A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
He took Lady Bassett and the women upstairs and rested them about an
hour; and then they started for Huntercombe, followed by some thirty
farmers and a dozen towns-people, who had a mind for a lark and to sup
at Huntercombe Hall for once.
The ride was delightful; the carriage bowled swiftly along over a
smooth road, with often turf at the side; and that enabled the young
farmers to canter alongside without dusting the carriage party. Every
man on horseback they overtook joined them; some they met turned back
with them, and these were rewarded with loud cheers. Every eye in the
carriage glittered, and every cheek was more or less flushed by this
uproarious sympathy so gallantly shown, and the very thunder of so many
horses' feet, each carrying a friend, was very exciting and glorious.
Why, before they got to the village they had fourscore horsemen at
their backs.
As they got close to the village Mary Gosport held out her arms for
young master: this was not the time to forego her importance.
The church-bells rang out a clashing peal, the cavalcade clattered into
the village. Everybody was out to cheer, and at sight of baby the
women's voices were as loud as the men's. Old pensioners of the house
were out bareheaded; one, with hair white as snow, was down on his
knees praying a blessing on them.
Lady Bassett began to cry softly; Sir Charles, a little pale, but firm
as a rock; both bowing right and left, like royal personages; and well
they might; every house in the village belonged to them but one.
On approaching that one Mary Gosport turned her head round, and shot a.
glance round out of the tail of her eye. Ay, there was Richard Bassett,
pale and gloomy, half-hid behind a tree at his gate: but Hate's quick
eye discerned him: at the moment of passing she suddenly lifted the
child high, and showed it him, pretending to show it to the crowd: but
her eye told the tale; for, with that act of fierce hatred and cunning
triumph, those black orbs shot a colored gleam like a furious
leopardess's.
A roar of cheers burst from the crowd at that inspired gesture of a
woman, whose face and eyes seemed on fire: Lady Bassett turned pale.
The next moment they passed their own gate, and dashed up to the hall
steps of Huntercombe.
Sir Charles sent Lady Bassett to her room for the night. She walked
through a row of ducking servants, bowing and smiling like a gentle
goddess.
Mary Gosport, afraid to march in a long dress with the child, for fear
of accidents, handed him superbly to Millar and strutted haughtily
after her mistress, nodding patronage. Her follower, the meek Millar,
stopped often to show the heir right and left, with simple geniality
and kindness.
Sir Charles stood on the hall steps, and invited all to come in and
take pot-luck.
Already spits were turning before great fires; a rump of beef, legs of
pork, and pease-puddings boiling in one copper; turkeys and fowls in
another; joints and pies baking in the great brick ovens; barrels of
beer on tap, and magnums of champagne and port marching steadily up
from the cellars, and forming in line and square upon sideboards and
tables.
Supper was laid in the hall, the dining-room, the drawing-room, and the
great kitchen.
Poor villagers trickled in: no man or woman was denied; it was open
house that night, as it had been four hundred years ago.
CHAPTER XXXII.
WHEN Sharpe's clerk retired, after serving that writ on Bassett,
Bassett went to Wheeler and treated it as a jest. But Wheeler looked
puzzled, and Bassett himself, on second thoughts, said he should like
advice of counsel. Accordingly they both went up to London to a
solicitor, and obtained an interview with a counsel learned in the law.
He heard their story, and said, “The question is, can you convince a
jury he was insane at the time?”
“But he can't get into court,” said Bassett. “I won't let him.”
“Oh, the court will make you produce him.”
“But I thought an insane person was civiliter mortuus, and couldn't
sue.”
“So he is; but this man is not insane in law. Shutting up a man on
certificates is merely a preliminary step to a fair trial by his peers
whether he is insane or not. Take the parallel case of a felon. A
magistrate commits him for trial, and generally on better evidence than
medical certificates; but that does not make the man a felon, or
disentitle him to a trial by his peers; on the contrary, it entitles
him to a trial, and he could get Parliament to interfere if he was not
brought to trial. This plaintiff simply does what, he will say, you
ought to have done; he tries himself; if he tries you at the same time,
that is your fault. If he is insane now, fight. If he is not, I advise
you to discharge him on the instant, and then compound.”
Wheeler said he was afraid the plaintiff was too vindictive to come to
terms.
“Well, then, you can show you discharged him the moment you had reason
to think he was cured, and you must prove he was insane when you
incarcerated him; but I warn you it will be uphill work if he is sane
now; the jury will be apt to go by what they see.”
Bassett and Wheeler retired; the latter did not presume to differ; but
Bassett was dissatisfied and irritated.
“That fellow would only see the plaintiff's side,” said he. “The fool
forgets there is an Act of Parliament, and that we have complied with
its provisions to a T.”
“Then why did you not ask his construction of the Act?” suggested
Wheeler.
“Because I don't want his construction. I've read it, and it is plain
enough to anybody but a fool. Well, I have consulted counsel, to please
you; and now I'll go my own way, to please myself.”
He went to Burdoch, and struck a bargain, and Sir Charles was to be
shifted to Burdoch's asylum, and nobody allowed to see him there, etc.,
etc.; the old system, in short, than which no better has as yet been
devised for perpetuating, or even causing, mental aberration.
