After the witness had been duly sworn, the counsel for the prosecution addressed her thus:
“We have every wish, madam, to spare your feelings; I know there is not one individual present who does not sympathize with you in the position in which you now stand. But the course of Justice is as inevitable as it is sometimes painful, and we must all of us yield to its stern necessities. You will be pleased to state how long it is since your son left his home?”
“Seven years—seven years last August.”
“Can you also state his reasons for leaving his home?”
“He had embarrassments in Slopperton—debts, which I have since his departure liquidated.”
“Can you tell me what species of debts?”
“They were—” she hesitated a little, “chiefly debts of honour.”
“Then am I to understand your son was a gambler?”
“He was unfortunately much addicted to cards.”
“To any other description of gambling?”
“Yes, to betting on the events of the turf.”
“He had fallen, I imagine, into bad companionship?”
She bowed her head, and in a faltering voice replied, “He had.”
“And he had acquired in Slopperton the reputation of being a scamp—a ne’er-do-well?”
“I am afraid he had.”
“We will not press you further on this very painful subject; we will proceed to his departure from home. Your son gave you no intimation of his intention of leaving Slopperton?”
“None whatever. The last words he said to me were, that he was sorry for the past, but that he had started on a bad road, and must go on to the end.”
In this manner the examination proceeded, the account of the discovery of the murder being elicited from the witness, whose horror at having to give the details was exceedingly painful to behold.
The prisoner’s counsel rose and addressed Mrs. Marwood.
“In examining you, madam, my learned friend has not asked you whether you had looked upon your son, the prisoner at the bar, as a good or a bad son. Will you be kind enough to state your impression on this subject?”
“Apart from his wild conduct, he was a good son. He was kind and affectionate, and I believe it was his regret for the grief his dissipation had caused me that drove him away from his home.”
“He was kind and affectionate. I am to understand, then, that his disposition was naturally good?”
“Naturally he had a most excellent disposition. He was universally beloved as a boy; the servants were excessively attached to him; he had a great love of animals—dogs followed him instinctively, as I believe they always do follow people who like them.”
“A very interesting trait, no doubt, in the prisoner’s disposition; but if we are to have so much charmingly minute description, I’m afraid we shall never conclude this trial,” said the opposite counsel. And a juryman, who had a ticket for a public dinner at four o’clock in his pocket, forgot himself so far that he applauded with the heels of his boots.
The prisoner’s counsel, regardless of the observation of his “learned friend,” proceeded.
“Madam,” he said, “had your son, before his departure from home, any serious illness?”
“The question is irrelevant,” said the judge.
“Pardon me, my lord. I shall not detain you long. I believe the question to be of importance. Permit me to proceed.”
Mrs. Marwood looked surprised by the question, but it came from her son’s advocate, and she did her best to answer it.
“My son had, shortly before his leaving home, a violent attack of brain-fever.”
“During which he was delirious?”
“Everybody is delirious in brain-fever,” said the judge. “This is trifling with the court, sir.”
The judge was rather inclined to snub the prisoner’s counsel; first, because he was a young and struggling man, and therefore ought to be snubbed; and secondly, because he had in a manner inferred that his lordship was deaf.
“Pardon me, my lord; you will see the drift of my question by-and-by.”
“I hope so, sir,” said his lordship, very testily.
“Was your son, madam, delirious during this fever?”
“Throughout it, sir.”
“And you attributed the fever—”
“To his bad conduct having preyed upon his mind.”
“Were you alarmed for his life during his illness?”
“Much alarmed. But our greatest fear was for his reason.”
“Did the faculty apprehend the loss of his reason?”
“They did.”
“The doctors who attended him were resident in Slopperton?”
“They were, and are so still. He was attended by Dr. Morton and Mr. Lamb.”
The prisoner’s counsel here beckoned to some officials near him—whispered some directions to them, and they immediately left the court.
Resuming the examination of this witness, the counsel said:
“You repeated just now the words your son made use of on the night of his departure from home. They were rather singular words—‘he had started on a dark road, and he must go on to the end of it.’ ”
“Those were his exact words, sir.”
“Was there any wildness in his manner in saying these words?” he asked.
“His manner was always wild at this time—perhaps wilder that night than usual.”
“His manner, you say, was always wild. He had acquired a reputation for a wild recklessness of disposition from an early age, had he not?”
“He had, unfortunately—from the time of his going to school.”
“And his companions, I believe, had given him some name expressive of this?”
“They had.”
“And that name was—”
“Daredevil Dick.”
Martha, the old servant, was next sworn. She described the finding of the body of Mr. Harding.
The examination by the prisoner’s counsel of this witness elicited nothing but that—
Master Dick had always been a wild boy, but a good boy at heart; that he had been never known to hurt so much as a worm; and that she, Martha, was sure he’d never done the murder. When asked if she had any suspicion as to who had done the deed, she became nebulous in her manner, and made some allusions to “the French”—having lived in the days of Waterloo, and being inclined to ascribe any deed of darkness, from the stealing of a leg of mutton to the exploding of an infernal machine, to the emissaries of
