion of disgust with 
 which he had withdrawn his hand when first he 
 grew conscious that he touched her was no longer 
 present when he offered it again. The second time 
 she clasped her fingers round it so that their pres- 
 sure seemed to sear his skin. It had the heat of a 
 live coal. 
 
 In releasing his hand she let her fingers yield it 
 so imperceptibly that he did not know the precise 
 point at which it had ceased to be held ; and he was 
 afraid to make a motion of withdrawal, lest it 
 should be interpreted as a repetition of that which 
 had dealt her a wound. He tried to see her face, 
 but in the darkness there was no lineament to de- 
 cipher. 
 
 " This is my deliverer," he heard her breathe. 
 
 " How have you come to know it? " The advo- 
 cate was devoured by an intolerable curiosity. 
 
 " Your hands — your hands, they are so power- 
 ful; are you not so strong?" 
 
 There was nothing in these words that the advo- 
 cate had expected ; the voice, the manner of their ut- 
 terance, their apparent irrelevance, made a strange 
 effect in his ears. 
 
 " They will not do me to death," she said, in a 
 tone he could hardly hear. " I never tasted life 
 until I was brought into prison. And you cannot 
 think how sweet it is to me. Everything has be- 
 come so beautiful : the birds, the trees, and the sky, 
 and the crowds of people and the mud of the great 
 city." 
 
 She clutched the hand of the young advocate 
 with a convulsive shudder. 
 
 182 
 
THE INTERVIEW 
 
 " Your quietness tells me that you understand." 
 Her voice was touched with ecstasy. ** You do not 
 answer or seek to console me. You are the one I 
 have dreamed of in prison. Where is your 
 hand?" 
 
 Again Northcote yielded to her entreaty, this 
 time without a sense of repulsion. 
 
 " Yes, this is the hand that has been around me 
 in the darkness^ when I have shuddered in my 
 dreams." 
 
 " It is wonderful," said Northcote, " that you 
 should know that you will be able to lean upon me." 
 
 " I know what your voice is like also, although 
 it is so vague and distant to me now. I know the 
 words it will speak to-morrow, when it asks them 
 to be merciful. I know that all I have seen in my 
 dreams will take place." 
 
 " It must be a grievous thing to go to sleep in a 
 prison," said Northcote, uttering a half-formed 
 thought without consideration of his words. " Or 
 perhaps it is more dreadful to awaken in one." 
 
 " The going to sleep and the awakening are not 
 so terrible as the dreams that come. That in which 
 I saw you first, in which I first heard your voice, 
 in which I first touched the hand that will deliver 
 me, was most dreadful in its nature. My weak 
 mind fell down under it. I think I could not live 
 through such a vision again." 
 
 " How strange are these visitations ! " said 
 Northcote. " How awful, how mysterious ! When 
 did this dream come to you ? " 
 
 " Last night about the hour of ten; the first time 
 I had closed my eyes for three days." 
 
 Northcote recoiled with a shudder. The precis- 
 
 183 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 ion of the voice and the power of the coincidence 
 were overmastering". 
 
 " There is no accounting for these things," he 
 said, in a voice throbbing with excitement. '' At 
 the same hour I also had a strange, an almost ter- 
 rible sort of vision." 
 
 " Yes, my deliverer, you have been called into my 
 life to save it — to save that life which never had 
 a perfect thought until it was brought into prison. 
 It did not know v/hat the trees and the sky were, 
 nor the air and the birds; never had it heard a 
 deep voice nor touched a strong hand. You are he 
 that leaped out of the vast multitude that mocked 
 me in my dream, he who stood up before it, and, 
 with a great voice that sounded like the waves of 
 the sea, caused them all to break and run. They 
 grew afraid of your words and your looks, and they 
 fled in terror. Yes, my life has become so full of 
 beauty and meaning, so full of a spacious mystery, 
 that I cannot believe it is to be taken away." 
 
 These words, breathed rather than spoken, 
 sounded in the ear of Northcote as those of a tran- 
 scendent sanity. Remote as they were, they yet ap- 
 peared divinely appropriate to the time and place. 
 But they left only one course for him to follow. 
 He must detach himself from the unhappy speaker 
 of them; he must flee her presence. Their edge 
 was too keen. There would be no advocacy on the 
 morrow if he yielded to the subtle enervation of 
 this atmosphere. The voice pierced him like a 
 passion, yet his veins had grown sluggish and 
 heavy, as if under the influence of a drug. 
 
 184 
 
XXI 
 
 THE TALISMAN WHICH TRANSCENDS EXPERIENCE 
 
 Calling the name of the solicitor, Northcote 
 broke away abruptly from the prisoner and left the 
 room. It had seemed to be charged with a pesti- 
 lence. Mr. Whitcomb was soon at his side, and 
 hastily they wended their way up and down various 
 flights of stone steps, along the noisome corridors 
 of the huge building, until daylight came in sight 
 once more through the doorway at the end of the 
 passage at which their cab was standing. Their 
 relief was very real at being able to breathe again 
 the living air, fog-laden as it was. 
 
 " I don't know how many times," said Mr. Whit- 
 comb, as they drove from the portals of the jail, 
 " on one errand and another, I have descended into 
 this inferno, but it never loses its power to give me 
 the blues." 
 
 " I am regretting," said Northcote, " that I did 
 not take your advice. I wish I had not come near 
 it. I cannot shake off the impression it has made. 
 Ugh! it gets into one's blood. I don't know any- 
 thing quite so overpowering as the nausea of 
 locality." 
 
 " You are too impressionable, my son," said the 
 solicitor, with a furtive smile. " You will never be 
 able to get through life at this rate. It wants one 
 of some hardihood, one who is robust in each one 
 of his five senses, to practise law." 
 
 185 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " I would say," Northcote rejoined, with a shud- 
 der, " that to be armed for this calHng each par- 
 ticular nerve he has got in his body must be shod 
 with iron." 
 
 The solicitor laughed at so palpable a discom- 
 posure. 
 
 ''What did you make of the prisoner?" he 
 asked, suddenly. " You appeared to find a great 
 deal to say to one another." 
 
 " Personally I hardly spoke a word to her," said 
 the young man, seeking to gather his recollection 
 of that strange interview. 
 
 " She appeared to find a good deal to say to 
 you," said the solicitor. " In that respect you have 
 been more fortunate than myself. I have spoken 
 with her three times, and I don't think I have 
 been able to extract three words from her. Do you 
 mind telling me what she said ? " 
 
 " To the best of my remembrance she said noth- 
 ing that could have the least interest for anybody." 
 
 " Tell me, what impression of her have you 
 brought away ? " 
 
 " I hardly know whether she allowed me to form 
 one. Our communication seemed so indirect. She 
 kept her face in the shadow all the time; I could 
 not discern a feature." 
 
 " Surely you were able to gather some sort of 
 general idea ? " 
 
 " That is the strange thing — I seem to have 
 formed no opinion about her. One would not 
 have thought it conceivable that one should have 
 conversed with a person, dealt at least in an actual 
 exchange of words at close quarters, and that they 
 should remain so null. I think I should have been 
 
 i86 
 
THE TALISMAN 
 
 better acquainted with her had I not seen her at 
 all." 
 
 " Come, my dear fellow, you can surely recall 
 a word or two of what she said? She is an 
 enigma; and she is said not to have spoken six 
 words since she was first remanded in custody." 
 
 ** That certainly makes the volubility in which 
 she indulged this afternoon the more astonish- 
 mg. 
 
 " Indeed it does. Would you say that she ex- 
 pects an acquittal ? " 
 
 " Well, now you come to mention that, I would 
 say she does." 
 
 " It is an extraordinary thing that they are all 
 so sanguine. It hardly ever seems to occur to any of 
 them that by any possibility they can meet with 
 their deserts. Indeed, one might say the bigger the 
 criminal, the greater their confidence that they will 
 escape." 
 
 " I am going to ask you what opinion you have 
 formed of her," said Northcote. 
 
 " It follows the lines of your own. When I have 
 come into personal contact with her, I have been 
 able to make rather less than nothing of her. At 
 first I thought she seemed sullen, and quite recon- 
 ciled to her position, indeed, that she was too cal- 
 lous to care about anything; but upon seeing her 
 to-day, I was rather struck by the fact that her 
 attitude had undergone a change." 
 
 *' How long has she been in prison ? " 
 
 " Nearly three months. She is an odd sort of 
 creature — her former associates are agreed upon 
 that — and doubtless some sort of change has taken 
 place in her. I am more than ever convinced that 
 
 187 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 insanity is your line; and by this time it should 
 not be too much to hope that you are." 
 
 " She will expect her liberty." 
 
 " She will expect ! My dear boy, it is when you 
 permit yourself to talk in this fashion that you 
 fill one with so much distrust. Her position en- 
 titles her to expect nothing." 
 
 " No sort of doubt overtakes you then in regard 
 to her guilt?" 
 
 " None. I have suggested that to you over and 
 over again. My dear fellow, it is as I feared ; you 
 have not permitted yourself a due appreciation of 
 the overwhelming nature of the evidence. I do 
 not see how she can hope to escape; and this is 
 pretty plain speaking on the part of her attorney. 
 Just look at the array of facts — her course of life, 
 her purchase of the poison, the result of the post- 
 mortem, the presence of motive. Again and again 
 I have felt it to be my duty to suggest to you that 
 Tobin would not have attempted to shake the evi- 
 dence." 
 
 " Well, you must permit me to say that, reflect 
 upon the question as I will, it does not seem easy 
 to reconcile the woman in that room with the cold- 
 blooded monster who will be presented to the jury." 
 
 " That phenomenon is by no means rare. It has 
 been my fortune to undertake the defence of more 
 than one finished example of moral obliquity who 
 has presented not the least indication of such a con- 
 dition. Besides, do you not admit that the im- 
 pression that this woman made upon you was one 
 of absolute nullity? Were you not unable to divine 
 anything in regard to her ? " 
 
 " Yes, that was my first feeling; but I am now 
 i88 
 
THE TALISMAN 
 
 confessing that after all, in some mysterious way, 
 she has contrived to shake these preconceived ideas 
 about her, now that from this distance I can view 
 the room and what transpired in it. I dare not 
 say by what means she has contrived to produce 
 this effect; indeed, it is so subtle that I can hardly 
 say what it amounts to, because if I begin to recall 
 her words she seems almost to have admitted her 
 guilt. Yet of one thing I am convinced — she 
 presented no evidence of her depravity." 
 
 " One can easily concede the probability of that." 
 
 " Yes, but had it been as complete as you insist, 
 I must have seen it." 
 
 " Pardon me, but I am afraid it does not fol- 
 low. What is easier than to hide its traces from 
 the eyes of inexperience ? " 
 
 " Have I not the talisman in my pocket which 
 transcends experience?" 
 
 " Talisman be damned," said Mr. Whitcomb, 
 with a jovial brutality. 
 
 Before his companion could frame an answer to 
 a scorn so unconciliatory, the hansom stopped be- 
 fore the offices of Messrs. Whitcomb and Whit- 
 comb. They alighted together. 
 
 189 
 
XXII 
 
 LIFE OR DEATH 
 
 The final consultation of Northcote and his 
 client took place in the open street in the heavily 
 raining December afternoon, with their backs 
 against l^lr. Whitcomb's brass plate. The spot se- 
 lected for their last utterances on this momentous 
 affair was incongruous indeed, but each had grown 
 so impatient of the other, that if their last words 
 were spoken here, the clash of their mental states 
 was the less likely, to invite disaster than in a more 
 formal council-chamber of four walls. 
 
 The robust common sense of the solicitor had 
 never shown itself to be more incisive than now 
 as he stood with his back to his own door, under 
 a dripping umbrella, his hat pushed to the back of 
 his head, and his trousers turned up beyond his 
 ankles. His twenty years of immensely successful 
 practice, his exact knowledge of human nature, his 
 ruthless worldliness, his reverence for the hard 
 fact, stood forth here in the oddest contrast with 
 the somewhat '' special " and rarefied quality of 
 this youthful advocate whom he had seen fit to en- 
 trust with so important a case. 
 
 " It's a pity, it's a pity," he brought himself to say 
 at last, his veneer falling off a little under the stress 
 of his chagrin, and revealing a glimpse of the baffled 
 human animal beneath. " It is a serious mistake 
 to have made; but we have got to stand to it. 
 
 190 
 
LIFE OR DEATH 
 
 You are not the man for this class of work, to 
 speak bluntly. You are either too deep or you are 
 not deep enough. But as I say, we have got to 
 stand to it now. My last words will be to urge 
 you to put as good a face upon it as you can." 
 
 In other words," said Northcote, stiffening, 
 "you will look to me to do my best." 
 
 " I don't put it in that form exactly," said the 
 solicitor, midway between exasperation and a de- 
 sire to be courteous. *' I want you fully to ap- 
 preciate that you are handling an extremely tough 
 job, and I merely want you to make the best of 
 it, that's all." 
 
 '' I will tell you, Mr. Whitcomb," said North- 
 cote, striving in vain to avert the explosion that 
 had been gathering for so long, " that if it were 
 not now the eleventh hour, if I had not pledged 
 myself to this thing more deeply than you know, 
 if it were not a matter of life and death to me as 
 well as to your client, I would throw your brief 
 back at you rather than submit to this. It will 
 be time enough for you to get upon your platform 
 when I have made a hash of everything." 
 
 " Yes, I think you are entitled to say that," said 
 the solicitor impartially, having made a successful 
 effort to recapture his own serenity. " I have no 
 right to talk as I am doing; I have never done so 
 to any one else. I suspect you have got on my 
 nerves a bit." 
 
 " Yes, the whole matter throws back to the clash 
 of our temperaments," said Northcote, unable to 
 cloak his own irritation now that it had walked 
 abroad. "It is a pity that we ever attempted to 
 work together. Yet for one who envelops himself 
 
 191 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 in the serene air of reason, you are somewhat il- 
 logical, are you not? You enter the highways and 
 hedges in search of a particular talent; you have the 
 fortune to light upon it; and then you turn and 
 rend its unhappy possessor for possessing it." 
 
 " As I say, my dear boy, this particular talent 
 of yours — or is it your temperament? — you see 
 I am not up in these technical names — has got on 
 my nerves a little." 
 
 " And your temperament, my friend, to indulge 
 a tu quoque, is covered with a hard gritty outer coat- 
 ing, for which I believe the technical name is 
 ' practicality,' which positively sets one's teeth on 
 edge." 
 
 " So be it ; we part with mutual recriminations. 
 But this is my last word. Firmly as I believe I 
 have committed an error of judgment, if to-mor- 
 row you can prove that I have deceived myself, 
 you will not find me ungrateful. I can speak no 
 fairer; and this you must take for my apology. 
 It is not too much to say that since I have come 
 to know you I have ceased to recognize myself." 
 
 " I accept your amende,'' said Northcote, with- 
 out hesitation. " I see I have worried you, but if 
 I might presume to address advice to the fount of 
 all experience, never, my dear Mr. Whitcomb, at- 
 tempt to formulate a judgment upon that which 
 you cannot possibly understand." 
 
 " After to-morrow there is a remote chance that 
 I may come to heed your advice. In the meantime 
 we will shake hands just to show that malice is 
 not borne. Don't forget that you will be the first 
 called to-morrow, at half-past ten. It is quite 
 likely to last all day." 
 
 192 
 
LIFE OR DEATH 
 
 The solicitor turned into his offices and North- 
 cote sauntered along Chancery Lane. The twilight 
 which had enveloped the city all day was now 
 yielding to the authentic hues of evening. The 
 dismal street-lamps were already lit, the gusts of 
 rain, sleet, and snow of the previous night had 
 been turned into a heavy downpour which had 
 continued without intermission since the morn- 
 ing. The pavements were bleached by the action 
 of water, but a miasma arose from the overbur- 
 dened sewers, whose contents flowed among the 
 traffic and were churned by its wheels into a paste 
 of black mud. Northcote was splashed freely with 
 this thick slushy mixture, even as high as his face, 
 by the countless omnibuses; and in crossing from 
 one pavement to another he had a narrow escape 
 from being knocked down by a covered van. 
 
 It was in no mood of courage that the young 
 man pushed his way to his lodgings through the 
 traffic and the elbowing crowds who thronged the 
 narrow streets. Even the mental picture that was 
 thrown before his eyes of this garret which had 
 already devoured his youth had the power to make 
 him feel colder than actually he was. Never had 
 he felt such a depression in all the long term of 
 his privation as now in wending his way towards 
 it laboriously, heavily, with slow-beating pulses. 
 
 He was sore, disappointed, angry ; his pride was 
 wounded by the attitude of his client. His self- 
 centred habit caused him to take himself so much 
 for granted, that at first he could discern no reason 
 for this volte-face. In his view it was inconsid- 
 erate to withhold the moral support of which at this 
 moment he stood so much in need. Truly the lot 
 
 193 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 of obscurity was hard ; its penalties were of a kind 
 to bring many a shudder to a proud and sensitive 
 nature. The patronizing insolence of one whom he 
 despised was beginning to fill him with a bootless 
 rage, yet in his present state how impotent he was 
 before it. He must suffer such things, and suffer 
 them gladly, until that hour dawned in which his 
 powers announced themselves. 
 
 That time was to-morrow — terrible, all-pierc- 
 ing, yet entrancing thought! The measure of his 
 talent would then be proclaimed. Yet all in an in- 
 stant, like a lightning-flash shooting through dark- 
 ness, for the first time the true nature of his task 
 was revealed to him. Doubt took shape, sprang 
 into being. Its outline seemed to loom through 
 the dismal shadows cast by the lamps in the street. 
 Who and what was he, after all, in comparison 
 with a task of such immensity? With startling 
 and overwhelming force the solicitor's meaning was 
 suddenly unfolded to him. 
 
 He took himself for granted no more. He must 
 be mad to have gone so far without having paused 
 to subject himself to the self-criticism that is so 
 salutary. How could he blame the solicitor whose 
 eminently practical mind had resented this inac- 
 cessibility to the ordinary rules of prudence? Was 
 he not the veriest novice in his profession, without 
 credentials of any kind? And yet he arrogated 
 to himself the right to embark upon a line of con- 
 duct that was in direct opposition to the prompt- 
 ings of a mature judgment. 
 
 How could he have been so sure of this supreme 
 talent? It had never been brought to test. The 
 only measure of it was his scorn of others, the 
 
 194 
 
LIFE OR DEATH 
 
 scorn of the unsuccessful for those who have suc- 
 ceeded. The passion with which it had endowed 
 him was nothing more, most probably, than a 
 monomania of egotism. How consummate was the 
 folly which could mistake the will for the deed, 
 the vaulting ambition for the thing itself! 
 
 On the few occasions, some seven or eight in all, 
 in which he had turned an honest guinea, mostly 
 at the police-court, he had betrayed no surprising 
 aptitude for his profession. There had been times, 
 even in affairs so trivial, when his highly strung 
 nervous organization had overpowered the will. 
 He had not been exempt from the commission of 
 errors; he recalled with horror that once or twice 
 it had fallen to his lot to be put out of counte- 
 nance by his adversary; while once at least he had 
 drawn down upon himself the animadversions of 
 the presiding deity. Surely there was nothing in 
 this rather pitiful career to provide a motive for 
 this overweening arrogance. 
 
 He grew the more amazed at his own hardihood 
 as he walked along. To what fatal blindness did 
 he owe it that from the beginning his true position 
 had not been revealed to him? Where were the 
 credentials that fitted him to undertake a task so 
 stupendous ? What achievement had he to his name 
 that he should venture to launch his criticisms 
 against those who had been through the fray and 
 had emerged victorious? How could he have 
 failed to appreciate that abstract theory was never 
 able to withstand the impact of experience! It 
 was well enough in the privacy of his garret to 
 conceive ideas and to sustain his faculties with 
 dreams of a future that could never be, but once 
 
 195 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 in the arena, when the open-mouthed lion of the 
 actual lay in his path, he would require arms more 
 puissant than these. 
 
 To overcome those twin dragons Tradition and 
 Precedent, behind which common and vulgar minds 
 entrenched themselves so fearlessly, the sword of 
 the sophist would not avail. It would snap in his 
 fingers at the first contact with these impenetrable 
 hides. His blade must be forged of thrice-welded 
 steel if he were to have a chance on the morrow. 
 He had decided to promulgate like a second Na- 
 poleon the doctrine of force, and for his only 
 weapon he had chosen a dagger of lath. Well 
 might Mr. Whitcomb smile with contempt. Where 
 would he find himself if he dared to preach the 
 most perilous of gospels, if he could not support 
 it with an enormous moral and physical power? 
 
 For years he had dwelt in a castle which he had 
 built out of air, secure in the belief that he was en- 
 dowed in ample measure with attributes whose 
 operations were so diverse yet so comprehensive, 
 that in those rare instances in which they were 
 united they became superhuman in their reach. An 
 Isaiah or a Cromwell did not visit the world once 
 in an era. How dare such a one as he fold his 
 nakedness in the sacred mantle of the gods! It 
 was the act of one whose folly was too rank even 
 to allow him to pose as a charlatan. If he ven- 
 tured to deliver one-half of these astonishing words 
 he had prepared for the delectation of an honest 
 British jury, these flatulent pretensions would be 
 unveiled, he would be mocked openly, his ruin 
 would be complete and irretrievable. 
 
 Never had irresolution assailed him so power- 
 196 
 
LIFE OR DEATH 
 
 fully. This review at the eleventh hour of the un- 
 warrantable estimate he had formed of himself 
 rendered it imperative that he should change his 
 plans. The opinion of others, acknowledged mas- 
 ters of the profession in which he was so humble 
 a tyro, was incontrovertible. Evidence in support 
 of a perfectly rational plea was provided for him, 
 would be ready in court. His client had demanded 
 that it should be used. To disregard that demand 
 would be to rebuff his only friend, one of great 
 influence who had been sent to his aid in his direst 
 hour. And it was for nothing better than a whim 
 that he was prepared to yield his all. No principle 
 was at stake, no sacrifice of dignity was involved. 
 That which his patron had asked of him was so 
 natural, so admirably humane, that the mere act 
 of refusal would be rendered unpardonable unless 
 it were vindicated by complete success. No other 
 justification was possible, not only in the eyes of 
 himself and in those of his client, but no less was 
 exacted of him by the hapless creature whose life 
 was in his keeping. 
 
 Stating it baldly, let him fail in the superhuman 
 feat which had been imposed upon him by a disease 
 which he called ambition, and this wretched woman 
 would expiate his failure upon the gallows. Had 
 any human being a right to incur such a penalty, 
 a right to pay such a price in the pursuit of his 
 own personal and private aims ? The middle course 
 was provided for him. It would deliver the ac- 
 cused and himself from this intolerable peril; it 
 opened up a path of safety for them both. 
 
 Already he could observe with a scarifying clear- 
 ness, that here and now, at the eleventh hour, he 
 
 197 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 must defer to the irresistible impact of the circum- 
 stances. The risk was too grave ; he was thrusting 
 too cruel a responsibility upon his flesh and blood. 
 He must hasten to make terms with that grossly 
 material world of the hard fact which he scorned 
 so much. He must submit to one of those pitiful 
 compromises which he yearned to defy; and in 
 so doing he must betray a talent which had in- 
 flicted indescribable torments upon him. 
 
 His address to the jury of his countrymen, that 
 surprising impromptu prepared at leisure, must be 
 given up. Not a word could be used of this demand 
 for an acquittal which was to mark an epoch in 
 English justice. He must begin again on a lower 
 note. 
 
 Just before reaching the archway through which 
 he had to pass to reach his own door, he turned 
 into a post-office, and despatched to his mother 
 two sovereigns out of the ten he had received from 
 the solicitor. Enclosing a scrap of paper with the 
 order, he wrote these words upon it : " My first 
 great case is called to-morrow. Life or death for 
 Prisoner and Advocate — which?" Having posted 
 the letter he ascended the stairs to his garret. 
 
 He groped his way up to it. Shuddering with 
 despair he unlocked the door and flung it open. An 
 impenetrable darkness covered the room. He stood 
 on the threshold searching his damp clothes for a 
 match. He found a solitary one sequestered in a 
 corner of a pocket; but all attempts to strike it 
 failed. He then proceeded to grope his way for- 
 ward through the room, reached the table, and after 
 knocking down several articles was able to place his 
 hand upon that which he sought. He kindled a 
 
 198 
 
LIFE OR DEATH 
 
 light, and the lamp having been replenished with 
 oil that morning was able to maintain it. The fire 
 had burned out long ago; all the coal had been 
 used, and the fresh quantity he had purchased had 
 not arrived. His overcoat was soaked with rain, 
 his trousers were damp, and the room had already 
 become cold. He rummaged out an old sweater 
 that had stood him in good stead in his football 
 days, from a box beneath the bed, removed his wet 
 overcoat and pulled this garment over his jacket. 
 He then filled his pipe and sat down beside the 
 lamp. 
 
 199 
 
XXIII 
 
 PREPARATION 
 
 He had taken his new resolve outside in the rain ; 
 and it behoved him now to utiHze these few remain- 
 ing hours in putting it into shape. Rejecting the 
 demand for the Hberty of this wretched woman 
 he must consent to the verdict being given against 
 her, and place his hope in the clemency of the court. 
 
 For two inexpressibly weary hours he strove 
 with clenched lips to piece together and elaborate 
 this new line; but in spite of all his efforts it was 
 so dull and lifeless that the task seemed beyond him. 
 Whatever talent he possessed it was only too clear 
 that so vacillating a method of defence was quite 
 out of harmony with its workings. This way and 
 that he twisted each listless uninspired suggestion, 
 but at each laborious attempt it grew less possible 
 to breathe upon their dry bones and create them 
 into living flesh. These maimed and halting emen- 
 dations were as far removed from the swift and 
 audacious repleteness of the original as to express 
 the difference between light and dark. 
 
 It was the difference between life and death. The 
 one was informed with the living breath, a vital 
 and a surprising piece of art; the other was cold 
 and heavy, a confection of wormwood and ditch- 
 water. A bitter chagrin overcame him when he 
 saw all that his resolve implied. He would be sent 
 into court dumb, tongue-tied — he with a philippic 
 
 200 
 
PREPARATION 
 
 against injustice packed away at the back of his 
 brain. This would mark the end of the ambition 
 that had nourished the fires of his heart through 
 full many a weary winter's day. 
 
 The new words would not glow; they were so 
 much sound without meaning. Yet the new words 
 were the true words. They embodied the actual; 
 they stood for the established fact in its impartial 
 fearlessness; they were the servants of justice. 
 That the accused had committed the crime was clear 
 to the meanest intelligence. It only remained for 
 her advocate to announce her guilt and to pray for 
 mercy. Yet the phrases in which he shaped this 
 bald proposition crept to his lips as false, devious, 
 and dishonorable. 
 
 The old words conceived in sophistry were burn- 
 ing things, brilliant with the blood and flame of 
 their emotion. Beneath them paradox itself stood 
 forth as but a subtler knowledge. The accent of 
 conviction made these words resonant, these words 
 whose design was to pervert and mislead. They 
 were breaking in constantly upon the dull and tor- 
 tured phrases which he was striving to weave, the 
 insensitive phrases whose function it was to embody 
 immaculate truth. The commonest platitudes were 
 not so stale as these. At last with a cry of rage 
 he spurned them vehemently from his mind. 
 
 Indeed, the only purpose that was served by these 
 endeavors was to prove to the unhappy advocate 
 that his nature must be allowed to obey its instincts. 
 He must fulfil his destiny. To that acute intelli- 
 gence it had come to seem that truth and untruth 
 were identical. It would seem to be bom for icon- 
 oclasm, for demolition; let it leave to less sophis- 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 ticated minds the championship of outworn ideas. 
 In this whirlpool of doubt in which he was en- 
 gulfed, his ideals, his instincts, all those mental 
 resources which garnish with dignity the most pro- 
 tean character, seemed to break from their moor- 
 ings; and in the very frenzy of this wreck of his 
 stability, there returned upon him in the guise of 
 one of those paradoxes which had become so fatal, 
 a newer, a franker, a more vital conception of his 
 power. 
 
 There returned in its train the arrogance of his 
 quality. It was not for one of the blood royal to 
 submit to dictation from the mediocrity it despised. 
 Its right was inalienable to obey the forces within 
 itself. He had felt from the first that it was in 
 his power to save this woman; the attorney's 
 doubts had intervened and for a time had over- 
 thrown his faith; but now he had come to believe 
 it again. The thing called " experience," that eter- 
 nal standby of the vulgar, was a mere tawdry sub- 
 stitute for intuition in the inferior orders. A great 
 talent incorporated experience within itself. He 
 must suffer no qualm on the score of his youth, 
 his absence of laurels. After all, this brief had been 
 evoked by the exercise of an imperious will in a 
 magic hour; had he not an immemorial right to 
 use it as he chose? Let him obey the divine fac- 
 ulty that had carried him so far, and then if fail 
 he must, at least his failure would be worthy of 
 himself. It was proper for common minds, desti- 
 tute of all force and originality, to subscribe to the 
 conventions which they set up to protect themselves. 
 Custom, usage, the accretions of centuries may even 
 hallow and exalt them until they assume the guise 
 
 202 
 
PREPARATION 
 
 of religions, but these simulations have nothing to 
 say to the royal among their kind. 
 
 This powerful impulse, whose impact upon the 
 mind of the advocate was almost terrible, merged 
 the surroundings in itself. Time and place were 
 obliterated; the evening was imperceptibly eaten 
 away. The clocks of the neighborhood gave out 
 the hour of midnight just as Northcote, gasping, 
 with all the breath driven out of his body, emerged 
 from the vortex to grasp his final decision. For 
 six hours he had not been sufficiently accessible to 
 the external to heed the hours as they struck. But 
 now, as the long-drawn strokes announced a new 
 day, a thrill of excitement convulsed his being. 
 The day of all days was at hand. He was stand- 
 ing on the very threshold of the issue. The dread 
 future was about to roll back its veil. Such an 
 emotion was cast upon him that he began to trem- 
 ble as violently as when he had driven with Mr. 
 Whitcomb to the prison. 
 
 He supposed that the chime of these clocks would 
 penetrate the walls behind which the unhappy 
 woman was lying awake. She also must be trem- 
 bling violently. Doubtless the poisoner and pros- 
 titute was dreaming again of her deliverer. The 
 idea overcame him with a curious poignancy which, 
 horrible as it was, was yet touched with ecstasy. 
 
 This was a creature who must expect no mercy 
 from the Pharisee; yet the living woman had a 
 power within herself to arouse a desire for it in 
 one who pretended to no exalted sympathy with 
 his species. In their interview in the prison he had 
 discerned nothing of vileness about her. And he 
 was fain to believe that she had dreamed in sober 
 
 203 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 verity of her advocate the previous night. Conjur- 
 ing up this memorable interview, which yet re- 
 mained so colorless that it seemed to have happened 
 only to the soul, the haunting low tones began to 
 speak through the silence of his room; and with 
 an impulse of joy that banished the horror of their 
 insistency he responded to the accents of their 
 truth. 
 
 A living voice had entered the room. It was 
 the same voice, and yet so much more resonant 
 than the one he had heard in the prison. The 
 senses of the advocate were strung to a point so 
 perilous that the luminous figure of a woman ap- 
 peared before them. This was she who had hud- 
 dled away into the shadows of the jail. The lamp 
 on the table, which with so much difficulty melted 
 the gloom within the area of its influence, framed 
 her contour with a kind of weird delicacy. Her 
 figure was veiled in a soft plasticity; it was that 
 of one who was in despair ; yet it had all the simple 
 trust of her sex, which it exhibits at those supreme 
 moments when nothing is left to it save to kneel 
 and to embrace its faith. It was a figure such as 
 this that rolled away the stone from the mouth of 
 the cave and discovered that the body of Jesus was 
 not there. 
 
 During the interview the young advocate had 
 known and understood little, but now, under the 
 spell of his passion, an ampler knowledge enfolded 
 him in its mantle. It is not until we look down 
 upon them from the altitude of some momentous 
 phase, that those moments which are destined to as- 
 sume a permanence in our lives become crystallized 
 into our mental history. The terror and the reti- 
 
 204 
 
PREPARATION 
 
 cence of this pitiable creature had pierced him like 
 a sword, yet it was not until this remote hour that 
 Northcote understood the miracle they had wrought 
 in his nature. 
 
 She must once have been fair under the eyes of 
 the sun; once slender, gracious, inhabited by chas- 
 tity. Her voice proclaimed a history that must 
 have been inexpressibly grievous. Yet the desire 
 for life was in her still. She was not prepared to 
 yield her interest in the mystery. Her words were 
 memorable: she had never understood anything 
 until she was brought into prison. Was it not meet 
 that this daughter of a hundred inhumanities should 
 now call to be released from the doom her fellows 
 had prepared for her. " I know you will save me, 
 my deliverer," were the words he still heard; and 
 they came upon his ear with more of authenticity 
 than when they first fell from those indescribable 
 lips. 
 
 He rose from the chair in which he had been 
 immersed so many hours. He was shuddering in 
 every vein. His fingers and limbs were petrified 
 with the coldness of the room; his damp trousers 
 were inflicting his ankles with rheumatic pains. 
 So stiff were his limbs through remaining in one 
 position for so long, that it cost him labor to cross 
 the room and open the window. 
 
 He thrust out his head and a rush of icy air 
 saluted his temples. The rain had ceased; the 
 clouds had dispersed; the heavens, charged with 
 a keen frost, were studded thickly with little dark 
 blue stars. Peering towards them eagerly North- 
 cote tried to decipher the names and positions of 
 these meaningless heads, until at last he came upon 
 
 20$ 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 one which was larger and brighter than the rest. 
 He was convinced that its locaHty would render 
 it plainly visible from the windows of the prison. 
 He fixed his gaze upon it with great intensity; he 
 knew the occupant of the prison had climbed up 
 to peer at it through the bars of her cell. 
 
 Although he had spent the previous night with- 
 out entering a bed, nothing would have enabled his 
 thoughts to seek sanctuary in sleep. The incan- 
 descent fervor of his mind would not allow him 
 to repose; and although a few hours hence he 
 would have to draw upon every spark of physical 
 energy he possessed, he had no fear of his bodily 
 limitations. He had the immense vitality of those 
 demigods among their kind, for whom no ascent 
 is too precipitous. He spent some time in vigorous 
 gymnastic exercises to drive the congealed blood 
 through his veins; and this accomplished, he felt 
 his strength return. 
 
 He passed the remaining portion of the night in 
 pacing his room, with a pipe fixed in his teeth and 
 his hands thrust beneath his white jersey into the 
 pockets of his trousers. Occasionally he ceased 
 these peregrinations for a few minutes at a time, 
 in order to write down some of the sentences as 
 they took shape in his mind. He desired to give 
 himself the aesthetic pleasure of seeing how they 
 looked on paper. Yet he did not propose to bestow 
 a literal preparation on this address, since he had 
 sufficient confidence in his fecundity of expression 
 to speak extempore and yet expect adequately to 
 traverse the scheme he had planned. Words 
 charged with emotion springing fresh and tingling 
 from the mist would increase their appeal by being 
 
 206 
 
PREPARATION 
 
 thrown off in the actual impulse by which they 
 were created. 
 
 When at last the old charwoman arrived at half- 
 past seven she was astonished to discover North- 
 cote walking about the room looking wild and 
 haggard and declaiming passages of the peroration. 
 He sent her out to borrow some coal; and when 
 she returned with it and proceeded to make a fire, 
 he ordered as on the previous day what they both 
 considered to be a sumptuous breakfast. While 
 this was preparing he retired to fit himself for that 
 ordeal to which he would so soon be called. 
 
