30. CHAPTER XXX.
A MYSTERIOUS CLIENT.
On that same evening, Counsellor Strong, while seated in the
midst of his family circle, endeavoring to divest his mind of professional
cares, yet unable to banish from his thoughts the important
trial in which he was so soon to take a conspicuous part, was
informed by a domestic that a gentleman and two ladies desired
to see him on business. The visitors had been shown into the
library of the lawyer, and thither he immediately repaired,
wondering not a little at so untimely a call, and still more surprised
when he perceived that the parties awaiting his entrance
were all entire strangers to him.
Gertrude Van Kleeck, notwithstanding the energy and resolution
which had enabled her to do so much, was continually embarrassed
and agitated by each new step in her great enterprise,
and when she found herself in the presence of the learned advocate
whom she had so longed to meet, and whose deportment,
though mild, was dignified in the extreme, she was at an utter
loss how to introduce the painful subject of her mission. She
looked at Garret, but he was biting his glove in still greater embarrassment
than herself; she looked at Ruth, and she, with
flushed face and flashing eye, sat leaning forward on her chair, as
if scarcely restrained from springing toward the lawyer to implore
his powerful aid.
“You desired to see me, I believe,” said the barrister, addressing
the gentleman of the party.”
“Y—yes—sir,” said Van Vrank, “this young lady wishes to see
you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gertrude, but she could not fix upon the next
word.
“Yes, sir,” exclaimed Ruth, impatiently, rising as she spoke,
and advancing close to the counsellor's side, “we have come to see
you about poor Harry Vrail; we have come hundreds of miles—we
want you to save him—you must save him!” she said, looking
tearfully into the lawyer's eyes; “we all want to do all we can for
him, and we want you to tell us what we can do. Now, Miss Van
Kleeck, you please to speak to him—you can tell him so much
better than I.”
“I believe, sir,” said Gertrude, emboldened at length to speak,
“that I cannot better explain the object of our visit to you than
this child has already done. We are friends of Mr. Vrail, and are
most anxious to serve him, and having heard that you were acting
as his counsel, we have taken the liberty of calling on you at
this unseasonable hour. I hope, sir,” and Gertrude's voice sank
almost to a whisper, “that you do not consider him in very great
danger.”
“I am very sorry to say,” replied the lawyer, looking compassionately
upon his beautiful visitor, “that I entertain the most
serious fears in his behalf. I have been told to-day that the proof
with which the prosecuting attorney is furnished in his case is very
clear and positive, and that it will show, not only that he was
engaged in the battle at Windmill Point, but that he was a commissioned
officer. I hope there may be some mistake about
this.”
Mr. Strong saw that the young lady turned very pale as he
spoke, and he added the last sentence by way of a restorative.
“But if all this should be proven,” asked Gertrude, desperately,
“it does not surely follow that there is no hope for him?”
“If these facts should be fully proven, there would be no possibility
of avoiding a
conviction, and all further hope must be in
the mercy of the queen, who might pardon him, or commute the
death penalty to transportation.”
“But the queen would surely be merciful, for she is a woman,”
exclaimed Ruth. “I would go to her myself; I would tell her all
about him, and I would bring back the pardon. I know she would
give it to me.”
Gertrude did not speak, but with a hope, something like
Ruth's, in the mercy of the sovereign, she anxiously awaited the
lawyer's opinion.
“I think it highly probable,” replied Mr. Strong, “that her
majesty would have listened favorably to petitions in behalf of
many of those who have already suffered, if they could have
reached her ears, but the great misfortune in these cases is that,
unless the jury or the court recommend the prisoner to mercy, or
unless the governor of the province interferes to suspend the sentence,
there will be no time to apply to a monarch living three
thousand miles distant.”
“Then we will go to the governor,” said Miss Van Kleeck, in
a low voice, “and wherever else there is the least hope of doing
anything. We are prepared to make every effort that it is possible
to make.”
“And every effort will be perfectly useless,” thought the lawyer,
as he reflected on the character of the jurors and the judge
who were to try the accused, and on the fate which all similar
applications to the governor had hitherto met with; but he did
not utter these sentiments, and he tried not to show them in his
countenance.
“You are right,” he said to Miss Van Kleeck; “but the first
step is to prepare for the trial. I should be glad if there were
means to procure the aid of additional counsel, which might possibly
increase our slight chances of success.”
