Father in a Fix

by Neil Boyd

  I told Billy that Fr. Duddleswell had gone to tremendous trouble on Porgy’s account. Jed Summers, the keeper, really loved the pig and gave him the best of treatment.

  ‘Porgy died laughing, I suppose,’ Billy said bitterly.

  ‘Even Jed doesn’t know what he died of. It wasn’t swine fever or pneumonia or pleurisy. One moment he was well and the next he just keeled over.’

  ‘Died of a broken heart did Porgy. That’s the worst way to go, that is.’

  ‘I just thought you’d like to know, Billy, that Fr. Duddleswell is cut up, too.’

  ‘Not in small enough pieces for my liking,’ Billy growled.

  Half an hour after that conversation, I said to Fr. Duddleswell:

  ‘Father, with due respect, you made a mess of things.’

  ‘Do I not know it, Father Neil. I have already made me confession over it and begun me penance.’ He beat his breast. ‘Mea maxima culpa. I never should have lifted that pg.’

  ‘Maybe, Father, but what I meant was, you should have taken Billy to court in the first place.’

  ‘Father Neil.’ He was hardly able to believe his ears. ‘Me dear old neighbour Billy Buzzle has lost the pig dearest his heart and I am entirely to blame. And while he is still in mourning you are suggesting I should have taken his sweet self to court.’ He was astounded at the hardness of my heart. ‘Why do you say that, Father Neil? Why?’

  ‘Because, Father,’ I said, not without satisfaction, ‘he wouldn’t now be taking you to court.’

  Five

  A PIG IN COURT

  ‘Taking me to court,’ Fr. Duddleswell exclaimed when I told him what Billy had said. ‘What scoundrelism. I should be the one to take that pig to court. Why, the beastly animal … I mean Porgy … did more destruction to me garden than twenty legions of atheist moles.’

  I took no sides.

  ‘Oh, Father Neil, ’twas no offence to me though Billy Buzzle were hanged, smoked and quartered. He takes his best enemy to court after I have said six miles of prayers on my knees for him and for his darlin’ pig but recently deceased.’

  He paused, doubtless to pray another mile of silent prayer for Porgy alone. Then:

  ‘’Tis strange how I grew exceeding fond of that pig and would give every particle I possess to have him back.’

  The Law was not long in taking over. A summons arrived instructing Charles Duddleswell to appear at the County Court in four weeks time. The case was to be heard before His Honour Judge Turnbull on the plaintiff’s claim of £15 for the wrongful conversion of a pedigree pig by the defendant Duddleswell to his own use.

  I went with Fr. Duddleswell to the St. Jude’s solicitor, Josiah Tippett, the elder statesman of Tippett, Tippett and Wainwright.

  Josiah Tippett invited us into his neat little panelled den adorned with Law Reports and musty tomes. He was a small crumpled man dressed in black and grey, with a white face as if he had died last week. Of the two wings of his shirt collar one went up and one went down as if to symbolize his talent for moving in whatever direction his client’s case required.

  ‘There isn’t any need to go to court, you know, Fr. Duddleswell,’ he said, straightening his tie.

  ‘No, Josiah?’

  Mr. Tippett sniffed and shook his head as if even he had a loathing for the labyrinthine workings of the law. ‘You could let the Court Registrar arbitrate.’

  Fr. Duddleswell turned down the suggestion flat. ‘’Twould look like an admission of guilt on my part.’

  Another sniff from Josiah as if he was satisfied he had done his best to warn a prospective client of the terrors to come. ‘So be it. You can either let me handle the case in court for you or I could instruct counsel.’

  ‘Why cannot I argue me own case?’ Fr. Duddleswell wanted to know. ‘’Tis unassailable.’

  Mr. Tippett permitted himself a smile. I felt sure he was mentally making a charge for it.

  ‘Father Duddleswell,’ he said, ‘we have a dictum in the profession, He who is his own lawyer, has a fool for a client.’

  Fr. Duddleswell, about to comment, thought better of it.

  ‘Now, Father, is the plaintiff instructing counsel?’

  I said yes because Billy had told me so.

  ‘Then,’ Josiah said, ‘I suggest we talk to Nathan Flitch, K.C. He’s a tin-lid.’