 Even now, however, a palsy was on his limbs, 
 a fever in his blood. In the delicate operation of 
 shaving he was unable to conduct the razor firmly, 
 and cut his chin repeatedly. It was with infinite 
 difficulty that he could render himself presentable 
 after the various gashes it had undergone. After 
 expending not less than an hour on his toilet, and 
 conferring as much respectability upon his person 
 as lies within the province of soap and water and 
 clean linen, he sat down at the table hungry and 
 cold yet consumed with excitement. 
 
 " Mrs. Brown," he said to the old woman, " I 
 forgot to ask about that small grandchild of 
 yours." 
 
 " She is dead, sir." 
 
 "I am very sorry. When did this occur?" 
 
 " Last night, sir, about twelve. It is one mouth 
 less to feed, as you might say, but I think it might 
 have been my own." 
 
 ** But then there would have been no means of 
 feeding the others." 
 
 " Yes, sir, it was a wrong expression," said the 
 207 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 old woman in her precise manner. " It was not 
 what I meant to have said." 
 
 " Well, come now," said Northcote, " suppose 
 you try to eat some breakfast." 
 
 208 
 
XXIV 
 
 THE TRIAL 
 
 The old woman took her seat at the table obedi- 
 ently, but with a bewilderment as great as on the 
 previous day. It was very strange that incidents 
 such as these should arise to embellish her servi- 
 tude. 
 
 This morning, however, she was not tormented 
 with a string of questions. Northcote was silent, 
 gloomy, and haggard; something appeared to be 
 preying on his mind. The remorse he had shown 
 for having failed to ask how her grandchild was 
 seemed strange to her indeed, for until the previous 
 day he had always stood in her mind as a member 
 of the inaccessible classes. Something had ap- 
 peared to happen to him by which, in a few short 
 hours, the tenor and current of his life had been 
 changed. There was a terrible excitement burning 
 now under his pale skin; his eyes were restless, 
 his fingers were twitching, and he drank cup after 
 cup of the hot tea as though he were consumed 
 with an intolerable thirst. 
 
 When he had finished his breakfast he took his 
 wig and gown out of a cupboard, and placed them 
 together with his brief in a small black bag. He 
 was on the point of starting for the court, when 
 through the open door he could hear footsteps on 
 the stairs. Some one was coming up to the fourth 
 story, an incident so rare in the experience of its 
 
 209 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 occupant as always to be rendered memorable. In 
 an instant the jovial outline of the solicitor pre- 
 sented itself to his imagination. With an agitation 
 that was indescribable he foresaw that he was not 
 to be allowed to take the brief into court after 
 all. 
 
 Instead of Mr. Whitcomb, however, his visitor 
 proved to be a boy with a telegram. He tore it 
 out of its envelope. The contents were contained 
 in three words : " Life, my son." They were from 
 his mother. 
 
 With this omen in his heart he set forth. A 
 welcome change had taken place in the weather. 
 The air had become sharp and dry; already misty 
 beams were stealing out from the December sun. 
 The press in the streets was immense, but he 
 brushed through it with the elevating conscious- 
 ness that he was overcoming a real obstacle. In 
 his every fibre was the breath of contest, the joy 
 of battle. His mother's words, the faint beams 
 of the new day, the rattle of the traffic, all con- 
 spired to endow him with a ruthless determination. 
 
 If it was to be that defeat and confusion should 
 overtake him, at least he would not go out to greet 
 them half-way. Once and for all he had put off 
 those fears and misgivings that had tormented him. 
 A great commander storming an inaccessible posi- 
 tion does not pause to estimate the cost; he does 
 not pause to contemplate the inevitability of dis- 
 aster. He, too, would show himself of this quality: 
 a great commander of his lurid and revolted imag- 
 ination in the teeth of frightful odds. 
 
 He arrived at the Old Bailey at a quarter-past 
 ten. He did not allow himself to glance at its pro- 
 
 2IO 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 file, nor did he permit his mind to be distracted by 
 one of the thousand details, common, depressing, 
 and of no significance in themselves, yet likely to 
 be so ominous in their effect on high-strung nerves. 
 He passed from the barristers' robing-room as soon 
 as he could, for beyond everything he v^ished to 
 avoid contact with his kind. Yet to the majority 
 of those within its precincts he was not even known 
 by name; and he felt himself to be looked on 
 askance by all as a solitary, queer-headed fellow. 
 
 On entering the court he used great care in select- 
 ing his seat. It was in a situation from which he 
 felt he could command the attention of all present ; 
 from which the jury would lose nothing of what 
 he presented to it, and yet be sufficiently removed 
 to be unable to discern the more intimate workings 
 of his personality. Oratory like music demands a 
 certain space and distance in which and at which 
 to reveal itself. Before taking his seat he looked 
 all around him into every part of the building, in 
 order that he might familiarize himself with that 
 which lay about him. Every seat allotted to the 
 public was already in its occupation; the nature of 
 the charge was itself sufficient to stimulate its curi- 
 osity in the highest degree. Among the members 
 of the bar the interest was not so great. There 
 was said to be no defence worthy of the name; 
 the crime was of a common kind, presenting neither 
 rare nor curious features; the absence of Tobin, 
 the most brilliant common law advocate among the 
 younger men, had become known; and the case 
 was expected to be disposed of without difficulty. 
 Its main interest in the eyes of the junior bar cen- 
 tred around the man who had been asked to conduct 
 
 211 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 the defence. That one so obscure as Northcote 
 should have been chosen to fill the place of Tobin 
 in a murder case was one of those unexpected things 
 which furnished a theme for the critic's function; 
 a function which the majority of those in their 
 robes on the benches felt eminently qualified to 
 undertake. 
 
 Many were surprised, some were a little grieved, 
 and the ambitious were rather disconcerted that 
 Northcote should be entrusted with a brief of this 
 nature. Obscure as he was in practice, he had ac- 
 quired a kind of reputation at the bar mess as one 
 who was singularly unsocial in his habits. As the 
 brief in the first instance had been marked with 
 a figure large enough to command the services of 
 Tobin, the defence could not be wholly destitute 
 of means. It was strange that a firm so notoriously 
 astute as Whitcomb and Whitcomb should have 
 handed it to one of no experience when the ex- 
 tremely able counsel they had retained originally 
 had been compelled to throw up the case. There 
 was quite a number assembled in that court who 
 were far more competent to deal with it than this 
 young and unknown practitioner. In the opinion of 
 many, this circumstance was taken as the clearest 
 indication of all that the case had no life in it. 
 
 Hardly had Northcote taken his seat in the court 
 when he felt a hand on his shoulder; it belonged 
 to Mr. Whitcomb. 
 
 " No nonsense, now," he said anxiously. " The 
 witnesses are here, and we shall expect you to call 
 them." 
 
 " It is quite impossible for me to alter my line 
 at the last moment," said Northcote, while every 
 
 212 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 nerve he had in his body seemed to be ticking furi- 
 ously. " Besides," he added, in a hoarse whisper, 
 '' don't you see that if they are not called I shall 
 get the last word with the jury, as the attorney is 
 not in the case ? " 
 
 " Pray, what is the use of that? What will that 
 do for you? " 
 
 *' You must wait and see," said the young man, 
 with a red haze before his eyes. 
 
 " My dear fellow, I must insist on your calling 
 the witnesses." 
 
 " It is impossible," said the young man, in a 
 voice the solicitor could hardly hear. 
 
 '' Really, you know, this is carrying things too 
 far." 
 
 " I would to God," exclaimed the young advo- 
 cate, with his voice breaking in the middle in the 
 queerest manner, " you had never retained me at 
 all!" 
 
 This outburst of petulance conferred upon the 
 solicitor a renewed sense of the young man's situ- 
 ation. 
 
 '' Well, well,'* he rejoined, with a certain kind- 
 ness, " I suppose you must do as you please. A case 
 is not over until a verdict's brought in. But the 
 witnesses are here — -if you change mind." 
 
 The young advocate turned his haggard face and 
 bloodshot eyes upon his monitor, but his rejoinder, 
 whatever its nature, was banished from his lips by 
 the entrance of the judge. Almost in the same 
 instant the prisoner was put up. She was called 
 upon at once to plead to the indictment, " for that 
 she was accused of the wilful murder of Thomas 
 Henry Barron upon the 12th of September." In 
 
 213 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 a voice that was scarcely audible she pleaded, " I 
 am not guilty." 
 
 The jury was sworn immediately, and justice 
 proceeded on its course with considerable expedi- 
 tion. The case presented no feature that was war- 
 ranted to arrest the progress of the legal mind. 
 The woman's guilt was indisputable ; it was known 
 that the defence had nothing material to advance; 
 and even had it been placed more fortunately, it 
 was unlikely to be marshalled to advantage in its 
 present hands. The judge and the counsel for the 
 Treasury were at one in their eagerness to press 
 the opportunity of getting the case through, since 
 every few minutes they could rest from the course 
 of the public business was inexpressibly dear to 
 their hearts. They would be able to get off to a 
 week-end in the country by an earlier train. 
 
 Mr. Weekes, K. C, who led for the Treasury, 
 commenced briskly and volubly without the delay 
 of a moment. He was a small, thin man, with very 
 straight and attenuated hair, sandy in color, and 
 a pair of side-whiskers. A pair of gold pince-nez 
 suspended by a cord contrived by some means to 
 add to the quickness and irascibility of his frequent 
 gestures. His voice was keen and piercing and 
 somewhat metallic in sound; his language had 
 great facility but no distinction; his delivery was 
 rapid ; but manner, diction, appearance, were equally 
 destitute of style. 
 
 In opening the case to the jury, this expert occu- 
 pied less than an hour. He unfolded the nature 
 of the charge in easy, fluent, almost deprecating 
 terms. It amounted to this: the accused, whose 
 reticence in regard to her antecedents was impene- 
 
 214 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 trable, and whose age appeared on the charge-sheet 
 as thirty-nine, had for several years past cohabited 
 with the deceased, who had followed the profession 
 of a book-maker. 
 
 It was known that previous to this she had lived 
 the life of the streets. It would be shown by sev- 
 eral of her associates, who would be called in evi- 
 dence — women like herself of ill-fame — that 
 during the last year in which she had lived with 
 this man, she had more than once been heard to 
 express the determination '' to do for him." It 
 would appear that the man, although said to treat 
 her well enough at first, had latterly evinced signs 
 of growing tired of her. Further, he was a man 
 of intemperate habits, and on many occasions she 
 had been heard to complain with bitterness of his 
 violence and brutality towards her. 
 
 The accused had been aware that by the man's 
 will a sum of money had been left to her. She had 
 often, when in drink particularly, to which she also 
 was addicted, mentioned this fact boastfully to her 
 associates ; and a few days prior to the commission 
 of the crime had asserted in the presence of three 
 of them, " that if she did not mind what she was 
 about she would lose it, as he was always threaten- 
 ing to leave her." 
 
 On the afternoon of the tenth of September she 
 purchased a quantity of vegetable poison of a chem- 
 ist. On the evening of the eleventh the man sat 
 up drinking heavily into the small hours of the 
 morning; and at noon on the twelfth he expired 
 in the presence of a doctor, who had been fetched 
 by a maid servant, although the woman herself 
 had done her best to prevent a doctor from being 
 
 215 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 summoned. In the doctor's opinion the symptoms 
 pointed to death by poisoning. A post-mortem 
 was held the same afternoon; as the result of it 
 the woman was taken into custody, the house was 
 searched, and a quantity of strychnine was found 
 concealed in her bedroom. Subsequently the con-, 
 tents of the man's stomach was submitted to a pub- 
 lic analyst; and in his evidence he would testify 
 to the presence of strychnine in sufficient quantities 
 to cause death. 
 
 This was the case for the Crown. Evidence was 
 called in corroboration; first the detective who had 
 taken the woman into custody, and another who 
 had discovered the poison. These were examined 
 briefly by Mr. Topott, the junior counsel for th*e 
 Treasury. The doctors then described the cause of 
 death and the result of the post-mortem ; and these 
 were confirmed in their opinion by the analyst when 
 he came to describe the result of his researches. 
 All of these were soon disposed of, as Northcote 
 did not attempt a word in cross-examination. 
 
 Two of the members of the junior bar, young 
 men and critical, who were not disinclined to see 
 a personal affront in Northcote's preferment, were 
 not slow to note his passiveness, and to add it to 
 the estimate they had already formed of his in- 
 capacity. 
 
 " I never saw a fellow look in such a funk," said 
 the first of these gentlemen, one who had been nur- 
 tured in an atmosphere of wealth and influence, and 
 himself a former president of the Oxford Union. 
 " The case will be over by lunch." 
 
 " They are not wasting much time, certainly," 
 «aid his friend, the son of the Master of the Rolls. 
 
 216 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 Two maid servants were called in evidence, and 
 examined by Mr. Topott with the same convincing 
 brevity as the previous witnesses. Here again 
 Northcote refrained from cross-examination. 
 
 " Ought to do something," whispered the ex- 
 president in the ear of his friend. " Missing oppor- 
 tunities. Why don't he ask if she saw it admin- 
 istered?" 
 
 The chemist's assistant who had supplied the 
 poison, and who had identified the portion found 
 in the possession of the accused as part of that 
 which had been sold to her, also escaped without a 
 challenge. Five of her female associates were then 
 called one after another. Their evidence was ex- 
 tremely damning. With the skilled aid of the 
 junior counsel for the Crown, every rag of decency 
 was stripped from the woman in the dock. She 
 stood forth a veritable harpy and monster, several 
 shades more infamous than themselves. As one 
 after another of these witnesses was permitted to 
 stand down without being subjected to the ordeal 
 of cross-examination, the ex-president of the Ox- 
 ford Union was moved to express his personal dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 " Something might have been done with these, 
 at any rate." 
 
 " I think you are right," said his friend ; " but 
 what's the good, after all. It is a waste of time to 
 say anything." 
 
 " There is no defence, I am told." 
 
 " He will call evidence to show that she was sub- 
 ject to violent fits of passion when in drink." 
 
 " Ah, that is where Tobin will be missed. Really, 
 one is surprised at Whitcomb and Whitcomb." 
 
 217 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " They saw the futility of fighting, and are doing 
 it on the cheap." 
 
 " Poor brute ! But I don't altogether agree with 
 you. Something might have been done by a man 
 of ability. I should like to have seen, Tobin in 
 it." 
 
 " I don't think Tobin would have attempted to 
 touch their witnesses. We must wait till he calls 
 his own to see what he is worth." 
 
 At this moment, however, those who had con- 
 ducted this secret conversation had their curiosity 
 gratified by the spectacle of Northcote rising for 
 the first time. He got up heavily and wearily, as 
 though age had stricken him in every joint. His 
 face was almost painful in its pallor. The last 
 " unfortunate " had just made her half-audible re- 
 ply to the final question that had been put to her 
 by the amiable Mr. Topott. 
 
 " I believe you said you had been acquainted ten 
 years with the accused ? " said Northcote, in a voice 
 that was curiously low and gentle. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " During that period you had known her many 
 times to be under the influence of drink ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Would you say that drink excited her easily? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " That a very small quantity was sufficient to ex- 
 cite her?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And that when in this condition she was in- 
 clined to be very free in her speech ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Also she had a tendency to make use of expres- 
 218 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 sions that she was never known to permit herself 
 when perfectly sober ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " The same would apply to her statements when 
 in this excited condition ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "They were obvious exaggerations?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And some were pure inventions ? You knew 
 they were wholly untrue ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You and her other friends were well acquainted 
 with her habit of giving way to exaggeration, and 
 even to palpable untruth when under the influence 
 of drink?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " The habit was so well known that it was amus- 
 ing to you? You have often laughed about it 
 among yourselves ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You were known to say yourself on one occa- 
 sion when she was what you call particularly 
 * merry,' ' Emma would do for anybody on a quar- 
 tern of gin ' ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You have a distinct recollection of saying 
 that?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Your meaning was that when your friend had 
 had that quantity of alcohol the airs of bravado 
 she assumed were quite ridiculously out of keeping 
 with her character ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And the point of your saying lay in the fact 
 219 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 that whether your friend had had drink or whether 
 she had not, her character was so soft and gentle 
 that you could not conceive her to be capable of 
 hurting anybody ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " She has been your friend for ten years ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Throughout that period you have found her 
 to be generous, kind, impulsive, lovable ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 ** No one's enemy save her own ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 '' Had it ever seemed possible to you that if she 
 was capable of the commission of this atrocious 
 crime of which she stands accused, she could never 
 have enjoyed the ten years of your friendship, nor 
 the ten years of affection you lavished on her ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 *' It was no wish of your own that brought you 
 to this court ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Indeed, you cannot say you came here of your 
 own free will ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You were brought here under compulsion ? " 
 
 '' Yes, sir." 
 
 " Without that compulsion nothing would have 
 induced you to come here, and stand in this box, 
 and speak words which might be used to hurt your 
 friend?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 The witness had been weeping softly for some 
 time. Her emotion, which in the circumstances was 
 natural, was also felt to be a tribute to the exam- 
 
 220 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 ining counsel. The gentleness of a voice which 
 touched the chord of pathos in every phrase it ut- 
 tered without betraying a consciousness that it did 
 so, invested a series of tame and unfruitful ques- 
 tions with an aesthetic quality which even the least 
 educated of those present could appreciate. 
 
 At this point, however, Mr. Weekes rose 
 brusquely and tartly with an objection. His friend 
 had trespassed beyond the privilege of counsel. 
 The objection was upheld by the judge, who with 
 a kind of courteous acerbity informed Northcote 
 in some very harmonious diction that he would do 
 well to put his question in another form. 
 
 " I will do so, my lord," said the young man, 
 with admirable composure and raising his voice a 
 little. 
 
 " You were forced to come here by the police ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " In whom you stand in great fear ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You are compelled to do all that they require 
 of you?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And when they take one of your friends to 
 prison, and they come to you and suggest words 
 that she may have used to you when she was not 
 in a condition to weigh them, you know very well 
 that whatever your own feeling is in the matter, 
 you must say nothing, and you must do nothing 
 that is likely to displease the police ? " 
 
 A more emphatic protest was entered at this point 
 by the counsel for the Crown. It was upheld by 
 the judge with an equal access of emphasis. North- 
 cote accepted the ruling with the nicely poised ur- 
 
 221 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 banity with which he had received the previous one; 
 yet in the act of doing so he contrived, as if by an 
 accident, to let his gaunt eyes alight on the jury. It 
 was followed by a smile which crept over his hag- 
 gard cheeks; and this was conveyed to each of 
 them personally, as though he were covering a re- 
 treat with a little apology. Yet it was all contrived 
 so delicately that it required a certain fineness of 
 perception to notice it. 
 
 buring the next few minutes these objections 
 were frequent. They were raised with an ever- 
 increasing vehemence by the counsel for the Crown, 
 were embodied with an ever-increasing acerbity and 
 sternness by the judge, and were received by the 
 counsel for the defence with a deferential patience, 
 the ironical side of which was immediately exposed 
 by the next question he put to the witness, and also 
 by the concentrated manner in which he smiled at 
 the jury. After a perfect rain of objections, which 
 for the purposes of our narrative must hencefor- 
 ward be taken as granted, the leader for the Crown 
 could stand the carefully elaborated audacity of 
 this unknown tyro no longer. He lost his temper. 
 
 " Mr. — er — er," he said, referring to a paper 
 for the name, ** Mr. Thornton, you have no need to 
 keep smiling at the jury in that way." 
 
 Northcote turned to face his adversary with a de- 
 liberation that astonished the bar, and even caused 
 a grim flicker to play about the mouth of the 
 judge. 
 
 " I trust, Mr. Weekes," he said, " you will with- 
 draw your objection to these amenities. If you do 
 not, I feel sure his lordship will be bound to uphold 
 it. And if, Mr. Weekes, I might urge you to be 
 
 222 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 patient, I can promise that your time to receive 
 them will arrive." 
 
 The measured dryness of the young" man's man- 
 ner set the bar in a twitter. 
 
 " Damn his young eyes/' said a barrister of ele- 
 phantine proportions on the back bench to a col- 
 league ; " two birds with one stone. I shall stand 
 him a bottle. I like his mug." 
 
 The opinion of the ex-president of the Oxford 
 Union was less favorable. 
 
 " Funny chap, isn't he ? " drawled the product 
 of Eton and Christchurch. " What can he do for 
 the case by trying to score off the judge and a silk 
 gown? " 
 
 " Theoretically he's wrong," said the son of the 
 Master of the Rolls; " but it was very nicely done. 
 I am sure my guv'nor would have liked it." 
 
 Divested of its endless interruptions, the cross- 
 examination of the woman was conducted with that 
 persuasiveness he had used from the first. And to 
 those acquainted with the immensely difficult art 
 Northcote was essaying, it became a source of sur- 
 prise that so young a man should evince this perfect 
 command over the means he employed, when the 
 high-strung nerves of the natural man were sub- 
 jected to such severe trials from an opponent. And 
 the reward of his restraint came to him as he pro- 
 ceeded, for the wretched woman was melted to 
 tears by such a sympathetic tenderness ; and further, 
 the intercourse he had already established with the 
 jury seemed to deepen. 
 
 "It is due to the courtesy of the police that you 
 are able to follow your calling ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 223 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " The police could take away your means of live- 
 lihood without giving you warnings; and without 
 giving you a moment's notice they could put you 
 in prison? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And whenever the police ask you to serve them, 
 whenever they ask you to oblige them in any way, 
 you feel obliged to carry out their wishes, whatever 
 the cost may be to yourself ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Even when they cause you to hurt a friend by 
 stating that which you know to be not quite 
 true?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " On one occasion, Mrs. Walsingham, to help the 
 police, you identified a man whom they suggested 
 had robbed you? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And your own testimony and the testimony of 
 several of your friends enabled them to send this 
 unfortunate man into penal servitude? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I use the word * unfortunate,' Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham, because this man, after languishing many 
 years in prison, was able to prove, to the satisfac- 
 tion of his fellow creatures, that he was perfectly 
 innocent of the scandalous charge that was brought 
 against him. But at the time of his conviction, 
 when the police had called upon you for your help, 
 you did not dare to tell the judge and the jury that 
 you had not been robbed by this man, and that you 
 had never seen him in your life before?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " This was an instance in which you felt the 
 224 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 necessity, in spite of all that it cost you, to help the 
 police in obtaining one of those ' convictions ' which 
 they consider so necessary to their own well- 
 being? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " One of those * convictions ' which mean an extra 
 stripe on the arm, and the addition of a few shil- 
 lings a week to the pay of one or two of these nat- 
 ural enemies of yours, of whom you and your 
 friends stand in constant dread?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 *' And so, Mrs. Walsingham, these enemies of 
 whom you stand in such great fear having, in the 
 first instance, caused you in your weakness to affirm 
 that which was untrue, in order that the liberty of 
 an unhappy man, whom you had never met, might 
 be taken away from him, they cause you now to 
 come again into this court to swear away, not the 
 liberty, but the life, of a poor friend, whose only 
 fault, as far as you know, is that occasionally she 
 drank a glass more than was good for her ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Mrs. Harrison often spoke to you of this Mr. 
 Barron?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Of late Mrs. Harrison had complained to you 
 of Mr. Barron being unkind to her? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " She told you that he had even threatened to 
 leave her altogether ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " When you first knew her, Mrs. Harrison seemed 
 attached to him ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 225 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " That is to say, she never complained about 
 him?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " But when latterly he grew unkind to her she 
 became very unhappy? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And was it not at such' times that she was in- 
 clined to drink that extra glass to forget her great 
 unhappiness? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Yet it was only under these conditions, when a 
 stimulant had excited her feelings, that she was 
 heard to complain against him ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And then it seemed to you no more than the 
 legitimate complaint of a highly emotional and 
 affectionate nature which' was suffering deeply ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You remember, Mrs. Walsingham, that on one 
 occasion she made a reference to her previous his- 
 tory?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " It was to the effect that this Mr. Barron and 
 herself came from the same village in the north of 
 England?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " That they had been intimately acquainted in her 
 youth?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " That as a young girl she had been in domestic 
 service at the house of Mr. Barron's mother? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " That Mr. Barron seduced her under a promise 
 of marriage ? " 
 
 336 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And it was the fact that that promise had not 
 been kept which led directly, in the first instance, to 
 the ruin of this young girl ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And Mr. Barron having accomplished her ruin, 
 fled from the house of his parents to London, to es- 
 cape his duty? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 ** And this girl, dismissed from her situation, dis- 
 graced in the eyes of her friends, followed in her 
 despair to this huge city, in the slender hope of 
 finding the man who had ruined her?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Yet for many years she was unable to find 
 him?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And during those years of inexpressible bitter- 
 ness, in her ignorance of life, her helplessness, her 
 friendlessness, in the abasement of her spirit, she 
 sank deeper and deeper into degradation?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " The pure-blooded north country girl became a 
 harlot by the force of circumstances ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And then after many years of misery one eve- 
 ning at a music hall, in the pursuit of her calling, 
 she chanced to meet the man who had been the first 
 cause of her ruin ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And when he renewed a proposal that he had 
 made years before, which as a young girl she had 
 scornfully repudiated, that she should dwell in his 
 house, not as his wife, but as his mistress, the pres- 
 
 227 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 sure of her circumstances forced her to accept this 
 proposal almost with a sense of gratitude? " 
 
 '' Yes, sir." 
 
 " And, Mrs. Walsingham, you do not believe for 
 one moment that any thought of vengeance ever 
 suggested itself to her mind ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You are prepared to swear that? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Also, that even in these latter days, when Mr. 
 Barron became cruel and violent in his conduct 
 towards her, she never freed herself from his yoke, 
 never passed from under the spell of a power which, 
 from the first, had been so fatal to her? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And that this paltry sum of money which she 
 believed had been left to her in his will, which has 
 proved not to have been the case, could never have 
 counted in the scale of his personal attraction for 
 her, which, sinister, dreadful, tragical as it had 
 proved, had caused her at his behest to forfeit 
 friends, health, virtue, honor, all those things which 
 dignify Hfe?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I thank you, Mrs. Walsingham ; I have nothing 
 more to ask you." 
 
 The poor drab, tottering, faint, dissolved in tears, 
 had to be assisted from the witness-box. 
 
 This piece of cross-examination had made a 
 strange impression. The manner in which it had 
 been conducted by the young advocate had exerted 
 a powerful emotion upon many besides the weak 
 and flaccid creature who had been so much clay in 
 his hands. It had had great success as a couj? de 
 
 ?38 
 
THE TRIAL 
 
 theatre. The trained perceptions present had an 
 uneasy sense that they had been Hstening to a mas- 
 terpiece. Forensically, the means had been entirely 
 adequate to the end; a supremely difficult art had 
 been surmounted by an exquisite skill. Each ques- 
 tion had been shaped so naturally, each word was 
 clothed with such true delicacy, that wonderful 
 nuances of feeling were shed by the magic of the 
 living human voice over the sordid and the unclean. 
 Sentence by sentence the fabric of a story that was 
 as old as the world was unrolled until it became a 
 piece of drama. Even professional criticism, which 
 was avowedly hostile, was half-conquered by the 
 infusion of human sympathy into that which could 
 not bear the light. Irrelevant, destitute of real 
 authority as was the whole thing, it was yet allowed 
 to be a performance of rare technical beauty, a 
 pledge of the controlled will-power of its creator. 
 And like all things which are the fruit of an incom- 
 parable technique — in itself the reason to be of 
 what is called *' art " — it had evoked that subtle 
 emotion which transcends reason and experience. 
 And the least accessible to this malign influence 
 were fain to see that the first nail had been ham- 
 mered already into the coffin of the prosecution. 
 
 The indication of a fight on the part of the de- 
 fence was extremely distasteful to Mr. Weekes and 
 his junior. Nothing had been farther outside the 
 prediction of these expert practitioners. It had 
 been freely anticipated that by luncheon-time the 
 end would be in view. By then, according to this 
 prolepsis, the defence was to have called its wit- 
 nesses to testify to the woman's violence when in 
 drink, which would count for little; this youthful 
 
 2 2Q 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 novice was to have floundered through his few dis- 
 connected and incoherent remarks to the jury; the 
 leader for the Crown was to have answered him 
 in a few perfunctory sentences, which yet would 
 be in striking contradistinction to the halting and 
 rather inept performance of his youthful opponent; 
 the whole was to have been transferred to the judge 
 with a sense of perfect security, since the case for 
 the prosecution was so clear and so entirely uncon- 
 troverted; and the judge, very excellent in his 
 way, and highly in favor of the despatch of public 
 business and economization of the public time, was 
 even to have worked in his summing-up by the hour 
 of the adjournment. 
 
 However, this lengthy and irrelevant cross-ex- 
 amination, which had had to be contested at every 
 point, had somewhat demoralized this well-con- 
 sidered programme. A solid hour had been cut 
 out of it, a solid hour in which both sides could 
 have addressed the jury; in fact, a solid hour in 
 which, by an effort, a verdict could have been ob- 
 tained and the woman hanged. And when this 
 tyro, who was conducting his first case of impor- 
 tance with a coolness that many of his elders might 
 have envied, intimated that it was not his intention 
 to call witnesses, and further claimed in that con- 
 tingency the privilege of addressing the jury after 
 the counsel for the Crown had spoken, Mr. Weekes 
 was fain to inform the court that he would prefer 
 to reserve his own address to the jury, brief as it 
 would be, until after luncheon. Accordingly the 
 adjournment was then taken. 
 
 230 
 
XXV 
 
 MR. WEEKES, K. C. 
 
 It was in no amiable mood that Mr. Weekes 
 went to lunch with his junior. All his arrange- 
 ments had been spoiled by " the fellow on the other 
 side." Instead of the case being in a stage that 
 would permit him to leave it to devote his after- 
 noon to business in another court, it began to seem 
 that it might be prolonged indefinitely. 
 
 " So like a beginner," said the leader to his 
 junior; "must spread himself on the slightest op- 
 portunity. When he's been at it as long as we have 
 he'll be wiser. So stupid to waste an hour of 
 valuable time in that way. But, after all, it's a 
 golden rule to expect a beginner to fight a hopeless 
 case. One ought to have known." 
 
 "Quite sure it is hopeless, Weekes?" said his 
 junior quietly. 
 
 "Why ask the question?" said Mr. Weekes, 
 irritably. " The case is as dead as this mutton." 
 
 " Then I am afraid there is a little life in," 
 said Mr. Topott, tasting the mutton ominously. 
 " Waiter, if you don't mind, I'll try the beef." 
 
 " That confounded cross - examination — so 
 stupid — so unnecessary — put everybody out," 
 said Mr. Weekes, snappishly, at each mouthful. 
 " Waste of public time — may well want more 
 judges — ought to allow judges more power — 
 better for everybody — save time and money — 
 
 231 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 save youngsters from making fools of them- 
 selves." 
 
 '* Also enable us to get in an extra round of golf 
 on a Saturday," said Mr. Topott, viewing the beef 
 he had exchanged for the mutton with a deep sus- 
 picion. " But seriously, Weekes," said he, " I don't 
 want you to leave me until they've returned their 
 verdict. You can just let that nisi prius business 
 alone this afternoon, and stay with me. I have a 
 presentiment that things might go wrong." 
 
 " Presentiment ! " said Mr. Weekes impatiently. 
 " Deuce take your presentiments ! Waiter, bring 
 me some red pepper." 
 
 " The fact is, I am frightened to death by that 
 young fellow," said Mr. Topott cheerfully. " I 
 suppose you know who he is? " 
 
 ** I know what he is," said Mr. Weekes inci- 
 sively. " He is a confounded nuisance." 
 
 " He is the greatest player of Rugby football the 
 game ever saw," said Mr. Topott impressively. 
 
 '' Pity he didn't stick to it," said Mr. Weekes. 
 " Better for him, better for us. But what has his 
 football got to do with his advocacy?" 
 
 " Well, I always think, you know," said Mr. 
 Topott modestly, " a man is all of a piece as you 
 might say. If he is preeminent in one thing he will 
 be preeminent in another." 
 
 " Not at all, my dear fellow," said Mr. Weekes, 
 breathing contradiction, a pastime that was dear to 
 him. " It doesn't follow in the least. A man may 
 be supreme as a crossing-sweeper, but it does not 
 follow that he would be equally great as a member 
 of Parliament." 
 
 " I am only advancing a theory," said Mr. To- 
 232 
 
MR. WEEKES, K. C. 
 
 pott, more modestly than ever, " but I rather con- 
 tend that it does. It is a matter of will-power. 
 That to which his supremacy is due in one direc- 
 tion, if evoked in an equal deg^ree in another di- 
 rection will result in an equal supremacy. What 
 I mean to say is, that it seems to me this truly great 
 football-player has made up his mind to become a 
 truly great advocate. And that is why I fear him." 
 
 " Moonshine," said Mr. Weekes. " He is clever, 
 I grant you ; but football-playing and advocacy are 
 not on all fours, as he will discover this afternoon 
 very speedily when he comes to address a British 
 jury." 
 
 " If you don't mind my saying so," said Mr. 
 Topott, with a very apologetic air, " it struck me 
 this morning that his football-playing and his ad- 
 vocacy were very much on all fours. They both 
 struck me as belonging unmistakably to the man. 
 I have, as I say, a presentiment that things might 
 go wrong." 
 
 " Confound your presentiments, Topott ! How 
 can things go wrong? And why a man of your 
 experience should funk a mere boy who has had 
 none, I don't know. He is certain to come an im- 
 perial crowner with the jury. There isn't half a 
 leg for him to stand on." 
 
 " Well, he didn't come much of a crowner this 
 morning," said Mr. Topott deferentially, " in spite 
 of Bow-wow and in spite of you. I don't know 
 where he obtained his information, but I thought 
 the whole thing was most artistic. And if the fel- 
 low can cross-examine in that manner, heaven 
 knows what he can do when he gets up on his 
 hind legs to address the jury. I tell you, Weekes, 
 
 233 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 I am frightened to death of this young fellow. 
 He's deep." 
 
 " I tell you what it is, my boy," said Mr. Weekes 
 tartly, " you stayed up an hour longer than you 
 ought to have done at the Better ton last night, 
 waiting for four aces which never turned up." 
 
 At an adjoining table the barrister of elephantine 
 proportions, who had expressed his determination 
 " to stand the fellow a bottle," was entertaining 
 a select coterie of his learned friends. In his inn 
 he was justly celebrated as a trencherman among 
 a society which had always been famous for its 
 prowess at the board. He rejoiced in the name of 
 "Jumbo;" and, although his practice was small, 
 only his adipose tissue imposed the bounds to his 
 good nature. In every way he was designed by 
 nature to be one of her most popular efforts. 
 
 "Who's Northcote?" was a question that was 
 circulating freely. None seemed to know. 
 
 " Never heard of him. Never seen his name." 
 
 " Well known in the police-courts, I believe." 
 
 " It's time he gave them up. His talents call him 
 elsewhere." 
 
 " It was rather poor form, I must say, trying to 
 score off Bow-wow." 
 
 "It is a mistake a young man is likely to 
 make." 
 
 " Speaking for myself, I thought Bow-wow was 
 asking for it. It is the time-honored story of the 
 old-established firm of the bench and the Treasury. 
 Once a Treasury counsel always a Treasury coun- 
 sel." 
 
 " Jealousy, jealousy, jealousy." 
 
 " He was altogether wrong with the police." 
 234 
 
MR. WEEKES, K. C. 
 
 " I agree. He ought to have been handled more 
 firmly." 
 
 '* Bow-wow furnishes a good example of a lath 
 painted to look like iron. I should like to have seen 
 him face to face with Cunningham, or old Tottie 
 Turnbull. There would have been trouble for 
 one." 
 
 " For m'lud, I'll lay a pony. This young sports- 
 man is quite above the ordinary. He is going a 
 very long way." 
 
 "It is too early to say. We see so many geese 
 with the plumage of the swan in this profession." 
 
 "Name! name!" cried the table. 
 
 " I expect when it is all reckoned up," said 
 Jumbo, when order had been restored, " my young 
 pal, Jem Smith, is the son of * Pot ' Northcote who 
 went the northern circuit for years." 
 
