to prison as easy as to my dinner; and to the gallows as to my bed."
The presiding magistrate was staggered a moment by these words; and it was not without considerable hesitation he took the warrant and prepared to fill it up.
Then Mr. Houseman, who had watched the proceedings very keenly, put in his word. "I am here for the accused person, sir, and, with your good leave, object to her committal—on grounds of law."
"What may they be, Mr. Houseman?" said the magistrate, civilly; and laid his pen down to hear them.
"Briefly, sir, these. Where a murder is proven, you can commit a subject of this realm upon suspicion. But you cannot suspect the murder as well as the culprit, and so commit. The murder must be proved to the senses. Now in this case, the death of Mr. Gaunt by violence is not proved. Indeed, his very death rests but upon suspicion. I admit that the law of England in this respect has once or twice been tampered with, and persons have even been executed where no corpus delicti was found; but what was the consequence? In each case the murdered man turned out to be alive, and justice was the only murderer. After Harrison's case, and ———'s, no Cumberland jury will ever commit for murder, unless the corpus delicti has been found, and with signs of violence upon it. Come, come, Mr. Atkins, you are too good a lawyer, and too humane a man, to send my client to prison on the suspicion of a suspicion, which you know the very breath of the judge will blow away, even if the grand jury let it go into court. I offer bail, ten thousand pounds in two sureties; Sir George Neville here present, and myself."
The magistrate looked to Mr. Atkins.
"I am not employed by the crown," said that gentleman, "but acting on mere civil grounds, and have no right nor wish to be severe. Bail by all means: but is the lady so sure of her innocence as to lend me her assistance to find the corpus delicti?"
The question was so shrewdly put, that any hesitation would have ruined Mrs. Gaunt.
Houseman, therefore, replied eagerly and promptly, "I answer for her, she will."
Mrs. Gaunt bowed her head in assent.
"Then," said Atkins, "I ask leave to drag, and, if need be, to drain that piece of water there, called 'the mere.'"
"Drag it or drain it, which you will," said Houseman.
Said Atkins, very impressively, "And, mark my words, at the bottom of that very sheet of water there, I shall find the remains of the late Griffith Gaunt."
At these solemn words, coming as they did, not from a loose unprofessional speaker, but from a lawyer, a man who measured all his words, a very keen observer might have seen a sort of tremor run all through Mr. Houseman's frame. The more admirable, I think, was the perfect coolness and seeming indifference with which he replied, "Find him, and I'll admit suicide; find him, with signs of violence, and I'll admit homicide—by some person or persons unknown."
All further remarks were interrupted by bustle and confusion.
Mrs. Gaunt had fainted dead away.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Of course pity was the first feeling; but, by the time Mrs. Gaunt revived, her fainting, so soon after Mr. Atkins's proposal, had produced a sinister effect on the minds of all present; and every face showed it, except the wary Houseman's.
On her retiring, it broke out first in murmurs, then in plain words.
As for Mr. Atkins, he now showed the moderation of an able man who feels he has a strong cause.
He merely said, "I think there should be constables about, in case of an escape being attempted; but I agree with