  ‘Pardon, Josiah.’

  ‘A pot o’ glue. One of the chosen,’ he said, touching the side of his nose. ‘But sharp, really sharp.’

  ‘That will cost me a few potatoes,’ Fr. Duddleswell said gloomily.

  Josiah sniffed dismissively as if the little matter of legal fees did not enter into the calculation of legal men. ‘First of all, what did you do with the distrained pig?’

  ‘Porgy? Buried him,’ Fr. Duddleswell said. ‘With honours.’

  ‘Pity, Father. Great pity.’

  ‘We could not eat him. ’Tis probably against the law, even.’

  Josiah waved a minute white hand to intimate he was well aware that more things than not were against the law. ‘I mean, Father, you should have called in the vet.’

  ‘The blessed pig was completely dead, Josiah.’

  ‘A vet would have ascertained the cause of death. By interring the pig in a hurry you may appear to the court to have wanted to destroy any evidence of neglect on your part.’

  ‘I am innocent, Josiah.’

  Mr. Tippett made a tired gesture as if to say that innocence or guilt had nothing to do with the matter in hand.

  ‘Josiah, it did not occur to me to hold a Postmortem on a pig.’

  ‘So many things do not occur to laymen, Father Duddleswell.’ Another sniff. ‘What are we lawyers for, after all?’

  At the end of an hour’s consultation, it seemed to me that Fr. Duddleswell ought to reconsider the offer of the Registrar’s arbitration.

  In the street, I said:

  ‘I reckon Mr. Tippett thinks he could have got Jesus off before Pilate.’

  A curious thought struck him. ‘If so, how would the world have been redeemed, Father Neil?’

  ‘What are the signs that it has been redeemed?’

  ‘Apart from me own heroic sanctity, not many, I grant.’ He laughed grimly. ‘Did I ever sing you the Judge’s song from Trial By Jury?’

  ‘Hundreds of times.’

  ‘Good. Then I will sing it you again.’ And he did, with special hostility on the verse:

  All thieves who could my fees afford

  Relied on my orations,

  And many a burglar I’ve restored

  To his friends and his relations.

  ‘There’s one advantage in having a Jew for an advocate,’ I said to cheer him up.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘He’ll dislike pigs as much as Jesus.’

  Fr. Duddleswell stayed glum. ‘But I did not dislike Porgy,’ he said.

  Mrs. Pring was delighted to hear that Fr. Duddleswell was to stand trial at last.

  ‘But what about that one in the dock telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ she laughed. ‘If I were you, Father D, I’d restrict myself to telling them the time of day.’

  He stamped out, growling, ‘Are you me barber that I have to stay and listen to this?’

  The hearing was arranged for four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. In the corridor beforehand we nodded to Billy and met our counsel, Mr. Flitch, for the first time. Billy’s counsel, Timothy Banks, was also in attendance.

  His Honour Judge Turnbull appeared, bewigged and in a blue robe with a purple sash, on the dot of four. And battle commenced.

  Banks’s opening was admirably concise:

  ‘May it please Your Honour, the case is being brought by William Rufus Buzzle, owner of the distrained animal which went sick and died of neglect after being purloined by the defendant, Charles Clement Duddleswell.’

  Billy was called. From my vantage point immediately behind Josiah Tippett, he looked a convincing and poignant witness.

  In
between sobs, Billy gave his counsel an account of the pig’s disappearance. He related how Fr. Duddleswell had told him what had happened only after the pig was dead and buried.

  There was no need for other witnesses as to the basic facts; about them there was no dispute between the parties.

  The defendant’s case was argued quietly by Nathan Flitch. He put it to Billy that he had shown no concern for private property or public safety in allowing his animal to wander away from his pen at will.

  ‘I submit, Your Honour, that the defendant had the right of any damaged person to “distress damage feasant”. This included the right to keep the animal under detention “in pound” until the plaintiff paid the damages demanded by my client. This the plaintiff steadfastly refused to do.’

  When Flitch had finished with Billy, I thought he was worth every penny of the many pounds we would have to pay him.

  Fr. Duddleswell’s turn to take the stand. He went forward clutching his Douai Bible in case he should be asked to swear an oath on a Protestant version full of heretical translations.

