Volume Ii Part 36 (1/2)

JUDGE. Is this relevant, Mr. Frome?

FROME. My lord, I submit, extremely--I shall be able to show your lords.h.i.+p that directly.

JUDGE. Very well.

FROME. In these circ.u.mstances, what alternatives were left to her?

She could either go on living with this drunkard, in terror of her life; or she could apply to the Court for a separation order. Well, gentlemen, my experience of such cases a.s.sures me that this would have given her very insufficient protection from the violence of such a man; and even if effectual would very likely have reduced her either to the workhouse or the streets--for it's not easy, as she is now finding, for an unskilled woman without means of livelihood to support herself and her children without resorting either to the Poor Law or--to speak quite plainly--to the sale of her body.

JUDGE. You are ranging rather far, Mr. Frome.

FROME. I shall fire point-blank in a minute, my lord.

JUDGE. Let us hope so.

FROME. Now, gentlemen, mark--and this is what I have been leading up to--this woman will tell you, and the prisoner will confirm her, that, confronted with such alternatives, she set her whole hopes on himself, knowing the feeling with which she had inspired him. She saw a way out of her misery by going with him to a new country, where they would both be unknown, and might pa.s.s as husband and wife. This was a desperate and, as my friend Mr. Cleaver will no doubt call it, an immoral resolution; but, as a fact, the minds of both of them were constantly turned towards it. One wrong is no excuse for another, and those who are never likely to be faced by such a situation possibly have the right to hold up their hands--as to that I prefer to say nothing. But whatever view you take, gentlemen, of this part of the prisoner's story--whatever opinion you form of the right of these two young people under such circ.u.mstances to take the law into their own hands--the fact remains that this young woman in her distress, and this young man, little more than a boy, who was so devotedly attached to her, did conceive this--if you like-- reprehensible design of going away together. Now, for that, of course, they required money, and--they had none. As to the actual events of the morning of July 7th, on which this cheque was altered, the events on which I rely to prove the defendant's irresponsibility --I shall allow those events to speak for themselves, through the lips of my witness. Robert c.o.keson. [He turns, looks round, takes up a sheet of paper, and waits.]

c.o.kESON is summoned into court, and goes into the witness-box, holding his hat before him. The oath is administered to him.

FROME. What is your name?

c.o.kESON. Robert c.o.keson.

FROME. Are you managing clerk to the firm of solicitors who employ the prisoner?

c.o.kESON. Ye-es.

FROME. How long had the prisoner been in their employ?

c.o.kESON. Two years. No, I'm wrong there--all but seventeen days.

FROME. Had you him under your eye all that time?

c.o.kESON. Except Sundays and holidays.

FROME. Quite so. Let us hear, please, what you have to say about his general character during those two years.

c.o.kESON. [Confidentially to the jury, and as if a little surprised at being asked] He was a nice, pleasant-spoken young man. I'd no fault to find with him--quite the contrary. It was a great surprise to me when he did a thing like that.

FROME. Did he ever give you reason to suspect his honesty?

c.o.kESON. No! To have dishonesty in our office, that'd never do.

FROME. I'm sure the jury fully appreciate that, Mr. c.o.keson.

c.o.kESON. Every man of business knows that honesty's 'the sign qua non'.

FROME. Do you give him a good character all round, or do you not?

c.o.kESON. [Turning to the JUDGE] Certainly. We were all very jolly and pleasant together, until this happened. Quite upset me.