Richard Harris

“ Mr. Bumpkin wore his long drab frock overcoat, with the waist high up and its large flaps; his hell-fire waistcoat, his trousers of corduroy, and his shirt-collar, got up expressly for the occasion as though he had been a prime minister. The ends of his neckerchief bore no inconsiderable likeness to two well-grown carrots. In his two hands he carefully nursed his large-brimmed well-shaped white beaver hat; a useful article to hold in one’s hands when there is any danger of nervousness, for nothing is so hard to get rid of as one’s hands. I am not sure that Mr. Bumpkin was nervous. ”

“ Night came, and the fireside was as cosy as ever. But there was a sense of sadness nevertheless. Tim seemed to understand that something was not quite as it should be, for he was restless, and looked up plaintively in his master’s face, and went to Joe and put his head in his lap; then turned away and stretched himself out on the hearth, winking his eyes at the fire.
It is always a melancholy effort to “keep up the spirits” when the moment of separation is at hand. One longs for the last shake of the hand and the final good-bye. This was the case at Southwood Farm on this memorable evening. ”

“ Ah, Bumpkin, thou may’st triumph now, but little dreamest thou what is in store for thee at the trial. Wait till all those little insignificant points, hardly visible at present, shall rise, like spear-heads against thee at the Old Bailey and thrust thee through and through and make thee curse the advocate’s skill and the thief’s impudence and the inertness of the so-called Public Prosecutor: and mayhap, I know not yet, show thee how wrong and robbery may triumph over right and innocence. ”

“ Bumpkin miserable. Mr. Locust was not behind in his advice on their future course; and, after joining his client in the hall, at once pointed out the utterly absurd conclusion at which the jury had arrived; declared that there must be friends of the plaintiff among them, and that Mr. Ricochet would take the earliest opportunity of moving for a new trial; a piece of information which quite lit up the coarse features of his client, as a breath of air will bring a passing glow to the mouldering embers of an ash-heap on a dark night. ”

“ Now, Mr. Bumpkin, after that, I think you ought to be satisfied; but really that is one of the most disparaging things in the profession, the most disparaging, I may say; we find it so difficult to show our clients that we have done enough for them.”
“An’ thee think, sir, as we shall win un?” said Bumpkin.
“Well,” said Mr. Prigg, “I never like to prophesy; but if ever a case looked like winning it’s Bumpkin v. Snooks. And I may tell you this, Mr. Bumpkin, only pray don’t say that I told you.”
“What be thic, sir?” asked the eager client, with his eyes open as widely as ever client’s can be. ”

“ He never could see what there was in the baker that any girl should care for; and he thought of what the Sergeant had said about asking his mother’s leave. And then he pondered on the beef steaks and onions and mutton chops, and other glories of a soldier’s life; so he got up with a brave, resolute heart to face the world like a man, although it was plainly visible that sorrow struggled in his eyes.
There was just one tear for old times, the one tear that showed how very human Joe was beneath all the rough incrustations with which ignorance and poverty had enveloped him. ”

“ Tim would bark and fly across to the meadow where she was; and then, having said to her and to the five other Alderney cows and four heifers, “Why, here’s master and missus coming round to look at you, why on earth don’t you come and see them?” up the whole herd would come, straggling one after the other, to the meadow where Mr. and Mrs. Bumpkin were waiting for them; and all would look over the hedge, as much as to say, “How d’ye do, master, and how d’ye do, missus; what a nice day, isn’t it?” exactly in the same manner as men and women greet one another as often as they meet. ”

“ It is not usual for respectable solicitors to carry about their bills of costs in their pockets, and why Mr. Prigg should have done so on this occasion I am not aware. I merely saw in my dream that he did so. There was not a change in his countenance; his piety was intact; there was not even a suffusion of colour. Placid, sweet-tempered, and urbane, as a Christian should be, he looked pityingly towards the hot and irascible Bumpkin, as though he should say, “You have smitten me on this cheek, now smite me on that!” and placed the great envelope on the table before the ungrateful man. ”

