The Color of Evil - The Dark Descent V1 (1991)
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pass before reaching his house.
In one of those narrow streets of tall houses, perfectly silent at that hour, he overtook, slowly as he was walking, a very singular-looking old gentleman.
He had a bottle-green coat on, with a cape to it, and large
stone buttons, a broad-leafed low-crowned hat, from under
which a big powdered wig escaped; he stooped very much,
and supported his bending knees with the aid of a crutch-
handled cane, and so shuffled and tottered along painfully.
“ I ask your pardon, sir,” said this old man, in a very
quavering voice, as the burly Judge came up with him, and
he extended his hand feebly towards his arm.
Mr. Justice Harbottle saw that the man was by no means
poorly dressed, and his manner that of a gentleman.
The Judge stopped short, and said, in his harsh peremptory
tones, “ Well, sir, how can I serve you?”
“ Can you direct me to Judge Harbottle’s house? I have
some intelligence of the very last importance to communicate
to him.”
“ Can you tell it before witnesses?” asked the Judge.
“ By no means; it must reach fus ear only,” quavered the
old man earnestly.
“ If that be so, sir, you have only to accompany me a few
steps farther to reach my house, and obtain a private audience; for I am Judge Harbottle.”
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With this invitation the infirm gentleman in the white wig
complied very readily; and in another minute the stranger
stood in what was then termed the front parlour of the
Judge’s house, tete-a-tete with that shrewd and dangerous
functionary.
He had to sit down, being very much exhausted, and unable for a little time to speak; and then he had a fit of coughing, and after that a fit of gasping; and thus two or three minutes passed, during which die Judge dropped his roquelaure on an arm-chair, and threw his cocked-hat over that.
The venerable pedestrian in the white wig quickly recovered his voice. With closed doors they remained together for some time.
There were guests waiting in the drawing-rooms, and the
sound of men’s voices laughing, and then of a female voice
singing to a harpsichord, were heard distinctly in the hall
over the stairs; for old Judge Harbottle had arranged one of
his dubious jollifications, such as might well make the hair
of godly men’s heads stand upright for that night.
This old gentleman in the powdered white wig, that rested
on his stooped shoulders, must have had something to say
that interested the Judge very much; for he would not have
parted on easy terms with the ten minutes and upward which
that conference filched from the sort of revelry in which he
most delighted, and in which he was the roaring king, and
in some sort the tyrant also, of his company.
The footman who showed the aged gentleman out observed
that the Judge’s mulberry-coloured face, pimples and all, were
bleached to a dingy yellow, and there was die abstraction of
agitated thought in his manner, as he bid the stranger goodnight. The servant saw that the conversation had been of serious import, and that the Judge was frightened.
Instead of stumping upstairs forthwith to his scandalous
hilarities, his profane company, and his great china bowl of
punch—the identical bowl from which a bygone Bishop of
London, good easy man, had baptised this Judge’s grandfather, now clinking round the rim with silver ladles, and hung
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with scrolls of lemon-peel—instead, I say, of stumping and
clambering up the great staircase to the cavern of his Circean
enchantment, he stood with his big nose flattened against the
window-pane, watching the progress of the feeble old man,
who clung stiffly to the iron rail as he got down, step by step,
to the pavement.
The hall-door had hardly closed, when the old Judge was
in the hall bawling hasty orders, with such stimulating expletives as old colonels under excitement sometimes indulge in now-a-days, with a stamp or two of his big foot, and a waving
of his clenched fist in the air. He commanded the footman to
overtake the old gentleman in the white wig, to offer him his
protection on his way home, and in no case to show his face
again without having ascertained where he lodged, and who
he was, and all about him.
“ By------ , sirrah! if you fail me in this, you doff my livery
to-night!”
Forth bounced the stalwart footman, with his heavy cane
under his arm, and skipped down the steps, and looked up
and down the street after the singular figure, so easy to recognize.
What were his adventures I shall not tell you just now.
The old man, in the conference to which he had been admitted in that stately panelled room, had just told the Judge a very strange story. He might be himself a conspirator; he
might possibly be crazed; or possibly his whole story was
straight and true.
The aged gentleman in the bottle-green coat, on finding
himself alone with Mr. Justice Harbottle, had become agitated. He said,
“ There is, perhaps you are not aware, my lord, a prisoner
in Shrewsbury jail, charged with having forged a bill of exchange for a hundred and twenty pounds, and his name is Lewis Pyneweck, a grocer of that town.”
