MR. HARDIE raised the money on his scrip, and at great inconvenience, for he was holding on five hundred thousand pounds' worth of old Turkish Bonds over an unfavourable settling day, and wanted every shilling to pay his broker. If they did not rise by next settling day, he was a beggar.
However, being now a desperate gamester, and throwing for his last stake, he borrowed this sum, and took it within a heavy heart to his appointment with Skinner. Skinner never came. Mr. Hardie waited till one o'clock. Two o'clock. No Skinner. Mr. Hardie went home hugging his five hundred pounds, but very uneasy. Next day he consulted Peggy. She shook her head, and said it looked very ugly. Skinner had most likely got angrier and angrier with thinking on the assault. "You will never see him again till the day of the trial: and then he will go down and bear false witness against you. Why not leave the country?""How can I, simpleton? My money is all locked up in the bargains. No, I'm tied, tied to the stake; I'll fight to the last: and, if I'm defeated and disgraced, I'll die, and end it."Peggy implored him not to talk so. "I've been down to the court," said she softly, "to see what it is like. There's a great hall; and he must pass through that to get into the little places where they try 'em. Let me be in that hall with the five hundred pounds, and I promise you he shall never appear against you. We will both go; you with the money, Iwith my woman's tongue."He gave her his hand like a shaky monarch, and said she had more wit than he had.
Mr. Heathfield, who had contrived to postpone Hardie _v._ Hardie six times in spite of Compton, could not hurry it on now with his co-operation. It hung fire from some cause or another a good fortnight:
and in this fortnight Hardie senior endured the tortures of suspense.
Skinner made no sign. At last, there stood upon the paper for next day, a short case of disputed contract, and Hardie _v._ Hardie.
Now, this day, I must premise, was to settle the whole lawsuit: for while trial of the issue was being postponed and postponed, the legal question had been argued and disposed of. The very Queen's counsel, unfavourable to the suit, was briefed with Garrow's views, and delivered them in court with more skill, clearness, and effect than Garrow ever could; then sat down, and whispered over rather contemptuously to Mr. Compton, "That is your argument, I think.""And admirably put," whispered the attorney, in reply.
"Well; now hear Saunders knock it to pieces."Instead of that, it was Serjeant Saunders that got maltreated: first one judge had a peck at him: then another: till they left him scarce a feather to fly with; and, when Alfred's counsel rose to reply, the judges stopped him, and the chief of the court, Alfred's postponing enemy, delivered his judgment after this fashion:
"We are all of opinion that this plea is bad in law. By the common law of England no person can be imprisoned as a lunatic unless actually insane at the time. It has been held so for centuries, and down to the last case. And wisely: for it would be most dangerous to the liberty of the subject, if a man could be imprisoned without remedy unless he could prove _mala fides_ in the breast of the party incarcerating him. As for the statute, it does not mend the matter, but rather the reverse; for it expressly protects duly authorised persons acting under the order and certificates, and this must be construed to except from the protection of the statute the person making the order."The three puisne judges concurred and gave similar reasons. One of them said that if A. imprisoned B. for a _felon,_ and B. sued him, it was no defence to say that B., in his opinion, had imitated felony. They cited Elliot _v._ Allen, Anderdon _v._ Burrows, and Lord Mansfield's judgment in a very old case, the name of which I have unfortunately forgotten.
Judgment was entered for the plaintiff; and the defendant's ingenious plea struck off the record; and Hardie _v._ Hardie became the leading case. But in law one party often wins the skirmish and the other the battle. The grand fight, as I have already said, was to be to-day.
But the high hopes and ardour with which the young lovers had once come into court were now worn out by the postponement swindle, and the adverse events delay had brought on them. Alfred was not there: he was being examined in the schools; and had plumply refused to leave a tribunal that named its day and kept it--for Westminster, until his counsel should have actually opened the case. He did not believe trial by jury would ever be allowed him. Julia was there, but sad and comparatively listless. One of those strange vague reports, which often herald more circumstantial accounts, had come home, whispering darkly that her father was dead, and buried on an island in the South Sea. She had kept this report from her mother, contrary to Edward's wish: but she implored him to restrain his fatal openness. In one thing both these sorely tried young people agreed, that there could be no marriage with Alfred now. But here again Julia entreated her brother not to be candid; not to tell Alfred this at present. "Oh do not go and dispirit him just now," she said, "or he will do something rash. No, he must and shall get his first-class, and win his trial; and then you know any lady will be too proud to marry him, and, when he is married and happy, you can tell him I did all I could for him, and hunted up the witnesses, and was his loving friend, though I could not--be--his--wife."She could not say this without crying; but she said it for all that, and meant it too.
Besides helping Mr. Compton to get up the evidence, this true and earnest friend and lover had attended the court day after day, to watch how things were done, and, womanlike, to see what _pleased_ and what _displeased_ the court.
The witnesses subpoenaed on either side in Hardie _v._ Hardie began to arrive at ten o'clock, and a tall stately man paraded Westminster Hall, to see if Skinner came with them. All other anxieties had merged in this: