Part 4 (2/2)
”_h.e.l.l fire_,” answered the boy with great prompt.i.tude and boldness.
”Right,” said Maule. ”Now let us go a little further. Do you mean to say, boy, that you would go to h.e.l.l fire for telling _any_ lie?”
”_h.e.l.l fire_, sir,” said the boy emphatically, as though it were something to look forward to rather than shun.
”Take time, my boy,” said Maule; ”don't answer hurriedly; think it over. Suppose, now, you were accused of stealing an apple; how would that be in the next world, think you?”
”_h.e.l.l fire_, my lord!”
”Very good indeed. Now let us suppose that you were disobedient to your parents, or to one of them; what would happen in that case?”
”_h.e.l.l fire_, my lord!”
”Exactly; very good indeed. Now let me take another instance, and suppose that you were sent for the milk in the morning, and took _just a little sip_ while you were carrying it home; how would that be as regards your future state?”
”_h.e.l.l fire_!” repeated the boy.
Upon this Clark suggested that the lad's absolute ignorance of the nature of an oath and Divine things rendered it imprudent to call him.
”I don't know about that,” said Maule; ”he seems to me to be very sound, and most divines will tell you he is right.”
”He does not seem to be competent,” said the counsel.
”I beg your pardon,” returned the judge, ”I think he is a very good little boy. He thinks that for every wilful fault he will go to h.e.l.l fire; and he is very likely while he believes that doctrine to be most strict in his observance of truth. If you and I believed that such would be the penalty for every act of misconduct we committed, we should be better men than we are. Let the boy be sworn.”
On one occasion, before Maule, I had to defend a man for murder. It was a terribly difficult case, because there was no defence except the usual one of insanity.
The court adjourned for lunch, and Woollet (who was my junior) and I went to consultation. I was oppressed with the difficulty of my task, and asked Woollet what he thought I could do.
”Oh,” said he in his sanguine way, ”make a h.e.l.l of a speech. You'll pull him through all right. Let 'em have it.”
”I'll give them as much burning eloquence as I can manage,” said I, in my youthful ardour; ”but what's the use of words against facts? We must really stand by the defence of insanity; it is all that's left.”
”Call the clergyman,” said Woollet; ”he'll help us all he can.”
With that resolution we returned to court. I made my speech for the defence, following Woollet's advice as nearly as practicable, and really blazed away. I think the jury believed there was a good deal in what I said, for they seemed a very discerning body and a good deal inclined to logic, especially as there was a mixture of pa.s.sion in it.
We then called the clergyman of the village where the prisoner lived.
He said he had been Vicar for thirty-four years, and that up to very recently, a few days before the murder, the prisoner had been a regular attendant at his church. He was a married man with a wife and two little children, one seven and the other nine.
”Did the wife attend your ministrations, too?” asked Maule.
”Not so regularly. Suddenly,” continued the Vicar, after suppressing his emotion, ”without any apparent cause, the man became _a Sabbath-breaker_, and absented himself from church.”
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