“ Is there?” says the Judge, who knew well that there was.
“ Yes, my lord,” says the old man.
“ Then you had better say nothing to affect this case. If you
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do, by------ I ’ll commit you! for I ’m to try it,” says the Judge,
with his terrible look and tone.
‘‘I am not going to do anything of the kind, my lord; of
him or his case I know nothing, and care nothing. But a fact
has come to my knowledge which it behoves you to well
consider.”
“ And what may that fact be?” inquired the Judge; “ I ’m
in haste, sir, and beg you will use dispatch.”
“ It has come to my knowledge, my lord, that a secret
tribunal is in process of formation, the object of which is to
take cognisance of the conduct of the judges; and first, of
your conduct, my lord: it is a wicked conspiracy.”
“ Who are of it?” demands the Judge.
“ I know not a single name as yet. I know but the fact, my
lord; it is most certainly true.”
“ I ’ll have you before the Privy Council, sir,” says the
Judge.
“ That is what I most desire; but not for a day or two, my
lord.”
“ And why so?”
“ I have not as yet a single name, as I told your lordship;
but I expect to have a list of the most forward men in it, and
some other papers connected with the plot, in two or three
days.”
“ You said one or two just now. ”
“ About that time, my lord.”
“ Is this a Jacobite plot?”
“ In the main I think it is, my lord.”
“ Why, then, it is political. I have tried no State prisoners,
nor am like to try any such. How, then, doth it concern me?”
“ From what I can gather, my lord, there are those in it
“ What do they call their cabal?”
“ The High Court of Appeal, my lord.”
“ Who are you, sir? What is your name?”
“ Hugh Peters, my Lord.”
“ That should be a Whig name?”
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“ It is, my lord.”
“ Where do you lodge, Mr. Peters?”
“ In Thames Street, my lord, over against the sign of the
‘Three Kings.’ ”
“ ‘Three Kings’? Take care one be not too many for you,
Mr. Peters! How come you, an honest Whig, as you say, to
be privy to a Jacobite plot? Answer me that.”
“ My lord, a person in whom I take an interest has been
seduced to take a part in it; and being frightened at the unexpected wickedness of their plans, he is resolved to become an informer for the Crown.”
“ He resolves like a wise man, sir. What does he say of
the persons? Who are in the plot? Doth he know them?”
‘ ‘Only two, my lord; but he will be introduced to the club
in a few days, and he will then have a list, and more exact
information of their plans, and above all of their oaths, and
their hours and places of meeting, with which he wishes to
be acquainted before they can have any suspicions of his intentions. And being so informed, to whom, think you, my lord, had he best go then?”
“ To the Icing ’s attorney-general straight. But you say this
concerns me, sir, in particular? How about this prisoner,
Lewis Pyneweck? Is he one of them?”
“ I can’t tell, my lord; but for some reason, it is thought
your lordship will be well advised if you try him not. For if
you do, it is feared ’twill shorten your days.”
“ So far as I can leam, Mr. Peters, this business smells
pretty strong of blood and treason. The king’s attorney-
general will know how to deal with it. When shall I see you
again, sir?”
‘ ‘If you give me leave, my lord, either before your lordship’s court sits, or after it rises, to-morrow. I should like to come and tell your lordship what has passed.”
“ Do so, Mr. Peters, at nine o’clock to-morrow morning.
And see you play me no trick, sir, in this matter; if you do,
by------ , sir, I ’ll lay you by the heels!”
“ You need fear no trick from me, my lord; had I not
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wished to serve you, and acquit my own conscience, I never
would have come all this way to talk with your lordship.”
“ I ’m willing to believe you, Mr. Peters; I ’m willing to
believe you, sir.”
And upon this they parted.
“ He has either painted his face, or he is consumedly sick,”
thought the old Judge.
The light had shone more effectually upon his features as
he turned to leave the room with a low bow, and they looked,
he fancied, unnaturally chalky.
“ D-----him!” said the Judge ungraciously, as he began to
scale the stairs: “ he has half-spoiled my supper.”
But if he had, no one but the Judge himself perceived it,
and the evidence was all, as any one might perceive, the
other way.
Ill Lewis Pyneweck
In the meantime the footman dispatched in pursuit of Mr.
Peters speedily overtook that feeble gentleman. The old man
stopped when he heard the sound of pursuing steps, but any
alarms that may have crossed his mind seemed to disappear
on his recognizing the livery. He very gratefully accepted the
proffered assistance, and placed his tremulous arm within the
servant’s for support. They had not gone far, however, when
the old man stopped suddenly, saying,
“ Dear me! as I live, I have dropped it. You heard it fall.