 " If that is so, Jum, he is already a better man 
 than his father. Pot died a recorder." 
 
 " I hope the young un will open his mug for an 
 hour this afternoon. He's got the finest mask on 
 him for a young un I ever saw." 
 
 " Weekes might easily have tO' play jack-in-the- 
 box all the afternoon." 
 
 " In that case poor old Bow-wow will have to do 
 a frightful amount of scratching at his leg." 
 
 " But the case is too dead to be worth it." 
 
 " That won't matter to James. He threw down 
 his gage this morning. The jury will have to sit 
 tight and hold on to the handle going round the 
 curves, or he'll have them in a hat before he's done 
 with them. And I've seen Bow-wow crumple up 
 before now." 
 
 " So have we all." 
 
 235 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 "Like all notorious barkers his voice is the best 
 part about him." 
 
 '' For my part, I think you are going too fast. 
 The lad is not so wonderful as all this. He has 
 done nothing out of the common as far as I can 
 see." 
 
 " No, dear boy," said Jumbo, " because you can 
 never see anything. But a young sportsman who 
 can cross-examine in that manner in his first mur- 
 der case is made of the right stuff." 
 
 " But the witness was as easy as pie. She didn't 
 know where she was or what she was saying." 
 
 " And he took an amazing advantage of her." 
 
 " So would any one else." 
 
 " They would, but in a very different way." 
 
 " His cross-examination will amount to nothing, 
 in spite of the time it wasted." 
 
 " Will it not, though ? That is all you know of 
 a sentimental jury of your countrymen." 
 
 " His attack on the police was monstrous, and he 
 had no right to put questions in the form he did." 
 
 " So thought Weekes, so thought Bow-wow, but 
 he put them all the same. And what is more, the 
 foreman of the jury, a highly respectable green- 
 grocer, took cognizance." 
 
 " Well, where does his amazingness come in ? 
 She only answered * yes ' to everything." 
 
 " Had he wanted her to answer ' no ' to every- 
 thing she would have done so." 
 
 " Of course she would. Everybody could see 
 that." 
 
 " Yes, dear boy, and what does he do ? Our 
 young friend takes the liberty of inventing every 
 one of his facts as he goes along. All that about 
 
 236 
 
MR. WEEKES, K. C. 
 
 her dealings with the poHce and the murdered man 
 coming from her native village was so much fiction. 
 It was a marvellous piece of improvisation." 
 " We shall none of us believe that." 
 " Of course you won't, dear boys ; you are not 
 expected to. But as soon as he realized his oppor- 
 tunity he took an amazing advantage of it. It was 
 daring, I grant you, an unparalleled piece of 
 effrontery. I don't know another man at the bar 
 who, had he been capable of a coup of that kind, 
 would have ventured to play it. The whole thing 
 was the most audacious piece of work ever seen." 
 " But, my dear Jum, he had no right to do a 
 thing of that kind." 
 
 " Of course not, dear boy, but he did it." 
 "But why didn't Weekes stop him?" 
 " Because Weekes did not know any more than 
 you. He would be the last man in the world to 
 see a thing of that kind." 
 
 " Then why didn't Topott call his attention to 
 it?" 
 
 " Topott also was completely taken in." 
 " Then by your own showing, Jum, you were 
 the cleverest man in court this morning?" 
 
 " The cleverest but one, dear old boy. My 
 young friend Jem Smith was the cleverest by very 
 long chalks, but my perspicacity is deserving of 
 honorable mention." 
 
 " It is not the first time," said the table, roaring 
 with laughter, " that this fatal drink habit has 
 caused you to see things." 
 
 237 
 
XXVI 
 
 THE PLEA 
 
 North COTE lunched with Mr. Whitcomb in a 
 secluded place, where he partook of a concoction 
 of egg and sherry, and two Abernethy biscuits. 
 The solicitor's attitude towards him had already 
 changed. The fact that he had adhered to his re- 
 fusal to call witnesses for the defence was allowed 
 to pass, because he had been able to show that after 
 all he was entitled to hold ideas of his own on the 
 conduct of the case. His remarkable essay in 
 cross-examination had restored the solicitor's self- 
 esteem; the dark horse he had chosen was not go- 
 ing to prove so unworthy after all. 
 
 ** Of course you have got the judge dead against 
 you now," said the solicitor, " and I don't quite see 
 what it is going to do for you; but as far as it 
 went it was very well done. I can't think how you 
 came to put all those questions. Where did you 
 get your information? It was not on your brief." 
 
 " Never mind where I got it," said Northcote, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 His composure was much greater than when 
 his client had conversed with him in the court. 
 
 " If only the whole case were not so dead it 
 might have proved enormously useful," said the 
 solicitor. " Yes, it was very well done." 
 
 " Would you say that Tobin would have done it 
 better? " said the young man, with an odd smile. 
 
 238 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 ** No, I would not," said the solicitor. " I will 
 pay you the compliment of saying that even 
 Michael Tobin would not have done it better." 
 
 " Thank you," said the young man drily. " And 
 now, what would you like to lay against an ac- 
 quittal ? " 
 
 *' Well, you are a cool hand, I must say," ex- 
 claimed Mr. Whitcomb, somewhat taken aback. 
 " For a beginner I don't think I've met your 
 equal." 
 
 " What will you lay against an acquittal? " 
 
 *' I don't mind laying five hundred to fifty," 
 said the solicitor. 
 
 " Done," said Northcote. 
 
 " If you had asked me this morning before you 
 went into court you might have had five thousand 
 to fifty." 
 
 " Sorry I forgot to mention it, because I was 
 just as sure then as I am now what the result will 
 be." 
 
 " Why you should have this confidence I cannot 
 understand. Really, you know, you haven't a leg 
 to stand on." 
 
 ''Well, well; I am going to leave you now to 
 take a stroll for ten minutes. See you soon." 
 
 Northcote went out into the traffic to take a few 
 mouthfuls of the London air. Fiery chemicals 
 seemed to be consuming his nerves, and his brain 
 was like a sheet of molten flame. But sensations 
 so extreme in nowise distressed him. He felt the 
 exhilaration of this strange yet not unpleasant con- 
 dition to be the pledge of a harmony between men- 
 tal and physical passion. It seemed to promise that 
 the overweening consciousness of power that had 
 
 239 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 haunted him for so many weeks in his solitude was 
 about to be fulfilled. The painful self-distrust, the 
 afflicting self-consciousness which had tormented 
 and atrophied his energies in smaller cases had van- 
 ished altogether. 
 
 As he recalled the achievement of the morning, 
 he felt a glow of exaltation. Looking back upon 
 it his mind had been as clear as a crystal, exqui- 
 sitely responsive to the will. Every bolt and nut of 
 the complex mechanism had been in perfect order. 
 The very words he had wished to use had sprung 
 to his lips, the very tones in which he sought to 
 embody them had proceeded out of his mouth. So 
 profoundly harmonious had been his mind in its 
 most intimate workings, that he had been able to 
 convey fine shades of meaning to the jury without 
 addressing to them a single word. 
 
 Already he seemed to know all that was salient 
 in the character of each individual who composed 
 it. As he rejoiced in the masterful strength in 
 which he was now cloaked so valiantly, he felt it 
 had only to abide with him throughout the after- 
 noon, and a signal victory would crown his efforts. 
 And it would abide with him throughout that 
 period, because all the power of his nature, which 
 when aroused to action he felt to be without a limit, 
 was pledged to this contingency. In this over- 
 mastering flush of virility in which he walked now, 
 he stood revealed to himself as a Titan. Bestrid- 
 ing the crowded pavements he seemed to be in a 
 world of pygmies. What was there in the life 
 around him that could stem this vital force? No 
 longer did he doubt that it was in him to dominate 
 .the judge, the jury, and the prosecution. They 
 
 240 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 were none of his clay; their mould was not the 
 mighty one nature had used for his fashioning. 
 
 With an extraordinary boldness and elasticity in 
 his steps he walked back into the court. How dear, 
 how precious, had the fetid and hideous room be- 
 come to him already! It is a ruthless joy that con- 
 sumes the orator, when, clad in his strength, he 
 stands up in that forum which previously his fail- 
 ures have caused him to dread, but which the lust 
 of triumph has rendered indispensable to his being. 
 This day would be written in its memorials. It 
 would mark the first of a succession of achieve- 
 ments within its precincts, achievements which 
 would cause his name to be handed down in its 
 archives forever. Who among the listless occu- 
 pants of the surrounding benches foresaw that they 
 were on the threshold of another miracle that was 
 about to happen in the world? Who among them 
 foresaw that a demigod was about to rise in their 
 midst? 
 
 Those venal, high-living men, whose flesh was 
 overlaid in luxury, how could they hope to under- 
 stand the miracle that was about to occur? How 
 could the poor drab, cowering in the dock, whose 
 life so ironically had become the pretext for the 
 first announcement of his genius, how could she 
 hope to understand that a new force was about to 
 take its walk in the world? How dismal, coarse, 
 and sordid everything seemed! Not a glimpse of 
 light, beauty, or hope was anywhere to be discerned 
 in the whole of that crowded and suffocating room. 
 The darkness and horror which oppress us so much 
 in the streets of a great city, all the festering sores, 
 all the blunt evils which discolor human nature and 
 
 241 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 conspire against its dignity, seemed to have con- 
 gregated here. The most cruel fact of human ex- 
 istence, the knowledge of man's innate imperfection, 
 appeared to be concentrated, to be rendered visible 
 in this inferno in which every aperture was kept so 
 close. 
 
 As soon as the judge returned into court, Mr. 
 Weekes rose to address the jury. Northcote sought 
 sternly to curb his own impatience while the trite 
 voice of the counsel for the prosecution marshalled 
 the array of facts. They were so damning that 
 they hardly called for comment. None could dis- 
 pute the tale that they told ; and the Crown had no 
 wish to waste the time of the court by laboring the 
 obvious. Reposing an implicit confidence in the 
 triumph of a virgin reason, that one imperishable 
 gift of nature to mankind, Mr. Weekes was yet 
 able to exhibit a profound sorrow for the terrible 
 predicament of the accused, and the awful alter- 
 native with which twelve of her countrymen were 
 confronted. But painful as was their duty, and 
 painful as was his, it was imposed upon them by 
 the law. Mr. Weekes resumed his seat in the midst 
 of a deep and respectful silence, which indicated 
 how crucial the situation was to all, after having 
 spoken for three-quarters of an hour. 
 
 The uninspired but adequate words of his oppo- 
 nent had galled Northcote at first, so overpowering 
 was his desire to rise at once and deliver that ut- 
 terance with which his whole being was impreg- 
 nated. But as perforce he waited and his ears were 
 fed by the formal phrases of his adversary, his 
 nervous energy seemed to concentrate under the 
 effort of repression. And when at last a curious 
 
 242 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 hush informed him that his hour had arrived, which 
 at a time less momentous would have unnerved him 
 altogether, and he rose to his feet, to such an ex- 
 tent was he surcharged with emotion that at first 
 he could not begin. 
 
 Every eye in the crowded building was strained 
 upon him almost painfully, as he stood with locked 
 lips looking at an old woman in a bright red shawl 
 in the public gallery. He was as pale as a ghost, 
 his cheeks were so cadaverous that in the murky 
 light of the gaslit winter afternoon they presented 
 the appearance of bones divested of their flesh. 
 But there was a profound faith among the majority 
 of the slow-breathing multitude. Since the morn- 
 ing the name of the advocate had come to be bruited 
 among them ; and in spite of his silence, which was 
 grinding against their tense nerves, there was that 
 in his bearing which excluded all sense of fore- 
 boding from their minds. 
 
 A full minute passed in complete silence while 
 the advocate stood staring at the old woman in the 
 red shawl. At last his lips were unsealed, slowly 
 and reluctantly; the first words that proceeded 
 from them were of a quietude which pinned every 
 thought. All listened with a painful intensity with- 
 out knowing why. 
 
 " My lord, gentlemen of the jury : It is with feel- 
 ings of awe that I address you. This is the first 
 occasion on which my inexperience has been sum- 
 moned to bear the yoke of a great task; and here 
 on its threshold I confess to you without shame 
 that I should faint under its burden, had I not the 
 knowledge that I hold a mandate to plead the cause 
 of not the least of God's creatures. 
 
 243 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " You must have heard with admiration the 
 words which have fallen from the lips of the learned 
 gentleman who has pleaded the cause of the Crown. 
 Impregnable in his learning, ripe in his judgment, 
 he has made it impossible for the tyro who stands 
 before you to imitate his force and his integrity. 
 Indeed, I do not know how this tyro would derive 
 the courage to follow him at all were it not that 
 a special sanction had been given to him by the 
 grievous circumstances of this case. It is because 
 its nature is so terrible that he who has to share 
 its onus is able to forget his youth, his weakness, 
 his absence of credentials. 
 
 " We are proud, we citizens of London, that we 
 are born of the first race of mankind, in the most 
 fortunate hour of its history. It is our boast that 
 we are the inheritors of a freedom that was never 
 seen before on the earth; a freedom not only of 
 conduct and intercourse, but more rarely, more 
 preciously, a freedom of opinion, a freedom of ideas. 
 And we prize this birthright of ours not merely 
 because our fathers purchased it for us with their 
 blood, but also because its possession is of ines- 
 timable worth in the progress of human nature. 
 And in the very centre of this pride of ours, which 
 is intellectual in its source, there arises, as the bul- 
 wark of our homage, the more than sacred edifice 
 which has crystallized the national life. I refer to 
 the constitution of England. 
 
 " We do well to accept this institution with an. 
 unreserved emotion which, as a race, we regard as 
 unworthy. For there are some who hold that this 
 hiatus between our precepts and our practice con- 
 fers a yet deeper lustre upon our love of justice. 
 
 244 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 For, gentlemen, that love is innate in the heart of 
 every Englishman ; it is the stuff of which our con- 
 stitution is composed, which quickens our pulses 
 and tightens our throats ; it helps to form the most 
 magnificent of all our traditions; it is the woof of 
 a fabric which is imperishable. 
 
 "It is the thought of this love of justice domi- 
 nant in the breast of every London citizen, which 
 sustains him who pleads the cause of the accused. 
 For in a charge of this awful nature the constitu- 
 tion enacts with a noble wisdom that the prisoner 
 at the bar is entitled to any doubt that may arise 
 in any one of your minds in regard to the absolute 
 conclusiveness of all the evidence that may be urged 
 against her. That is a humane provision, gentle- 
 men. It is worthy of the source from which it 
 springs. Without this provision I do not know 
 how any advocate would be prevailed upon to in- 
 cur his responsibility; nor, gentlemen, do I know 
 how any jury of twelve humane and enlightened 
 Englishmen would be gathered into this court to 
 adjudicate upon the life or death of an English- 
 woman. It is a humane and far-sighted provision, 
 and it enables the advocate of this unhappy English- 
 woman to address you with a feeling of security 
 which otherwise he could never have hoped to pos- 
 sess. 
 
 " I feel, gentlemen, that the exigencies of this 
 case may compel me to speak to you at great length, 
 but of one thing you may be assured. I shall not 
 speak at all unless every word I am called to utter 
 is weighed with care and fidelity in the scales of 
 the reason that God has given to me, and I know, 
 gentlemen, from the look upon your faces, that with 
 
 245 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 equal care and equal fidelity you will weigh them 
 in the scales of the reason God has given to you. 
 I have placed myself in the most favorable position 
 for addressing you I can devise. I shall hope to 
 speak with the utmost distinction of which I am 
 capable; and I shall hope not to employ a word 
 whose meaning is obscure to you, or a phrase which 
 is equivocal or open to misconstruction. That you 
 are prepared to surrender your whole attention to 
 me you tell me with your looks. That I shall hold 
 that attention I dare to believe, unless the hand of 
 Providence deprives me of the power to give utter- 
 ance to those things with which my mind is charged 
 to the bursting-point. 
 
 " You will not refute me when I assert that the 
 fact in our common experience which at the present 
 time has the greatest power to oppress us is the 
 imperfection of human nature. And upon enter- 
 ing a court of justice this fact is apt to demoralize 
 a feeling mind. The science of appraising criminal 
 evidence has been carried among us to a curious 
 pitch, as witness the unexampled skill of my learned 
 friend; the paraphernalia of incrimination, if the 
 expression may be allowed to me, is consummate; 
 but in spite of the rare ingenuity of great legal 
 minds, human nature is fallible. It is liable to err. 
 It does err. To the deep grief of science it errs 
 with great frequency. Indeed, its errors are so 
 numerous that they even impinge upon the sacred 
 domain of justice. Miscarriages of justice occur 
 every day. 
 
 *' In a cause of this nature it is most necessary 
 that steps should be taken to exclude the element 
 of injustice by all means that are known to us. We 
 
 246 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 are bound, gentlemen, to keep that contingency con- 
 stantly before our eyes. Such a contingency fills 
 me with trembling; and I believe it fills you, for in 
 this instance a miscarriage of justice would not 
 only be irreparable, it would be a crime against our 
 human nature. 
 
 " The question arises, how can we safeguard our- 
 selves against this element of injustice? What 
 means can we adopt to keep it out? Gentlemen, it 
 devolves upon me, the advocate of the accused, to 
 furnish that means. By taking thought I shall en- 
 deavor to provide it. To that end I propose to 
 divide what I have to say to you into three parts. 
 The first will deal with your legal duty. The sec- 
 ond will deal with the duty to which every Christian 
 Englishman must subscribe or forfeit his name, and 
 with his name the title-deeds of his humanity. The 
 third will show the consequences which must and 
 do wait upon the evasion of this second duty, which 
 is the highest and noblest known to mankind, which 
 in itself completely transcends this legal one, this 
 technical one you are sworn to obey." 
 
 " I can see he means to be all night," said Mr. 
 Weekes to his junior, with marked irritation. 
 " Lover of the sound of his own voice." 
 
 " He is going wrong already," said Mr. Topott 
 complacently. " Saying too much ; overdoing it 
 generally." 
 
 " Every inch a performer," said Jumbo at the 
 back to a companion. " There's a fortune in that 
 voice and manner. Hope the lad won't say too 
 much." 
 
 " Has done already," said his companion. " That 
 
 247 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 cant of a duty higher than the legal one is merely 
 ridiculous." 
 
 The ex-president of the Oxford Union and his 
 friend, whose youth rendered them sternly critical, 
 were following Northcote's every word with the 
 closest attention. 
 
 " He's got a brogue you could cut with a knife," 
 said the ex-president, with an air of resenting a 
 personal injury. 
 
 " You are wrong," said his friend, with an ab- 
 sence of compromise. " He was at school with me." 
 
 By this time the advocate had cut into the heart 
 of his subject. In a few swift yet unemphasized 
 sentences he had proved the existence of a doubt in 
 the case. He pressed home the significance of that 
 fact with a power that was so perfectly disciplined 
 that it did not appear to exert itself, yet it carried 
 a qualm into the camp of the enemy. He was con- 
 tent to indicate that the doubt was there, and with 
 apparent magnanimity differentiated it from that 
 which in his view must ever accompany circum- 
 stantial evidence. Every gesture that he used in 
 the demonstration of its presence, each vibration 
 of a voice which had become marvellously flexible, 
 was a living witness of the dynamic quality he had 
 in his possession. 
 
 " He will be wise to let it go at that," was the 
 opinion of Mr. Weekes. " He has done quite as 
 well as was to have been expected. We shall just 
 get home, and for a beginner he will have done 
 very nicely." 
 
 " It wouldn't surprise me if he is only just start- 
 ing," said Mr. Topott mournfully. 
 
 " I have done now, gentlemen," Northcote con- 
 248 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 tinned, " with the legal aspect of this case. That 
 aspect, as I have shown, makes an acquittal neces- 
 sary. But whenever we are content to base our 
 judgment upon technicalities, we tie our hands. 
 We furnish room for one of those sophistries which 
 trained intellects, the intellects of those who are far 
 more learned in the law than we are, find it so easy 
 to introduce. There is always the danger that a 
 body of laymen, however unimpeachable their in- 
 tegrity, may be led from the plain and obvious path 
 of their duty by a cunning stratagem. Again, in 
 all those matters that seek ascertained fact for their 
 basis, we must not forget that its supply is partial. 
 Science is doing stupendous things for the world, 
 but even it cannot yet supply mankind with any- 
 thing beyond half-truths. There is no field of man's 
 activities — philosophy, religion, politics, law — 
 which does not depend upon these. Science can 
 furnish us with sufficient evidence to hang a fellow 
 creature, but the time is at hand when it will also 
 have furnished us with such abundant knowledge of 
 our eternal fallibility, that we shall cease to exact 
 these reprisals. For are not all reprisals, which we 
 include under the comprehensive term * justice,' the 
 fruit of an imperfect apprehension of the nature of 
 man ? It has been said truly that a little knowledge 
 is dangerous, for in looking at the history of 
 human opinion in all the phases through which it 
 has passed, we see how the habit of basing our 
 actions upon half-truths has been the cause of the 
 manifold wounds of the world. 
 
 " I think, gentlemen, I have said enough to in- 
 dicate the dangers which lurk in the temptation to 
 apply in its arid literalness the letter of the law. I 
 
 249 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 am aware that such a precaution tells against the 
 cause I am pleading, because, as I think I have 
 made clear to you, the letter of the law demands 
 the acquittal of the prisoner at the bar. But those 
 who seek for direction in great issues must strive 
 to forget their personal cause. According to the 
 law you are pledged to obey your duty is clear; 
 but as every day its tendency to err becomes more 
 visible, I feel I must not, I feel I dare not, place 
 too implicit a trust in its clemency. Therefore, 
 gentlemen, I am about to supplement this law, I am 
 about to reinforce it, and to reinforce you, by a 
 reference to that moral code which each and every 
 one of God's citizens carries in his own heart, that 
 is the only tribunal known to mankind that is not 
 liable to error. And I think you will agree with 
 me that the nature of this case allows me to partake 
 of the inestimable boon of appealing to it. 
 
 " When I watched you defile into this dismal 
 room this morning, one after another, faltering and 
 uncertain in your steps, and bearing about you many 
 evidences of having been overcome by the cruel 
 task which had been imposed upon you by no will 
 of your own, my heart went out to you, and I could 
 not help reflecting that I would rather be in my 
 own case, awful as it was to me, than I would be 
 in yours. I at least could walk upon the higher 
 ground without misgiving. I had not been pressed 
 into the service of this court of justice to make 
 obeisance to a ruthless and obsolete formula. I 
 was not called upon to subscribe to a compact that 
 was repugnant to my moral nature ; I was not called 
 upon to enact the brutal travesty of sealing it with 
 my lips. But, my friends, as I marked you this 
 
 250 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 morning, with a great fire burning in my veins, I 
 wondered by what miracle it was, I wondered by 
 what signal act of grace, I too did not stand among 
 you in my capacity of a private citizen, to bear my 
 part in this saturnalia of justice. Who was I, that 
 I should not be plucked from among my family 
 and my friends, from my peaceful vocations and my 
 modest toil, to do to death a woman? Who was 
 I, that I should be exempt from this bitter degra- 
 dation which my peers are called upon to suffer? 
 And in thinking these thoughts, my friends, it 
 came upon me suddenly — call it a prophetic fore- 
 sight if you will — that one of these days I should 
 be called to sit among you. And I said to myself, 
 * When that comes to pass, what will you do ? ' 
 I said to myself, * What will you do? * 
 
 " At first I could make no answer. I was stu- 
 pefied by the thought my too active imagination 
 had conjured up. And then at last I said to my- 
 self, * I shall ask for guidance in this matter ; I 
 shall ask for guidance from that tribunal which lies 
 within my own nature.' And, my friends, there 
 and then I turned to it, as though this thing had 
 come of a verity to pass, for the sight of you all 
 seated there in your despair had borne upon me 
 so heavily that your situation had become my own. 
 
 " Now the answer that tribunal vouchsafed to me 
 was this : ' Consider what your pastors and masters 
 would do were they placed in your case. Consider 
 what would be the attitude of those great minds 
 that still bum like candles in the night of the time, 
 whose radiance has warmed your veins, whose im- 
 mortality has enriched your own personal nature. 
 Consider what would be the conduct of those repre- 
 
 2Sl 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 sentative spirits of whom you proud Englishmen 
 of the twentieth century are the heirs/ 
 
 " And then a strange thing happened. No sooner 
 had this answer been written on the tablets of my 
 brain, than this gaslit room grew dimmer than it 
 already was, and there seemed to arise a kind of 
 commotion among you gentlemen of the jury. And 
 when at last I found the courage to lift my eyes 
 outwards from my thoughts, and they looked 
 towards you, I saw with a thrill of surprise, as if 
 by the agency of magic, that each one of your faces 
 had been blotted out. Each was shrouded in an 
 intense darkness. But while I continued to gaze 
 upon the place that had contained you, almost with 
 a feeling of horror, a shadowy haze seemed to play 
 over it, and a number of strange faces peopled the 
 gloom. They were more than twelve in number; 
 they were more than twenty; they were more than 
 a hundred. For the most part they were those of 
 men old and austere. Each face seemed to be that 
 of a person of infinite power and dominion, of one 
 accustomed to walk alone. Each was marked by 
 a kind of superhuman composure, as though having 
 spent its youth in evei*y phase of stress, it had 
 emerged at last upon the summits of the mountains, 
 where the air is rarefied, and where it is possible 
 to hold a personal intercourse with Truth. Some 
 of the faces were grave, some a little sinister, but 
 the eyes of each had a forward, upward look which 
 conferred an expression upon them of entrancing 
 beauty. 
 
 " Stealthily, rapidly, but with a superhuman com- 
 posure these noble shadows ranged themselves in 
 the jury-box, in the room of you gentlemen who 
 
 252 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 had vacated it. And when I had overcome my 
 stupefaction sufficiently to look upon these new 
 jurors more closely, I was struck with amazement 
 at the curious familiarity of those faces of theirs. 
 They were those of persons that I had seemed to 
 have known all my life. 
 
 " There and then a shiver of recognition crept 
 through my veins. I knew them; I revered them, 
 I had spent many hours in their company. The 
 first face I had recognized was that of an old man, 
 urbane and ironical, a citizen of the world; it was 
 the face of Plato. Beside him was a man, older, 
 less urbane, more ironical; it was the face of Soc- 
 rates. Thinkers, warriors, saints, and innovators 
 began to teem before my gaze. There was St. 
 Augustine and St. Francis of Assisi, Shakespeare 
 and Goethe, Leonardo and Dante, Washington and 
 Cromwell, Kant and Spinoza, Isaac Newton, Gior- 
 dano Bruno, Voltaire. I thought I discerned the 
 faces of at least two women among this assembly; 
 one was that of Joan of Arc, the other that of 
 Mary the Magdalene. There appeared to be hosts 
 of others of all times and countries which sprang 
 into being as I gazed, but though I recognized 
 them then, I cannot pause to enumerate them now. 
 For this gathering was strangely representative, 
 and the living were not excluded — I saw a great 
 Russian, a great Englishman, and a great French- 
 man of our own day — but I must resist the temp- 
 tation to give the names of all I beheld. 
 
 " No sooner had the scope and representative- 
 ness of this gathering declared itself and it had 
 ranged itself miraculously within a little room, than 
 a kind of commotion overspread it. They seemed 
 
 253 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 to be discussing some difficult point among them- 
 selves. However, this action of theirs had no time 
 to engage my anxiety, for I understood immedi- 
 ately that they v^ere seeking a foreman to their 
 jury. Nov^ you v^ould suppose that among a con- 
 course of all who had attained an immortal pre- 
 eminence in mental and moral activity, to choose 
 a leader from amongst them would be impossible. 
 But this was not so. Their discussion was over 
 almost before it began. They had no difficulty 
 whatever in nominating one among their number 
 to speak for them all. 
 
 '' It was with an indescribable curiosity that I 
 observed a slight, strangely garbed figure emerge 
 from their midst. And when he came to assume 
 his place at the head of his immortal companions, 
 which you, sir, are occupying now, I was devoured 
 by an overpowering eagerness to look upon his 
 face. And by this time so immensely powerful had 
 been the impact of this jury upon my imagination, 
 that it had obtained an actual existence and pro- 
 ceeded in sober verity to conduct the business of 
 the court. And I was sensible that the painful 
 curiosity with which I awaited the foreman's reve- 
 lation of his identity was shared by all who were 
 present. All were craning with parted lips to look 
 upon his face. And when at last he lifted his head, 
 and his pale and luminous features shone out of the 
 gloom and overspread this assembly, a kind of half- 
 stifled sob of surprise, a sort of shudder of recog- 
 nition, passed over the crowded court. The face 
 was that of the man called Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 " To myself, however, the recognition brought 
 an immediate and profound sense of joy. All my 
 
 254 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 doubts, my terrors, my perplexities, were no more. 
 They passed as completely as though they had never 
 been. The business of. the court proceeded, but I 
 was inaccessible to its bearing upon my task. My 
 every thought was merged in the personality of the 
 foreman of the jury. The precise, calm, and har- 
 monious legal diction of my learned friends lost all 
 its meaning and coherence, and even the demeanor 
 of the good and upright judge, who is making trial 
 of this cause, became one with the glamour which 
 environed the figure in the jury-box. 
 
 " That august jury seemed to sit and listen to all 
 that passed. By an extreme courtesy which they 
 were able to impose on their finely disciplined na- 
 tures, they gave heed to the ceremonial that was 
 enacted for their benefit. It is true that there were 
 moments when they were unable to conceal the smile 
 of soft irony which veiled their lips; but from the 
 beginning to the end their patience and urbanity 
 remained inviolate. The foreman, however, mut- 
 tering continually inaudible words to himself, with 
 fingers twitching, and the hectic pulse beating in his 
 thin and fevered cheek, never took his eyes from the 
 rail in front of him. And when at last the time 
 came for the jury to consider their verdict, they 
 were able to return it instantly, without leaving the 
 box, as you would expect such a tribunal to do. 
 
 '.' I can scarcely hope to picture to your minds 
 the scene that was presented when the foreman, so 
 frail and thin and yet so full of compassion, rose 
 humbly in his place. ' Are you agreed upon your 
 verdict, gentlemen ? ' said the Clerk of Arraigns. 
 * We are,' said the voice of the divine mystic of 
 the Galilean hills ; yet I can convey to you the sound 
 
 255 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 of it no better than could those poor fishermen who 
 heard it nineteen centuries ago. ' What is your 
 verdict, gentlemen ? ' said the Clerk of Arraigns, 
 whose own voice sounded so ludicrously trite in 
 comparison with that of the foreman, that it seemed 
 to have no place in human nature. ' I understand,' 
 said the foreman of the jury, ' according to your 
 laws the penalty is death.' ' Yes, sir,' said the Clerk 
 of Arraigns, with a quiet dignity, * the penalty ac- 
 cording to the law is death.' * The jury return a 
 verdict of Not Guilty,' replied the foreman instantly, 
 stooping to write with his finger on the rail in front 
 of him, as though he had heard him not." 
 
 At this point Mr. Weekes rose excitedly. 
 
 " My lord," he cried, " this blasphemous travesty 
 has gone too far. It must be carried no farther. 
 It must cease." 
 
 '' Mr. Weekes," said Northcote, turning to con- 
 front him, while a wave of emotion swept over the 
 court which seemed to make the air vibrate, " I 
 must ask you resume your seat." He pointed with 
 a finger with sorrowful sternness. " I cannot sub- 
 mit to interruption at such a moment as this. You 
 hold your brief for the Crown; I hold mine for 
 God and human nature." 
 
 The hush which followed was broken by a poor 
 actor among the jury. He had been out of an en- 
 gagement for two years, and he had left his home 
 that morning with his wife sitting with a child at 
 her breast before a grate without a fire in it. 
 
 '' That's true," he muttered heavily. 
 
 " My lord, I appeal to you," cried Mr. Weekes 
 more excitedly than ever. " I did not come here to 
 be browbeaten and insulted. I did not come here 
 
 256 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 to witness religion made into mockery and dragged 
 through the mire." 
 
 '* Mr. Weekes," said Northcote with a depth of 
 compassion in his tone which made many veins run 
 cold, " a subterfuge of this kind will not serve you. 
 The jury have no desire that you should make a 
 parade of your feelings at such a moment as this. 
 They desire that you will resume your seat, and 
 relinquish any further attempt to make their task 
 more hideous than it already is." 
 
 " That is perfectly true," exclaimed the foreman 
 in a hoarse whisper. 
 
 It was observed by those who were behind North- 
 cote that in the stress of the mental anguish through 
 which he had already passed, by constantly plucking 
 with his fingers at the back of his hands, the skin 
 had been pulled away and the bleeding flesh was 
 exposed. 
 
 '' I appeal to your lordship," cried Mr. Weekes. 
 
 '' My lord, I also appeal to you," said North- 
 cote; and the poise of his head and the lift of his 
 chin, as it was directed upwards to the bench, re- 
 minded those who had seen it of the figure of Balzac 
 as modelled by Rodin in clay. 
 
 The daemonic quality was dominant here, as is 
 the case always when the gospel of force has its 
 dealings with human nature. Few had suspected 
 that this old judge, with his brusque manners and 
 his great barking irascible voice was no longer fit 
 to fill his position. His lionlike exterior was no 
 more than the livery of his dignity. He was not 
 the man to face a crisis, when above all things an 
 iron nerve and an implacable will were needed to 
 impose restraint upon a jury and an advocate who 
 
 257 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 were in danger of trampling underfoot the accepted 
 rules of decorum and procedure. And the week 
 before the judge had buried his youngest daughter. 
 When Northcote's gaunt eyes were turned upon this 
 old man, who was trembling violently under his 
 ermine, the tears began to course down his face. 
 
 " My God, he's settled Bow-wow," said the fat 
 barrister on the back bench. 
 
 " Always was a senile old fool at bottom," said 
 his companion. " That young bounder ought to 
 lose his wig and gown." 
 
 " Shut up ! He's speaking again." 
 
 258 
 
XXVII 
 
 THE PERORATION 
 
 " It is too much the custom, my friends," North- 
 cote continued to the jury when Mr. Weekes had 
 sat down as spasmodically as he had got up, '' to 
 regard this divine mystic of whom I have spoken 
 as a supernatural being whose name can only be 
 mentioned with propriety in the presence of an 
 elaborate ritual. That fetish dies hard, my friends, 
 but dying it is, for if ever a human being walked 
 this earth, whose life and opinions are a great poem 
 that deserves to be recited in our bosoms and our 
 businesses during every hour that we dwell, it is 
 the life and opinions of him who has already given 
 his verdict in this case. There are very few things 
 that are of any importance to us upon which we 
 have not his pronouncement in one form or an- 
 other; and though that pronouncement may not 
 always be coincident with the technical lawyer's 
 law of the time, which is understanded of no man, 
 least of all of themselves, these obiter dicta of his, 
 delivered upon the spur of the occasion, have al- 
 ready outlasted kings, dynasties, and nations; and 
 they are likely to endure when court-houses, jury- 
 boxes, and scaffolds have long ceased to be. 
 
 " A few centuries ago such words as I am now 
 addressing to you would have sent me to the lions, 
 and you also would have been torn in pieces for 
 having deigned to listen to them. It is not a hun- 
 
 259 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 dred years since small children were hanged in this 
 country for stealing five shillings. A hundred years 
 before that a woman was burned at the stake for 
 the practice of witchcraft. It was the custom to 
 disembowel those who were guilty of a felony; to 
 break on the wheel those who did not hold ortho- 
 dox political opinions; and to burn, maim, cut off 
 the heads, and inflict indescribable physical tor- 
 ments upon any person because of his religious 
 views. 
 