Rolfe baffled this, as described, and Bassett was literally stunned. He
now saw that Sir Charles had an ally full of resources and resolution.
Who could it be? He began to tremble. He complained to the police, and
set them to discover who had thus openly and audaciously violated the
Act of Parliament, and then he went and threatened Dr. Suaby.
But Rolfe and Sir Charles, who loved Suaby as he deserved, had provided
against that; they had not let the doctor into their secret. He
therefore said, with perfect truth, that he had no hand in the matter,
and that Sir Charles, being bound upon his honor not to escape from
Bellevue, would be in the asylum still if Mr. Bassett had not taken him
out, and invoked brute force, in the shape of Burdoch. “Well, sir,”
said he, “it seems they have shown you two can play at that game.” And
so bade him good afternoon very civilly.
Bassett went home sickened. He remained sullen and torpid for a day or
two; then he wrote to Burdoch to send to London and try and recapture
Sir Charles.
But next day he revoked his instructions, for he got a letter from the
Commissioners of Lunacy, announcing the authoritative discharge of Sir
Charles, on the strong representation of Dr. Suaby and other competent
persons.
That settled the matter, and the poor cousin had kept the rich cousin
three months at his own expense, with no solid advantage, but the
prospect of a lawsuit.
Sharpe, spurred by Rolfe, gave him no breathing time. With the utmost
expedition the Declaration in Bassett _v._ Bassett followed the writ.
It was short, simple, and in three counts.
“For violently seizing and confining the plaintiff in a certain place,
on a false pretense that he was insane.
“For detaining him in spite of evidence that he was not insane.
“For endeavoring to remove him to another place, with a certain
sinister motive there specified.
“By which several acts the plaintiff had suffered in his health and his
worldly affairs, and had endured great agony of mind.”
And the plaintiff claimed damages, ten thousand pounds.
Bassett sent over for his friend Wheeler, and showed him the new
document with no little consternation.
But their discussion of it was speedily interrupted by the clashing of
triumphant bells and distant shouting.
They ran out to see what it was. Bassett, half suspecting, hung back;
but Mary Gosport's keen eye detected him, and she held up the heir to
him, with hate and triumph blazing in her face.
He crept into his own house and sank into a chair foudroye.
Wheeler, however, roused him to a necessary effort, and next day they
took the Declaration to counsel, to settle their defense in due form.
“What is this?” said the learned gentleman. “Three counts! Why, I
advised you to discharge him at once.”
“Yes,” said Wheeler, “and excellent advice it was. But my client--”
“Preferred to go his own road. And now I am to cure the error I did
what I could to prevent.”
“I dare say, sir, it is not the first time in your experience.”
“Not by a great many. Clients, in general, have a great contempt for
the notion that prevention is better than cure.”
“He can't hurt me,” said Bassett, impatiently. “He was separately
examined by two doctors, and all the provisions of the statute exactly
complied with.”
“But that is no defense to this plaint. The statute forbids you to
imprison an insane person without certain precautions; but it does not
give you a right, under any circumstances, to imprison a sane man. That
was decided in Butcher _v. _Butcher. The defense you rely on was
pleaded as a second plea, and the plaintiff demurred to it directly.
The question was argued before the full court, and the judges, led by
the first lawyer of the age, decided unanimously that the provisions of
the statute did not affect sane Englishmen and their rights under the
common law. They ordered the plea to be struck off the record, and the
case was reduced to a simple issue of sane or insane. Butcher _v._
Butcher governs all these cases. Can you prove him insane? If not, you
had better compound on any terms. In Butcher's case the jury gave 3,000
pounds, and the plaintiff was a man of very inferior position to Sir
Charles Bassett. Besides, the defendant, Butcher, had not persisted
against evidence, as you have. They will award 5,000 pounds at least in
this case.”
He took down a volume of reports, and showed them the case he had
cited; and, on reading the unanimous decision of the judges, and the
learning by which they were supported, Wheeler said at once: “Mr.
Bassett, we might as well try to knock down St. Paul's with our heads
as to go against this decision.”
They then settled to put in a single plea, that Sir Charles was insane
at the time of his capture.
This done, to gain time, Wheeler called on Sharpe, and, after several
conferences, got the case compounded by an apology, a solemn
retractation in writing, and the payment of four thousand pounds; his
counsel assured him his client was very lucky to get off so cheap.
Bassett paid the money, with the assistance of his wife's father: but
it was a sickener; it broke his spirit, and even injured his health for
some time.
Sir Charles improved the village with the money, and gave a copy-hold
tenement to each of the men Bassett had got imprisoned. So they and
their sons and their grandsons lived rent free--no, now I think of it,
they had to pay four pence a year to the Lord of the Manor.
Defeated at every point, and at last punished severely, Richard Bassett
fell into a deep dejection and solitary brooding of a sort very
dangerous to the reason. He would not go out-of-doors to give his
enemies a triumph. He used to sit by the fire and mutter, “Blow upon
blow, blow upon blow. My poor boy will never be lord of Huntercombe
now!” and so on.