In a Glass Darkly J. Sheridan Le Fanu (intellectual books to read .TXT) š
- Author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
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A weak man like his learned brother Withershins was not a judge to keep the highroads safe, and make crime tremble. Old Judge Harbottle was the man to make the evil-disposed quiver, and to refresh the world with showers of wicked blood, and thus save the innocent, to the refrain of the ancient saw he loved to quote:
Foolish pity
Ruins a city.
In hanging that fellow he could not be wrong. The eye of a man accustomed to look upon the dock could not fail to read āvillainā written sharp and clear in his plotting face. Of course he would try him, and no one else should.
A saucy-looking woman, still handsome, in a mobcap gay with blue ribbons, in a saque of flowered silk, with lace and rings on, much too fine for the Judgeās housekeeper, which nevertheless she was, peeped into his study next morning, and, seeing the Judge alone, stepped in.
āHereās another letter from him, come by the post this morning. Canāt you do nothing for him?ā she said wheedlingly, with her arm over his neck, and her delicate finger and thumb fiddling with the lobe of his purple ear.
āIāll try,ā said Judge Harbottle, not raising his eyes from the paper he was reading.
āI knew youād do what I asked you,ā she said.
The Judge clapt his gouty claw over his heart, and made her an ironical bow.
āWhat,ā she asked, āwill you do?ā
āHang him,ā said the Judge with a chuckle.
āYou donāt mean to; no, you donāt, my little man,ā said she, surveying herself in a mirror on the wall.
āIām dā āøŗā d but I think youāre falling in love with your husband at last!ā said Judge Harbottle.
āIām blest but I think youāre growing jealous of him,ā replied the lady with a laugh. āBut no; he was always a bad one to me; Iāve done with him long ago.ā
āAnd he with you, by George! When he took your fortune and your spoons and your earrings, he had all he wanted of you. He drove you from his house; and when he discovered you had made yourself comfortable, and found a good situation, heād have taken your guineas and your silver and your earrings over again, and then allowed you half-a-dozen years more to make a new harvest for his mill. You donāt wish him good; if you say you do, you lie.ā
She laughed a wicked saucy laugh, and gave the terrible Rhadamanthus a playful tap on the chops.
āHe wants me to send him money to fee a counsellor,ā she said, while her eyes wandered over the pictures on the wall, and back again to the looking-glass; and certainly she did not look as if his jeopardy troubled her very much.
āConfound his impudence, the scoundrel!ā thundered the old Judge, throwing himself back in his chair, as he used to do in furore on the bench, and the lines of his mouth looked brutal, and his eyes ready to leap from their sockets. āIf you answer his letter from my house to please yourself, youāll write your next from somebody elseās to please me. You understand, my pretty witch, Iāll not be pestered. Come, no pouting; whimpering wonāt do. You donāt care a brass farthing for the villain, body or soul. You came here but to make a row. You are one of Mother Careyās chickens; and where you come, the storm is up. Get you gone, baggage! get you gone!ā he repeated with a stamp; for a knock at the hall-door made her instantaneous disappearance indispensable.
I need hardly say that the venerable Hugh Peters did not appear again. The Judge never mentioned him. But oddly enough, considering how he laughed to scorn the weak invention which he had blown into dust at the very first puff, his white-wigged visitor and the conference in the dark front parlour was often in his memory.
His shrewd eye told him that allowing for change of tints and such disguises as the playhouse affords every night, the features of this false old man, who had turned out too hard for his tall footman, were identical with those of Lewis Pyneweck.
Judge Harbottle made his registrar call upon the crown solicitor, and tell him that there was a man in town who bore a wonderful resemblance to a prisoner in Shrewsbury jail named Lewis Pyneweck, and to make inquiry through the post forthwith whether anyone was personating Pyneweck in prison, and whether he had thus or otherwise made his escape.
The prisoner was safe, however, and no question as to his identity.
IV Interruption in CourtIn due time Judge Harbottle went circuit; and in due time the judges were in Shrewsbury. News travelled slowly in those days, and newspapers, like the wagons and stagecoaches, took matters easily. Mrs. Pyneweck, in the Judgeās house, with a diminished householdā āthe greater part of the Judgeās servants having gone with him, for he had given up riding circuit, and travelled in his coach in stateā ākept house rather solitarily at home.
In spite of quarrels, in spite of mutual injuriesā āsome of them, inflicted by herself, enormousā āin spite of a married life of spited bickeringsā āa life in which there seemed no love or liking or forbearance, for yearsā ānow that Pyneweck stood in near danger of death, something like remorse came suddenly upon her. She knew that in Shrewsbury were transacting the scenes which were to determine his fate. She knew she did not love him; but she could not have supposed, even a fortnight before, that the hour of suspense could have affected her so powerfully.
She knew the day on which the trial was expected to take place. She could not get it out of her head for a minute; she felt faint as it drew towards evening.
Two or three days passed; and then she knew that the trial must be over by
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