 " I am going to ask you, my friends, how these 
 monstrous enactments were overcome. By the law- 
 yers who drew their fees from the Crown to put 
 them in practice? Not so. By those educated 
 minds that conducted the business of the state? 
 Not so. These unspeakable crimes committed in 
 the name of justice were overcome by a handful of 
 prophets, seers, and reformers, who arose in Israel. 
 They were common and unrefined, of small edu- 
 cation, and less culture; poor and obscure herds- 
 men and fishermen, a pedlar by the wayside; the 
 keeper of a public-house; a small tradesman in 
 Lambeth; a miserable grocer of Spitalfields; a 
 wretched old tinker who' passed the choicest part 
 of his days in Bedford jail. This very Jesus him- 
 self, the foreman of this jury which is sitting with 
 you in the box, which at this moment urges these 
 words to my lips, was a common rustic by trade, a 
 carpenter. And you will remember that he paid 
 for the extreme unorthodoxy of his religious and 
 political views by crucifixion upon the tree. 
 
 " The tree has gone, my friends, but he remains. 
 I say the tree has gone. That tree has gone, but 
 as mankind in the present imperfect stage of its 
 
 260 
 
 I 
 
THE PERORATION 
 
 development, does not dare as yet to trust itself 
 without a tree of some kind to lean upon, a sub- 
 stitute has been provided for that cross of wood 
 upon which it nailed the redeemer of his kind. And 
 it seems to me that if the divine mystic of whom 
 I am speaking were again to roam the hills of Gal- 
 ilee, his fate would be the same to-day as it was 
 yesterday. In the present phase which has been 
 attained by our sympathies with those who share 
 the burden of our so dark and so inscrutable in- 
 heritance, it would be extremely easy for some 
 learned Treasury counsel in the performance of his 
 duty to the Crown, to reenact the supreme tragedy 
 of a world which is filled with tragedies. 
 
 " At the present time there is still a tree stand- 
 ing in England upon which we nail women. They 
 may be guilty of dark offences, as were the asso- 
 ciates of that Nazarene Jew of whom I have 
 spoken; their fate, according to the written stat- 
 utes, may be sound in equity; some wretched Mag- 
 dalene in falling by the way may have stained the 
 pavements of the street with blood. But if we, 
 her peers and coadjutors, are to continue at this 
 time of day to visit her with reprisals, I am forced 
 to believe, my friends, that all we most cherish in 
 our national life will perish. And I think I dis- 
 cern by that which is written in your faces that you 
 are of this opinion also. 
 
 '' I have alluded to the two unhappy outcasts who 
 were nailed upon the tree with Jesus. Technically 
 they were malefactors ; it was right that they should 
 be immolated upon the altar of the law. Doubt- 
 less the instant the counsel for the Crown had com- 
 passed this desirable end, he repaired to his home 
 
 261 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 with a substantial emolument and a perfect security 
 of soul, ate a good dinner, and afterwards lay on 
 a mat and barkened to the sounds of the lyre. But 
 I do not think from that day to this the associate 
 of these malefactors was ever shown to be guilty 
 of any crime at all, at least of any crime known 
 to the judicial calendar. His only offence, if of- 
 fence there was, was in living before his day and 
 generation, which, in the eyes of those who are 
 contemporary, is a misdemeanor of a heinous char- 
 acter. Posterity only is able to condone a great- 
 ness which transcends its own era. Yet do not 
 misunderstand me. Technically he was blameless, 
 technically he had committed no crime. 
 
 " This consideration brings me to the final word 
 I shall venture to speak — the supreme danger of 
 the tree. It is very dangerous to keep a tree at all. 
 Whatever is once nailed upon it can never be re- 
 moved. The stains sink into the wood, and, strive 
 as they may, the labors of those who undertake to 
 cleanse it and purify it cannot avail. Like corro- 
 sive acids these stains percolate through the fibres 
 and change them to wormwood and fungus. And 
 do not forget, my friends, that the fibres of the tree 
 are the fibres also of the national life. A nation 
 pledges its honor when it seeks reprisal. 
 
 " We do well to shudder at the many bitter deg- 
 radations which have sprung from this habit of 
 keeping a tree. Jesus was not the first innocent 
 person whose blood was spilt upon that oft-humili- 
 ated wood. And he was not the last. Our human 
 faculties play us such strange tricks that they can 
 render us certain of nothing. Even a poor outcast 
 who has fainted by the bleak wayside of life, who 
 
 263 
 
THE PERORATION 
 
 has occasionally drunk a glass of spirits to keep 
 her from the river, may by some obscure possibility 
 which the counsel for the prosecution has not been 
 able to reveal to us have refrained from destroy- 
 ing the man who has been the first cause of her fall, 
 although it devolves upon all who love justice — 
 in whatever justice may consist — to explain away 
 the coincidence of a packet of poison having been 
 found in her possession. But, as I say, it is within 
 the bounds of possibility that the theory of the pros- 
 ecution is wrong. 
 
 " It would not be the first occasion that an un- 
 common zeal has led it intO' error. A year ago 
 to-morrow, at these sessions, one John Davis, a 
 butler, who for thirty years had been a faithful 
 servant in the household of his mistress, was found 
 guilty of the crime of compassing the death of that 
 aged lady, in order that he might spend his own 
 latter days in the enjoyment of a small legacy she 
 had left him in her will. In the mind of the counsel 
 for the Crown, and in the mind of the judge, the 
 evidence against this man was overwhelming. At 
 first you gentlemen of the jury were disposed to 
 see a doubt in the case, but the learned counsel for 
 the prosecution was so consummate in his argu- 
 ments, the learned judge was so emphatic, the ar- 
 ray of witnesses for the Crown was so formidable, 
 from zealous police constables, with their way to 
 make in the world, to experts and past masters in 
 criminology who had made theirs long ago; and 
 the youthful advocate, whom the butler's legal ad- 
 viser had selected to defend him, was so unused 
 to a trial of this magnitude, for his experience had 
 been limited, that he failed in cross-examination 
 
 263 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 to elucidate from a hostile witness an extremely 
 important fact; and in his address to you, gentle- 
 men of the jury, he was unable to soften the im- 
 pression that the Crown had been able to build up 
 in your minds. 
 
 " I have hardly a need, gentlemen, to reveal to 
 you the sequel of this painful story. As all the 
 world remembers, you had in the end to submit to 
 the inevitable. You, gentlemen of the jury, con- 
 sented to a verdict of guilty; a month later the 
 unhappy man was hanged; and he had not been 
 five days in his grave when a nephew of the mur- 
 dered woman gave himself up to a justice that had 
 already wreaked itself on an innocent man, and con- 
 fessed that he himself had murdered his aunt be- 
 cause he was in need of her money. 
 
 " These facts are green in the minds of you all. 
 But there is a coincidence connected with this 
 atrocious story and this grievous case which is en- 
 gaging your attention. The counsel for the prose- 
 cution in both cases is identical. He stands before 
 you framing yet another of those objections with 
 which he has endeavored to impede the cause of 
 humanity. I point my finger at him, and challenge 
 him to deny the truth of the statement I am mak- 
 ing. And by a perfectly logical and natural ex- 
 tension of this coincidence, the judge who sent the 
 butler to his doom is seated above you now in all 
 the panoply of his office. I leave him now if he 
 is able to deal in a like manner with this poor Mag- 
 dalene, who may or may not have fallen by the 
 way." 
 
 Northcote sat down after having spoken for 
 nearly three hours. The December darkness had 
 
 264 
 
THE PERORATION 
 
 long fallen upon the court. The feeble gas-jets 
 seemed to enhance the shadows that they cast. The 
 intense faces of the overcrowded building, bar, 
 jury, populace all electrified, seemed to belong to so 
 many ghosts, so pale, shining, and transfigured did 
 they gleam. For nearly three hours had the advo- 
 cate cast his spell; yet moment by moment, in the 
 dominion of his voice and the cumulation of his 
 effects, he had increased the hold upon his hearers. 
 At times the tension had been so great that it had 
 seemed that somebody must break it with a laugh; 
 but no one had done so. One and all were swept 
 forward by the contained impetuosity of the orator ; 
 by the restrained and gentle modulations of a power 
 that played through every word he used ; by a fero- 
 cious irony which looked like tenderness, so little 
 did they understand its nature; and above all by the 
 irresistible magnetism of a personal genius which 
 rendered the most perilous obstacles of no ac- 
 count. 
 
 None had foreseen the cruel, terrible, yet melo- 
 dramatic climax to which the advocate was leading ; 
 and when it came over the minds of those present, 
 all of whom in the course of the speech, even the 
 most hardened officers of the court, the ushers, the 
 chaplain, the javelin men, and the newspaper re- 
 porters, had passed in one form or another through 
 all the anguish of the spirit of which they were 
 capable, pity and horror were mingled with their 
 overwrought surprise. As the advocate stood with 
 his huge and livid face turned upwards towards the 
 judge, with an ineffable emotion suffusing it, and 
 the old man, with tears dripping quickly on to his 
 ermine, put his two fat, white hands before his eyes, 
 
 265 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 a feeling of silence and terror seemed to pervade 
 the court. 
 
 The advocate sat down with parched lips. The 
 hush that ensued was so long that it seemed it would 
 never come to an end. 
 
 It was broken by a commotion among the public 
 benches. A woman who had fainted was being 
 carried out at the back of the court. The incident 
 served to unloose the electricity which was pent up 
 in the atmosphere. A voice from the solicitor's 
 well was heard to pronounce the word " Shame ! " 
 In an instant it was answered by the multitude with 
 a volley of the wildest cheers that was ever heard in 
 a court of justice. All the ragged, tattered, de- 
 spised, broken and rejected units of the population, 
 those humble, hungry, and inarticulate creatures 
 upon whom Jesus himself had wrought his magic, 
 upon whom he had depended for countenance, took 
 up the challenge, and with their wild and hoarse 
 cries flung it back upon him who had uttered it. 
 
 For a time the scene was one of consternation. 
 The judge was but a poor, senile, old man, from 
 whom the tears were leaping. Every official looked 
 towards him for his prop and stay, but all there was 
 to see was feeble and inept old age. The Clerk of 
 Arraigns, as pale as a ghost and trembling violently, 
 was spreading his hands before an alderman. Po- 
 licemen stood dismayed, and officers of the court, 
 who had grown old and despotic in its service, 
 looked towards one another helplessly, seeking for 
 that authority which none had the power to exer- 
 cise. 
 
 '' I never thought," said the companion of the fat 
 barrister, " we should come to this in England. It 
 
 266 
 
THE PERORATION 
 
 is a disgrace to Eng^lish justice. That fellow must 
 be brought before the general council. They must 
 take away his wig and gown." 
 
 " A little less prejudice and a little more apprecia- 
 tion, dear boy," said the fat barrister, wiping his 
 eyes stealthily. " That lad will be a peer of the 
 realm long before they make you a stipendiary." 
 
 " He is either the greatest madman or the great- 
 est genius who was ever called to the bar." 
 
 " Probably both, dear boy." 
 
 2t)7 
 
XXVIII 
 
 THE SUMMING UP 
 
 The barrister who had ventured to give a public 
 expression to his opinion was that nurshng of 
 wealth, the youthful ex-president of the Oxford 
 Union. 
 
 " You've done it now/' said the son of the Master 
 of the Rolls. " They will have in the roof. They 
 were only waiting- for a leader." 
 
 " With all respect to your school," said the ex- 
 president heatedly, " this fellow is a disgrace to it, 
 also to his profession. It was the act of a black- 
 guard to throw that at the judge. He is not a gen- 
 tleman." 
 
 " Rough, of course, on the poor old judge, but 
 he's playing to win, as he always did. Hullo, the 
 poor old boy is coming up to the scratch." 
 
 Order had been at last restored, or more correctly 
 had restored itself; and in thin and shaken tones the 
 judge began his summing up. He had conquered 
 his emotion, and in a perfectly simple, plain, and 
 audible manner he was able to give expression to 
 that which he desired to say. It afforded the keen- 
 est relief to the bar, which was so profoundly jeal- 
 ous of professional prestige, that after all the pre- 
 siding judge should be able to reassert himself suffi- 
 ciently to invest with a certain dignity his own pro- 
 cedure in his own court. His words were charged 
 with deep feeling, but the most critical among his 
 
 268 
 
 I 
 
THE SUMMING U? 
 
 listeners could discern nothing derogatory to his 
 office in his mode of utterance. 
 
 " Gentlemen of the jury," he began ; and al- 
 though the sound of his voice was divested of that 
 roughness and irascibility by which it was known, 
 it yet enchained the attention of his hearers, since 
 intensity of feeling had rendered it singularly har- 
 monious, " Gentlemen of the Jury, before I refer to 
 the details of this terrible case I desire to record my 
 opinion of the manner in which it has been con- 
 ducted. The coimsel for the defence is a young 
 man, and in the nature of things his experience in 
 cases of this kind cannot be extensive. But I would 
 like to affirm that never within my own knowledge 
 has a more remarkable presentation of the art of ad- 
 vocacy come within the pundew of this court. Mr. 
 Northcote is a young man, but the display of his 
 genius — I can use no smaller word — which re- 
 cently he has made, is an honor to human nature. 
 As an old advocate, I tender my sincere congratula- 
 tions to him, and I hope that the career he has 
 chosen to follow will in every way be worthy of the 
 nobility of his talent.'' 
 
 A murmur of applause greeted this eulogium. It 
 had been rendered with such obvious feeling and 
 delicacy that every word rang true, and touched the 
 chord that was dominant in the hearts of all. 
 
 " Well done, Bow-wow," said the fat barrister, 
 sniffing and blowing his nose, " I trust some old pal 
 will stand you a bottle at the Forum this eve- 
 ning." 
 
 " That is the English gentleman," said his com- 
 panion. " I expect that young cad is feeling rather 
 cheap just at present." 
 
 269 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " Expect nothing, dear boy. Who the devil are 
 you that you should expect anything? You could 
 no more have saved that woman from the gallows 
 than you could have jumped across the moon." 
 
 " There is a vexed point which the counsel for the 
 defence has touched upon," said the learned judge, 
 " upon which I hope I shall be excused if I say a 
 few words before approaching the case which oc- 
 cupies your painful attention. In Crown cases it 
 happens frequently that the prisoner is at a serious 
 disadvantage in the matter of representation. 
 Counsel of great eminence may be briefed for the 
 prosecution, while the defence, for whose conduct, 
 as a general rule, very little money is forthcoming, 
 has not the means to secure the aid of counsel of 
 tried worth and experience. In theory the judge is 
 assumed to hold a kind of watching brief for the ac- 
 cused, inasmuch that it is his duty to be alive to any 
 loophole of escape that may present itself in the 
 course of the evidence, and represent that loophole 
 to the jury. But my experience has shown to me 
 that that loophole is extremely unlikely to appear 
 where the opposing counsel are unequally matched. 
 In theory it is expected of the counsel for the Crown 
 that he shall keep a perfectly open mind and not 
 allow his own position to sway his conduct of the 
 case; but a long experience has imposed the con- 
 clusion upon me that such an impartiality as this is 
 not practicable for an advocate who, in the exercise 
 of his art, is compelled by the fact that he holds a 
 brief to exert his talent, in spite of an unwritten law, 
 and even in spite of himself, to the fullest capacity 
 on behalf of his client. 
 
 " These words, gentlemen, will not be miscon- 
 270 
 
THE SUMMING UP 
 
 strued, I am sure. Nothing is farther from my 
 intention than to suggest that Crown advocates 
 wantonly overstep their duty or go outside their 
 jurisdiction. But I do suggest that they feel im- 
 pelled to do their utmost for their client, and that 
 client is the Treasury. And having that very 
 proper and natural feeling in their minds it is 
 humanly impossible for them to approach their task 
 of promoting a conviction in the academic spirit 
 which in theory is imposed upon them. Therefore 
 you will conceive how difficult becomes the function 
 of a judge who is called upon in the prisoner's in- 
 terest to hold the scales and to adjust the balance, 
 when there is, as occurs so frequently, a grave dis- 
 parity between the ability and the professional ex- 
 perience of the contending counsel. The judge 
 himself, gentlemen, is only human, and although 
 his familiarity with the procedure of a criminal 
 trial may render him less vulnerable to the art of 
 a skilful advocate than those who are not so fa- 
 miliar with those forms of procedure, at the same 
 time I feel entitled to assert that every judge must 
 in a measure be susceptible to the manner in which 
 evidence is conveyed to his notice, and the manner 
 in which it is dissected before his eyes. 
 
 " You will forgive me, gentlemen, I hope, in 
 making what may seem to be a digression from this 
 extremely painful case we are considering, but it is 
 a point that arises very naturally out of it. The 
 counsel for the defence saw fit to touch upon it in 
 the course of his address, and I would like to as- 
 sure him and to assure you that during the five 
 and twenty years I have had the honor to occupy 
 a seat on the judicial bench, this question has seemed 
 
 271 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 to me of such paramount importance that it has 
 been constantly before my mind. This is the last 
 opportunity I shall have of making a reference to 
 it in the presence of you gentlemen of the jury; 
 this is the last occasion on which I shall take my seat 
 in this or any other court; therefore I feel a desire 
 to record, with whatever authority twenty-five 
 years of public service may confer on a mere ex- 
 pression of opinion, the conclusion at which I have 
 arrived. 
 
 " In the ears of many my conclusion will sound 
 Utopian, in many minds it will seem to be a counsel 
 of perfection, for it is this. In important criminal 
 cases it is the duty of the Crown to make the same 
 ample provision for the accused as it does for itself. 
 It should afford equal facilities to the accused per- 
 son to establish his innocence as it affords to itself 
 to establish his guilt. After many profound search- 
 ings of heart, more particularly upon circuit, where 
 cases affecting the life and liberty of the subject 
 are so often left entirely to the discretion of a rural 
 practitioner, this is the conclusion I have reached. 
 Such a conclusion will, I fear, be taken as a con- 
 fession of weakness on the part of an individual 
 judge. It is a confession of weakness, gentlemen, 
 but I do not think I shall be contradicted when I 
 urge that it is a confession which the strongest and 
 most able of my learned brethren have been called 
 upon over and over again in their heart of hearts 
 to make. 
 
 " The terrible miscarriage of justice which oc- 
 curred a year ago in this court, for which I alone 
 can accept responsibility, for which to this present 
 hour I have not ceased to mourn, would not have 
 
 272 
 
THE SUMMING UP 
 
 taken place had the defence been in a position to 
 present its testimony, and to marshal its facts with 
 a skill equal to that enjoyed by the prosecution. 
 The most material issue in the case was never pre- 
 sented at all. Its existence was not even revealed. 
 Neither the prosecuting counsel nor the presiding 
 judge was aware that the defence had this imple- 
 ment in its possession until long after this miscar- 
 riage had been consummated. Do not misunder- 
 stand me, gentlemen; I hold no brief for myself; 
 I accept the whole of the responsibility for what 
 took place. It was my duty to unveil that which 
 was hidden, and to present it adequately to the 
 jury. I failed in that duty, because from the be- 
 ginning of the case the defence was overshadowed. 
 The actual murderer himself was called in evidence 
 by the Crown ; it was upon his unshaken testimony 
 that the verdict was rendered; but as was only 
 learned when too late, had one obscure question 
 been pressed home in cross-examination to this 
 murderer who had perjured himself to conceal his 
 guilt, his testimony could not have lived five min- 
 utes in any impartial mind, and a lamentable, a 
 grievous miscarriage of justice would not have 
 stained the annals of this English justice of which 
 very rightly and properly we are so proud." 
 
 Again a profound silence had descended upon 
 the court. The painful and close-breathing inten- 
 sity with which all in that crowded assembly had 
 followed the prisoner's advocate through the de- 
 vious courses of his address was now extended 
 to the judge. There was nothing in the words 
 he used to call forth this hush of excited expec- 
 tation, but the emotion with which they were in- 
 
 273 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 vested seemed to furnish them with life and mag- 
 netism. _, 
 
 " All his life,'* whispered the fat barrister to 
 his friend, in a tone of curious tenderness, " he has 
 been a blusterer and a blunderer, overanxious, 
 pedantic, weak-willed, easily led, but — but his end 
 is glorious. This is a note he has never touched 
 before." 
 
 " This state defence of prisoners is so much mis- 
 chievous nonsense," said the other almost angrily. 
 " Where does he suppose it will land the country? 
 A judge has no right to advance such an opinion 
 from the bench." 
 
 " Bill," said the fat barrister, with a solemnity 
 for which none of his friends would have been 
 prepared, " when you have been one of His 
 Majesty's judges for twenty-five years you may not 
 hold quite such definite opinions. Dear old Bow- 
 wow; all the world knows that underneath his 
 armor he has kept the kindest heart that ever beat, 
 but this is the first time he has made me feel that 
 I wanted to blub." 
 
 " 'Pon my word, Jumbo," said his friend, im- 
 patiently, " don't you begin. We have had enough 
 mawkishness this afternoon to last us for the rest 
 of our lives. I expect Weekes will be falling on 
 the neck of Topott soon, and the clerk will be 
 kissing the sheriff." 
 
 " Dear old Bow-wow, dear old boy, how old he 
 is getting. They say this John Davis affair has 
 cut him up dreadfully. There is not a judge on the 
 bench who would feel it more." 
 
 '' Probably the weakest judge who ever took 
 his seat on the bench. What is he maundering 
 
 274 
 
THE SUMMING UP 
 
 about now? Ah, at last he's got to the summing 
 up." 
 
 The hour was advancing, and happily the judge's 
 speech was not of the length which at one time it 
 had threatened to be. The summing-up was short 
 but indecisive. It was plain that the prisoner's 
 advocate had done his work with the judge as well 
 as with the jury. There was nothing in the judge's 
 presentment of the evidence, which at one time 
 had looked so damning, tO' compare with the reso- 
 lution and conviction of Northcote. The magnetic 
 splendor and brilliancy which had overcome, one 
 by one, the twelve good men and true in the box, 
 had fastened also upon this old man. His con- 
 fidence was shaken, and the definite line the counsel 
 for the Crown had so confidently expected him to 
 take was far to seek. 
 
 " This is doing us no good," grunted Mr. Weekes 
 to his junior. By now the leader for the Crown 
 was in a very bad temper. His afternoon had been 
 wasted, he was going to be late for his dinner, 
 and he was about to lose a verdict upon which he 
 had counted with certainty. " My dear Bow-wow, 
 you are positively maudlin. Why the deuce don't 
 you leave the doubt alone and confine yourself to 
 the evidence? There is no doubt. There is not 
 a leg for them to stand on." 
 
 " There was not half a leg for them to stand on 
 at the beginning," said Mr. Topott, with scrupu- 
 lous modesty, *' but now as the end approaches, 
 they appear to be standing upon two thoroughly 
 sound ones. I think I said at lunch I was fright- 
 ened to death of that fellow." 
 
 275 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " Much good that did the case," snapped Mr. 
 Weekes. 
 
 '' You were so sanguine, my dear fellow," said 
 Mr. Topott, with his modesty taking an almost 
 angelic note. He was a young man, able and am- 
 bitious; and his private opinion of his leader was 
 of a nature that wild horses would not have caused 
 him to expose. " You pooh-poohed everybody and 
 everything at lunch. The case was as dead as mut- 
 ton; their man was a beginner; you and Bow- 
 wow were going to take care that he did no harm." 
 
 " Well, Topott, I must say you never lose an 
 opportunity of rubbing things in." 
 
 " Perhaps that is so," said Mr. Topott, dreamily. 
 " Perhaps I am rather good at rubbing things in. 
 Perhaps that is my metier.'" 
 
 " Then perhaps you will provide yourself with 
 another. To my mind this one is not at all amus- 
 mg. 
 
 " I suspect that is so. But now this case has 
 gone to pot, I hope you will not be angry, Weekes, 
 if I inform you that the fault is not yours. You 
 have simply been knocked out in a fair and square 
 battle. But I hope you will not repine; because 
 there is not a man in England to-day who could 
 have stood up against that fellow. He chose ex- 
 traordinary weapons, but they were those he knew 
 how to use. No disgrace attaches to you ; you have 
 taken the knock quite honestly; and if the attorney 
 had been here he would have had to take it too." 
 
 " Thank you, Topott," said Mr. Weekes, tartly ; 
 " I wish I could have your testimonial in writing." 
 
 " By all means," said Mr. Topott. 
 
 " Just listen to that old fool," said Mr. Weekes, 
 276 
 
THE SUMMING UP 
 
 petulantly. " Whoever heard such rubbish as he 
 is talking? It is time he resigned. Nobody actually 
 saw her put the poison in. Absence of motive. Pris- 
 oner entitled to every doubt that may arise. Every 
 link must be forged in the chain of all evidence that 
 is purely circumstantial. No credence can be 
 given to the testimony of half the witnesses for 
 the Crown. My dear Bow-wow, I really never 
 heard such nonsense in my life." 
 
 ** An hour ago you never heard such blasphemy." 
 
 " I would to God the attorney had held this 
 brief! " said Mr. Weekes, desperately. 
 
 " You may count on one thing," said Mr. 
 Topott ; '* he will never let you hear the last of 
 this. Won't he chuckle? He will pull your leg 
 about it for the next ten years." 
 
 '* I hope you will tell him, Topott," said Mr. 
 Weekes anxiously, " that he would have done no 
 better." 
 
 " Oh, I don't say he would have done no better," 
 said the impartial Mr. Topott. " He would have 
 done better. He would never have let that chap 
 get as far as he did, even if he had had to ascend 
 the bench and take poor old Bow-wow by the tippet. 
 But I do say he also would have had to take his 
 gruel, and he would have lost his verdict." 
 
 " Oh, we have not lost it yet." 
 
 " We shall have lost it in another quarter of 
 an hour." 
 
 277 
 
XXIX 
 
 THE VERDICT 
 
 It was a quarter-past seven by the time Mr. 
 Justice Brudenell had concluded his summing-up. 
 Long before he had reached the end, a prediction 
 of the result had formed in every mind. This case 
 which in the beginning had been as clear and strong 
 as the sun at noon had become so vitiated by con- 
 tact with these legal wits, that by now even its 
 most salient points had become obscure. No jury 
 in the frame of mind of this present one, each 
 component of which had been played upon like the 
 strings of a harp by the hand of a master per- 
 former, was in the least likely to convict. There 
 were those who even inclined to the belief that they 
 would not leave the box. 
 
 This, however, proved to be an extreme view. 
 They did leave the box, but in exactly nine min- 
 utes had returned into court. As slowly they de- 
 filed back again into the court with their verdict, 
 the excitement depicted in their looks was painful 
 to observe. Their drawn faces were livid and per- 
 spiring; they kept down their heads without 
 glancing to the right or to the left. The foreman, 
 a coal dealer in a small way of business in the 
 Commercial Road, was seized with a violent 
 twitching of the body. 
 
 " Are you agreed upon your verdict, gentle- 
 men?" whispered the Clerk of the Arraigns. 
 
 278 
 
THE VERDICT 
 
 " We are," said the foreman of the jury, in a 
 voice that could hardly be heard. 
 
 " What is your verdict, gentlemen? " 
 
 " We return a verdict of — of — " 
 
 The conclusion of the sentence seemed to die 
 in the foreman's throat. 
 
 " Will you please speak in such a manner that 
 his lordship may hear you ? " said the clerk. 
 
 " We return a verdict of not guilty," said the 
 foreman, with his eyes fixed on the rail before 
 him. To the horror of many who observed him, 
 he appeared to trace some words upon it with his 
 finger. 
 
 The demonstration which followed the verdict 
 had been anticipated, and accordingly on this oc- 
 casion the officers of the court were able in some 
 measure to control it. 
 
 No sooner had the judge uttered a few words, 
 which in the clamor were inaudible, than he rose 
 \ hastily from his seat. In the same instant North- 
 cote rose also, and that voice and presence which 
 for so many hours had exercised such an unques- 
 tioned sway at once detained those who were 
 thronging eagerly through the doors into the raw 
 December darkness. 
 
 '' Before the court rises," said Northcote, " I 
 crave your lordship's indulgence for a brief mo- 
 ment." 
 
 The judge bowed courteously and resumed his 
 seat, a little unsteadily as was thought by those 
 who were near to him. 
 
 " I desire to offer to your lordship," said the 
 young advocate, with a humility that was affect- 
 ing, " in a public manner, an ample and an un- 
 
 279 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 reserved apology for an allusion which had the 
 misfortune to fall from my lips. I gave utterance 
 to it in a moment of great mental excitement, and 
 at that moment I did not realize, so completely was 
 I under the domination of the end I had in view, 
 that in a sense such an allusion was an indictment 
 of your lordship and of that high office upon which, 
 during a quarter of a century past, your lordship 
 has conferred honor. I beg to be allowed to crave 
 your lordship's forgiveness. Had these words not 
 been spoken at a time when I was overcome by 
 the heat of advocacy, they would never have been 
 spoken at all." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Northcote," said the judge 
 in a low but distinct voice. " I understand per- 
 fectly well the circumstances in which these words 
 were spoken. They gave me pain, but I do not 
 hold you blameworthy. I viewed with keen sym- 
 pathy the position in which you were placed; and 
 I accept without reservation the apology which with 
 an equal absence of reservation you have conceived 
 it your duty to tender to me. I don't know 
 whether I can be permitted to offer a suggestion 
 in a matter of this kind, but if, Mr. Northcote, you 
 could see your way towards the inclusion of your 
 friend Mr. Weekes in this extremely honorable 
 amende — '' 
 
 " I will, my lord — I do ! " cried the impetuous 
 young man, turning towards the place of the senior 
 counsel for the Treasury. 
 
 '' I regret to say, my lord," said Mr. Topott, 
 rising and bowing to the judge and to Northcote, 
 " that my learned friend has already left the pre- 
 cincts of the court; but I feel sure I am entitled 
 
 280 
 
THE VERDICT 
 
 to state, that were he now present he would accept 
 these words of Mr. Northcote in the spirit in which 
 they are offered." 
 
 The judge left the bench and the court emptied 
 rapidly. Mr. Whitcomb, who had remained most 
 of the day in Northcote' s vicinity, plucked him by 
 the sleeve as he rose and gathered his papers. 
 
 " I know now what you mean by the genie," 
 said he. " I shall send a wire to Tobin at the 
 hospital. I should like to see his face when he 
 gets it." 
 
 Northcote was too highly wrought to appreciate 
 a word that was uttered by the solicitor. He could 
 only smile and nod and wish him good night, all 
 of which was done with incoherence and abrupt- 
 ness. As the young man passed out of the court, 
 an elderly unfortunate, without any teeth, one-half 
 of whose face had been destroyed by disease, crept 
 from her hiding-place in a dark corner of the 
 corridor. She grabbed the hem of Northcote's 
 gown and carried it to her lips. 
 
 " Gawd bless yer, guv'ner," she mumbled, in a 
 thick, wheezy whisper. 
 
 In the barristers' robing-room the entrance of 
 Northcote created a stir. Jumbo, a bencher of 
 Northcote's inn, and like all who are not afraid 
 to present themselves without reserve, just as 
 nature devised them, a man of immense popularity, 
 hit the young advocate a blow on the shoulder. 
 
 "When can I stand you a bottle, dear boy? 
 Fine work ! " 
 
 The son of the Master of the Rolls came up. 
 
 " I say, Northcote," he said, " you don't re- 
 
 281 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 member me? I'm Hutton. I was in Foxey's house 
 with you at school." 
 
 " Of course, of course," said Northcote, hardly 
 knowings a word that he spoke ; *' I remember you 
 perfectly well. You have not altered at all." 
 
 "You've not altered much, although you look 
 awfully old and very much thinner than you used 
 to look. I want you to mention an evening that 
 you can come round and dine with my governor — 
 you remember the governor I used to get ragged 
 so tremendously for boasting about? He will be 
 delighted to meet you. I shall tell him all about 
 this; he is the kindest old soul." 
 
 " Thanks, but I can't dine with you until I've 
 got my evening clothes out of pawn." 
 
 Northcote's schoolfellow laughed heartily. 
 
 " No, you've not altered," he said. " Just the 
 same amusing cynical old cuss you were at school 
 — just the same cynical old cuss of whom we were 
 so much afraid and who was so frightfully un- 
 popular." 
 
 " Poverty and pride were never a popular com- 
 bination," said Northcote, aroused from his pre- 
 occupation by the sympathy of one of the few who 
 had supported him in his youth. " If I hadn't 
 been a bit of a football-player I don't know what 
 would have happened to me in those days. I used 
 to derive pleasure, I remember, from insulting 
 everybody." 
 
 " Foxey used to call you Diogenes." 
 
 " He used to say that Diogenes was consider- 
 ably the pleasanter fellow of the two." 
 
 " Poor old Foxey always feared you, I believe, 
 just as did everybody else. You were a gloomy, 
 
 282 
 
THE VERDICT 
 
 dreamy sort of chap when you were not merely 
 formidable. I remember once you were nearly 
 superannuated. And do you remember Foxey 
 saying there was nothing- you might not do, if only 
 you would apply your mind to it; but as it was, 
 he was sure you would never do anything ? " 
 
 " I lived in a mental fog in those days," said 
 Northcote, with a dreary laugh. " There was a 
 thick vapor wrapped all round my brain. I could 
 see and understand nothing. One fact only was 
 borne in upon me with any sort of clearness. 
 It was that I was vastly superior to everybody 
 else. There never was such a colossal self-esteem." 
 
 " Well, you certainly despised everybody in 
 those days. And you must have gone on despising 
 everybody to be capable of doing what you have." 
 
 " I remember I was generally chosen to lead the 
 scrum because I had a big voice," said Northcote, 
 with the light of reminiscence softening his grim 
 mouth. 
 
 " But your voice is so much greater now than 
 it was then, although it was always an immense 
 booming sort of thing that seemed to come out of 
 your boots. But your hands used to impress me 
 more than anything else. I used to think that if 
 I had hands like that I should break ribs for my 
 private amusement. Do you remember standing 
 the three-quarters on their heads? You were a 
 hefty brute in those days." 
 
 " I was always more or less a man of my hands, 
 yet at the same time was always intensely inter- 
 ested in myself. I used to consider that ' Cad * 
 Northcote — that was my name at school, although 
 you are too polite to remind me of it — was quite 
 
 283 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 the most wonderful person who had ever been 
 born into this world or into any other. I used to 
 lie awake all night taking myself to pieces as 
 though I had been a watch. Sometimes I dreamed 
 that I was Napoleon, and that it had come to pass 
 that he had been chosen to lead the English pack 
 while he was still at school." 
 
 " Well, that dream came true at any rate," said 
 his schoolfellow, with an outburst of enthusiasm. 
 " You were still with us when you pushed those 
 Welshmen all over the place." 
 
 The conversation was curtailed at this point by 
 the appearance of the judge's marshal. 
 
 " Mr. Northcote," said this courteous and nicely 
 dressed official, '' Sir Joseph would be very much 
 obliged if you would come round and see him in 
 his room." 
 
 " Right you are ! I will be round in a minute," 
 said Northcote, shaking hands with his old school- 
 fellow and declining an invitation to dine in Eaton 
 Square the next evening but one. 
 
 284 
 
XXX 
 
 SIR JOSEPH BRUDENELL 
 
 In the judge's room Northcote found its occu- 
 pant seated in an armchair at the side of the fire. 
 The light was subdued, and the face of the old 
 man was in shadow even while he rose to receive 
 his visitor. 
 
 " I thank you for coming to see me, Mr. North- 
 cote," he said, in a low voice. " I will not detain 
 you long, but I hope you will sit down." 
 
 Northcote accepted the seat that was indicated 
 opposite to the judge's armchair. His curiosity 
 was roused in a strange fashion by the manner 
 and tone of this old man. They were extremely 
 kind and gentle, almost those which an aged and 
 benevolent parent might employ when about to 
 take leave of a favorite son. 
 