  Mr. Flitch elicited from him that he had no personal animosity towards pigs as. such nor towards the particular estranged pig, Porgy by name.

  ‘Indeed not, sir.’

  ‘Address the court, please,’ Mr. Flitch demanded.

  ‘Indeed, not, Your Honour. It was to me a matter of genuine regret and lamentation that Porgy, a beautiful creature, passed away. Especially, Your Honour, in view of the current shortage of meat in the country.’

  Flitch further established that Porgy was an unusually savage example of a swine. In spite of this the plaintiff made but pitiable efforts to restrain him.

  ‘The plaintiff also failed,’ Flitch continued, ‘to provide his beast with the secure, spacious and happy home of which he stood so obviously in need. Indeed, Your Honour, I suggest there are prima facie grounds for believing the plaintiff contravened the “Cruelty to Animals Act of 1847”.’

  The Judge gave no sign of being impressed either way by this submission. If the truth were told, he looked more than three quarters asleep.

  ‘As to damage,’ counsel said, ‘res ipsa loquitur. The said pig dented the defendant’s vintage car, repeatedly battered down his fence and dug trenches deep enough for soldiers in his garden.

  ‘More, the pig, of substantial weight and volume, collided with numerous unsuspecting members of the public, entered a Gentlemen’s lavatory wherein he interfered with natural functions and caused patrons of the said lavatory to leave without adjusting their dress. The distress of women shopping in the vicinity is best left to the court’s imagination.’

  Fr. Duddleswell was coaxed to describe his sterling efforts to enlist public support for improvement in the pig’s behaviour. However, the plaintiff, who lives next door, torè up the petition.

  ‘When,’ Mr. Flitch concluded, ‘the plaintiff twice refused to pay or even discuss compensation for the pig’s misdemeanours, the defendant impounded the pig—in the pig’s own interests as well as everyone else’s—and transported him to a place of maximum porcine pleasure and safety.’ He coughed. ‘Where he died.’

  As counsel sat down, I judged that Fr. Duddleswell deserved a medal for public service. Until the long, lean Timothy Banks, distinguished by his apparent lack of eyebrows, got at him. I rapidly came to the conclusion that we had hired the wrong counsel.

  ‘Charles Duddleswell,’ Banks began, as if he had not noticed him until that moment, ‘I am touched by your deep affection for the deceased pig.’

  ‘I liked him a lot.’

  ‘A generous sentiment seeing he was such a savage beast.’

  ‘He was not exactly savage, sir. I mean, Your Honour.’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ Banks said with exaggerated politeness. ‘I received the distinct impression from counsel it was of the essence of the case for the defence that the said pig was a savage beast. Did he not dent cars, demolish fences and dig canals in your garden?’

  ‘That he did,’ Fr. Duddleswell said, uncomfortably committed for the first time in his life to total truth. ‘But he was more playful than savage.’

  Banks turned away from Fr. Duddleswell to ask:

  ‘Did you ever attempt to knife this pig?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir, Your Honour.’

  ‘Knife.’ Banks rounded on him suddenly before spelling out the word for him, slowly. ‘Did you ever try to stick a knife in this lovable, playful animal?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Interesting. Once?’

  ‘Or twice. Twice.’

  ‘Why on earth, or should I say in heaven, did the defendant attempt to lodge a carving knife in a live pig?’

  Fr. Duddleswell gulped. It was a little difficult to explain.

  ‘I suppose I was wanting to do him some harm.’

  ‘You suppose.’

  ‘I did want to harm him.’

  ‘I would draw the court’s attention to the explicit avowal by the defendant that he desired to do harm to a pig which eventually died in suspicious circumstances while in his custody.’

  ‘There was nothing suspicious about Porgy’s death.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘No, Your Honour.’

  ‘Except the pig was perfectly well when you abducted him and dead three days later.’

  ‘Objection,’ Flitch said languidly.

  ‘Sustained,’ the Judge said.

  ‘There was nothing suspicious about a perfectly healthy pig dying,’ Banks went on, ‘but you decided, for some reason known only to yourself, to bury him before informing the owner.’

  ‘I did not think Mr. Buzzle would want to attend his funeral.’

  A polite titter from the dozen or so people in court greeted this transparently honest observation.