“ Bumpkin, and disappeared for ever from my view.
Never in any dream have I beheld that man again. Never, surely, under any form of humanity have so many virtues been concealed. I have looked for him in daily life, about the Courts of Justice and in the political arena, but his equal for simplicity of character, for unaffected piety, and purity of motive, have I never discovered, although I have seen many, who, without his talents, have vainly endeavoured to emulate his virtues. ”

“ Justice Doughty.
“Bumpkin, my lud,” said Mr. Ricochet, “with great deference.”
“Ah, Pumpkin, so it was,” said the presiding Judge.
“With great submission, my lud, Bumpkin!”
“Eh?”
“Bumpkin, my lud;” and then all the Judges’ cried “Bumpkin!” as pleased as the followers of Columbus when they discovered America.
“Ah, here it is,” said Mr. Justice Pangloss, passing his forefinger slowly along the page; “the name of the case you refer to, Mr. Ricochet, is Bumpkin v. Snooks, not Coots v. Pumpkin, and it was tried before me and a special jury on the twenty-eighth of July of the present year.” ”

“ Then came along, with many a grunt and squeak, a pig or two, who seemed to be enjoying a Sunday holiday in their best clothes, for they had just come out of a puddle of mud; then came slouching along, a young man whose name was Joe (or, more correctly speaking, Joseph Wurzel) , a young man of about seventeen, well built, tall and straight, with a pleasant country farm-house face, a roguish black eye, even teeth, and a head of brown straight hair, that looked as if the only attention it ever received was an occasional trimming with a reap-hook, and a brush with a bush-harrow. ”

“ Old Fogeyism only tinkers at reform, and is so nervous and incompetent that in attempting to mend one hole he almost invariably makes two. The Public, doubtless, will, before long, undertake the much needed reform and abolish some of the unnecessary business of “judges’ chambers,” where the ingenuity of the Pettifogging Pleader is so marvellously displayed. How many righteous claims are smothered in their infancy at this stage of their existence!
I have endeavoured to bring the evils of our system before the Public in the story of Mr. Bumpkin. ”

“ The choice in the future might be between servility and a prison; and I sincerely believe that if trial by jury should be abolished, this country would not be safe to live in. Much mending, therefore, and consequently the more holes. I wonder what the Liberalism of the future will say when it learns that the Liberalism of Mr. Gladstone’s Government struck the first blow at Trial by Jury? Truly “the axe to laid to the root of the tree,” and, reversing the Divine order, “every tree that bringeth forth good fruit is” in danger of being “hewn down.” ”

“ Bumpkin been a man of the world he would have suspected that under the most ostentatious piety very often lurked the most subtle fraud. Good easy man, had he been going to buy a hay-stack, he would not have judged by the outside but have put his “iron” into it; he could not put his iron into Mr. Prigg, I know, but he need not have taken him by his appearance alone. I may observe that if Mr. Bumpkin had consulted his sensible and affectionate spouse, or a really respectable solicitor, this book would not have been written. ”

“ What must “I, Bumpkin,” be whose statement is required on oath before my Lord Judge?
Always, at these words, he would shout. “That be it—now then, sir, would you please begin that agin?”—while, if Mrs. Bumpkin were not too busy, he would call her in to hear them too.
So there was no wonder that the action went merrily along. Once get up enthusiasm in a cause, and it is half won. Without enthusiasm, few causes can succeed against opposition. Then, again, the affidavit described Bumpkin as a Yeoman. What, I wonder, would Snooks the coal-merchant think of that? ”

“ Bumpkin wondered what on earth was the occasion of it. At the Rent dinner at the Squire’s he had always sung it with great success; and the Squire himself had done him the honour to say it was the best song he had ever heard, while the Clergyman had assured him that the sentiments were so good that it ought to be played upon the organ when the people were coming out of church. And Farmer Grinddown, who was the largest gentleman farmer for miles around, had declared that if men would only act up to that it would be a happy country, and we should soon be able to defy America itself. ”

“ Before Bumpkin had got home with the cheerful intelligence that he had won, the wind had changed and was setting in fearfully from the north-east. Juries may find as many facts as they like, but the Court applies the law to them; and law is like gunpowder in its operation upon them,—twists them out of all recognisable shape. ”