 " If you will allow an old advocate," said the 
 judge, leaning back in his chair and placing the 
 tips of his fingers together, " to af^rm it again, I 
 have been impressed by your conduct of this case. 
 My memory carries me back a long way; I have 
 been more than fifty years at the bar and on the 
 bench. During that period I have been brought 
 into contact with the greatest advocates of their 
 day, and I have been called upon to bear a part 
 in many of the leading causes. But never, Mr. 
 Northcote, — I emphasize the word, — has it been 
 my privilege to witness a performance so remark- 
 
 2S5 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 able on the part of one who is young and untried 
 as the one given by you to-day. 
 
 " In the first place, and bearing in mind the 
 limited character of your opportunities, I cannot 
 prfetend to know how it has been achieved. Your 
 cross-examination of the last witness called for 
 the Crown was, in my view, masterly. I have 
 always held, and many will support me, I am sure, 
 that the art of cross-examination is a searching 
 test of an advocate. To the ordinary person even 
 moderate skill in that supremely difficult branch 
 only comes with years and experience. But you 
 begin, Mr. Northcote, where many of true dis- 
 tinction are only able to leave off. 
 
 " I have always been proud, jealous — I might 
 say overjealous perhaps — of my profession, to 
 which I have given the flower of my maturity; 
 and I have always felt that whatever degree of 
 talent it may please God to bestow upon a man, 
 this great profession of ours offers a field which 
 brings it to the test. You must let me say, Mr. 
 Northcote, that when I heard you deal with that 
 poor woman this morning, and I heard you frame 
 those questions which you put to her with a really 
 beautiful sincerity which told heavily with the 
 jury, I felt proud that so young a man could stand 
 up so fearlessly and so collectedly in his first great 
 criminal cause and put to so fine a use the talents 
 that God had given to him. Had you been my 
 own son I could not have felt prouder of you, and 
 prouder of the' traditions that you were upholding. 
 Many of the great lights of the past came before 
 my eyes — Pearson, now the Lord Chief Justice ; 
 Hutton, the Master of the Rolls; poor, dear Fred 
 
 286 
 
SIR JOSEPH BRUDENELL 
 
 Markham, in many respects the most brilliant of 
 them all, who was cut off, poor fellow, almost be- 
 fore he had reached his prime; the late George 
 Stratton; Lord Ballinogue; Walker; Skeffington; 
 and I know not how many more — but I did not 
 hesitate to believe, although we old men are tena- 
 cious of our prejudices, that the bounty of nature 
 had placed you already on their level, and that 
 great and good and glorious as were all these 
 names I have mentioned, you were starting at the 
 point where they were content to end." 
 
 Northcote leaned forward and lowered his head 
 with a fierce, almost uncontrollable sensation of 
 bewilderment, in which, however, pain was pre- 
 dominant. Every word that was uttered by that 
 low, trembling, old voice appeared to spring from 
 the heart. It was something more than an old 
 man babbling of his youth. There was a pride, an 
 eagerness, a solicitude, in the manner of this aged 
 judge which seemed to clasp Northcote like the 
 impersonal devotion of a noble woman to some- 
 thing more radiant but less pure and less rare than 
 that which emanates from herself. In the keenness 
 of his distress it was as much as Northcote could do 
 to refrain from rushing from the room. 
 
 " Yet, Mr. Northcote," the old man went on, 
 "if I say this of your cross-examination, which 
 as far as you are concerned was a thing of the 
 moment, a mere piece of esprit thrown off without 
 premeditation, what shall I say of that address 
 with which you conquered all who listened to it? 
 I speak no longer as a judge, Mr. Northcote; my 
 livery is laid by. As I sat there in court with 
 every chord in my heart responsive to the noble 
 
 287 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 music of your voice, I felt that you had brought 
 home to me that the time had come when I had 
 ceased to be of service to the pubHc. I shall take 
 my seat on the bench no more. But henceforward 
 I shall always carry your words in my heart. They 
 were noble words, nobly spoken; nature has been 
 almost wantonly lavish to you in her gifts. It has 
 been given to you, a young man, to show that the 
 completest abasement of human nature is not in 
 the gutter. I read the deeper and the truer mean- 
 ing that was innermost, the divine message that 
 was unfolded by the deep vibrations of your singu- 
 larly beautiful voice. You revealed to one in 
 that court, Mr. Northcote, who should have been 
 engaged in performing his duty to the public, that 
 no sore festers in our social life to-day like the 
 organized degradation of the police-court, where 
 learning, wisdom, courage, and integrity are de- 
 based to even fouler depths than the gutter by their 
 constant traffic in human misery. Many times, 
 Mr. Northcote, have I cowered in spirits since I 
 have been called to my office, but it has remained 
 for you, a young advocate, a fledgling of a newer 
 and grander generation, which will touch this 
 material world of ours to finer issues — it has re- 
 mained for you to knock at the door of the citadel 
 of the oldest of his Majesty's judges, and to put 
 questions that he cannot answer. You forced him 
 to say to himself, * Tell me, Joseph Brudenell, 
 what law you are obeying when you take your 
 seat on these cushions, and you endeavor to fulfil 
 the functions of the office to which you have al- 
 lowed yourself to be called ? ' 
 
 " When, Mr. Northcote, in the height of your 
 288 
 
SIR JOSEPH BRUDENELL 
 
 conviction you dared to swear in your own jury, 
 you made every member of it actual and visible 
 to me. You may have been uttering a profounder 
 truth than you knew — which is one of the many pre- 
 rogatives of genius — when you asserted that 
 every one of those fearful and unhappy tradesmen 
 had that jury within him in the jury-box. As you 
 pointed out, we are the heirs of all the ages: the 
 prisoner and the policeman, the advocate and the 
 judge. And he whom you caused this jury of yours 
 to elect as their foreman showed to me how re- 
 sponsible and authentic that jury was. By the 
 magic, Mr. Northcote, in which you deal, you not 
 only evoked that foreman in the spirit, but by some 
 miracle you clothed him in flesh. That was a ter- 
 rible achievement. It was the first occasion that 
 the redeemer of mankind was seen to be in the oc- 
 cupation of a seat at the court of Old Bailey. 
 
 " I have heard all the great advocates of my time. 
 I was present on that memorable occasion when 
 Selwyn Anstruther made his appeal on behalf of 
 Smith. Anstruther spoke during the whole of 
 three days; as an orator he would, with equal op- 
 portunities, have been the peer of Gladstone and 
 John Bright. Anstruther's tradition is such — he 
 had killed himself with overwork by the time he was 
 forty — that he has become almost a myth. But 
 even this speech of his to which I allude, many 
 phrases of which I can recall after all these years, 
 does not compare forensically with this appeal of 
 yours, to which we had the awful privilege of listen- 
 ing this afternoon. 
 
 " Nature, Mr. Northcote, as I have said, has in 
 your case been almost wantonly lavish of her gifts. 
 
 289 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Like one who was compounded of pure wisdom, 
 you appear to have sprung from Jupiter's fore- 
 head completely armed. You have the voice and 
 presence of the tribune; you add to the power oi 
 the demagogue a cool, elastic, and a subtle brain. 
 I know not which to marvel at the more, your al- 
 most reckless courage, or that wonderful self- 
 discipline which bends a courser so fiery to your 
 lightest behest. 
 
 '* You must bear with me in patience, Mr. North- 
 cote, while I exhaust the stock of my superlatives; 
 you see you have carried an old advocate away 
 just as completely, nay, even more completely than 
 you carried those honest laymen. This afternoon 
 you furnished an old warrior, weary of the arena, 
 with a few more of those priceless moments which 
 he had not dared to hope again to enjoy. For 
 over and above all your other qualities you have 
 the divine gift which fuses every quality you 
 possess. You have that sympathetic imagination 
 which is the gift of heaven. It is a key which 
 unlocks every bosom. The rich and the poor must 
 alike bow before it. Things and men. Nature her- 
 self, even the universe itself, if you care to address 
 your questions to it, can deny to you none of their 
 secrets. The foreman of your jury, the divine 
 mystic of the Galilean hills, was the man who was 
 endowed with that rare jewel beyond all others; 
 and he, as we read, carried the multitude from 
 place to place and caused the sea to open that it 
 might walk across." 
 
 The voice of the judge grew lower and lower. 
 He had spoken very rapidly, and under the impetus 
 of an excitement almost painful in one of his years. 
 
 290 
 
SIR JOSEPH BRUDENELL 
 
 Northcote was entranced by the vivid energy of 
 the old man, and the tremulous emotion with which 
 his words were charged. It seemed to be uncanny 
 that he should be sitting there to listen. There 
 was not a member of the bar who would have 
 identified in the transfigured zealot who was 
 pouring forth such strange words the personality 
 of Bow-wow Brudenell, the irascible old blusterer 
 who was considered to be so unsympathetic and 
 hard to please. There was not a word, not a ges- 
 ture by which the outer man who had become so 
 " famous " with the public could be recognized. 
 This intense mental energy, burning like a lamp 
 behind the harsh creases in his face, seemed to have 
 refined him and rendered him beautiful. The 
 grand passion which Northcote had unmasked 
 filled the young man with awe. What did his own 
 imperious qualities amount to in the presence of 
 this simplicity? How foolish, how divine it was! 
 This old man, whom he had dubbed in his arro- 
 gance the type of all mediocrity, shone forth with 
 a lustre which filled its beholder with shame. 
 
 The judge rose from his chair with an effort. 
 Northcote also rose. The old man seized his hand 
 with a humble gesture which yet transcended a 
 parent's tenderness. 
 
 " My dear boy," he said in a whisper, " I did 
 not call you here to listen to this unbridled praise 
 of your own gifts. But I felt that I must speak 
 all that was in my mind concerning you, because 
 I love you — I love you for what you are and for 
 what you will be. All my life I have had a passion 
 for my profession, and I bring myself to speak 
 these words to you, because I feel that I hold within 
 
 291 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 my grasp the newer, the wiser, the grander gener- 
 ation which has sprung already from the loins of us 
 effete old warriors. You, my dear boy, I dare to 
 prophesy, will be its protagonist. There is not a 
 prize which our profession offers which is not al- 
 ready in your hand. One of these days you will 
 be called to its highest dignities. I foresee that you 
 are likely to become a dictator. The imperious will 
 by which you are impelled invests you with a power 
 that soon or late will control the destinies of the 
 state. Therefore an old public servant ventures 
 to speak to you as he would speak to his own son 
 were he living to hear his words. 
 
 " The material lures of your profession are 
 powerful, but I entreat you never to consider them. 
 Be a strong and great advocate who will take his 
 stand only upon truth. In the infinity of your 
 nature you are fitted to walk alone in the strait 
 places. The temptations which will accost one of 
 such powers will not be light ones, but if you can 
 acquire that reverence for your calling, that medi- 
 ocrities like myself have been endowed with 
 throughout their days owing to the infinite mercy 
 of God, that calling has nothing to fear at your 
 hands. It will derive a new sanction from your 
 genius. But, my dear boy, this is a terrible gift 
 which you possess. It is a two-edged sword, and 
 if in a moment of unwariness, such as has been 
 known to visit the heroes of which we read, one 
 of its sharp edges should be turned against the 
 society in which you dwell, I beseech you to re- 
 member the other edge will be turned against your- 
 self. He who afiirms this is a humble and aged 
 
 299 
 
SIR JOSEPH BRUDENELL 
 
 servitor of truth, and on that plea I beg you to 
 forgive his importunity." 
 
 All this time the judge had been holding North- 
 cote's hand. Towards the end his voice seemed to 
 fail, but the pressure of his fingers increased. 
 
 " These are my last words," he said feebly. 
 "Guard your trust; take your stand upon truth. 
 May God keep you. One who is old will remember 
 you in his prayers." 
 
 Almost involuntarily the judge placed his hands 
 on the shoulders of the young man and pressed 
 his lips to his forehead. 
 
 For a moment Northcote seemed petrified with 
 bewilderment. This strange message from one 
 who had run his course to one who was entering 
 upon his own atrophied the powers of speech and 
 motion. At last he tore his hand from the judge's 
 weakening grasp and ran from: the room. In his 
 flight he seemed to detect the sound of something 
 dull and heavy falling behind him. Yet in the 
 depths of his agitation and his shame he did not 
 stay to look back. 
 
 He was soon out in the dark streets. Their 
 coldness and commotion, their secrecy, and above 
 all their freedom, were painfully welcome. He had 
 hardly been able to draw breath in that arena in 
 which he had fought his battle during so many 
 dreadful hours. The old madness of movement, 
 the old insensate desire for liberty overcame him 
 again, and hungry and weary as he was he pro- 
 ceeded to tramp fiercely about the raw winter night. 
 
 As he marched without aim hither and thither, 
 up one street and down another, he had no thought 
 of the astonishing victory he had gained. The 
 
 293 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 words of the judge had overcome everything else". 
 They dealt with the future ; his victory was already 
 a part of the past. His pride was so arbitrary 
 that it appalled and humiliated him to reflect that 
 any man, that even an aged servitor of the truth, in 
 the moment of renunciation of the arduous labors 
 that had oppressed him for so many years, should 
 have had the temerity to address words of such im- 
 port to him. 
 
 From one pair of eyes at least, his talents, which 
 had at last wrested recognition from a jealous, 
 narrow, conventional world, had not been able to 
 hide the dangers with which they were girt. This 
 aged judge had pierced the secret. Those senile 
 old eyes, alone of those in the court, had seen the 
 pitfalls which lay beneath his triumph. 
 
 He ought to have been overwhelmingly happy 
 in this new perambulation of the darkness. Yet the 
 sense of humiliation was paramount. That strength 
 upon which all his life his extravagant hopes had 
 been nourished had proved to be even greater than 
 he had known, but the under side of his nature, to 
 which he had given rein in order to grasp success, 
 opened up possibilities that were strange and awful. 
 Truth and justice had had no meaning for the ter- 
 rible genie he had called to his aid. They had been 
 used as so many cards in a game. The judge was 
 right: so grievous a prostitution of a noble talent 
 was a grave public danger. On the first occasion 
 it had been employed it had compassed a notable 
 miscarriage of justice. 
 
 Towards ten o'clock his wanderings carried 
 him into Leicester Square. He stayed his steps 
 under the ghastly lights of a music hall and made 
 
 294 
 
SIR JOSEPH BRUDENELL 
 
 the discovery that he was faint with hunger and 
 fatigue. With a dismal sense of foreboding, which 
 habit had rendered involuntary, he thrust his hands 
 in those pockets which on many occasions had had 
 nothing to yield. To his joy his search was re- 
 warded with a sovereign and a halfpenny. As he 
 held the coins in his fingers a strange weary feeling 
 of gratitude stole over him. His days of bodily 
 privation were at an end. Not again would he know 
 what it was to need food and yet lack the where- 
 withal of obtaining it. After all he must not dare 
 to deride success. Its attributes were substantial, 
 definite, necessary. 
 
 As he crossed the square in search of a restau- 
 rant of whose merits he was aware, the large letters 
 of the news-bill of an evening journal caught his 
 eye. Murder Trial — Sensational Speech for the 
 Defence — Scenes in Court — Verdict. 
 
 '' Here, boy, a paper," he said, holding out the 
 halfpenny. 
 
 He clutched the paper greedily and crumpled it 
 in his fist. It almost seemed as he did so that fame 
 itself was tangible, that it was something that he 
 could crumple in his hand. 
 
 In the eating-house he passed a glorious hour in 
 which he devoured beefsteak and potatoes and con- 
 sumed a tankard of ale. He read the account of 
 the trial over and over again, although as rendered 
 by the evening journal it had no meaning for him. 
 Even the bald resume of bare facts seemed far 
 otherwise than those as rendered to himself. He 
 could not recognize one of the incidents. Hardly 
 a word was intelligible to the chief actor in that 
 crowded and pregnant drama. " Mr. Norcutt for 
 
 295 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 the defence spoke for two hours fifty-eight minutes. 
 His speech was full of Biblical quotations, and even 
 the judge was affected by it." 
 
 When he turned out again into the streets a 
 newsboy came running round the comer of Shaftes- 
 bury Avenue. He was crying, *' Here y'are hextry 
 special. Sensational murder trial — sudden deff of 
 the judge." 
 
 Northcote bought another newspaper and opened 
 it under a lamp. In the space reserved for the 
 latest telegrams, these words were printed upside 
 down, " We regret to learn that Mr. Justice 
 Brudenell expired in his room shortly after the 
 conclusion of the murder trial at the Central Crimi- 
 nal Court this evening. The cause of death is be- 
 lieved to be heart failure." 
 
 2^6 
 
XXXI 
 
 MEDIOCRITY VERSUS GENIUS 
 
 North COTE could confess no surprise. But it 
 struck him with a sense of drama, the thrill of the 
 unexpected which underlies the impact of the com- 
 mon, that he should not have discerned the end of 
 this aged man to be so near. The sounds he had 
 heard as he rushed from the room must have been 
 caused by that venerable figure falling to the floor. 
 Sharply, however, as he felt the knife of reality 
 in all its brutal power, he yet refrained from specu- 
 lating upon the scope of its present operation. He 
 was now tired out; his brain was heavy. He 
 pushed on straight to his attic, climbed the dark 
 stairs, and in a little while was curled under a 
 blanket with a merciful sleep blotting out the actual. 
 
 He was summoned peremptorily from oblivion 
 by the noise made by the old charwoman in draw- 
 ing back the curtains which divided his garret into 
 two apartments. 
 
 " Quarter to eight, sir." 
 
 " Ay, ay," he muttered, stretching his limbs 
 and brushing the sleep from his eyes. His slumber 
 had been that of abject weariness; deep, dreanir 
 less, undisturbed. He jumped out of bed, slipped 
 on a dressing-gown that hung in rags, and felt 
 himself to be once more the complete and valiant 
 man. 
 
 When he sat down to breakfast he sent out the 
 297 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 old woman to procure the morning journals. 
 Throughout the operation of dressing, his mind, 
 inflamed with conquest as it was, was filled with 
 thoughts of the judge. In spite of its length, his 
 career on the bench had only been a qualified suc- 
 cess; he had never lacked adverse criticism. In 
 the eyes of many he had never been quite strong 
 enough for his position. 
 
 Upon the arrival of the newspapers, Northcote 
 turned first to the obituary notices, rather than to 
 the accounts of the trial in which his own personal 
 triumph would be displayed. Following the cus- 
 tom of bestowing even more indiscriminate eulogy 
 upon mediocrity when it is dead than it receives 
 when it is living, the newspapers vied with one 
 another in descanting upon Sir Joseph Brudenell's 
 services to the public, and his qualities of heart and 
 mind. It brought immense relief to Northcote that 
 this was the case. He was in no mood to suffer 
 disparagement of that venerable figure. 
 
 The Age had a leading article upon the trial, 
 and it was soon apparent to the advocate that its 
 hostility towards himself was very marked. It 
 said : " We venture to think that a more singular 
 speech was never heard in a court of justice. It 
 is not our province to advance opinions which en- 
 croach upon the right of counsel to settle for them- 
 selves what is proper and what is improper in the 
 means they may adopt to safeguard the interests 
 of an accused person, particularly in cases of this 
 nature. But it does seem to us, and we believe 
 this view is shared by the majority of competent 
 persons who were present in court, that the course 
 adopted by the counsel for the defence, if it were 
 
 298 
 
MEDIOCRITY VERSUS GENIUS 
 
 to become general, would constitute a grave public 
 danger. Mr. Northcote is a young advocate, whose 
 reputation is yet in the making; and in yielding 
 to the call of his ambition, he adopted a means for 
 the display of his forensic skill the propriety of 
 which we venture seriously to call in question. 
 Had Mr. Justice Brudenell — whose tragically 
 sudden death (to which we refer on page 9) oc- 
 curred within an hour of the rising of the court — 
 been in the complete enjoyment of that mental and 
 bodily vigor which during a period of twenty-five 
 years he had taught the public to look for in the 
 performance of his avocations, we are sure that, 
 to use a mild term, such a travesty as that with 
 which Mr. Northcote assailed the ears of the jury 
 would not have been allowed to invade a British 
 Court of Judicature. We are sure it would 
 have been stopped peremptorily at the outset. 
 As it was, a concatenation of unforeseen circum- 
 stances vouchsafed to the counsel for the defence 
 a license of which he availed himself to the full. 
 And the result we can only regard as lamentable. 
 " The youth and the limited experience of the 
 counsel for the defence are entitled to be urged on 
 his behalf; while the physical condition of the 
 judge which resulted, almost immediately this ex- 
 tremely painful case had concluded, in his tragi- 
 cally sudden death, removes from his shoulders 
 the least onus for what was allowed to take place. 
 But at the same time it is to be urged upon am- 
 bitious members of the junior bar that yesterday's 
 precedent is not one to be followed with impunity. 
 Whatever the exigencies of the moment may dic- 
 tate to young counsel in course of a trial for a cap- 
 
 299 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 ital offence, public opinion will not permit the in- 
 troduction of the doctrines of Nietsche into a 
 British Court of Justice. The parody which was 
 perpetrated yesterday upon religion at the Central 
 Criminal Court must have been peculiarly repug- 
 nant to every reverently constituted mind, while 
 its effect upon the verdict can only be characterized 
 as a total failure of justice. Again the effect upon 
 the advocate who permitted himself to indulge in 
 an occupation so perilous was demonstrated in a 
 remarkable and dramatic manner at the conclusion 
 of his address. The reference he was led into mak- 
 ing, for which afterwards he was impelled to make 
 an unreserved apology, to the miscarriage of jus- 
 tice which occurred in the case of the unfortunate 
 man John Davis a year ago, a reference which took 
 the form of an impeachment of the learned judge 
 himself, and of Mr. Weekes, K. C, the senior coun- 
 sel for the Crown, can only be characterized as a 
 gross breach of taste, and an equally gross disre- 
 gard of those higher tenets of humanity which Mr. 
 Northcote in addressing the jury put to a use so 
 questionable." 
 
 " Well done, old Blunderer," said the recipient 
 of this castigation, his mouth full of buttered toast, 
 and attempting the delicate feat of propping against 
 the teapot the instrument with which it had been 
 administered. " In the performance of your ' daily 
 avocations,' my dear old friend, you are to be 
 admired. The * doctrines of Nietsche ' is distinctly 
 good. Whatever will happen to us in this country 
 when you can no longer be bought for threepence 
 I am sure I don't know." 
 
 However, when the young man had finished his 
 300 
 
MEDIOCRITY VERSUS GENIUS 
 
 breakfast, and he had read the article again, he 
 did not view it with quite the same air of detach- 
 ment with which he had contemplated it at first. 
 By nature he was immensely impatient of criti- 
 cism. He accepted his own superiority to all the 
 rest of the world without question, but like an ar- 
 bitrary despot, he could not suffer the power of 
 which he felt so secure to suffer misinterpretation, 
 or the motives that impelled it to be called in ques- 
 tion. His pride, after all, was of a ferocious and 
 aggressive kind. The old judge's appeal had hu- 
 miliated him bitterly. This newspaper article filled 
 him with the fury that it would have filled Vol- 
 taire. 
 
 " I see what it is," he said, filling his pipe. " They 
 are all in the ring, and they are afraid a rank out- 
 sider is going to break it. And so he shall ! " 
 
 He finished with a volley of oaths. 
 
 The next moment tears had sprung to his eyes. 
 Tears of chagrin, rage, disgust, of resentment 
 against himself. How dare he be so arrogant when 
 the words of the honest old man, spoken while the 
 hand of death was upon him, were still in his ears. 
 Mediocrity had its function, its reason to be. Until 
 he had grasped that elementary truth he could 
 never emerge, clad in valor and completeness, upon 
 that high platform which nature had designed him 
 to occupy. " Cad " Northcote had been the name 
 bestowed upon him at school by his humbler but 
 honester fellows : the same term of opprobrium had 
 now been applied to him in a more public man- 
 ner. 
 
 It was unworthy that he should ascribe the bitter 
 antagonism he had raised against himself to the 
 
 301 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 eternal feud of mediocrity versus genius. That fine 
 gentleman, the old judge, was incapable of bearing 
 false testimony. Outface it as he might, the flaw 
 was in himself. It had been there from the begin- 
 ning. The genie in which his intellectual pride w^as 
 centred was the seat of the canker. Every time he 
 employed it he must be aware of his fatal gift. It 
 was a sinister talisman, or, in the words of the judge, 
 a two-edged sword. Better a thousand times not 
 to be distinguished from the mediocrity he was 
 never weary of despising, than to be at the mercy 
 of a genius that would compass his destruction. 
 
 He took up another newspaper, and turned his 
 attention to an article entitled : " ' Bow-wow ' 
 Brudenell, by an Old Friend." In the course of a 
 column of appreciation it said : " Public life is the 
 poorer to-day by a memorable figure. Mr. Justice 
 Brudenell had achieved an odd sort of fame. It 
 rested upon his idiosyncrasies upon the bench; 
 upon the curious, irascible, barking delivery he af- 
 fected, which earned him the name by which he was 
 always spoken of in the circles in which he moved. 
 In the judgment of his profession he was hardly 
 considered to be a ' strong ' judge, nor was he 
 widely popular; yet although he had detractors, 
 he was always listened to with respect. His queer 
 little tricks of manner and his somewhat formidable 
 aspect created an impression in the public mind 
 which cannot be said to have been wholly in his 
 favor. Yet none could have told from his de- 
 meanor on the bench what the man was at heart. 
 It would require the pen of a Charles Lamb to limn 
 him in his quiddity. To his private friends he was 
 a perpetual delight and stimulus; he stood for all 
 
 302 
 
MEDIOCRITY VERSUS GENIUS 
 
 that was worthiest in the human character. He 
 kept a too fearful conscience ever to be truly emi- 
 nent in public life, but no kinder, humbler, humaner 
 gentleman ever walked the earth than Joseph 
 Brudenell. 
 
 "It is to be feared that the closing days of this 
 good man's life were darkened by tragedy. The 
 present writer was sitting with him in the smoking- 
 room of a club, when a fellow member, an occupant 
 of the Episcopal bench, carried over to him the 
 evening paper containing the confession of the man 
 Burcell in whose stead John Davis had suffered the 
 extreme penalty a few days before. It would en- 
 gage the pen of a dramatist to portray the self- 
 righteousness of the bishop and the horror and be- 
 wilderment of the judge. * It has overtaken me at 
 last,' said the old judge, covering his eyes as though 
 he had been poor blind CEdipus. * This is the 
 shadow that has darkened my life during twenty- 
 five years.' 
 
 " His distress will never be forgotten by those 
 who witnessed it. From that hour he was never 
 the same. The tragic suddenness of his end was 
 not unforeseen by those who knew him best. Yet 
 to the last he was the same gentle, courteous com- 
 pound of scholarship and refinement. In no sense 
 could he ever have been looked upon as brilliant. 
 No epigrams, no pregnant sayings, no flashes of wit 
 are recorded of him; upon the bench he was too 
 much in earnest even to be genial. Every cause 
 that came before him appeared to engage the very 
 blood of his veins and the whole life of his intel- 
 lect. It was a ruthless kind of irony that fixed upon 
 such shoulders as these the responsibility for as 
 
 303 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 grave a miscarriage as ever darkened the annals of 
 English justice. 
 
 " In his private life he had known great sorrows. 
 His only son was drowned twenty years ago while 
 a freshman at Oxford. Had he lived, he was des- 
 tined for that profession for which his father had 
 so profound a reverence. Nothing could have been 
 more exquisite than Joseph Brudeneirs childlike de- 
 votion to his calling, yet he was always haunted by 
 the consciousness that the ideals he had set up were 
 beyond his grasp. This son was to have been the 
 truer, the wiser, the stronger, the more penetrating 
 man; yet it was never to be. The accident that 
 deprived him of this enlarged and completer edition 
 of himself added something to his latter years that 
 his faithful circle of old friends found wistful and 
 affecting. And only last week he lost the devoted 
 daughter who had been the stay of his declining 
 years. 
 
 '^ It is safe to say that no man was ever called to 
 the bar who was more honestly beloved by all who 
 understood the secret workings of his mind than 
 was Joseph Brudenell. Subtle it was not, it was 
 not agile, and it was not profound ; indeed the pos- 
 session of that simple and unsagacious implement 
 conferred only one claim to preeminence. It is 
 as a great and honest gentleman that Joseph Bru- 
 denell will be called to the Valhalla of his gods. 
 He was past master in one art only : the art which 
 embraces the amenities of life. Unsympathetic crit- 
 ics he has had in his public capacity. He has been 
 called a pedant, a weakling, one deficient in insight ; 
 even his scholarship, which was so laboriously hon- 
 orable, has not escaped inquiry; but the void left 
 
 304 
 
MEDIOCRITY VERSUS GENIUS 
 
 by that massive and ungainly form can never be 
 filled. In this time, at least, his like will not be seen. 
 A rare jewel has been resolved to its element; earth 
 is the poorer by an English gentleman/' 
 
 These words served to heighten Northcote's in- 
 dignation against himself. The stab he had directed 
 at the judge increased in infamy. Already it 
 seemed as if he had paid an exorbitant price for 
 his success. However, in the midst of his anguish 
 and perplexity, he heard feet on his staircase. There 
 came a knock to his door. It was the solicitor. 
 
 ** Well, my boy," said Mr. Whitcomb, shaking 
 his hand affectionately, " do you see you have killed 
 the judge? " 
 
 " Yes," said Northcote, " but I saved the life of 
 your client." 
 
 305 
 
XXXII 
 
 MEDIOCRITY ASPIRING TO VIRTUE 
 
 The advocate handed the Age to the solicitor. 
 
 " You may have seen it," he said. *' I am hon- 
 ored with a leading article." 
 
 " I have read it. It means your removal from 
 the top story to the basement." 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 " It ensures that your professional emoluments 
 will not be less than two thousand a year." 
 
 '* That would be very well had I not arrived at 
 the conclusion that the game is not worth the can- 
 dle. The penalties are too great." 
 
 " Why consider them, dear boy ? Why not ac- 
 cept the gifts of the gods in a thankful and con- 
 trite spirit? " 
 
 *' You would have me drink the nectar that they 
 offer although they hand it in a poisoned cup? " 
 
 *' You are a queer fellow. You accept starvation 
 with a dignified humility, but the instant you touch 
 success — and such a success ! — you make a face." 
 
 " Such a success — there you have it all ! " 
 
 " My dear fellow, whoever in this world got of¥ 
 the mark with such a flying start ? You have awoke 
 this morning to find yourself famous." 
 
 " Bah ! I am poisoned ; I have got my death ! " 
 
 *' Within five years, if you keep your head, you 
 will be making a princely income." 
 
 " I know it." 
 
 306 
 
MEDIOCRITY ASPIRING TO VIRTUE 
 
 " And two days ago you could not afford to pay 
 for a fire in the middle of winter." 
 
 " You are perfectly right." 
 
 " Two days ago you could not fill your belly when 
 you were hungry." 
 
 " I shall never taste hunger again — that honest, 
 bitter, medicinal hunger that merges the mind in the 
 soul. I shall never taste again that ascetic clarity 
 which makes the heart supple and arms the brain." 
 
 " You talk like a Methodist." 
 
 " My father was a country preacher." 
 
 " I expect this is the swing of the pendulum. 
 You must have undergone great mental excitement 
 in making your effort — and what an effort it was ! 
 And now the clock has swung right back ; you are 
 below par: you have got the blues." 
 
 "I hate myself; I hate my cursed profession." 
 
 " Yes, the mercury has fallen. The higher the 
 rise the greater the drop. But make an effort to be 
 rational. Look at this." 
 
 The solicitor handed the advocate a brief. It was 
 marked with a retaining fee of a hundred guineas. 
 
 " Two days ago that was beyond the dreams of 
 your avarice. And now it is a mere forerunner of 
 the beginning. You will be compelled to change 
 your quarters and keep a clerk." 
 
 " You remind me of the devil — the real authen- 
 tic mediaeval Mephistopheles," said Northcote, with 
 his fingers trembling upon the tape. " You are in 
 the pay of the genie, you smug-hearted materialist." 
 
 " Ah, the genie again ! I am afraid to confess 
 that that genie of yours gave me a very bad quarter 
 of an hour," cried Mr. Whitcomb, laughing heart- 
 ily at the recollection. '' I was never in such a panic 
 
 307 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 in my life. Had it not been the last moment, and 
 had it not been impossible to get any one else, you 
 would never have held that brief. You and your 
 genie frightened me to death. I woke up in a cold 
 sweat in the middle of the night, wondering what 
 would happen if you brought the infernal thing into 
 court." 
 
 " Well, I did bring it into court, did I not? " 
 
 " You would never have got your verdict with- 
 out it." 
 
 " Yet you were afraid ? " 
 
 " That was before I knew what it was. But as 
 soon as you got up to talk to the jury, and you 
 could have heard a pin drop over the court, I gave 
 in." 
 
 " That is true enough," said Northcote, in the 
 hollow tone which had discomposed the solicitor 
 at the restaurant, " but once having summoned this 
 thing to my aid, once having taken it into court 
 with me, once, as you might say, having let it taste 
 blood in the arena, I shall be compelled to have it 
 with me every time. It is already out of my con- 
 trol." 
 
 " So much the better for you and for those who 
 command your services. This genie of yours will 
 one day be worth thirty thousand a year in cool 
 coin of the realm. If you will deign to take the 
 advice of one who is perfectly willing to be a father 
 to you, I say to you, don't overdo it. Employ as 
 many devils as you please, — five, ten, or a hundred 
 and ten, — but don't be tempted into taking enough 
 work to break down your nervous system. Keep 
 that intact and you are predestined for the Wool- 
 sack." 
 
 308 
 
MEDIOCRITY ASPIRING TO VIRTUE 
 
 "I feel it; and yet, do you know, Whitcomb, it 
 hangs in the balance whether I ever walk into court 
 any more." 
 
 " If you think so, it is little you know of your 
 nature. What you call the genie will have the last 
 word to say on that subject." 
 
 " Like every other mud-colored materialist your 
 intelligence is admirably lucid as far as it goes." 
 
 " Compliments are flying. But is it not the fac- 
 ulty of youth to despise the common sense to which 
 one day it is only too glad to return? " 
 
 " I would spew mediocrity out of my mouth," 
 said Northcote, suddenly overmastered by arro- 
 gance. 
 
 " Common sense and mediocrity are not quite the 
 same; but you can take it from me, dear boy, that 
 genius has always to learn sooner or later that 
 mediocrity has its uses." 
 
 The solicitor was amazed to see tears spring to 
 the eyes of the advocate. 
 
 " I have learnt that already," he said huskily ; 
 " I learnt it last night after the rising of the 
 court." 
 
 " I presume you are referring to poor old Bow- 
 wow, the type of all mediocrity." 
 
 " Yes, to the poor dear old blunderer who, after 
 the manner of his kind, consecrated his life to a 
 public display of his incapacity. Yet I weep for 
 Adonais, he is dead ! " 
 
 " I say, my boy," said the solicitor, amazed by the 
 depth of emotion that was revealed in the face of 
 the young man, " you did not suppose for one mo- 
 ment that I was in earnest when I said you had 
 killed him?" 
 
 309 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " You struck so near to the truth," said the young 
 man, " that you made me bleed." 
 
 " Well, this is a consummate kind of folly. You 
 must feed well; build yourself up; go away for 
 Christmas; take a rest. Future greatness cannot 
 be allowed to play ducks and drakes with its 
 chances." 
 
 '' I swear to you, Whitcomb, the weight of a 
 feather would make me throw up the bar." 
 
 *' Impossible! That voice, that presence, that 
 imagination, that extraordinary dynamic quality ^ — 
 in other words, your genie, leaves you no choice." 
 
 " I swear to you, Whitcomb, if it were not for 
 my countrified old mother, who has worked her fin- 
 gers to the bone to provide an education for me, 
 I would never go into court any more." 
 