  ‘It was an act of Christian charity?’ Mr. Banks asked.

  ‘That it was, sir. And I never meant real harm to that pig.’

  ‘Ah,’ Banks exclaimed. ‘if you had wanted to do the pig real harm, what instrument more lethal than a carving knife would you have considered employing?’

  ‘I mean, Your Honour, that I know for sure I could never harm anything by throwing a knife at it.’

  ‘You are not an expert with a knife.’

  Fr. Duddleswell allowed himself a solitary flash of his usual humour. ‘Only when ’tis paired with a fork, Your Honour.’

  Only Billy laughed and said to his solicitor, ‘A good one, that.’

  Banks ignored the witticism. ‘But you did like the pig a great deal?’

  ‘Not at first.’

  ‘When you abducted him, did you like him then?’

  Josiah Tippett indicated to Flitch he should intervene on the grounds of counsel leading the witness. Flitch whispered in reply:

  ‘Window-dressing, Tippett. Banks hasn’t a chance in hell and he knows it.’

  What a ridiculously optimistic and irresponsible attitude, I thought.

  Fr. Duddleswell said, ‘I did not like the pig at all when I took him away.’

  ‘I see. This was still the period, then, when you were trying to stick a knife in him, once or twice. Yes? Yes. Love came later, I recall. But I can only assume it was not affection that motivated you to abduct the pig.’

  As Tippett nudged Flitch again, Fr. Duddleswell cried, ‘No, ’twas justice.’

  For a fleeting moment the witness box was transformed into a pulpit.

  ‘Justice,’ Banks repeated. ‘I see. You formed an explicit intention of taking the law into your own hands.’

  Fr. Duddleswell’s mind had to work at a furious pace to keep up.

  ‘I was wanting to defend both me property and members of the public.’

  Banks nodded. ‘How much compensation did you ask of the plaintiff?’

  ‘Five pounds, Your Honour.’

  ‘And the pig was worth how much?’

  ‘Fifteen, so I am told.’

  ‘Ah,’ Banks said, ‘this lovable, playful pig did such slight damage to your property
you demanded only five pounds in compensation, yet you took away a property valued at fifteen until it was paid. Is that justice, would you say?’

  ‘I am no longer sure,’ an admirably honest Fr. Duddleswell admitted. ‘But I do know I generously underestimated the damage the pig did.’

  ‘And why did you do that?’

  ‘Out of friendship for Mr. Buzzle, the plaintiff.’

  ‘I presume it was the same friendship that led you to deprive him of the company of his pig.’

  ‘In a certain sense, Your Honour, ’twas that. Y’see, the plaintiff and I do play such pranks on each other.’

  Banks was not used to such limpid replies. ‘You mentioned members of the public. Counsel for the defence has given the court to understand that the pig terrorized the entire neighbourhood and did considerable damage.’

  Fr. Duddleswell avoided rhetoric. ‘He did some.’

  ‘Do you happen to know how many of that public for whom you showed such tender solicitude were in fact hospitalized as a result of the sallies of this savage, lovable pig?’

  ‘None that I am aware of, Your Honour.’

  ‘None that anyone is aware of, Your Honour.’ Banks shook his head as if he genuinely grieved that the defence had such a pitiable case. ‘I have examined the records of the Fairwater Constabulary for the entire period of the pig’s domicile in this district. Does the defendant happen to know how many complaints were registered in matters pertaining to the said pig?’

  ‘None that I am aware of, Your Honour.’

  ‘In this instance your awareness does not entirely match the facts. There was one complaint recorded.’

  Fr. Duddleswell looked relieved.

  ‘Yes, by the plaintiff against the defendant.’

  Fr. Duddleswell was amazed. ‘I cannot think for why.’

  ‘I will tell the defendant for why. It was because the defendant was alleged by the plaintiff to have trespassed on his land and broken the plaintiff’s bedroom window by hurling a stone at it.’

  Once more Josiah asked Flitch to intervene on the grounds of irrelevance. Flitch declined with a smile.

  ‘’Twas an accident,’ Fr. Duddleswell whispered.

  Banks turned his back on him in mock surprise. ‘An accident. The defendant seems not to realize that accidents cannot be ruled out when bricks and knives are tactlessly flung in all directions.’