“We are fully prepared on that point,” replied Gertrude,
quickly; “we can amply remunerate both yourself, and all whom
you see fit to call to your aid.”
“I fear you speak without a full knowledge of the weight of
such expenses. I should, indeed, be relieved if we could command
means sufficient to bring Counsellor H—, of Toronto, to
our aid. He is a man of the highest talent and influence, and he
has had much experience in these State trials in his own city, and
always, of course, on the defence.”
Gertrude had deposited one of her large bills of exchange in a
bank at Kingston, since her arrival, and she was entitled to draw
upon that institution for the amount of it, at such times and in
such sums as she chose. Without further reply to Mr. Strong's
doubts, she asked him for a blank check, and it having been furnished,
she requested him to fill it with whatever sum he could
in any way make serviceable in the cause he had undertaken.
Amazed at so extraordinary a carte blanche, the lawyer sportively
filled the draft with an order for a thousand pounds, and handed
it to the lady, closely watching her countenance as he did so.
Gertrude glanced at the sum without any signs of surprise, and
really with no emotion but that of pleasure, for she thought if so
large an amount could be properly used on the trial, by a man of
whose integrity she had the strongest assurance, it must be with
some prospect of success. Seating herself composedly at the
writing-desk of the barrister, she signed the check without speaking,
and handed it to him.
“Is it possible?” exclaimed the counsellor, gazing at the paper
a moment, with a smile. “Did you really mean to place this
large sum of money at my disposal?”
He tore the check into fragments as he spoke, and threw
them into the grate. Gertrude now looked surprised in turn.
“A fifth of this sum,” he continued, “will abundantly repay all
the professional aid we can bring to your friend's cause, and I am
very happy, both for your sake and his, that you have the means
to make so great an effort in his behalf. I shall be able to add
Mr. Solicitor M—, also, to our legal team, and also to procure a
few professional
claqueurs, for out-door work; for we must sometimes
resort to means like these in the cause of humanity.
“I do not quite understand you, but I have all confidence in
your discretion and ability.”
“Why, you must know that it is sometimes possible to create a
little public sentiment in relation to an approaching or pending
trial, and if such means are ever justifiable, they certainly must be
so in combating the very violent and fierce spirit which prevails,
in some classes of our community, towards the unfortunate American
prisoners.”
“Is there really so much hostility against them?” asked Gertrude,
shudderingly.
“Yes; but we must admit that the provocation has not been
slight. Let us hope, however, that the government and the people
have become satisfied with victims, and that a milder spirit
may begin to prevail. I must warn you, however, not to indulge
in anything like sanguine expectations of the success of our efforts.
A very moderate amount of hope is the utmost that I dare to encourage.”
A heavy sigh was Gertrude's only response to this remark, and
it did not escape the observing eye of the barrister that a tear
stood upon the cheek that was half averted from his gaze. He
proceeded to question her at some length with a view of ascertaining
whether there were any point on which she, or either of her
companions, could give any useful testimony for the prisoner, but
unfortunately there was nothing to which they could testify which
would be pertinent to the defence, and Mr. Strong became convinced
that the only hope of evading a conviction must be in the
possible insufficiency of the government testimony against the prisoner.
Every effort was to be made to assail and break down this
evidence, or, at least, to cast enough of doubt around it, to enable
a jury, whose hearts should first be awakened to some touch of
compassion, to acquit the prisoner if they would.
There might, indeed, be some strong legal points made for the
accused in relation to the nature of the offence, if proved, but on
all such grounds, he knew from experience, that there was almost
nothing to be hoped from the court with which he should have to
deal.
Having taken the address of his visitors, and promised to call
and see them the next morning, for further consultation, they took
their leave, but not before Miss Van Kleeck had placed in his
hand another check for the smaller, but still considerable amount,
which he had named.
With alternating hope and fear, Gertrude retired that night to
a sleep in which there was no repose. Frightful dreams haunted
her pillow, dreams of every variety of wildness and incoherence,
yet all agreeing in presenting to her distracted mind the figure of
a chained prisoner, whose pale and boding face was ever the same,
and whose only words were those of sad farewell which she had
last heard in her own home, and the accents of which a faithful
memory had preserved to be the instruments of her torture now.