 " Ah, well, I shall continue to send you briefs all 
 the same. I cannot recall another man who has 
 got a start such as yours, and I shall be astounded 
 if through a whim you show yourself unworthy of 
 your good fortune. Here is a check for * the 
 monkey ' you won of me at lunch yesterday." 
 
 " Five hundred pounds ! I don't remember any- 
 thing of the circumstances." 
 
 " I laid five hundred to fifty against your getting 
 a verdict." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " At lunch yesterday." 
 
 " You must not take any notice of that. I was 
 very excited. I am afraid I was not myself." 
 
 " Why afraid ? The money is yours." 
 
 " I don't want it; I won't have it." 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb had thrust the check in the hands 
 of the advocate, who tore it up immediately. 
 
 310 
 
MEDIOCRITY ASPIRING TO VIRTUE 
 
 " Well," said the solicitor, " I should say at the 
 present time you have undeniable claims to be con- 
 sidered the most remarkable man in London. I 
 can't fathom what has come over you." 
 
 " I was thrown off my balance a little yesterday," 
 said Northcote hoarsely. 
 
 " Yesterday, my friend, you were a great man ; 
 to-day, you are a prig." 
 
 " You are right. Yesterday, a great man stoop- 
 ing to foulness; to-day, a mediocrity aspiring to 
 virtue." 
 
 " Well, my dear boy," said the solicitor earnestly, 
 " my last words are these. Be guided by your tal- 
 ent. Greatness is written all over you; it is in 
 your eyes; it proceeds out of your mouth. Play 
 up to your destiny, like a wise fellow, and leave 
 hymns and sermons and disquisitions upon morality 
 to the official purveyors of those condiments." 
 
 " You are the devil ! " 
 
 " Well, Faust, dear old boy, if it come to that, 
 it does amuse me sometimes to think that I have 
 not dabbled in human nature in divers forms dur- 
 ing the last twenty years without getting to know 
 a little about it. And I put it to you, do you sup- 
 pose I took the trouble — I, one of the most saga- 
 cious criminal lawyers in London — to climb up to 
 this attic without my dinner at ten o'clock of a 
 December night, without having taken your size 
 in hats and your chest measurement ? " 
 
 ** I say, you are the devil." 
 
 " Your estimate is too liberal. There is nothing 
 of his Satanic Majesty about me; but, all the same, 
 I am always perfectly willing to employ him. I am 
 always prepared to pay him liberally to fight these 
 
 3" 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 causes of mine, wherever and whenever he is to be 
 found. What you call the genie is, after all, a 
 euphemism for the devil, although under the more 
 chaste patronymic I failed at first to recognize that 
 elderly swaggerer." 
 
 " Well, yes, you are shrewd. But you leave a 
 bad taste in the mouth." 
 
 " Everything does that this morning. But I am 
 not surprised that you are feeling cheap. The 
 human frame has to pay for such colossal efforts. 
 In the meantime, you have no need to worry about 
 anything. The mercury will rise again; things 
 will all come right; and you will attain an emi- 
 nence that few could occupy. In the meantime, 
 divert yourself with these, and mention your own 
 time for the consultation." 
 
 Leaving two briefs, one of which was marked 
 with the sum to which he had previously referred, 
 Mr. Whitcomb descended the stairs, much to the 
 relief of the advocate. 
 
 312 
 
XXXIII 
 
 THE HIGHWAY OF THE MANY 
 
 Success had spread out both hands to North- 
 cote, but the emotion she had aroused in him was 
 not one of gratitude. He had spent many days of 
 suffering, of mental darkness, during the years of 
 his obscurity, but none had engulfed him in such 
 humiliation as this upon which he had entered now. 
 He had tasted coldness and hunger ; he had known 
 the stings of rage and despair ; but these sensations 
 appeared salutary in comparison with a hopeless- 
 ness such as this. 
 
 How could he cherish an illusion in the matter, 
 he who knew so much? He had made his choice 
 deliberately under the spur of need; he had fore- 
 seen its enormous penalties; he had foreseen the 
 degradation that was implied in the honors and 
 emoluments that would accrue from its exercise. 
 Yet, now these things had come upon him, he smote 
 his breast and lifted up his voice in woe. Less 
 than a week ago, in the freedom of his penury, in 
 the license of his failure, he had had the power to 
 spurn these lures. Yet in almost the next breath 
 he had yielded to the call of his ambition; and in 
 his first walk upon the perilous path he had elected 
 to choose, he had shown an ease and lightness of 
 motion that were audacious, astonishing. 
 
 What was there to deplore? His triumph had 
 been so patent as to win the applause of the world. 
 
 3^3 
 
HENRY NOETHCOTE 
 
 For the first time in his life money was in his pocket. 
 That woman of courage who had striven so hero- 
 ically for his welfare would meet with her reward. 
 She would be enabled to end her days at ease. In 
 those somewhat unilluminated eyes Money had al- 
 ways seemed to divide the place of honor with Duty. 
 She would go to her grave, this upright and cour- 
 ageous one, with a paean upon her lips, because her 
 son, her one talent, had in her old age been increased 
 to her tenfold. Those worn hands would need to 
 toil no more. 
 
 After all, this success, which to an honest nature 
 was so embittering, had a curious virtue of its own 
 if it could fulfil such an of^ce. And it was hardly 
 for the like of himself to be troubled with these in- 
 timations. Morality, like other privileges, was for 
 those who could afford to enjoy it; it was for those 
 who had a snug little annuity in the funds. Those 
 who had shivered in penury, who had known the 
 look of want, had purchased their right to walk un- 
 fearingly by the light of their necessity. And he 
 had only parted with his dreams after all; he had 
 only transmuted airy nothings into explicit gold of 
 the state. Let the visionary who nourished his 
 heart upon the unattainable despise Croesus as 
 before, but let the well-fed and valiant materialist 
 render due homage to that lusty and pagan old 
 fellow. You could not keep your cake and eat it; 
 you could not resign your ideals and yet hope to 
 inhabit your castle in Spain. 
 
 It always came back to the question of the Choice. 
 Was it not a sign-post that headed every path; did 
 it not denote the convergence and the parting of 
 every road ? It was his own will which had selected 
 
 314 
 
THE HIGHWAY OF THE MANY 
 
 the broad and muddy highway of the many, in- 
 stead of the narrow and precipitous mountain ascent 
 which was only for the feet of the few. In a choice 
 of this kind there might be an affront to his nature, 
 but once having embraced it, it was weakness to 
 repine. He must shed this ferocious arrogance of 
 his. He was now of the common herd, no longer 
 of the sacred few. 
 
 The strangeness of his position held his thoughts 
 all day. That which he had purchased had been 
 obtained at a cost beyond rubies ; it was not worth 
 one-half he had paid for it, but as he could never 
 recover his outlay he was bound to go on. It re- 
 mained for him now to play the part of the cynic 
 and philosopher. It was not the highest style of 
 the hypersensitive man on the defensive, but the 
 patchwork target would have to serve until he found 
 the cunning to provide himself with a more efficient 
 cover for his wounds. Yet when all was said the 
 shaft had sunk to a cruel depth in that quivering 
 nature. Heart and mind were lacerated. 
 
 At the table at the aerated breadshop at which 
 he took his lunch, two middle-aged clerks from a 
 city counting-house, musty, cowed, and solemn men, 
 were discussing the trial wherein the morning jour- 
 nals with their unerring instinct had discovered the 
 element of sensation. 
 
 " so she got off?" 
 
 " Yes, they brought in a verdict of not guilty. 
 My father-in-law was on the jury. He says it was 
 her lawyer's speech that saved her. He says there 
 wasn't a dry eye in the court, and the poor old 
 judge cried just Hke a child." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 315 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " Yes ! He says he never heard a speech like that 
 before in his Hfe, and he says if he hves to be a 
 hundred years old he will never forget it." 
 
 *' Who was her lawyer? Sir Somebody, K. C, 
 M. P.?" 
 
 *' My father-in-law says not. He says he was 
 quite a young chap without any reputation. But 
 such a voice — he says it just went through you 
 and made you shiver." 
 
 '' Something like Irving? " 
 
 " My father-in-law says he must have been act- 
 ing, yet there didn't seem to be a bit of the actor 
 about him. That's where he was so wonderful; 
 struck no attitudes; never even raised his voice. 
 Every word seemed to come straight out of him, as 
 though he just couldn't help it, and yet at first all the 
 jury thought she was a thorough bad one." 
 
 " So she was, I expect." 
 
 " I dare say ; but after what her lawyer had said 
 they never thought of bringing in a verdict of 
 guilty. My father-in-law says he was a wonder- 
 fully read young fellow, and he must have known 
 the Bible almost by heart from the way in which 
 he used it in his speech. And such an eye as he 
 had too ! My father-in-law says it looked like that 
 of an eagle; and when the jury retired to consider 
 the verdict the foreman, who had got a weak heart, 
 had to have brandy or he would have fainted dead 
 away." 
 
 " It was very strange that the judge should have 
 died suddenly." 
 
 " Excitement killed him, they do say." 
 
 *' You would think that a judge would be so used 
 to that sort of thing that it wouldn't afifect him." 
 
 316 
 
THE HIGHWAY OF THE MANY 
 
 *' Well, my father-in-law has been many times 
 on the common jury, but he says this young lawyer 
 beat all he had ever heard. He says it doesn't 
 matter how clever the ordinary lawyer may be, you 
 can always tell when he's putting" it on. But this 
 young chap was so quiet and solemn that he simply 
 made you shiver." 
 
 *' Just a trick." 
 
 " They all knew that, yet he made them so that 
 they couldn't help their feelings. My father-in-law 
 says as soon as they retired to the jury-room to 
 find their verdict, old Bill Oaks — you know the old 
 prize-fighter what keeps the Blue Swan at Hackney 
 — who was on the jury, he just spat in the comer 
 and wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and he says, 
 * Well, mateys, I'd reckon we'd 'ang no more 
 women.' " 
 
 "Bill Oaks said that?" 
 
 " Those were his words. And it just shows the 
 power that young chap must have had to make a 
 common fellow like old Bill Oaks say a thing like 
 that." 
 
 " Some men are born lucky. With a mind of that 
 sort he will have made a fortune in no time. In 
 a year or so he will be keeping his yacht and driving 
 his motor car. It is a funny world when you come 
 to think about it. Here is a chap like me, been a 
 clerk in the Providential for thirty-five years. My 
 hours are nine-thirty till five; I have never once 
 been late, nor had a day off for illness; and my 
 salary per week is thirty-eight and a tizzey, with a 
 pound a week pension at sixty provided I keep up 
 my payments to the fund. I have never done a 
 wrong action as far as I know; I go to church once 
 
 317. 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 on Sunday; I teach in the Sunday school; I give five 
 shillings to the poor every Christmas; I have 
 brought up five children well and decently ; I always 
 acted the part of the gentleman to my wife while she 
 was alive, and now she is dead I always keep fresh 
 flowers on her grave summer and winter; I've paid 
 my rates and taxes regular; the landlord has never 
 had to ask me twice for the rent; and what's it all 
 amount to? Why, I leave off just where I began. 
 Yet I consider myself a cut above this young man, 
 with all his gifts, who will make a fortune by saving 
 murderers from the gallows." 
 
 The speaker, a sallow, stunted little fellow, ut- 
 tered his words in a quiet, yet dogged staccato, as 
 though he were issuing a challenge which he knew 
 could not be taken up. His sharp, quaint cockney 
 speech was almost musical in its incisive energy. 
 
 '' Happiness don't depend on money," said his 
 friend. 
 
 " You have got to have money, though, before 
 you can believe it." 
 
 Northcote overheard this conversation while he 
 munched a sandwich. It afiforded him the keenest 
 interest. He moved out into the eager crowd which 
 thronged the Strand. Yet again his old passion for 
 perambulating the streets came upon him. There 
 was a sense of adventure in dodging the traf^c at 
 a breakneck pace, and in elbowing his way through 
 the press. Until the evening he wandered about 
 in the mud and the December mists. He was 
 sick and weary; the conflict within him gave him 
 no rest; yet there was a fierce joy to be gained in 
 mingling with the virile, many-sided life that was 
 about him everywhere. 
 
 318 
 
THE HIGHWAY OF THE MANY 
 
 Thoroughly tired out at last, he took a frugal 
 dinner at a restaurant, and accompanied it with a 
 bottle of inexpensive wine. He lingered over his 
 meal and made an attempt to read an evening paper, 
 but found he could not do so. The vortex in which 
 his nature had been plunged absorbed the whole of 
 his thoughts. 
 
 319 
 
XXXIV 
 
 MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 About nine he returned to his lodging-. He lit 
 the lamp, drew the curtains across the window, and 
 built up a good fire. He set himself to do three 
 hours' reading before he turned into bed. How- 
 ever, that power of will it was his wont to exert to 
 its fullest capacity was for once insubordinate. 
 There were not two consecutive sentences upon any 
 of the pages which he tried that displayed a mean- 
 ing. He had never known this impotence before. 
 
 In the midst of these futile attempts to fix his 
 mind on the task before it, he thought he heard the 
 creaking of the stairs. He listened acutely. Late as 
 was the hour, the clerk of some attorney might be 
 bringing him more briefs. A moment later his door 
 was softly tried and opened as softly as some one 
 entered the room. 
 
 To the profound astonishment of the young man 
 he saw that it was the figure of a woman. She was 
 tall and pale and clad sombrely in close black dra- 
 peries. Her entrance was somewhat stealthy, yet it 
 had neither reluctance nor timidity. Unhesitatingly 
 she approached the chair in which the advocate sat 
 with a book on his knee. He rose to greet her with 
 an air of bewilderment. 
 
 " I knew you were a great student," said his 
 visitor in a low voice, letting two large and dark 
 eyes fall upon the page of the book. 
 
 320 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Northcote, " I am 
 afraid I don't know you." 
 
 "You do not know me?" said his visitor in a 
 tone that entered his blood. " I will give you a 
 moment to think." 
 
 Northcote seemed to recoil with a half-born pang 
 of recollection which refused to take shape. 
 
 *' I have not the faintest knowledge of having 
 met you before," he said, feeling how vain was the 
 effort to fix his thought. 
 
 ** Think," said his visitor. 
 
 " It is in vain." 
 
 " I should not have expected you to have so short 
 a memory," said the woman. " You saw me yes- 
 terday and you saw me the day before that." 
 
 " I do not recognize you at all," said Northcote 
 faintly. 
 
 " Should I have remembered that you were a 
 busy man who was unable to spare a thought outside 
 of his profession ? " 
 
 There was something curiously stealthy in the fall 
 of the voice which startled the advocate. 
 
 " That is a voice I seem to recall," he said, with 
 an air almost of distress. 
 
 " A voice you seem to recall," said his visitor, 
 with a sombre laughter which made his heart beat 
 violently. " How strange it is that you should re- 
 call it ! You only heard it once, and that was in the 
 stifling darkness of a prison ! " 
 
 Northcote gave a cry of stupefaction. 
 
 '* Impossible, impossible ! " he said weakly. 
 " You — you cannot be the woman Emma Harri- 
 son!" 
 
 " Emma Murray, alias Warden, alias Harrison," 
 321 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 said his visitor, whose tone of gentleness was now 
 charged with deHberation. 
 
 " Then how and why do you dare to come here? " 
 cried Northcote. 
 
 " I bring you my thanks," she said, with a sudden 
 consummate transition to humihty. *' I bring the 
 gratitude of an outcast to him who has deHvered 
 her from a deeper shame than any she has suf- 
 fered." 
 
 At first the bewilderment of the advocate would 
 not yield; the revelation of the last creature in the 
 world he looked to see in his attic had seemed to 
 arrest his nature. But hardly had she rendered him 
 her homage with somewhat of the sombre dignity 
 of one who seeks by suffering to efface her stains, 
 than the old devouring curiosity of two evenings 
 previously returned to him. In the prison he had 
 not seen her face; in the dock he had not permitted 
 his eyes once to stray towards her. She was en- 
 graved in the tablets of his imagination as a foul 
 and sordid creature, dead to feeling, yet susceptible 
 of the loss of freedom, horrified by the too definite 
 thought of a barbarous doom; yet over and above 
 everything a denizen of the gutter, wretched, stupid, 
 and unclean. It was amazing to see her stand be- 
 fore him in this frank guise. 
 
 Peering at her through the subdued flames of the 
 fire and the lamp, he saw that she had contrived to 
 inhabit her stains in a kind of chastity. It was a 
 trick of her calling, perhaps; yet if trick it was, it 
 was subtle, consummate, and complete. As far as 
 his eyes could pierce the texture of her secrecy, her 
 face was that of a woman of forty. It was pale and 
 unembellished ; the cheeks were wan; the features, 
 
 323 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 but slightly defaced, were possessed of a certain 
 original fineness of line, like the handiwork of some 
 little known craftsman who had been touched by 
 genius. There were the remains of a not inconsid- 
 erable splendor strewn about her, particularly in her 
 dark, enfolding, and luminous eyes. Suffering was 
 everywhere visible, even in the hair, whose natural 
 sallow hue was peeping through its dye. In form 
 she was large, but not massive; ample, flowing in 
 contour, with the powerful, yet graceful, moulding 
 of a panther. 
 
 "Had you not expected something different?" 
 she said, standing up before a scrutiny he did not 
 disguise, and speaking with a mournfulness that 
 seemed to challenge him. 
 
 '* You have guessed my thoughts,'* said North- 
 cote, without lowering his gaze. 
 
 '' I was not always as I was," she said, letting 
 each syllable fall passionless. *' I sank deeply, but 
 I am risen again. I am praying that with the aid of 
 one I may scale the heights. I even hope to reach 
 that which in the beginning was above my stat- 
 ure." 
 
 "I am glad to hear it," Northcote muttered. 
 
 " That is cruel," said his visitor with a shiver. 
 ** Such a phrase from your mouth wounds me like a 
 sword." 
 
 " I am afraid I don't understand," said North- 
 cote, almost with indifference. 
 
 " This is not him whom I came to see," said the 
 woman. " This is not him who saved my base 
 body; him who, if he will, may redeem my whole 
 nature." 
 
 " I ? " cried the incredulous young advocate. 
 
 323 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " You, my deliverer ! " 
 
 "I — I don't think I like you ; I think you had 
 better go away/' said the young man, with a brutal- 
 ity of which he was unconscious. 
 
 The woman replied to this speech by sinking 
 slowly to her knees. She lifted the noble line of her 
 chin, which intense suffering had seemed to refine, 
 up towards him with an ineffable gesture of appeal. 
 It almost vouchsafed to him a sense of his own 
 degradation. 
 
 " I see you as the one whose noble strength will 
 heal me," she said, prostrating herself more com- 
 pletely, and clasping her arms about his ankles. 
 
 " Better rise, better leave me," said Northcote, 
 bewildered by a sense of pity for his own impo- 
 tence. 
 
 " You are striking me again," said the woman 
 with a shudder that even to Northcote seemed 
 terrible, " but every blow you give may help to make 
 me whole." 
 
 " What can heal a murderess, a prostitute? " he 
 asked, with a candor of selection that was intended 
 to lacerate. 
 
 ** You. You who brought me out of prison — 
 you who delivered me from a shame to which even 
 I dared not yield." 
 
 " Get up," said Northcote, filled with an unac- 
 countable pang. " Sit there, and try to compose 
 yourself a little." 
 
 With an indescribable impulse, which he had no 
 means of fathoming, he raised the trembling, shud- 
 dering form by the shoulders, and let it into the 
 chair nearest the fire. The act was wholly without 
 premeditation, but there was nothing in it that par- 
 
 324 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 took of the uncouth harshness of his voice. A few 
 scalding drops crept out of her eyes on to his hands, 
 and when he Hfted her the heat of her body com- 
 municated itself to the tips of his fingers. 
 
 " Oh, why do you not speak to me with the voice 
 with which you terrified my judges? " she moaned. 
 
 " I cannot make up my mind about you," said 
 Northcote calmly. *' I do not know whether you 
 are the Magdalene, or whether you are Delilah." 
 
 " When you pleaded for my life before my judges 
 yesterday in the court, I looked upon you as Jesus," 
 said the woman, pressing the tips of her fingers 
 against the balls of her eyes. 
 
 '* At that hour I felt myself to be no less. And I 
 believe there were those among my hearers who 
 had that hallucination too." 
 
 " Would he have cut me into pieces when I crept 
 to him for sanctuary? " 
 
 The young man pressed his hands to his sides. 
 An ineffable anguish had pierced him. 
 
 " No man ever felt less like that Nazarene than 
 do I this day," he cried, with a face that was trans- 
 figured with terror. " A holocaust has taken place 
 in my nature. I know that I shall never take my 
 stand with the gods any more. Henceforward I 
 am filled with roughness, brutality, and rage ; I hate 
 myself, I hate my species." 
 
 " Wherefore, O my prince ! " 
 
 " Am I not fallen deeper than her I redeemed 
 from her last ignominy? Have I not prostituted 
 a supreme talent; have I not poisoned the wells of 
 truth?" 
 
 " Can this be he who preached the Sermon upon 
 the Mount? Can this be he who said to the woman 
 
 325 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 taken in adultery, * Daughter, go thy ways, and sin 
 no more ' ? " 
 
 Already the roughness of the advocate was 
 melted into blood and tears. His callous rage had 
 yielded before the figure of the Magdalene. This 
 nondescript animal he had picked out of a sewer had 
 proved to be a woman who had bled for abasement, 
 and who strove for reinstatement by bleeding for it 
 again. 
 
 " I have a curiosity about your history," said 
 Northcote, with a gaze that devoured her. " You 
 see you are pictured in my imagination as the den- 
 izen of a slum." 
 
 " I entered upon life," said the woman, yielding 
 to the domination of his eyes, " as the eldest 
 daughter of an artist whose existence was a misery. 
 He was a painter of masterpieces that no one would 
 buy. He had not been in his grave a year when they 
 began to realize sums that during his life would 
 have appeared to him as fabulous. His two girls, 
 who comprised his family, never got the benefit of 
 the recognition that had been denied to their maker ; 
 but the dealers in pictures, who had begrudged him 
 so much as oils and canvas, grew rich by trading 
 upon a great name. 
 
 " My childhood was bitter, cruel, and demoral- 
 izing. Art for the sake of art was the doctrine 
 of my poor father, and in pursuing it he took to 
 drink. That honest and virtuous world which I 
 have never been allowed to enter, viewed him afar 
 off as an outcast, as an idle and dissolute vagabond, 
 as a worthless citizen, whose nature was reflected 
 in his calling. Perhaps he was all this; perhaps 
 he was more. Yet he would shut himself up in a 
 
 326 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 little back parlor in the squalid little house in which 
 we lived, and there he would work in a frenzy for 
 days together. He would emerge with his nerves 
 in rags, his skin pale, his eyes bloodshot, his linen 
 foul, his clothes and person in disorder, yet under 
 his arm was a new masterpiece, twelve inches by 
 sixteen, which he would carry round to a dealer, 
 who would bully and browbeat him, and screw him 
 down to the last shilling, which he already owed 
 for the rent. He would return home worn out in 
 mind and body by his labors; and for weeks he 
 was unable to bear the sight of a brush or a skin 
 of paint. It was then he would seek to assuage 
 his morbid irritation with the aid of drink. ' They 
 will place a tablet over this hovel when I am dead,' 
 he would say, * but while I am alive the rope which 
 is needed to hang me outbuys the worth of this 
 tattered carcass.' 
 
 " My poor father, rare artist as he was, was 
 right in this estimate of himself. As a man, as a 
 father, as a citizen, I cannot find a word to say 
 for him. He never brought a moment of happi- 
 ness to either of his girls. He dwelt in a world 
 of his own; a beautiful and enchanted world, the 
 Promised Land of his art. He was a man of 
 strange ambition; of an ambition that had some- 
 thing ferocious in it; of an ambition that was un- 
 fitted to cope with the sordid and material aims, 
 by whose aid persons of not one-tenth part of his 
 quality achieved wealth, respectability, power, and 
 the fame of the passing hour. There was a thread 
 of noble austerity in my poor father's genius, which 
 remained in it, like a vein of gold embedded in 
 the mud of a polluted river, throughout the whole 
 
 327 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 time of his degradation and his ruin. His pride 
 seemed to grow more scornful with each year that 
 witnessed more completely the consummation of the 
 darkening and overthrow of his nature. I can re- 
 member his saying of a picture by the president of 
 the Academy, * I would rather have my flesh pecked 
 by daws than prostitute myself with such blas- 
 phemies as that ; ' and at that time he stood upon 
 the verge of the grave of a drunken madman. 
 
 " I have said he was not a good citizen. Nor 
 was he a good father to his girls. He did not 
 offer them physical violence; but it never occurred 
 to him to shield them from the indignities thrust 
 upon them by want and debt, and the despair which 
 was sown in their hearts by the foulness of every 
 breath they drew. It would need my father's own 
 gift to limn the picture of this beautiful talent liv- 
 ing its appointed life in its own way, yet indifferent 
 to the most elementary duties of a righteous parent 
 and an honest citizen. As a young man he had 
 been handsome, with a fine, delicate, even an entranc- 
 ing beauty; it was one of his favorite sayings that 
 the face of every true artist borrowed something 
 from heaven. I can only recall that face in its 
 latter days, when it was that of a petulant, arro- 
 gantly imperious, yet hideous and bloated old 
 creature, whose body and soul had been under- 
 mined; but from the numerous pictures he painted 
 of himself in his youth he had the divine look of 
 a poet. 
 
 " I have always considered it as both cruel and 
 ironical of nature that she should have bestowed 
 upon the daughters of this drunkard and madman, 
 a little of his own originality — divinity, that taint 
 
 328 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 of genius, which brought him to the gutter. Look 
 at me well, my deliverer, and you will see what I 
 mean. If you choose you may read my dreadful 
 secret in my eyes; in the shape of my lips; in the 
 expanse of my nostril. It is there still, although 
 drink and the gutter have defaced its bloom. Look 
 at me, I say, and you will read my poor father's his- 
 tory. You will see in my face that ambition for 
 which he sought an anodyne in the drinking of 
 drams. Sometimes when he grew tired of paint- 
 ing himself he would have me to sit to him, and he 
 would tell me I was amazingly like him in his 
 youth. He would also take my younger sister as 
 his model, but she did not interest him as much 
 as I. * Polly is destined for middle courses,' he 
 would say. * She is neither good fowl, fish, nor 
 flesh. One of these days she will effect a com- 
 promise, and will be admitted to membership of 
 the Great Trades Union.' 
 
 " * As for thee, thou little slattern of a wench,' 
 he would say, running his fingers through my hair, 
 as he cuffed me affectionately, ' I am afraid to 
 cast thy horoscope. I cannot predict what will be- 
 come of thee. Such a face as thine, thou dirty one, 
 is bom to a dreadful and cynical hatred of things 
 as they are. I can see a bitter scorn in thee for those 
 hare-hearted rogues who run the show. Like thy 
 illustrious father thou wilt live to be a thorn in 
 the bowels of the canaille.' I was too young at 
 that time to understand what was the meaning of 
 my illustrious parent, but often since, as I have 
 sunk from one stratum of my calling to another — 
 there are degrees in this profession of mine — have 
 
 329 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 I recalled his words, and I have marvelled at his 
 power of seeing into the future. 
 
 ** It was this father of ours, who before he de- 
 ferred to the hand of death, launched my sister and 
 myself upon our respective careers in the world. 
 There was nothing hypocritical or pharisaical about 
 this painter and lyric poet. In his heart he never 
 aspired to those principles which he denounced with 
 his lips. He sent our beauty to market as soon; as 
 it had reached the age of puberty. He caused us 
 to cease the scrubbing of floors, lest it should 
 roughen our hands. We were turned out upon the 
 streets with rouge on our cheeks; for it seemed 
 to dawn upon him all at once, in one of his Titanic 
 flashes of inspiration, that there was a rational way 
 of obtaining money to buy the brandy for which he 
 craved during every hour of the day. 
 
 " After my father's death, my younger sister 
 grew into a charming, accomplished, and beautiful 
 'woman. In the course of time she aspired to the 
 prizes of her trade. For several years she lived in 
 refinement and luxury with a judge of the High 
 Court; and upon his demise was able to claim the 
 interest of a prosperous and clever criminal law- 
 yer of the name of Whitcomb. 
 
 '* For many years now I have been dead to my 
 sister's knowledge, for brutalized and sordid as I 
 have grown, she was the one thing in the world 
 besides myself I have ever been able to pity. Even 
 when I descended below my poor father's level, I 
 could never find it in my heart to ' queer her pitch ' 
 as we say in the gutter. She grew happy and pros- 
 perous, and forgot her childhood and all the sores 
 that festered upon her name. Long ago she 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 achieved the beatitude of that condition of mental 
 and moral nullity as predicted by her distinguished 
 parent ; while I, as also predicted by that seer, was 
 destined for sterner things. 
 
 " In those lucid intervals when drugs and drams 
 had left me the use of my faculties, I sought to 
 appease my cynicism by preying upon society. I 
 cannot reveal to you the cold rage I nourished 
 against the cosmogony that had been evolved by 
 I know not how many generations of Pharisees. 
 The lode-star of my father's ambition was art for 
 the sake of art; that of her he had nurtured upon 
 it became crime for the sake of crime. Not that 
 I was wanton or petty in the workings of my creed ; 
 like my father, I had usually some large aim in view. 
 Yet again like my father, it was not to myself that 
 material prosperity accrued from the exercise of 
 my gift, but to the crimps and bullies by whom I 
 was surrounded. It was one of these, a base, cold- 
 blooded, brutal, calculating ruffian, whom so treach- 
 erously I did to death. 
 
 " I think I should enact that crime again ; al- 
 though when my guilt was fastened upon me, and 
 I was brought into prison, my fear of the gallows 
 was terrible. It was even stronger than my poor 
 father's dread of criticism of his works. And yet 
 as I lay under the shadow of a fate that I did not 
 know how to obtain the fortitude to accept, I 
 amused myself with a stroke of that wantonness 
 which has sometimes delighted my associates, and 
 on occasions has even rendered them respectful. I 
 chose Mr. Whitcomb to undertake my defence. 
 My poverty and evil repute made him reluctant to 
 accept the office, but like my father, I retain a little 
 
 331 
 
HENRY NOETHCOTE 
 
 of the artist's power of seeing" into the future. In 
 my dreams a voice whispered to me that he alone 
 could ensure my safety. And to my importimity 
 he yielded. He yielded to that importunity which 
 when I have felt called upon to exert it, no man 
 has ever been able to resist. 
 
 " What a sanctuary did this prison with its in- 
 describable gloom offer to me! All the days of 
 my life had been cast with drunkards, madmen, 
 thieves, panders, and prostitutes. They had ren- 
 dered the very breath of heaven unclean. From 
 one slum to another slum, from one gutter to an- 
 other gutter had my steps been traced. Will it 
 astonish you that what after all was a powerful 
 nature had founded its grand passion upon an ir- 
 reconcilable hatred of its kind ? Yet I was brought 
 into prison, and for the first time I tasted the breath 
 of the living God. 
 
 " It was the horror of my doom, I think, giving 
 to a life that had never had any finite knowl- 
 edge the certainty of the surgeon's knife, which 
 had the power to touch me for the first time with 
 the instinct of beauty. I am sure I know not 
 whether such was the case; but a pall was lifted 
 from my brain, a stealthy drug seemed to evap- 
 orate out of my pores. There were times when I 
 lay behind the bars of this prison in which I could 
 have cried aloud for gladness. The open sores in 
 my nature began to heal. All those dark mys- 
 teries, that had pressed me down like a curse, were 
 spread out before me luminous with meaning at 
 those hours when the dawn stole into my cell. Ere 
 long I would lie awake all night to watch for its 
 appearance, for I knew that every time it came 
 
 332 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 to me I should g-ain in knowledge. I began to 
 understand why the sun was warm, why the birds 
 sang, why the rain was wet. I began to under- 
 stand that to breathe, to move, to do, to think, to 
 say * yes ' and * no,' to wield despotic powers, 
 to do battle with that underworld, that reflex ac- 
 tion, to which I had always been so ready to suc- 
 cumb, were all acts of splendor and grace, all parts 
 of a living idea that was a noble solution of my 
 perplexity. 
 
 "As I lay behind the bars of my prison I 
 dreamed again and again of some mighty and en- 
 folding power that would take the whole of my 
 trembling irresolution in its arms and bend me into 
 the mould of its all-powerful will. I foresaw that 
 some young god would emerge out of those clouds 
 about heaven, which for the first time in my life 
 my enraptured eyes had perceived, that he would 
 break into my cell, that he would make me the 
 bride of that majestic loveliness which had caused 
 my sight to shed its first tears. 
 
 " When you came and spoke to me in darkness 
 in the prison I knew who you were. I knew that 
 my dreams had yielded a reality; and that the new 
 birth which had unfolded itself in my nature had 
 already found a shape. From that hour of our 
 meeting I thought no longer of my doom. Now 
 that such a one had consented to plead for me 
 I knew that none could do me hurt. Even the 
 dock itself was powerless to touch me with fear; 
 although until you rose to speak I could neither 
 hear nor see, and I did not know where I was. 
 But at the first sound of your voice I sat entranced. 
 I forgot that my wicked and degraded life was in 
 
 ZZZ 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 your hands; I forgot that a subject so foul was 
 the source of your beautiful words. I had never 
 known before what the living- voice of poetry was 
 like. I had never beheld those heights to which 
 a great and noble nature is able to aspire. 
 
 " As you spoke in the court and all my enemies 
 hung upon your words, you became a part of this 
 miracle which had happened in myself. You were 
 the breathing embodiment of those august shapes 
 which emerged in all their order and beauty from 
 behind the dark curtains of my nature. Hour by 
 hour, as I listened to the enchantments of your 
 voice, it seemed to steal over me that you, my de- 
 liverer, in the empire of your youth would not only 
 free me out of prison, but also you would deliver 
 me out of the bondage of my own soul. Such a 
 tumult of joy came upon me then as I could not 
 believe could visit any human creature. The music 
 of your lips was not only the earnest of my dreams, 
 it was the consolation of my stains." 
 
 When the woman had finished her story she 
 rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her 
 hands. Northcote, who had followed so strange a 
 recital with an interest which its attendant circum- 
 stances even rendered intense, felt no longer able 
 to withhold an ample meed of pity. And how un- 
 fathomable it appeared to him that his defence, 
 which had been inspired at a time when all was 
 darkness concerning her, should yet be vindicated 
 so completely by the facts of her life. Such an 
 intuition was an uncanny weapon. Who could 
 wonder that this buffeted, arrested, slowly ma- 
 turing, late-developing creature should see in its 
 transactions the revelation of a supernatural power ? 
 
 334 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 She was base and foul, yet she was suffused with 
 the inspiration of his strength — with a strength 
 that had been used in ignorance, with a sordid end 
 in view. She must indeed engage his pity, she 
 who had prostrated herself before a chimera, she 
 the thrice unhappy one who had prostrated herself 
 before an idol with feet of clay. 
 
 In looking at her now she had lost half of her 
 strangeness, half of her mystery. The foulness 
 and ugliness that must recently have been stamped 
 upon her was now effaced. He could not doubt 
 that since she had been brought into prison her 
 nature had been sanctified by a new birth. This 
 squalid criminal whom life had pressed out of the 
 ranks had actually gained eyes to see and ears to 
 hear. Such a confession was not a charlatan's trick ; 
 this enkindling experience of the divine beauty was 
 a true renascence; a cleansing of a fcetid heart 
 by the instinct of joy. Faith in its childlike 
 naivete had appeared by some miracle amid that 
 expanse of corruption. It was as though a violet 
 had raised its head in a sewer. 
 
