Part 42 (2/2)

”I should be delighted, my lord, to put your advice into practice at the earliest opportunity,” he answered.

”That will be on Sunday,” said I, ”at twelve o'clock. Don't preach a long sermon!”

In due time we arrived at the Sheriff's house, and there found all the guests a.s.sembled and waiting to meet me. I was quite quick enough to perceive at a glance that they had been planning some scheme to entrap me--at all events, to cause me embarra.s.sment. The ladies were in it, for they all smiled, and said as plainly by their looks as possible, ”We shall have you nicely, Judge, depend upon it, by-and-by.”

The Sheriff was the chief spokesman. No sooner had we sat down to table than he addressed me in a most unaffected manner, as if the question were quite in the ordinary course, and had not been planned.

I answered it in the same spirit.

”My lord, could you kindly tell us which horse has won the Cup?”

evidently thinking that I had been to the course.

There was a dead silence at this crucial question--a silence that you could feel was the result of a deep-laid conspiracy--and all the ladies smiled.

Fortunately I was not caught; nor was I even taken aback; my presence of mind did not desert me in this my hour of need; and I said, in the most natural tone I could a.s.sume,--

”Yes, I was sure that would be the first question you would ask me when I had the pleasure of meeting this brilliant company, as you knew I must pa.s.s through Chester Station; so I popped my head out of the window and asked the porter which horse had won. He told me the Judge had won by a length, Chaplain was a good second, and Sheriff a bad third.”

The squire took his defeat like a man.

I was reminded during the evening of a singular case of bigamy--a double bigamy--that came before me at Derby, in which the simple story was that an unfortunate couple had got married twenty years before the time I speak of, and that they had the good luck to find out they did not care for one another the week after they were married. It would have been luckier if they had found it out a week before instead of a week after; but so it was, and in the circ.u.mstances they did the wisest thing, probably, that they could. They separated, and never met again until they met in the dock before me--a trysting-place not of their own choosing, and more strange than a novelist would dream of.

But there they were, and this was the story of their lives:--

The man, after the separation, lived for some time single, then formed a companions.h.i.+p, and, as he afterwards heard that his wife had got married to some one else, thought he would follow her example.

Now, if a Judge punished immorality, here was something to punish; but the law leaves that to the ecclesiastical or some other jurisdiction.

The Judge has but to deal with the breach of the law, and to punish in accordance with the requirements of the injury to society--not even to the injury of the individual.

I made inquiries of the police and others, as the prisoners had pleaded guilty, and found that all the parties--the four persons--had been living respectable and hard-working lives. There was no fault whatever to be found with their conduct. They were respected by all who knew them.

I then asked how it was found out at last that these people, living quietly and happily, had been previously married.

”O my lord,” said a policeman, ”there was a hinquest on a babby, which was the female prisoner's babby and what had died. Then it come out afore Mr. Coroner, my lord, and he ordered the woman into custody, and then the man was took.”

I thought they had had punishment enough for their offence, and gave them no imprisonment, but ordered them to be released on their own recognizances, and to come up for judgment if called upon.

Now came _my_ sentence. The clergyman of the parish in which this terrible crime had been discovered evidently felt that he had been living in the utmost danger for years. Here these people came to his church, and for aught he knew prayed for forgiveness under the very roof where he himself wors.h.i.+pped.

He said I had done a fine thing to encourage sin and immorality, and what could come of humanity if Judges would not punish?

He denounced me, I afterwards learned, in his pulpit in the severest terms, although I did not hear that he used the same vituperative language towards the poor creatures I had so far absolved. Luckily I was not attending the reverend gentleman's ministration, but he seemed to think the greatest crime I had committed was disallowing the costs of the prosecution. That was a direct _incentive to bigamy_, although in what respect I never learned.

It sometimes suggested to my mind this question,--

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