My eyes, I fear, won’t serve me, and I ’m unable to stoop low
enough; but if you will look, you shall have half the find. It
is a guinea; I carried it in my glove.”
The street was silent and deserted. The footman had hardly
descended to what he termed his “ hunkers,” and begun to
search the pavement about the spot which the old man indicated, when Mr. Peters, who seemed very much exhausted, and breathed with difficulty, struck him a violent blow, from
above, over the back of the head with a heavy instrument,
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and then another; and leaving him bleeding and senseless in
the gutter, ran like a lamplighter down a lane to the right,
and was gone.
When, an hour later, the watchman brought the man in
livery home, still stupid and covered with blood, Judge Harbottle cursed his servant roundly, swore he was drunk, threatened him with an indictment for taking bribes to betray his master, and cheered him with a perspective of the broad street
leading from the Old Bailey to Tyburn, the cart’s tail, and the
hangman’s lash.
Notwithstanding this demonstration, the Judge was pleased.
It was a disguised “ affidavit man,’’ or footpad, no doubt,
who had been employed to frighten him. The trick had fallen
through.
A “ court of appeal,’’ such as the false Hugh Peters had
indicated, with assassination for its sanction, would be an
uncomfortable institution for a “ hanging judge’’ like the
Honourable Justice Harbottle. That sarcastic and ferocious
administrator of the criminal code of England, at that time a
rather pharisaical, bloody and heinous system of justice, had
reasons of his own for choosing to try that very Lewis Pyne-
weck, on whose behalf this audacious trick was devised. Try
him he would. No man living should take that morsel out of
his mouth.
Of Lewis Pyneweck, of course, so far as the outer world
could see, he knew nothing. He would try him after his fashion, without fear, favour, or affection.
But did he not remember a certain thin man, dressed in
mourning, in whose house, in Shrewsbury, the Judge’s lodgings used to be, until a scandal of his ill-treating his wife came suddenly to light? A grocer with a demure look, a soft
step, and a lean face as dark as mahogany, with a nose sharp
and long, standing ever so little awry, and a pair of dark
steady brown eyes under thinly-traced black brows—a man
whose thin lips wore always a faint unpleasant smile.
Had not that scoundrel an account to settle with the Judge?
had he not been troublesome lately? and was not his name
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Lewis Pyneweck, some time grocer in Shrewsbury, and now
prisoner in the jail of that town?
The reader may take it, if he pleases, as a sign that Judge
Harbottle was a good Christian, that he suffered nothing ever
from remorse. That was undoubtedly true. He had, nevertheless, done this grocer, forger, what you will, some five or six years before, a grievous wrong; but it was not that, but a
possible scandal, and possible complications, that troubled
the learned Judge now.
Did he not, as a lawyer, know, that to bring a man from
his shop to the dock, the chances must be at least ninety-nine
out of a hundred that he is guilty.
A weak man like his lea
rned brother Withershins was not
a judge to keep the high-roads 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 “ villain” 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 mob-cap gay
with blue ribbons, in a saque of flowered silk, with lace and
rings on, much too fine for the Judge’s housekeeper, which
nevertheless she was, peeped into his study next morning,
and, seeing the Judge alone, stepped in.
“ Here’s another letter from him, come by the post this
morning. Can’t you do nothing for him?” she said whee-
dlingly, with her arm over his neck, and her delicate finger
and thumb Addling with the lobe of his purple ear.
“ I ’ll try,” said Judge Harbottle, not raising his eyes from
the paper he was reading.
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“ I knew you’d do what I asked you,” she said.
The Judge clapt his gouty claw over his heart, and made
her an ironical bow.
“ W hat,” she asked, “ will you do?”
“ Hang him,” said the Judge with a chuckle.
“ You don’t mean to; no, you don’t, my little man,” said
she, surveying herself in a mirror on the wall.
“ I ’m d-----d but I think you’re falling in love with your
husband at last!” said Judge Harbottle.
“ I ’m blest but I think you’re growing jealous of him,”
replied the lady with a laugh. “ But no; he was always a bad
one to me; I ’ve done with him long ago.”
“ And he with you, by George! When he took your fortune,
and your spoons, and your ear-rings, 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, he’d have taken your guineas, and your silver, and your ear-rings over again, and then allowed you half-a-dozen years
more to make a new harvest for his mill. You don’t wish him