 Now that the young man had become the wit- 
 ness of the phenomenon that he himself had 
 wrought he was abashed, yet also he was sensible 
 of recompense. Not in vain had he suffered those 
 creative pangs by which so strange a thing was 
 born. Fame and money were the only guerdons 
 he had sought to compensate his gifts in their high- 
 est walk; yet that travail of the mind, that ex- 
 penditure of spirit were to receive emolument more 
 fitting. This wanton, with her crimes and her sores 
 upon her, whom he had delivered from the last 
 indignity her fellows could devise, would issue from 
 
 335 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Gehenna healed and purified into the mellow light 
 of the afternoon. 
 
 Northcote had suffered extreme misgiving 
 throughout that day, but now as he stood to gaze 
 upon her who was undergoing a resurrection by the 
 wand of his genius, he felt an exquisite joy in this 
 special and peculiar gift that heaven had vouch- 
 safed to him. It had wrought beyond his knowl- 
 edge. This genie which had derided and tormented 
 him had achieved an intrinsic glory in allowing 
 itself to be called to the highest, the most disin- 
 terested of human offices. Here was the apologia 
 for the art he had practised. The black magic in 
 which he had dealt, the shame of which had stricken 
 him, had actually wrought a divine miracle. In 
 the light of its sanction he need repine no more. 
 
 '' It is truly wonderful," the woman muttered 
 softly as if to herself, *' to live forty years without 
 knowledge and without curiosity, and then to awake 
 in a night to the seas of color, the harmonies of 
 music that make the enchantments of the life we 
 have never perceived." 
 
 " You are like a bird," said the young man, 
 " who has been born in a cage, yet who contrives 
 at last to break through its bars. It flies into heaven, 
 mounting rapturously into the void, and it sees the 
 sun, the tops of the trees, the green fields, the 
 fleecy clouds, and it tastes the bright air." 
 
 " Yes; and hears for the first time the free and 
 joyous songs of its kind." 
 
 They seemed to pause to look upon one another 
 with violently beating hearts: the man in his 
 strength, in his insolent domination; the woman 
 in her weakness, in her pitiful need. 
 
 33^ 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 " Strange, is it not," said the young advocate, 
 speaking aloud his thought involuntarily, *' that 
 I should not be acquainted with your history when 
 I made my appeal ? '' 
 
 " Would it have been made had you known all ? " 
 
 " Indeed, yes," said Northcote, with a fervor 
 in which he tried to rejoice; " your baseness is now 
 less in my sight than it then was." 
 
 The fierceness of the woman's breathing arrested 
 her speech. 
 
 " You force me to believe," she cried in choking 
 accents, " you show me what faith is, you unfold 
 the meaning of affirmation. Never again can I be 
 nourished by denial. You are, indeed, the Cloud- 
 dweller who in my vision I saw break forth out of 
 the stars." 
 
 The sword with which these words pierced the 
 advocate was too sharp for his fortitude. His 
 wounds of that day had left him faint and spent 
 with the blood that had flowed from his veins. 
 He grew frail and numb. 
 
 " You had better hear the truth," he said, gasp- 
 ing. " It is the death-knell of us both, but there 
 is a limit to mortal endurance. I would have you 
 divorce the instrument from his works. Your 
 Cloud-dweller is not a god, but even as yourself 
 a thing of dross and clay." 
 
 " I deny it, I deny it," said the woman, in a 
 voice of passion. 
 
 The man seemed to cower before the anguish of 
 her eyes. 
 
 " You owe your deliverance to an unworthy in- 
 stinct which rendered me invulnerable." 
 
 " Unworthy, my deliverer ! " 
 
 337 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " A thousand times unworthy, poor deluded one. 
 It was not for the sake of the abandoned wretch 
 who was presented to my mind, that I bought her 
 Hfe and freedom. It was not for her, it was not 
 even for her cause that I spent the last drop of my 
 power." 
 
 " It was not, then, a divine magnanimity that 
 taught you to forget my stains? '* 
 
 " No." 
 
 " It was not that you drew your sword for a 
 marvellous gospel — for a gospel that dazzled the 
 poor outcast in the dock with its magnificence? " 
 
 " No, no." 
 
 " Then why did your voice seem to wail like a 
 flute? Why did you pluck the back of your hands 
 until the blood flowed from them? Why did you 
 conclude in a whisper so gentle that it could only 
 be heard by the spirit? " 
 
 " I was in a frenzy of avarice. I was fighting 
 for myself." 
 
 " No, no ! Your words were inspired from 
 heaven." 
 
 " No, no ! It was no more than the baleful 
 power of the earth. I was fighting for a roof over 
 my head, regular meals, a reputation, material 
 needs." 
 
 A thrill passed through the eyes of the woman. 
 They seemed suddenly to be blinded by a thousand 
 black thoughts she had half-forgotten. She sprang 
 to her feet, possessed by an excitement that he who 
 had made his pitiful confession was afraid to 
 plumb. She placed her hands on his shoulders and 
 peered into his face; and he did not shrink from 
 contact with her, for by some occult power, which 
 
 338 
 
MAGDALENE OR DELILAH 
 
 was her own genie, her own special and peculiar 
 gift, he was disarmed. 
 
 " You have the voice, the bearing, of a god," 
 she said, quivering with terror, " but your speech 
 belongs to the underworld whence I have come. 
 Persist in it and we return to it together, walking 
 hand in hand." 
 
 The advocate strove feebly to escape from the 
 demonic faculty which already had been exerted 
 upon him. She resisted him mournfully. 
 
 '' You cannot put me ofT, my deliverer. Hence- 
 forward your ways are my ways. I go with you 
 to the bright fields of your native kingdom, or I 
 return to the horrors of my own. I beseech you to 
 take me by the hand and lead me along the golden 
 paths to those mountain fastnesses in which you 
 were bom, in which the sun shines forever. You 
 know how I have been dreaming that some saint 
 and hero would lead me to them; you must make 
 my dreams come true again, my deliverer, as you 
 did but yesterday." 
 
 " Oh, why did you come to me?" cried North- 
 cote weakly, as he strove in vain to free himself of 
 the yoke that was already on his neck. 
 
 He seemed hardly to understand that he had to 
 deal with a desperate gambler who was staking all 
 upon a final cast. 
 
 '* Do not let me perish," cried the woman. " Do 
 not say this is an illusion upon which I have built 
 my miraculous faith. Do not tell me that the gods 
 walk the earth no more ! " 
 
 The tragic distension of her countenance filled 
 the young man with horror, yet also with a sense 
 of its weird poetry. 
 
 339 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " You must not hurl me back into the abyss out 
 of which I have crawled with bare life," she cried, 
 seizing his hands with an astounding passion. 
 " You are the god who has breathed upon the poor 
 outcast who knows no heaven apart from your no- 
 bility; you cannot, you must not, reject her." 
 
 Again the wretched creature sank down upon 
 her knees before him. 
 
 340 
 
XXXV 
 
 DELILAH 
 
 As Northcote gazed upon her, despair beat him 
 down like a flail. It was not for him, man of 
 genius as he was, to heal this outcast with his touch. 
 Only a perfect chastity could do that ; and this was 
 the jewel with which he had parted two days be- 
 fore to save her from the gallows. If he touched 
 her now, it would be as the inhabitant of her own 
 level. She cried for the living god, yet now he 
 was become a counterfeit of arid clay. She had 
 asked for bread, and he had only a stone to yield. 
 
 " You must go," he said, and the words seemed 
 to thicken as they fell from his throat. " You must 
 fly from me. I have nothing to offer you." 
 
 The woman shuddered and clasped him by the 
 ankles, but otherwise made no sign that she had 
 heard. 
 
 '' My power is gone," he said. " I am no longer 
 the strong and valiant one, but the poor outcast 
 even as are you. Two days ago I flung my birth- 
 right away." 
 
 " Will you send me back to the charnel-house? " 
 said the woman with a low moan. 
 
 Northcote drew up his body rigidly, erectly. 
 
 ** I have no choice," were the words that were 
 forced from between his lips. 
 
 Vein by vein the creature before him was invaded 
 by death. She crouched lower and lower upon the 
 
 341 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 ground until she was no more than a shapeless and 
 ignominious mass on the bare boards in front of 
 the fire. Every line of her body was merged and 
 outspread into something amorphous, without form. 
 Her helplessness was too complete to arouse pity. 
 Such a flaccidity was greater than that of an in- 
 fant, whose frame is too puny even to allow it to 
 crawl. 
 
 Northcote had no disgust. He had too sharp a 
 sense of horror that the power should be denied to 
 him to succor such an invertebrate thing. Pres- 
 ently, by an effort which seemed to shatter her flesh, 
 the creature was able to move. She rose from her 
 knees, issuing from the state of coma with all the 
 heavy and desperate pangs of one who attempts 
 to throw off the fumes of a deadly venom. She 
 rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, and 
 folded her arms in front of her. 
 
 " If you could have touched me once with the hem 
 of your garment you would have healed me. As 
 it is, I walk back with my wounds into the world." 
 
 A singular change had occurred in the voice of 
 the suppliant. It was far other than that which 
 had clothed the language of entreaty which had 
 previously fallen from her lips. In the ear of North- 
 cote the change wrought relief. Yet even as he 
 imbibed this clear, this definite, this pungent tone 
 with the eagerness of one who presses cold water 
 to his throat at a time when the pangs of his thirst 
 have become insupportable, a rapid and bewildering 
 transformation took place in her who confronted 
 him. She who a minute ago had presented the 
 appearance of a nebula, suddenly broke out all over 
 into light like a star. Out of the sprawling shape- 
 
 342 
 
DELILAH 
 
 lessness there was seen to issue something as 
 strong, graceful, and agile as a leopard. The hue 
 of her skin became luminous as though a fire had 
 been kindled beneath it; and her eyes, which so 
 lately had been dull and without nascency, shot forth 
 a lustre that added light to the room. 
 
 There was nothing baleful or malevolent in an 
 apparition so profoundly wonderful. In standing 
 aside to witness the evolutions of any force, in the 
 act of obeying the laws by which it is governed, 
 however inimical its operations may be to our per- 
 sonal safety, the feeling of repulsion bears no part. 
 The spring of the tiger, the long white teeth of the 
 wolf, the pinions of the eagle, the motions of the 
 serpent, are in themselves beautiful, for in them 
 are manifested the free and unconquerable expres- 
 sion of that force which nature has taken for its 
 highest gospel. The wide and curving nostrils of 
 the prostitute were the mansion of a subtle but 
 brutally dominating power. 
 
 For the moment, however, Northcote was only 
 aware that a splendid, supple, and entrancing thing 
 had stolen unperceived, like a beast of prey, into 
 the room. The strong, fine, and beautiful line that 
 had been traced along the convergence of the thin 
 but full lips addressed him like an unexpected but 
 supreme artifice of a great painter, who has learned 
 to use his pigments with effrontery. 
 
 As a revelation of power she was more than his 
 equal ; she challenged him with eyes whose insolent 
 domination exceeded his own. Furtively, yet 
 boldly, she had discarded her stealthiness ; she had 
 already the strength that disdains a mesh. She 
 looked upon him now with the same hidden but 
 
 343 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 imperious scornfulness with which he had looked 
 upon the judge, the jury, and the bar under the ex- 
 citement his speech on her behalf had generated. 
 Strong, subtle, and secure as he had been in the 
 exercise of his specific and audacious talent, this 
 siren was equally so in hers. He had delivered a 
 great prostitute from the gallows in order that she 
 might lead him to it. 
 
 *' I came here with no thought of destroying you,'* 
 she said. 
 
 With perfect composure she proceeded to divest 
 herself of her hat and coat, and carried them con- 
 fidently behind the curtain, as though already she 
 were perfect mistress of his house. When she re- 
 turned she seated herself in the chair against the 
 fire. 
 
 Northcote had not protest to raise. He could not 
 meet the challenge in the eyes of Medusa. In their 
 baleful lustre he had read the abrupt limit to his 
 own imperious will, he beheld as through a mirage 
 the prefiguration of his own doom. Even as he 
 had conquered others by the fearlessness of his own 
 quality, he had himself been conquered by the fear- 
 lessness of hers. He was no common advocate, 
 but this was no common harlot. Prayer and de- 
 votion alone could have saved him from toils such 
 as these; but of prayer and devotion he no longer 
 commanded the use. There was a fissure in his 
 armor; and through that aperture, small as it was, 
 the deadly, unnamable thing that had crawled into 
 his room had been able to plant its look. 
 
 '' I am trying to think," said his visitor, as she 
 reclined in the chair with her elbows outspread and 
 her hands clasped behind her hair, which was pro- 
 
 344 
 
DELILAH 
 
 fuse and ordered with rare precision, " I am trying 
 to think what it is about you that has caused me to 
 love you. I do not think it can be your voice alto- 
 gether, for although when it chooses it can sound so 
 low and delicious, it can also sound harsh and rude. 
 No, my noble warrior, I think there is a deeper 
 cause. Is it not that our natures are alike? Are 
 they not so similar? We are not of the common 
 herd. We can think, we can feel, we have a little 
 knowledge, and do we not possess enormous powers 
 of resentment? Life has not been very gentle 
 with you and me, but we will not complain about 
 it much. Can we not quietly choose our own 
 weapons and go our own way to work in order 
 that we may avenge ourselves? It is for your 
 strength and spirit that I love you. Give me a 
 kiss." 
 
 Northcote obeyed. 
 
 She caressed his hands with an extreme tender- 
 ness. 
 
 " How strong, square, massive, and beautifully 
 ugly they are!" she exclaimed. "I am sure you 
 could fell a bullock if you doubled your fist. I love 
 you even for these. I would rather be strangled 
 by strong hands than I would be fondled by weak 
 ones. If you cared to drive your fist into the 
 world, you could knock a hole in it and let out a 
 few of its wrongs. How tall and young and splen- 
 did you look. And strength means bravery." 
 
 Her words, the careless complacency which ac- 
 companied them, the ease of her posture with her 
 head thrown far back in the chair and her eyes 
 directed steadfastly to Northcote's face, filled him 
 with a cruel sensation of pleasure. Knowledge 
 
 345 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 translated into the grace of physical perfection had 
 an all-conquering attraction for his nature. Every 
 blemish upon her, and as she lay back in the shadow 
 of the lamp they appeared surprisingly few, were 
 additions to her value. They were so many re- 
 ceipted acknowledgments of the heavy sums she 
 had paid for what she possessed. There was a 
 short but deep scar over one eye. There was a 
 suggestion of coarseness in her jaw ; her bust looked 
 a little too full. 
 
 ** What shall I call you?" said the young ad- 
 vocate with shining eyes. " Shall I call you 
 Diomeda? " 
 
 " Do, my beloved Achilles ! '' 
 
 " How do you come to have heard about him? 
 Is it that Greek is compulsory in the University 
 of the Gutter?" 
 
 " Achilles was perfectly familiar to me before 
 I attended it. My dear father used to tell us stories 
 from Homer when he was drunk." 
 
 " Well, Diomeda, I have come to believe that 
 your father must have been a very remarkable 
 man." 
 
 " The world will arrive at a similar belief two 
 hundred years hence. But how can you have 
 acquired such an important piece of information 
 concerning him when you have never seen one of 
 his works ? " 
 
 " Do not forget that for the past hour I have 
 been gazing upon his chef-d'oeuvre, the masterpiece 
 among his masterpieces." 
 
 " On the contrary, my beloved, you are judging 
 him by his one great failure. In conception, in 
 design, I have no peer in this time of ours, but the 
 
 346 
 
DELILAH 
 
 inspiration of the artist failed suddenly and lament- 
 ably before he could touch me with the magic that 
 would have rendered me immortal. I am a splendid 
 thing, my beloved, but I shall perish. Therefore 
 the artist has failed." 
 
 " This is a masculine intellect of yours," said 
 Northcote, who was captivated by the celerity with 
 which she had interpreted an idea that in his own 
 mind had still the nebulosity of recent birth. " Is 
 it usual to your sex to have such powers ? " 
 
 " You will confess that you would not say so ? 
 Are they not eternally dunces and fools in the 
 austere eyes of the male ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I make that confession if you insist 
 upon the measure of my ignorance." 
 
 " Say rather, my hero, the measure of your in- 
 experience. You see you have only studied those 
 of my sex who are affiliated to the Great Trades' 
 Union. They take eternal vows of foolishness and 
 duncishness before they are admitted to member- 
 ship of that sanctified order. But with us black- 
 legs it is different. We are allowed to know every- 
 thing. You may not know that in our University 
 of the Gutter we have the most learned staff of 
 professors in the world. There is a chair for every- 
 thing." 
 
 " Except for honesty. If there was a chair for 
 that, would there not at once be an end to your 
 intellectual subtlety?" 
 
 " You do not know the great university to which 
 I have the honor to belong if you think intellectual 
 dishonesty is tolerated among us. The moment 
 we become intellectually dishonest we have done for- 
 ever with Alma Mater. She sends us down im- 
 
 347 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 mediately, and there is nothing for us then but the 
 river or the Great Trades' Union." 
 
 " That is what the world would call being- * sent 
 up.' Yet if the simplest terms were not subject to 
 totally different meanings in the varying strata 
 of our society, we should not have so many of 
 these pretty paradoxes to subsist upon. But I feel, 
 Diomeda, that I am entitled to ask you one ques- 
 tion. Was it in my capacity as a mentally dishonest 
 person that you came to me to-night to ask me to 
 arrange for you to be * sent down ' from your 
 university? " 
 
 *' Answer that question to your own liking, be- 
 loved one. It was your appeal on my behalf that 
 brought me here to-night. Would you have me ask 
 whether you were mentally honest when you made 
 it?" 
 
 Her laugh had an edge that cut him like a keen 
 blade. But she was quick to read the sharp thrill 
 of pain that made his eyes grow dark. 
 
 *' Do not repine, my beloved Achilles," she said 
 with a softness that had the power to caress, *' I 
 found you after all to be as honest as I am my- 
 self." 
 
 " At least," said the young man, sensible that 
 even her lightest caresses possessed the ferocity of 
 those of the snake and the tiger, " you are the first 
 of your sex with whom I have conversed who ap- 
 pears to understand the uses of paradox." 
 
 " There is no other means by which the honest 
 mind can carry on its thinking." 
 
 "If that is the case, you conduct the thinker to 
 his doom with atrocious certainty. You conduct 
 him to the gutter." 
 
 348 
 
DELILAH 
 
 " That is true, O Achilles," said the woman with 
 a quiet laugh. 
 
 " In other words," pursued Northcote, " he dem- 
 onstrates in his own person the impossibility of a 
 reconciliation in any terms whatever between the 
 ideal world of the spirit and the material world of 
 the flesh." 
 
 " Why trouble to put it into so many words, dear 
 lad? Briefly, I am the child of the poor drunken 
 man of genius, my father; and I suspect that you 
 had a poor drunken man of genius for your father 
 also." 
 
 " I would have you to know that my father was 
 ordained a clergyman of the Church of England." 
 
 " How old was he when he died ? " 
 
 " About thirty." 
 
 " Did it never occur to you that the poor fellow 
 killed himself in the struggle to become an honest 
 man?" 
 
 " These eyes of yours are dreadfully piercing. 
 I remember my mother saying of him that the clock 
 of his intellect was always set a little too fast." 
 
 "She never informed you by any chance, dear 
 lad, that if he had not taken an overdose of opium 
 he would have died a lunatic ? " 
 
 " Or that he killed himself with drinking brandy 
 after the manner of your own illustrious parent. 
 By the way, you have yet to give me a description 
 of your mother. Can you recall her? " 
 
 " She died, worn out, I believe, by slavery when 
 I was about four years old. She reminded me of 
 a cow ; her eyes were so placid and her movements 
 were so slow. But she had been affiliated to the 
 Trades' Union from her earliest days. I believe 
 
 349 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 she was a life member with her poHcy or whatever 
 they call it — I have no first-hand knowledge — 
 fully paid up. She was buried in consecrated 
 ground in Kensal Green cemetery with wreaths on 
 her coffin in consequence. Non-members of the 
 Union are mostly buried in a prison or in the 
 Thames. And now about your mother, the clergy- 
 man's widow? She, I presume, would be a vice- 
 president of the Union, or on its committee, or one 
 of its trustees, or she might even aspire to be one 
 of its honorary secretaries? Her social rank would 
 render it necessary." 
 
 *' Yes, dear old woman," said Northcote softly. 
 '' She is on the committee right enough. As you 
 say, her social rank has rendered it necessary." 
 
 .^50 
 
XXXVI 
 
 THE HONORABLE SECRETARY 
 
 On the following morning- Northcote was late 
 for breakfast. When the old charwoman shook his 
 curtains at a quarter to eight, a sleepy voice mur- 
 mured : " I may be a bit late. I will cook the bacon 
 myself and make the tea. Lay a knife and fork 
 for two and don't stay." 
 
 It was between ten and eleven o'clock by the time 
 he had completed his toilet. And it befell that at 
 that hour the kettle was singing on the fire, and he 
 himself was kneeling before it, toasting pieces of 
 bacon upon a fork, when there came a knock on 
 the door of his room. 
 
 " Come in," he called cheerfully. 
 
 He expected to see an attorney's clerk with 
 further business for his attention. 
 
 Instead, two persons entered whose appearance 
 caused him to drop the fork and the bacon among 
 the ashes. 
 
 A moment ensued in which he had to fight with 
 all his resolution to regain his self-possession. The 
 first to enter the room was his mother, and imme- 
 diately behind her was the young girl whom he was 
 under a pledge to marry. 
 
 Mrs. Northcote was a tall, strong woman, past 
 fifty, with assured movements and a resolute-look- 
 ing face. It was large and rather square. Her 
 cheeks were red with country life; her hair had 
 
 351 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 streaks of white in it; her eyes were bluish gray. 
 Her clothes, severe in outline, fitted close to her 
 broad and powerful frame. They helped to sus- 
 tain a somewhat rural appearance, which was not 
 altogether unprepossessing and had a sort of edu- 
 cation in it. Her speech was decisive, while the 
 voice was somewhat harsh, and left an impression 
 that it would be easy for it to domineer. 
 
 The young girl who accompanied her was not 
 moulded in these Amazonian lines. She was 
 straight and slender, only a little above the medium 
 height, neat of hand, delicate of foot. Her com- 
 plexion could only have been produced by genera- 
 tions of country air. It was perfectly clear, and of 
 an exquisite tawny pinkish whiteness. Her eyes 
 were large, soft, and long-lashed, and although as 
 clear and bright as a pair of crystals, as meaning- 
 less as those of a dumb animal. Her simple straw 
 hat and thick gray coat and skirt were in themselves 
 innocent of coquetry, but their inhabitant was in 
 her kind a sweetly beautiful thing — half-child and 
 half-woman — therefore these articles, rough and 
 primitive as they were, had significance in every 
 crease and fold. 
 
 The moment Northcote had managed to strangle 
 the first pangs of his stupefaction, he rose from his 
 knees and ran forward to greet them. He kissed 
 his mother on both cheeks, and seized both of the 
 young girl's hands in his own. 
 
 " I could not believe my own eyes," were the 
 first words he spoke to his mother. " You should 
 have given me warning that you were coming up 
 to London, my dearest. It is the merest chance 
 you have caught me at home." 
 
 352 
 
THE HONORABLE SECRETARY 
 
 " It was not until last evening that we decided 
 to come," said Mrs. Northcote. *' Margaret had 
 happened to see the advertisement of an excursion, 
 only eight shillings here and back." 
 
 " Why not telegraph, my dear? " Northcote ex- 
 postulated gently. " I would then have met you at 
 St. Pancras." 
 
 " It would have cost sixpence," said his mother. 
 " Besides it was too late last night." 
 
 " Always the woman of action," said her son, 
 with a hollow laugh. " Always an arbitrary and 
 drastic old woman in the execution of her ideas." 
 
 Northcote kissed his mother again with the pride 
 and affection which for the moment overlay this 
 wound. 
 
 " I wonder," said she, with an air of one who 
 has come upon something profound, " why men have 
 such a dislike to being taken by surprise. Your 
 father was the same, Henry. He could not bear to 
 be taken by surprise in anything. And I think you 
 are wonderfully like your father in some things." 
 
 " What is your opinion of this room of mine? " 
 said her son abruptly. 
 
 " I don't think I like it," she said decisively, 
 after making a catalogue of everything with an 
 immensely critical glance. " It has a dismal look. 
 And a hole in the roof, I declare ! You must have 
 it mended at once; it might help you to catch a 
 cold. And you are right up at the top just under 
 the tiles; I should think you must get frozen in 
 winter. And it must be extremely draughty with 
 those cracks in the door. And, my dear boy, I must 
 say it looks very bare and untidy with not even a 
 piece of carpet to the floor. I have meant for years 
 
 353 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 to come and see you; and when I received that 
 money you so kindly sent me, I thought now or 
 never is the time. How I wish I could have come 
 before, to have made you a little more comfort- 
 able!" 
 
 "How I wish you could, old woman!" said 
 Northcote gently, taking both her hands. 
 
 " I think this room is rather sweet myself," said 
 the girl, who also had been examining it very 
 critically. ** Somehow every room looks sweet 
 with a nice fire and a lot of books." 
 
 " That unnecessarily large grate takes all the 
 heat up the chimney," said Mrs. Northcote, " and 
 moreover is very wasteful of the coal. And what 
 have you got behind the curtain, Henry?" 
 
 " That is where I sleep." 
 
 "Well, that is sensible, my boy; a saving of 
 money." 
 
 " What a large room this must be altogether ! " 
 said the girl, with a sudden growth of her curiosity. 
 
 " I can see neither of you will rest until you have 
 penetrated into the heart of all my mysteries," said 
 Northcote, laughing loudly, as he interposed himself 
 between the entrance to his chamber and his 
 mother, who, full of inquiry, was plucking at the 
 curtain. 
 
 " Why, Henry," cried the girl, with a thrill of 
 consternation in her voice, " you have not had your 
 breakfast!" 
 
 "Why should I? This is not Chittingdon, you 
 know. Eleven o'clock is the fashionable hour in 
 town. It wants ten minutes yet." 
 
 " Bad habits," said Mrs. Northcote solemnly. 
 " My dearest, eleven o'clock is wrong." 
 
 354 
 
r 
 
 THE HONORABLE SECRETARY 
 
 " When one is in Rome you must do like the 
 Romans, you know." 
 
 " I have never agreed with that proverb," said 
 Mrs. North cote. " I consider it weak. When in 
 Rome one should make the Romans do as one does." 
 
 " Imagine me knocking at the gates of Bucking- 
 ham Palace at a quarter to seven." 
 
 " I am quite sure, my dear boy, the royal family 
 is addicted to good habits. I am quite sure you 
 would not find the king having his breakfast at 
 eleven o'clock." 
 
 " Oh, this dear dogmatic old woman of mine," 
 said Northcote, tapping her cheek in tender remon- 
 strance. " A fixed rule and a definite opinion for 
 everything under the sun." 
 
 " You must have fixed rules and definite opinions 
 if you are to succeed, my dear boy. Those who 
 have their doubts always end by failing miserably." 
 
 " So they do, old woman, so they do ! " cried 
 Northcote fervently, in spite of being stabbed by 
 consternation. Yet he never conversed with his 
 mother on the most trivial topics without feeling 
 that her simplicity rendered her invulnerable. 
 
 " I see your table is laid for two, Henry," said 
 the girl. " Are you expecting a friend ? " 
 
 " If he comes, he comes," said Northcote, with 
 a clever assumption of carelessness, " and if he 
 don't he stops away. Do you understand. Miss 
 Inquisitive? I generally have an extra knife and 
 fork, you know, in case a friend should happen to 
 drop in." 
 
 " He will have a wretched breakfast this morn- 
 ing if he comes," said the girl, taking off her gloves 
 gaily, and fishing out the fork and the bacon from 
 
 355 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 among the ashes. *' I must say, Henry, whoever 
 your friends may be, they cannot be very nice about 
 their cookery." 
 
 " Consecrated by the cook, don't you see. Miss 
 Impertinence. That bacon is toasted by mine own 
 fair hands." 
 
 '' Really, my boy," said his mother, " you have 
 grown most Bohemian in your ways." 
 
 She took off a pair of shabby and much-mended 
 gloves with that air of resolution she imparted to 
 her lightest kction, and insisted on being allowed 
 to make the tea. She measured two spoonfuls of 
 tea from the caddy with great care. 
 
 '* I allow myself three spoonfuls now I live in 
 London," said her son. 
 
 " Three is extravagance, Henry, three is not nec- 
 essary," said his mother quietly. " One for each 
 person and one for the pot is correct." 
 
 " Suppose a friend turns up? " 
 
 " More can be made. I fear you have formed 
 very bad habits in London." 
 
 " We have a surprise for you, Henry," said the 
 girl gaily. 
 
 She left the room to fetch a basket she had left 
 at the top of the stairs. 
 
 " Guess what we have brought for you," she 
 cried as she produced it. 
 
 " Butter and eggs." 
 
 '* How awfully clever that you should have 
 guessed them at once," she said, with her eager- 
 ness sinking into disappointment. 
 
 " I am afraid I never had any tact worth men- 
 tioning," said Northcote. " It was very stupid of 
 me to have guessed butter and eggs." 
 
 356 
 
THE HONORABLE SECRETARY 
 
 " But we have brought you some holly as well,'* 
 said Margaret, a little mollified. " Christmas will 
 soon be here." 
 
 " I am so glad I was not clever enough to guess 
 holly," said Northcote. 
 
 The contents of the basket were unpacked and 
 laid along the books on the writing-table. He had 
 to submit, not without a passage of arms, to hav- 
 ing an egg cooked for his immediate delectation. 
 His mother also insisted on being allowed to toast 
 him a slice of bread. 
 
 " You are spoiling me completely," said North- 
 cote, being forced at last into making a pretence 
 of eating after his own half-hearted offers of hos- 
 pitality had been uncompromisingly repelled. 
 
 By an effort of the will that seemed superhuman 
 to himself he forced himself to swallow a few 
 mouthfuls, yet as he did so he followed the smallest 
 movements of his guests. One eye never left the 
 curtain that ran across the room. Whenever one 
 or the other of his too curious visitors was seen to 
 approach it incautiously he made ready to spring 
 to his feet. 
 
 The only alleviation to the bareness of the walls 
 was several photographic groups of football-play- 
 ers, over which velvet caps decorated with tassels 
 were suspended. 
 
 " See that group in the middle ? " said North- 
 cote. " Look at it well. That is the finest pack that 
 ever turned out for England. We walloped Wales 
 twenty-nine points to three. Pushed 'em all over 
 the shop. Notice that little chap sitting between 
 my legs. He was a half if you like. Cunning as 
 a trout and quicker than a hare." 
 
 357 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " I think, my dear boy, this is perfectly unin- 
 teresting," said his mother, fixing her spectacles 
 and examining the photograph sternly. *' This is a 
 stupid pursuit, not only a waste of time, but also 
 a waste of money. It has been the ruin of many 
 young men. One of these days it might even prove 
 to be the ruin of England." 
 
 " All work and no play, my dear," said her son, 
 " makes Jack a dull boy, you know. Personally I 
 would suggest that a game like football is a rare 
 training for the character." 
 
 " I think football is a fine and manly game, 
 Henry," said the girl, with a little air of defiance. 
 " I shall never forget seeing you come home with 
 yotir twisted knee." 
 
 " The doctor's bill was thirty pounds," said Mrs. 
 Northcote simply. 
 
 These words, spoken in a manner that was almost 
 childlike, came upon Northcote with the force of 
 a blow. He was perfectly accustomed to his 
 mother's voice and manner, that voice and manner 
 which were so direct and so unqualified. But for 
 the first time they had driven a deep flush of shame 
 to his cheek. This dauntless unimaginative crea- 
 ture, who measured spoonfuls of tea, who counted 
 pennies, whose staff of life was hard facts, what 
 had she not performed at the call of her religion? 
 What lions had she not removed from the path of 
 this one ewe lamb of hers, in order that one day 
 he should win his way to the kingdom she had 
 designed for him? Night and day, year after year, 
 had she labored with this object in view. He was 
 her only son, and material greatness was to be his 
 destiny. He recalled the unflinching figure of this 
 
 358 
 
THE HONORABLE SECRETARY 
 
 woman tramping over the moors in the depth of 
 winter, through rain and wind, through frost and 
 snow, to earn a pittance by her tutelage ; he recalled 
 the resolution with which she performed the mean- 
 est household duties in order that money might be 
 saved; he recalled her sitting beneath the insuf- 
 ficient light of a lamp through the midnight hours, 
 transcribing, for the sake of a few miserable sov- 
 ereigns, foreign masterpieces out of their native 
 French, German, and Italian into trite, colorless, 
 and rather wearisome English prose. All in an 
 instant Northcote seemed to be fascinated, over- 
 come, by the sudden revelation of the pathetic 
 beauty of the commonplace. 
 
 " I won't have you think I have become idle and 
 extravagant," he said, rising from the table and 
 placing both his hands on her shoulders. " You see 
 I have had to fight my battle, and a long, a stern, 
 a lonely one it has been. What was I in the midst 
 of six millions of fighters, most of them as sturdy, 
 as fierce, and, in many cases, far better equipped 
 than I was myself? But I must tell you, my dear, 
 I believe I have conquered at last. I think I have 
 got the turn of the tide. If health and strength 
 remain to me, and never in my life have I been 
 physically more robust than I am at present, I am 
 about to make an income at the bar which, to frugal 
 people like you and me, mammy, will seem fabu- 
 lous wealth. For I ought to tell you i won my 
 first big case the day before yesterday, and i think 
 I am entitled to say I made an impression." 
 
 " I know that you saved that poor woman, my 
 dearest boy," said his mother, with a tenderness 
 that was almost grim. 
 
 359 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " Tell me, by what means did you learn that ? '* 
 
 " I walked over to the Hall and borrowed the 
 Age of Sir John." 
 
 " The Age! " said her son, in a tone that had 
 a thrill of horror in it. " Why walk all that dis- 
 tance to the Hall to get a look at the Age when 
 Parson Nugent would have been only too pleased 
 to lend you his Banner f " 
 
 " The reason is this, my dear boy," said his 
 mother impressively. " All my life I have been 
 accustomed to look upon the Age as the first Eng- 
 lish newspaper." 
 
 " I expect you are right, you dear old Amazon," 
 said her son, strangling a groan. 
 
 " No, Henry, I am not right. I am prepared to 
 believe there was a time when the Age was the first 
 English newspaper, but in my opinion it is so no 
 longer. I shall never place my trust in the Age 
 again." 
 
 " A heavy blow for Printing Press Square," said 
 Northcote, laughing to restrain his tears. 
 
 " I consider that leading article it had about the 
 trial, and the terms in which it referred to you, my 
 boy, to be a disgrace to English journalism. In 
 fact, I wrote to the editor to say so." 
 
 " What did you find to say to the editor? " asked 
 Northcote feebly. 
 
 " I said it was contemptible that a newspaper of 
 such a widespread influence as the Age should lend 
 itself to a faction whose aim was to suppress young 
 men of talent." 
 
 " And what had the editor to say to that? " 
 
 " Very wisely he did not reply. Perhaps I was 
 somewhat severe in my letter, but I felt very 
 
 360 
 
THE HONORABLE SECRETARY 
 
 strongly upon the point and I do not regret that I 
 expressed myself at length." 
 
 *' In the name of wonder, what else did you say 
 to the editor?" 
 
 " I said this faction of which I complained had 
 been very mischievous in its influence in this coun- 
 try, but in the end it had always failed in its object, 
 as in the end, Henry, everything that is merely 
 negative and destructive and retardatory must fail. 
 I cited the cases of Benjamin Disraeli and the poet 
 Keats." 
 
 " I suppose," said Northcote, with a dull sense of 
 agony overspreading his veins, " it could not occur 
 to you, old woman, that by any possibility the Age 
 was justified in the course it took? " 
 
 " It could not, Henry," said his mother. 
 
