Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas. Lever Charles James

yez see the little crayture wronged?” said another, who appeared by his pretentious manner to be a practised street orator. “Will yez lave the dissolute orphan – ” he meant “desolate” – “to be chayted out of his pater money? Are yez men at all? or are yez dirty slaves of the bloody ‘stokessy that’s murderin’ ould Ireland’?”

      “We’ll take charge of the orphan, and of you too, my smart fellow, if you don’t brush off pretty lively!” said a policeman, as, followed by two others, he pushed through the crowd with that cool determination that seems to be actually an instinct with them. Then, laying a strong hand on my collar, he went on: “How did you come by that mare, my lad?”

      “She belongs to Captain De Courcy, of the Royal Hospital,” said I, doing my utmost to seem calm and collected.

      “We know that already; what we want to hear is, what brought you here with her? It was n’t Captain De Courcy’s orders?”

      “No, sir. I was told to hold her for him, and – and – ”

      “And so you rode off with her, – out with it, it saves time, my lad. Now, let me ask you another question: Have you any notion of the crime you have just committed? Do you know that it amounts to horse-stealing? And do you know what the penalty is for that offence?”

      “No, sir; I know neither one nor the other,” said I, resolutely; “and, if I did, it doesn’t matter much. As well to live upon prison diet as to starve in the streets!”

      “He’s a bad ‘un; I told ye that!” remarked another of the policemen. “Take him off, Grimes!” and so, amid a very general but subdued murmur of pity and condolence from the crowd, I was dragged away on one side, while the mare was led off on another.

      It was a terrible tumble down, from being a hero to an embryo felon; from being cheered by the populace, to being collared by a policeman! As we went along towards Dublin on a jaunting-car, I was regaled by interesting narratives of others who had begun life like myself, and took an abrupt leave of it in a manner by no means too decorous. The peculiarity of anecdote which pertains to each profession was strongly marked in these officers of the law; and they appeared to have studied the dark side of human nature with eyes the keenest and most scrutinizing.

      I wish I could even now forget the long and dreary hours of the night that ensued, as I lay, with some fifty others, in the jail of the station-house. The company was assuredly not select, nor their manners at all improved by the near approach of punishment. It seemed as if all the disguises of vice were thrown off at once, and that iniquity stood forth in its own true and glaring livery. I do not believe that the heart can ever experience a ruder shock than when an unfledged criminal first hears himself welcomed into the “Masonry” of guilt. To be claimed by such associates as a fellow-laborer, to be received as one of the brethren into the guild of vice, is really an awful blow to one’s self-esteem and respect; to feel yourself inoculated with a disease whose fatal marks are to stamp you like this one or that, sends a shuddering terror through the heart, whose cold thrill is never, in a life-long afterwards, thoroughly eradicated.

      There should be a quarantine for suspected guilt, as for suspected disease; and the mere doubt of rectitude should not expose any unfortunate creature to the chances of a terrible contagion! I do not affect by this to say that I was guiltless, – not in the least; but my crime should scarcely have classified me with the associates by whom I was surrounded. Nor was a night in such company the wisest mode of restoring to the path of duty one who might possibly have only slightly deviated from the straight line.

      When morning came I was marched off, with a strong phalanx of other misdoers, to the College Street office, where a magistrate presided whose bitterest calumniators could never accuse of any undue leanings towards mercy. By him I had the satisfaction of hearing a great variety of small offences decided with a railroad rapidity, only interrupted now and then by a whining lamentation over the “lenity of the legislature,” that never awarded one tithe of the suitable penalty, and bewailing his own inability to do more for the criminal than send him to prison for two months with hard labor, and harder diet to sweeten it.

      At last came my name; and as I heard it shouted aloud, it almost choked me with a nervous fulness in the throat. I felt as though I was the greatest criminal in the universe, and that the whole vast assemblage had no other object or aim there than to see me arraigned for my offence.

      I was scarcely ordered to advance before I was desired to stand back again, the prosecutor, Captain De Courcy, not being in court. While a policeman was, therefore, despatched by the magistrate to request that he would have the kindness to appear, – for the captain was an honorable and an aide-de-camp, titles which the sitting justice knew well how to respect, – other cases were called and disposed of. It was nigh three o’clock when a great bustle in the outer court and a tremendous falling back of the dense crowd, accompanied by an ostentatious display of police zeal, heralded a group of officers, who, with jingling spurs and banging sabretaches, made their way to the bench, and took their seats beside the justice. Many were the courtesies interchanged between the magistrate and the captain: one averring that the delay was not in the slightest degree inconvenient; the other professing the greatest deference for the rules of court; neither bestowing a thought upon him most deeply concerned of all.

      A very brief narrative, delivered by the captain with a most military abruptness, detailed my offence; and, although not exaggerated in the slightest degree, the occasional interruptions of the magistrate served very considerably to magnify its guilt, – such as “Dear me! a favorite mare; a pure Arab; a present from your noble father, Lord Littlemore; infamous treatment; abominable case; abandoned young scoundrel!” and so on; closing with the accustomed peroration of regret that, as hanging was now done away with, he feared that the recorder could only award me a transportation for life!

      “Have you anything to say, sirrah?” said he at last, turning towards me; “or would you rather reserve your observations for another time? as I shall certainly commit you for trial at the commission.”

      “I have only to suggest,” said I, with an air of most insolent composure, “that you are probably mistaken in your law. The offence with which I stand charged amounts, at most, to the minor one of breach of trust.”

      “What! have we got a lawyer in the dock?” said the magistrate, reddening with fear and anger together.

      “I have enjoyed some opportunities of legal study, your worship,” said I, “and am happy to state that my opinion in the present instance will not discredit the assertion. The case stands thus: I am employed by the Honorable Captain De Courcy to perform a particular duty, which is of the distinct nature of a trust; that trust, whose importance I do not seek to extenuate in the slightest, I fail in. I will not plead the strong temptation of a race and a great spectacle. I will not allege, as perhaps I might, the example of my companions, then revelling in all the pleasures of the day. I will simply say that no one fact can be adduced to favor the suspicion of a meditated robbery; and that my conduct, so palpably open and public, rejects the least assumption of the kind, and at the utmost can establish nothing beyond what I am willing to plead guilty to, – a breach of trust.”

      “Listen to the Attorney-General! By the hokey, it’s himself they ‘ve in the dock!” said one.

      “That’s the chap can give them chapter and varse!” cried another.

      “Silence there! Keep silence in the court!” said the justice, now really warm with passion. “I’d have you to know, sirrah,” said he, addressing me, “that your pettifogging shrewdness is anything but favorable to you in the unfortunate position in which you stand. I shall commit you for trial, and would advise you – it is the only piece of advice I ‘ll trouble you with – to charge some more skilful advocate with your defence, and not intrust it to the knavish flippancy of conceit and chicanery.”

      “I mean to have counsel, your worship,” said I, resolutely; for my blood was up, and I would have argued with the twelve judges. “I mean to have one of the first and most eminent at the bar for my defence. Mr. Mansergh, of Merrion Square, will not refuse my brief when he sees the fee I can offer him.”

      A regular roar of laughter filled the court;