“ Oh! the fragrance of that pipe! And the multiplied fragrance of all the pipes! Then came smiling Miss Prettyface to see if their ribbons were all right; and the longing look of all the recruits was quite an affecting sight; and the genial motherly good-natured best wishes of Mrs. Oldtimes were very welcome. All these things were pleasant, and proved Mrs. Oldtimes’ philosophy to be correct—if you want to develop the higher virtues in a man, feed him. ”

“ I knew that artful Sergeant would enlist poor stupid Joe?”
“O,” quoth I, “have I been talking again?”
“More than ever; and I am very sorry Joe has deserted his kind master. I am afraid now he will lose his case.”
“I am not concerned about that at present; my work is but to dream, not to prophesy events. I hope Mr. Bumpkin will win, but nothing is so uncertain as the Law.”
“And why should that be? Law should be as certain as the Multiplication Table.”
“Ah,” sighed I, “but—”
“A man who brings an action must be right or wrong,” interrupted my wife. ”

“ The witness’s attention was again distracted, but this p. 279time by no such pleasing object as on the former occasion. He was dumbfoundered; a sparrow facing an owl could hardly be in a greater state of nervousness and discomfiture: for down in the well of the Court, a place where he had never once cast his eyes till now, with a broad grin on his coarse features, and a look of malignant triumph, sat the fiendlike Snooks! His mouth was wide open, and Bumpkin found himself looking down into it as though it had been a saw-pit. By his side sat Locust taking notes of the cross-examination. ”

“ I am but a humble observer of human nature, and like not these ungracious cavillings at Master O’Rapley. Let us calmly follow this dream, and endeavour to profit by its lessons without finding fault with its actors. ”

“ Bumpkin was waiting for his trial. For Mr. and Mrs. Oldtimes being Somersetshire people knew many inhabitants of the old days in the village of Yokelton, where Mr. Bumpkin “were bred and born’d.”
Meanwhile the “head witness” had returned to the cheerful scene in the taproom, and sat leering out of the corners of his eyes upon the Sergeant, as though he expected every moment that officer would make a spring at him and have him upon the floor. But the Sergeant was not a bullying, blustering sort of man at all; his demeanour was quiet in the extreme. He scarcely looked at anyone. ”

“ Have you got any counsel or solicitor?”
“Noa, I beant; my case be that plaain, it spaks for itself.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Alibi; “they won’t always let a case speak for itself—they very often stop it—but if you can get a counsel for nothing, why not have one; that stands to reason, I think?”
“For nothing? well that be the fust time I ever eeard o’ a loryer as chape as thic.”
How it could pay was the wonder to Mr. Bumpkin. And what a strange delusion it must seem to the mind of the general reader! ”

“ The jury, after a most elaborate charge from Mr. Justice Pangloss, who went through the cases of the last 900 years in the most careful manner, returned a verdict for the plaintiff with twenty-five pounds damages. The learned Judge did not give judgment, inasmuch as there were points of law to be argued. Mr. Bumpkin, although he had won his case so far as the verdict was concerned, did not look by any means triumphant. He had undergone so much anxiety and misery, that he felt more like a man who had escaped a great danger than one who had accomplished a great achievement. ”

“ Crime truly has its magnificent accompaniments, and if it does not dress itself, as of old, in the rich costumes of a Turpin or a Duval, it is not without its beautiful surroundings. Here, where the channels and gutters of crime converge, is built, in the centre of the greatest commercial city in the world, the Bailey. ”

“ And the bowl of that pipe gave off circular clouds of the bluest smoke, expressive of its joy at the master’s return: it wasn’t very expressive, perhaps, but it was all that a pipe could do; and when one does his best in this world, it is all that mortal man can expect of him.
And then said Mrs. Bumpkin,—still dubious as to the policy of the proceedings, but too loving to combat her husband upon them,—“When be thee gwine agin, Tom?”
“I doan’t rightly know,” said Bumpkin. “Mr. Prigg will let I know; sometime in May, I reckon.” ”