 Her air of finality bewildered him. Yet involun- 
 tarily he raised his eyes to her face, and, for the 
 first time in his life as he looked at it, he was able 
 to penetrate through its heroic commonness. The 
 features were harsh and aggressive and scarcely lit 
 by the mind, but the rigidity of such a nature in 
 the teeth of public opinion had appeared to shed 
 over them a little of the bloom that proceeds from 
 the elevation of the intellect. It was a kind of 
 apotheosis of the power of faith. Her eyes were 
 deep blue, strangely unfearing and clear, wide- 
 lidded, steady in their gaze. It was little enough 
 that they had the capacity to see, but whatever 
 they lacked in range derived compensation from 
 mere force of vision. They were inaccessible to 
 the changes which are wrought by influences from 
 without. Whatever they had looked on once could 
 never be modified by external causes. 
 
 361 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Northcote carried the toil-stained hand to his 
 lips with a reverence that was more profound than 
 any he had ever felt for it before. 
 
 " Every man needs to have known one truly 
 good woman," he said, strengthening his grasp of 
 the roughened fingers, " before he can even begin 
 his own education." 
 
 It darkened his eyes to see the muscles of the 
 harsh face relax as they yielded to the slight soft- 
 ness of an infrequent emotion. 
 
 " Your father was constantly making speeches 
 like these," she said, with that simplicity which was 
 so formidable. " I was never able to understand 
 them." 
 
 362 
 
XXXVII 
 
 INDELIBLE EVIDENCE 
 
 For some time Northcote stood holding her hand 
 and looking down into her eyes. A sense of deep 
 wonder was percolating slowly to every part of 
 his being. What a haven was here to embrace when 
 the frail bark of his nature had been flung, like the 
 cockle-shell that it was, upon the crest of tempestu- 
 ous and multitudinous seas. How blind and un- 
 developed he had been not to have understood this 
 before! From what ignominy could this anchor- 
 age have saved him! It would not have been nec- 
 essary to founder upon the shoals had he been 
 aware of this harbor that would have been so will- 
 ing to embrace him. He was already broken into 
 pieces; and those tears which appeared to suffuse 
 his eyes with such facility and to suffuse hers with 
 such a painful reluctance were falling from him. 
 
 " You must ignore that unmannerly attack in 
 the Age," she said in a stem voice which yet was 
 full of redress. " The enemies of the friendless 
 have no kingdom into which they can enter. A 
 few years hence, when you are a rich and honored 
 man, you will forgive them for having once stabbed 
 you." 
 
 The silence which followed her words was broken 
 by the hard and intense breathing of the figure that 
 clasped her. 
 
 " There is one thing I shall ask of you," said 
 
 3^3 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Northcote at last. " I shall ask you to give me the 
 pledge from your own lips that you will always 
 believe in me as completely as you do at this mo- 
 ment, whatever doubts, charges, or suspicion the 
 future hurls against me." 
 
 " It is not necessary for me to give this assur- 
 ance, but, since you demand it, I give it." 
 
 " It is part of my weakness to demand it," said 
 her son, *' although none is so well aware as am 
 I that there is no need to give expression to your 
 faith." 
 
 " As you say, there is no need. But I remember 
 your father saying to me shortly before that illness 
 which was fatal to him, the greater the gifts the 
 greater the lenity to be meted out to their unhappy 
 possessors. On that account I have always treated 
 you with more indulgence than otherwise I should 
 have done." 
 
 '' Had you been more Spartan you might have 
 strangled the genie at its birth." 
 
 " I might." 
 
 " And yet made of its possessor a more upright 
 and God-fearing citizen." 
 
 " That is impossible." 
 
 ** You never could conceive of his being other 
 than you see him now ? " 
 
 " I could not." 
 
 " Even if the indelible evidence were laid before 
 you?" 
 
 " Evidence is never indelible to us. So-called 
 facts have no worth in our eyes. We believe or we 
 do not believe. Nothing changes our emotions; 
 they are what we understand by religion." 
 
 " You speak for wise and great women." 
 364 
 
INDELIBLE EVIDENCE 
 
 " I speak for the humblest of wives and mothers 
 who cannot accept credit for blind obedience to an 
 instinct which alone gives her life." 
 
 " I begin to understand why even the most im- 
 perious natures, which are as ruthless as volcanoes 
 in action, cannot live without your aid. It is not 
 that you enslave and fetter them; your function is 
 to cleanse, renew, rehabilitate." 
 
 As Northcote spoke a feeling of profound joy 
 overspread the humiliation whose penalties had 
 been far more grievous to him than those of 
 despair. Hardly had he tasted it, however, than 
 the nightmare at the back of his thoughts assumed 
 a visible shape. Of a sudden there came a sharp 
 screech from the curtain. Margaret, who through- 
 out the conversation with his mother had been en- 
 gaged in fixing pieces of holly over the photographs 
 on the wall, was still employed in this decoration. 
 It was not she who was responsible for the sudden 
 shrieking of the brass rings along the curtain pole. 
 
 With a single comprehensive movement the cur- 
 tain had been flung back and the bed revealed. 
 Seated upon it, half-dressed, with her hair hang- 
 ing loose, and her bare arms exposed by her che- 
 mise, was his visitor of the previous night. Half a 
 dozen hairpins were stuck in a row in her mouth. 
 In the cold grayness of the December morning, 
 which seemed to envelop her malignity in a bald 
 realism, her features appeared blunt, pale, and hide- 
 ous. The almost incredibly bitter and mocking 
 glance was not directed upon the man, but upon 
 the elderly, unprepossessing, and countrified figure 
 in the shabby clothes and antique hat whom he was 
 holding by the hand. 
 
 365 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Northcote let the hand fall, and recoiled from 
 his mother with a gasp of fear mixed with passion. 
 
 The young girl, whom life had done nothing to 
 enlighten, stood in dumb amazement upon the chair 
 on which she was poised. 
 
 There was a moment in which the older woman 
 quivered with terror. The brutal eyes of the pros- 
 titute, fixed upon her face with a blunt contempt, 
 seemed to change her into stone. Observing her to 
 be petrified like a bird in the presence of a serpent, 
 the woman seated upon the bed picked the row of 
 hairpins from between her teeth with the circum- 
 spection of an actress who, upon the stage, is notori- 
 ous for her power, and who, having a stupendous 
 scene to enact, prepares her audience for it by a 
 display of quietude. She proceeded to coil up her 
 hair with a deliberation that had value as drama. 
 
 " Vice-president of the Great Trades' Union," she 
 said, removing the last hairpin from her mouth. 
 
 The elder woman stood looking helplessly away. 
 Those indomitable eyes were cowed for the first 
 time in their history. For the first time they had 
 come upon something upnDn which they had no opin- 
 ion to deliver. She had barely the strength to carry 
 her gaze to her son, who stood ten paces from her as 
 pale and rigid as a statue. 
 
 " Better go — better take Peggy," he whispered 
 in a voice that she did not know to be his. 
 
 Margaret, still holding the holly, had come down 
 from the chair, and like a child had come to stand 
 at the side of her natural protectress. She was 
 visibly afraid; and she had clutched the holly so 
 tightly that blood was trickling from the wounds in 
 her soft fingers. 
 
 366 ^ 
 
INDELIBLE EVIDENCE 
 
 The spectacle of her childishness restored to the 
 elder woman that capacity for action which she was 
 never without. 
 
 " Get your coat and gloves, child," she said in 
 her harsh tones. "Where's the basket?" 
 
 She herself took up the basket, and, without ven- 
 turing to look at her son or her who sat upon the 
 bed, neither of whom had changed their postures 
 nor spoken again, she led the way out with resolute 
 steps to the top of the stairs. The young girl fol- 
 lowed in her wake with a timid obedience, pulling 
 on her cotton gloves over her bleeding fingers as 
 she went. 
 
 At the head of the stairs this new resolution of 
 the elder woman's appeared to fail her. 
 
 " Go down, child ; take the basket. I will follow 
 you in a minute," she said, handing the basket to 
 the girl. 
 
 She turned suddenly and went back into the room. 
 Her son was still standing in the attitude in which 
 she had left him. There was a curious glare in his 
 eyes. Advancing to him she placed her hands on 
 his shoulders, pressed her lips against his forehead, 
 and then, in a kind of headlong flight, darted away 
 like a rabbit out of the room and down the stairs. 
 
 367 
 
XXXVIII 
 
 CLEANSING FIRE 
 
 This irrational proceeding served to liberate 
 Northcote from his thrall. Even as he felt his 
 mother's lips and witnessed her ridiculous flight, 
 he was able to divine the nature of the impulse. It 
 was the expression of that unconquerable instinct 
 by which her sex afiirms itself. 
 
 He walked to the window which commanded a 
 view of the pavements below. He watched the two 
 figures mingle in all their rustic quaintness with 
 the heterogeneous streams of persons and traffic 
 which defiled before his gaze. It followed their 
 every deviation among this ruthless swarm of Lon- 
 doners until they were swallowed by the mist of 
 the December morning. The last detail he was able 
 to discern, which served to emphasize their slightly 
 ridiculous character as seen from this altitude, was 
 the large empty basket bobbing about in the hand 
 of the girl. Their rusticity in combination with 
 the wild hurry of their flight marked them out as 
 almost grotesque among the spruce and purposeful 
 crowd through which they made their way. With 
 a pang he remembered that neither of them had 
 ever seen the metropolis before. Whither were they 
 flying? How would they spend their day? What 
 would be the end of their ill-starred adventure? 
 
 He continued to strain his eyes after them until 
 they grew dark with the effort. He then left the 
 
 368 
 
CLEANSING FIRE 
 
 window and turned round to find that his visitor 
 was standing in front of the fire. She was yawn- 
 ing. 
 
 " A facer for the old Methodist," she said, with 
 a short, nonchalant laugh. 
 
 Northcote clenched his hands. An almost un- 
 governable fury caused his ears to sing. 
 
 " I know what is in your mind," said the woman 
 calmly. " Get it done." 
 
 *' I hope you will go," said Northcote in a low 
 tone. 
 
 " Get it done," said the woman. " Tear my head 
 from my body and I shall respect you." 
 
 Northcote was barely able to point to the door. 
 The woman looked at him with supreme effrontery. 
 She was utterly divested of fear. Her nostrils 
 seemed to be dilated in scorn, and her dark eyes 
 were full of mockery. 
 
 " I never saw anything half so funny," she said, 
 " as the worthy old widow of the clergyman run- 
 ning back shamefaced to kiss her saint and hero. 
 The three of you made a picture for an almanac, 
 as my dear father would have said. You reminded 
 me of nothing so much as a stuck pig. The dear 
 old hymnologist and psalm-singer, who had spoken 
 such brave nonsense, looked just like a poor silly 
 old cow with a red face ; and that stupid little baby- 
 face sticking up the holly, well, she was just like 
 one of those silly dolls with wax cheeks, which has 
 a button which you press and it changes its color." 
 
 Northcote was faint already with the dreadful 
 struggle he was waging. Suddenly, as if touched 
 by inspiration, he turned in the direction of the 
 
 369 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 door. Yet the woman was too quick for him. She 
 leaped before him and barred his course. 
 
 " I am asking" you to pluck my throat out with 
 your great hands," she cried with fury. " Don't 
 you understand, you fool ? Don't you understand, 
 I say? I cannot, I will not go back to the gutter; 
 yet I cannot go anywhere else. Why don't you 
 do as you are told?" 
 
 " Do go ! " he cried weakly, piteously. The 
 veins were swelling in his neck. 
 
 He strove to thrust her aside, but she resisted 
 him; and when he tried again she fixed her strong 
 teeth in his hand ferociously. 
 
 " Do it now ! " she cried, watching his eyes with 
 the baleful hunger of a she-wolf. 
 
 " You are not worth it," said Northcote, recov- 
 ering possession of himself. 
 
 She spat in his face. 
 
 Northcote began to realize that he had to deal 
 with a mad woman. 
 
 She plucked a knife from the table. By this time, 
 however, the man had all his wits about him, and 
 the movement was anticipated. He had seized her 
 before she could make use of it. 
 
 He knew immediately that he had entered upon 
 a terrible struggle. He possessed immense physical 
 power, but the creature upon whom he had to exer- 
 cise it was extremely supple and vigorous, and, 
 above all, was now a maniac. She fought with the 
 fury of a lioness. Her unbridled rage seemed to 
 make her more than a match for him. Screaming 
 foul oaths, and resorting to devices that a wild 
 beast would not have employed, the issue hung in 
 the balance. Inch by inch, however, he obtained a 
 
 370 
 
CLEANSING FIRE 
 
 stronger purchase on her body, and it writhed under 
 his great hands like that of a huge snake. He 
 grunted under the Titanic exertion of forcing her to 
 the ground. He shifted his hands to her throat, and 
 once he felt it yield to their gripe, his own pent-up 
 fury broke forth in an uncontrollable manner. 
 Hardly conscious of what he did, he shook her 
 with the passion of a wounded bear. She gave a 
 low moan, and a spray of blood came on to her 
 lips. 
 
 It fell upon him with a shock of surprise that her 
 struggles had ceased. She had fallen stiff under 
 his hands. When he relaxed his grip she fell to 
 the ground, measuring her length with dull heavi- 
 ness like a sack of flour. In an instant a revolting 
 idea stifled the dreadful frenzy of the demoniac. 
 She was dead. Those enormous hands of his had 
 pressed out her life without knowing it. 
 
 Overcome with horror, Northcote sank to his 
 knees beside the body. It was stark, and already 
 a little cold. He rolled the corpse over, so that 
 its face was exposed ; he felt for the beating of the 
 heart. There was not a movement of any sort to 
 enkindle his touch. The face was convulsed, tinged 
 with purple, mottled with gray. The eyes were 
 glazed, and even more hideous than when he looked 
 into them last. In his anguish, he gave a little cry, 
 and rose from his knees, and pressed his hands to 
 his head. 
 
 His first thought was for himself. By this irrev- 
 ocable act he was destroyed. His dreams had 
 come to a brutally abrupt termination. That high 
 destiny which was to shake the world had petered 
 out in a shameful public ignominy. 
 
 371 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 In a pitiable state of terror he fell on his knees 
 again. There was a sort of morbid reflex action 
 within him that seemed to draw him back to the 
 body, to force him to pass his hands across the 
 corpse. It was now cold. A stinging fury made 
 him writhe. Was it for this foul, uncanny monster 
 that he must forfeit one of the most precious jewels 
 that had ever been devised by nature? He was a 
 young man; life was before him; there was the 
 magic talisman in his spirit that could bend the 
 whole world to his purposes. He gnashed his teeth 
 with impotent fury, and rose biting at his nails. 
 
 " This is a dreadful tragedy," he muttered. 
 " This is a dreadful tragedy. Think of such a one 
 as myself being lost to mankind." 
 
 His own grotesque words caused him to laugh. 
 That surprising genie, that had been destined to 
 conquer a stupidly material world, enabled him to 
 present himself to himself in his amazing predica- 
 ment. He could hardly preserve his gravity before 
 a spectacle so astonishing. 
 
 " The genie is deriding me," he said. 
 
 That mute and distorted face that was looking 
 up at him with an insane leer had no message of 
 its own. It was only significant to the advocate 
 as the price of all that he was about to give up. 
 Yet suddenly he remembered this strange creature 
 he had broken with his hands as he had first en- 
 countered her in the prison. In no animate thing 
 could the desire for life have been more intensely 
 strong. Overmastering as was his own desire 
 at this moment, hers, at that time, had been no less 
 so. She must have life; she must see the sun and 
 the clouds and the trees. The common earth had 
 
 372 
 
CLEANSING FIRE 
 
 acquired fresh symbols for that debauched vision. 
 And how nearly she had come to possess this 
 strange new thing that she craved. One heaven- 
 bom man had all but given it to her. He had so 
 nearly done so, that for one brief instant she had 
 been able to taste it with those blood-stained lips. 
 And when she had discovered that strong and shin- 
 ing as this one man was, his was not the divine 
 valiance of those early mystics who roamed the 
 hills in the childhood of the world, that he had not 
 the simplicity to provide her with that which she 
 craved, she insisted on receiving death at his hands 
 in lieu of the life he could not give her. 
 
 It was then that he took a little compassion. It 
 was a loathsome and terrible destiny to which this 
 human being had been called. By what subtle twist 
 or abrogation of her noble faculties had she come 
 to live her days on such lines as these. This avowed 
 and ruthless enemy of society had been of no com- 
 mon or spurious clay. It was not a small nature 
 that had taken a revenge so bitter. A little more 
 and it had been how much ? Another grain of cour- 
 age, another ounce of power, and she, too, poor 
 maimed and twisted thing of beauty, would have 
 been numbered among the valiant. 
 
 It added a sharp touch to her slayer's com- 
 passion, that, in regarding her mutilated image, 
 she became the mirror of his own. He saw the 
 parallel between the living and the dead. Every 
 point in this analogy was so perfect that a mental 
 fascination lurked in its rendering. Did the texture 
 of his own fate admit of any more lenient inquiry? 
 He also would have entered his kingdom had he 
 but possessed the little more that meant so much. 
 
 373 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 Were they not both in the beginning the victims 
 of a fine and original talent, for she whom he had 
 slain had been the offspring of a man of the first 
 genius. Her thoughts were his thoughts; her de- 
 sires were his desires; the tragedy of each had 
 been that their fineness had been immolated upon the 
 altar of its base surroundings; both had failed to 
 scale those precipitous mountain-places from which 
 alone it was possible to stand in true perspective 
 to their own characters. 
 
 As he pressed home this analogy with that curi- 
 ous grim subtlety that was always one of his chief 
 pleasures to employ, he began to feel in his own 
 veins that intense desire of hers to live the life that 
 nature had appointed, to discover an ampler, a truer 
 self-expression. How was it possible to arrest 
 those functions that had not had an opportunity 
 to fulfil themselves? There was a ravishing vigor 
 in his blood; he must not perish as a felon, he to 
 whom all things were so full of meaning. 
 
 The overwhelming force of these thoughts trans- 
 lated them into action. It had already come to him 
 that to obey his overmastering desire he must con- 
 ceal his deed. He raised the heavy corpse in his 
 arms; yet powerful as he was it proved too much 
 for him to bear. Therefore he dragged it across 
 the room, and with herculean labor contrived to 
 hoist it on to the bed. He then drew the curtain 
 across to hide it from the view of those who should 
 chance to enter the room. Afterwards he proceeded 
 to ponder the evolution of a means to ensure his 
 own personal security. 
 
 He was still engrossed with this occupation when 
 the old charwoman entered his room. She had 
 
 374 
 
CLEANSING FIRE 
 
 brought him some clean linen. It was contained 
 in a basket which it was her custom to deposit on 
 a chair behind the curtain at the foot of his bed. 
 
 " You can leave it here, Mrs. Brown," said 
 Northcote, indicating with his finger a place on the 
 floor. 
 
 " I had better take it out of the way, sir," said 
 the old woman. " Besides, I have not made the 
 bed." 
 
 "Never mind the bed," said Northcote; "that 
 won't matter at all." 
 
 " Oh, no, sir, it would never do for you not to 
 have your bed made," said the old woman, in a 
 tone of quiet but determined expostulation. 
 
 " I tell you I don't want it made," said North- 
 cote. " You can go." 
 
 The tone of his voice seemed to strike the old 
 woman. Formerly he had always been kind and 
 gentle to her ; he had never used such a tone to her 
 before. 
 
 " Very well, sir," she said meekly, looking at 
 him with scared eyes. 
 
 Still, however, with a perversity which in the 
 circumstances he could only regard as diabolical, 
 she did not go. For suddenly she recollected that 
 the day before she had lost her shawl, and it oc- 
 curred to her now that it was not at all unlikely 
 that she had left it beneath the bed. It was not 
 in the least probable that she would find it there, 
 but one of those irrational side-currents to mental 
 activity, which science finds so baffling, had sug- 
 gested to her that she might. 
 
 "What do you want now?" cried Northcote, 
 as she moved towards the curtain. 
 
 375 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 '' I want my shawl, sir." 
 
 Her meekness exasperated him beyond endurance. 
 
 " Where is your shawl ? " 
 
 " I think, sir, it might be under the bed." 
 
 Her hand was already stretched towards the cur- 
 tain. Northcote was standing against his writing- 
 table, and near his elbow was the leaden paper- 
 weight which he used for the destruction of rats. 
 He took it in his hand and poised it in a fashion 
 that would enable him to hurl it with all his force 
 at the back of the old woman's head. 
 
 For some occult reason she withdrew her hand 
 from the curtain, and retired without pulling it 
 back. 
 
 " Of course I remember now," she said. " I lent 
 my shawl to Mary Parker while the snow was 
 about. I have such a bad memory," she added 
 plaintively. 
 
 " There is one little errand I should like you to 
 do for me," said Northcote, looking at her calmly. 
 " Do you mind fetching me a gallon of paraffin? 
 You can get it at an oilman's or an ironmonger's. 
 I am going to try a new kind of fire." 
 
 He handed her half a crown. 
 
 " Very good, sir," said the old woman. 
 
 As he listened to her descending the stairs with 
 little toddling steps, he balanced the paper-weight 
 thoughtfully in the palm of his hand. 
 
 " Those five grandchildren will never come much 
 nearer to the workhouse, you perverse old woman," 
 he said with a whimsical laugh. 
 
 He had already formed his plan, and like all 
 subtle minds which yearn for a finality which they 
 so seldom obtain, the definiteness of its nature en- 
 
 376 
 
CLEANSING FIRE 
 
 hanced his capacity for action. He discarded his 
 carpet slippers in favor of boots, and set his hat, 
 gloves, and overcoat in a place where he could take 
 them up immediately. He placed the briefs con- 
 fided to him by the solicitor carefully in his pocket. 
 There were no other portable objects of value be- 
 longing to him except a quantity of large and loose 
 manuscript sheets, numbering some two thousand 
 pages, the ** Note towards an Essay on Optimism," 
 that fruit of six years' labor. These he collected 
 from divers drawers in the writing-table, and piled 
 them into one upstanding heap. 
 
 He stood surveying this proud edifice with a rue- 
 ful smile when the old woman returned at last, bear- 
 ing a gallon of paraffin contained in a tin. 
 
 *' Thank you," he said, taking it from her. '' You 
 may keep the change. If I spoke to you rather 
 roughly just now, I hope you will not mind it. 
 The fact is, I have a great deal of work to get 
 through, and it has made me rather irritable." 
 
 The old charwoman, immensely mollified by the 
 tone in which she was now addressed, thanked him 
 humbly, and after standing a moment irresolutely, 
 in which she further considered the question of 
 how far it would be now expedient to attempt the 
 making of the bed, a daily duty which with all her 
 soul she yearned to perform, decided it would not 
 be politic to reopen the subject. Therefore she re- 
 tired crestfallen, because she had failed to carry 
 out a regime which was the foremost function of 
 her life; yet a little exalted also by the apolog)^ 
 which had been so feelingly rendered to her by one 
 who wore a nimbus ; and above all, tremulous with 
 excitement by reason of having ninepence in her 
 
 377 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 pocket which was pure gain, a solid lump of 
 treasure-trove. 
 
 As soon as she had gone, Northcote " sported 
 his oak " and locked the door. It was indeed nec- 
 essary that he should not be disturbed in his labors ; 
 and he took elaborate precautions to render them 
 effectual. First he broke up all the chairs he pos- 
 sessed, and strewed the fragments over the corpse. 
 He pulled down the curtains, and flung them upon 
 the pyre. He gathered several armfuls of books 
 of jurisprudence and philosophy, dilapidated arti- 
 cles which had been purchased second-hand, tore 
 them in pieces, and strewed them about. He pulled 
 a wooden box from under the bed, flung out the 
 contents, consisting of old clothes, and having 
 broken up the box into splinters, heaped those up 
 also. Finally, he gathered in his arms that formid- 
 able bundle, the '' Note towards an Essay on Op- 
 timism," and sprinkled its two thousand leaves upon 
 the sacrifice. 
 
 By pressing into service every combustible article 
 the room contained, the pile that he built mounted 
 up to the roof. Having arranged the great mass 
 to his satisfaction, he poured the paraffin over it. 
 He then kindled one of the splinters of the chair 
 into a fagot, and applied the lighted end to one 
 of the saturated blankets of the bed. He then ran 
 to the door, catching up his hat and coat as he 
 did so, and unlocked it. Barely had he time to do 
 this ere the whole of the pyre, under the excitation 
 of the oil, had burst into a sheet of flame. He 
 changed the key, and locked the door after him. 
 
 Putting on his hat and coat and gloves he walked 
 down the four flights of stairs, past various open 
 
 378 
 
CLEANSING FIRE 
 
 doors with clerks behind them, yet in so doing 
 betrayed neither sign of haste nor discomposure. 
 At the bottom of the last flight he was accosted by 
 an elderly lame man, who bore unmistakable traces 
 of being the clerk of an attorney. 
 
 " Can you tell me if Mr. Northcote's chambers 
 are on the top floor, sir?" he asked courteously. 
 
 " My name is Northcote. Can I be of service to 
 you?" 
 
 The clerk opened a small bag that he carried, and 
 selecting an oblong piece of paper from among 
 half a dozen similar documents lying within it, 
 handed it to the advocate. 
 
 " Messrs. Peberdy, Ward, and Peberdy, No. 3 
 Shortt's Yard, sir," he said. 
 
 " Thanks," said Northcote, placing it in the inner 
 pocket of his overcoat. 
 
 At that moment a clerk from one of the upper 
 stories came running down the stairs. 
 
 " The place is on fire," he cried. " The top land- 
 ing is so full of smoke you can't go up to it." 
 
 " I thought there was a smell of burning," said 
 Northcote. " I say, it must be my room ! " 
 
 "If you are Mr. Northcote, it is certainly your 
 room." 
 
 The advocate turned round hastily, and proceeded 
 to ascend the steep and rickety old stairs. He was 
 turned back, however, as he had anticipated, by 
 other clerks who were rtmning down. 
 
 " The place is on fire," they cried excitedly. 
 " The smoke will choke you." 
 
 379 
 
XXXIX 
 
 WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT STAIN 
 
 North COTE made no further show of resistance 
 to the inevitable, but accompanied the excited clerks 
 into Fleet Street. The window of his room abut- 
 ting on to it had already attracted the notice of the 
 crowd that thronged its pavements. By the time 
 he had crossed to the other side of the road and 
 had taken up his stand with the knot of spectators 
 that was rapidly assembling at the end of a by- 
 street, the smoke had increased considerably in 
 volume. 
 
 '' Not much doubt about there being a fire," was 
 the verdict of those around him. 
 
 The bunch of witnesses in the side street in- 
 creased every instant. Persons riding on the out- 
 sides of the omnibuses stood up to look. Policemen 
 on point-duty came out of the press of the traffic 
 to gaze with concern and inquiry at the smoke 
 which now was belching forth in a black mass. 
 
 " Must ha' begun in the chimbley," said one of 
 Northcote's neighbors, a man without a collar. 
 " That's soot." 
 
 " It's Pearmain's Hotel," said another. 
 
 " No," said a third, " it's Shepherd's Inn." 
 
 *' If it's Shepherd's Inn it will take it all," said 
 a fourth. " It has been condemned by the County 
 Council for the past two years. It is so crazy it 
 can hardly stand up in a gale." 
 
 380 
 
WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT STAIN 
 
 " It is rotten and rat-ridden from top to bottom. 
 It must be five hundred years old." 
 
 " Five 'undred me leg," said the man without a 
 collar. " It ain't more than two." 
 
 " Lord Bacon lived in it, anyway." 
 
 " Wot if he did ? I tell you it ain't more than 
 two." 
 
 The controversialist spat on the pavement au- 
 thoritatively, and those who surrounded him, who 
 knew he was wrong, deferred to his opinion hum- 
 bly. 
 
 " There's the flame," said a quiet man excitedly. 
 " Why don't they bring the engines ? " 
 
 " They want it to get a firm 'old," said the man 
 without a collar, " so that they can put it out in 
 style." 
 
 " They will have something to go at when they 
 do come," said a nervous man, who wore specta- 
 cles. " There it goes through the roof. Look, 
 look, see that ! " 
 
 There could be no measure of uncertainty as to 
 the power the fire had acquired already. Smoke 
 and flame were pouring and leaping out of the win- 
 dows and through the old red tiles into the dull 
 December sky. A stern joy held Northcote as he 
 gazed. Every instant of delay increased his chance. 
 It needed a holocaust to ensure his safety. He de- 
 rived that thrill of impersonal satisfaction which 
 visits a good craftsman when a work is placed 
 before him which has been adequately planned and 
 executed. 
 
 " The engines ought to have been round from 
 Fenchurch Street afore now," said one, whose 
 mustache bristled like that of a county councillor. 
 
 381 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " Fenchurch Street, did yer sye? " said the man 
 without a collar. " Lord love me, they'll send 'em 
 round from 'Olbom." 
 
 " They are taking a lifetime about it," said the 
 nervous man in a voice of intense anxiety. 
 
 However, at that moment there sounded a curi- 
 ous rattle of warning-; policemen came running up, 
 and immediately afterwards came the first of the 
 engines. The crowd was now dense and the traffic 
 was impeded. In the next few moments it had been 
 stopped altogether and diverted into side streets. 
 By now a large posse of constables had appeared, 
 and they succeeded in clearing a space in which the 
 firemen could carry out their operations. Before 
 the hose had been placed in position two other en- 
 gines had arrived. 
 
 Northcote had managed to place himself in an 
 admirable situation among the excited throng; and 
 although those in front of him were somewhat 
 roughly thrust back by the police, he was able to 
 maintain his coign of vantage. By the time the 
 first spray of water had been flung upon the con- 
 flagration, it had not only burnt through his room 
 into the story beneath, but also it had spread some 
 twenty yards along the tiles. 
 
 " If it takes to burning down, it will be awk- 
 ward," said a voice near him. 
 
 ** How it is spreading ! They will find it difficult 
 to keep it off the hotel." 
 
 Northcote, in the midst of the frenzy of destruc- 
 tion that possessed him, now grew conscious that a 
 hand had gripped his arm. He managed to turn 
 his head sideways and discovered that his old 
 schoolfellow, Hutton, was standing next to him. 
 
 382 
 
WITHOUT PEAR AND WITHOUT STAIN 
 
 " This crazy old hole has been waiting for this," 
 said Hutton. " It burns like tinder. If there are 
 any poor devils who keep there, I pity them." 
 
 '* I'm one," said Northcote quietly. 
 
 " Well, I call that really bad luck," said his old 
 schoolfellow fervently. " Upon my word, it will 
 take the whole place." 
 
 *' Job's comforter," said Northcote. 
 
 " I say though, it is a blaze ! By Jove, it has got 
 into the hotel ! It will take half Fleet Street if they 
 don't look out." 
 
 " More engines," said Northcote with satisfac- 
 tion, as their hideous rattles pierced the air. " Well, 
 they will all be wanted." 
 
 " I say, though," said his companion, with the 
 growing excitement of his surroundings communi- 
 cating itself to him, " this is going to be really 
 awful. It has got down another story, and it is 
 certainly in the hotel, and if they don't look out it 
 will be in the bank." 
 
 Although half a dozen engines had arrived by 
 this time and the supply of water was copious, the 
 fire had spread on all sides with such alarming 
 rapidity that the liquid sheets that were flung upon 
 it seemed only to increase the virulence of the flames. 
 The surrounding buildings were all more or less 
 decrepit, while the old inn itself had not the slight- 
 est resistance to offer to the flames. The whole of 
 its quadrangular roof, most of which lay behind, 
 appeared, as far as the onlookers could discern, by 
 now to be involved. 
 
 ** There is something strange, fascinating, exhil- 
 arating," said Northcote with a thrill of exaltation 
 in his voice, " in witnessing a really great fire. The 
 
 383 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 fire of London must have been the finest sight the 
 world ever saw." 
 
 " You don't appear to mind very much about your 
 rooms, I must say," said his companion. *' If I 
 were looking on at the destruction of my goods 
 and chattels and the roof that protects my head, I 
 don't think I should be able to raise much enthusi- 
 asm for the spectacle." 
 
 " It will probably take half Fleet Street. What 
 is my wretched little attic in comparison with 
 that?" 
 
 " Somehow in the circumstances I don't think 
 I could play the philosopher myself." 
 
 " It is all up with the hotel," said Northcote. 
 " It will be into a few of these newspaper offices 
 before long. Conceive a holocaust that places the 
 press of England in danger ! Ha, ha, there goes the 
 roof of my room ! " 
 
 " Why, that is where the fire began ! You don't 
 mean to say the fire began in your room ? " 
 
 " Yes, that is where the fire began." 
 
 " No! How did it begin? Were you in it when 
 it started?" 
 
 " Yes, I was in it when it started." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " I started it myself." 
 
 " Did you overturn a lamp? Or did it begin in 
 the chimney? " 
 
 " Well, if you must know," said Northcote, " you 
 shall hear the true facts. A lady called upon me 
 last evening, and very kindly stayed the night. But 
 this morning when I wanted to turn her out she re- 
 fused to go. And further, she showed temper and 
 made herself distinctly objectionable. Therefore I 
 
 384 
 
WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT STAIN 
 
 lost patience with her, and being a man of my 
 hands I twisted her neck. But when I had managed 
 to do that — by Jove, it is into the bank ! we shall 
 soon be able to reckon the damage by a cool million 
 and it has only just begun ! — but when I had man- 
 aged to twist her neck, the question arose how to get 
 rid of her remains. You see to have her unvirtuous 
 person found in my room would not help this 
 career at the bar I am just about to begin. How 
 could I get rid of the body, that was the question? 
 Now mark the really fertile mind of genius. Why 
 not burn down the whole place ? And that, you see, 
 is exactly what I have done, although I will admit 
 the idea is a plagiary from that excellent old author, 
 Charles Lamb. You remember his Chinaman who 
 burnt down the house of his parents every time he 
 wanted to eat roast pig? " 
 
 *' Well, North, you have a pretty mind, I must 
 say," said his companion to whom this recital, in the 
 circumstances which attended it, had afforded keen 
 amusement. " But you were always a bit of a 
 lunatic at school. Now if you had tried to persuade 
 me that you had insured your furniture, and that 
 you had fired your place to keep out an execution, 
 I might have tried to swallow it." 
 
 " That is mediocrity all over, my son," said 
 Northcote, linking his arm through that of his com- 
 panion. ** It is always craving for hard facts. It 
 cries aloud for hard facts; they are the staff of its 
 life, its daily bread, but you have only to present 
 hard facts to it in a somewhat unconventional form 
 — my God, look at the bank ! — in a somewhat un- 
 conventional form, and it flings them back in your 
 face and asks you what you take it for." 
 
 38s 
 
HENRY NORTHCOTE 
 
 " My dear old lunatic, what are you talking 
 about?" 
 
 " Merely this. Your alternative of the insurance 1 
 company and the furniture is ingenious but lacking' 
 in comprehensiveness. The insurance company 
 would, after the fashion of insurance companies, J 
 have insisted on an investigation into the cause of 
 the disaster; they might even have preferred a 
 charge against me to save themselves a few wretched 
 shillings ; litigation would almost certainly have en- 
 sued — there goes the roof of the hotel ! — and liti- 
 gation which touches myself is the last thing I 
 should be willing to risk." 
 
 " All this is very elaborate. North, but it is 
 hardly convincing. Why are you so unwilling to 
 risk litigation when your whole life — and a rather 
 important one I expect — will be bound up in it ? " 
 
 " The less my name is associated in the public 
 mind with any shady transaction the better for my 
 career." 
 
 " A point of honor, North. You always had the 
 reputation at school of being rather nice about it." 
 
 " To be frank, it is a point of expedience, my son. 
 Henceforward you will find the notorious * Cad * 
 Northcote without fear and without stain." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Why ! Because one of these days they will 
 make him a judge." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 386 
 
YB 39884 
 
 '2> 9 C> 1/ qc^ 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY