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By Passion Driven: A Story of a Wasted Life

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVI.

We know what we are, but we know not
What we may be.

The trial and conviction of Herman Lane for the murder of his fellow clerk was a most discomforting experience to Mr. Bruce. Up to the very last he had hoped to see it proved that, bad although he undoubtedly was, this wretched youth was not guilty of a capital crime. When this last hope was dispelled by the verdict of the jury, Mr. Bruce felt the result so keenly that he did not notice the effect on the other members of his household. He sought and obtained permission to visit the condemned man, and returned from the painful interview considerably saddened. With the utmost kindness he approached Lane, and very speedily had so entirely convinced him that the visit was prompted by a genuine feeling of interest, that the prisoner opened his heart entirely to his late employer.

He related to Mr. Bruce his personal history, and obtained from him a promise to write to his widowed mother, and break to her as kindly as possible his terrible fate. He confided to the merchant the true position of matters relating to the frauds practised on his business. Lane was the tool of a couple of swindlers in Melbourne, and carried out his robberies and forgeries under their instigation and direction. On the subject of the murder, however, the unfortunate man was firm in the assertion of page 114 his innocence. He declared that the visit to the cashier on the eve of his death was with the intention of persuading or frightening him into making his evidence less convincing in the charge of robbery of the notes; but he never for a moment contemplated taking the man's life, nor did he do anything to further his death.

Lane declared his innocence with such an air of truth, with manner so convincingly sincere, and with such recognition of the fact that he must meet his doom, that his listener was compelled to acknowledge his belief, and told the wretched being that while he could not hold out any hope of an alteration of his fate, he would do what he could to avert the extreme penalty of the law. The painful scene which followed on this declaration almost unnerved Mr. Bruce. The doomed man seemed utterly overcome. Grasping the hand of his visitor, he fell on his knees before him and implored forgiveness for the wrongs he had done while in his office; then, bursting into a terrible fit of weeping, he sobbed out a prayer that, for his poor mother's sake, the ignominy of a death on the scaffold would be spared him.

He wished to live, he said, if only that he might some day convince his mother that while he had gone astray, and was no longer deserving of her love and forgiveness, he was not a murderer in thought or deed.

Terrible as were these thoughts to the prisoner, the expression of them was an experience which no man could possibly prolong, and Mr. Bruice had to tear himself away. He left the gaol satisfied that his original conviction was a correct one, and that the condemned man was not guilty of the crime of which twelve men had, after a careful enquiry and deliberation, convicted him.

Taking his proof from the lips and action of the condemned, this one man dared to set up his judgment and page 115 opinion against the deliberate and responsible finding of twelve jurymen whose duty it was to hear and weigh the evidence, and form a correct conclusion after every possible guidance and investigation.

Being convinced that Lane's sentence was undeserved, Mr. Bruce determined that nothing in his power to do in the direction of affecting a reprieve, or getting the sentence commuted, should be left undone. His first step he took at once, and called upon Mr. Lyttelton Coke to offer his influence and assistance on the prisoner's behalf. He was not a little disappointed and even disgusted to find that the prisoner's counsel showed little desire to lend any aid to this project. Mr. Coke gave abundant indication that notwithstanding his efforts in Court on his client's behalf, he had accepted the general verdict on the subject of his guilt, and considered him unworthy of any further exertion. Moreover, he made it manifest to Mr. Bruce that as any such action as he proposed would not be in full view of the public, and therefore could not serve to display or advertise the man of law, he would not be a party to it.

Mr. Bruce left the lawyer's presence without having his good opinion of him or his profession increased. He felt profoundly surprised that any man laying claim to the attributes of humanity, or pretending to worthily follow an honourable and learned profession, should be so lacking in true interest in the life and well-being of an unfortunate fellow creature. If the tenets of the legal profession taught or inculcated such narrow, selfish, and uncharitable principles or feelings, it was no wonder that the law as a following was despised or derided. Reflecting, however, that there are miserable exceptions in every walk of life, and distorted and disfigured sheep in every flock, Mr. Bruce dismissed his hard thoughts of the profession, and proceeded page 116 vigorously to work out the poor convict's salvation in his own way. The necessity for an active exercise of his mind in the task he had set himself proved highly beneficial to Mr. Bruce, inasmuch as it kept him from brooding over the events of the past. At the same time, it prevented him from realising the position into which it threw the other members of his household, and in this manner perhaps opened a way for events which, although not foreseeing, he might by a different bearing have avoided.

After making all possible efforts on the prisoner's behalf in Dunedin, Mr. Bruce found that to do most effectively what he wished, it would be advisable for him to go to Wellington, the seat of the Executive Council. Having decided that this was the best course, the merchant was not the man to delay, so he informed his wife of his purpose, and said he would require to go the following day.

“Oh! Edward,” returned Mrs. Bruce, with a tone of deep surprise and sorrow, “must you go away just now?”

“Yes, dear; it is necessary. Why do you ask in that way?”

“Because I feel that you are needed at home. I cannot make out what has come over Flora.”

“Why! what is the matter?” asked her husband, with genuine concern.

“I really cannot tell, but during the last week she has acted most strangely. You know that she had always been reserved and distant, and continually reading in her spare moments; but lately she has not spoken to anybody in the house, and sits for hours in her own room doing nothing, not even reading. Yesterday she met Lizzie in the passage between their rooms, and at the sight of her screamed out with such a frightened cry, and rushed to her room. When I went to her she was lying on the bed with her face buried page 117 in her hands, and it was nearly an hour before I could get her even to look at me. I really can't understand it at all, and fear we must get the doctor to her. I do wish you hadn't to go.”

“Nonsense! my dear. It's only the terrible anxiety we have all gone through over this trial; she'll be all right soon.”

“No, Edward, I'm sure it's not that. I'm sure Flora knows nothing of the trial.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Yes, certain. No one ever spoke of it before her, and I took care she never got any of the papers containing the report. She hasn't been out alone for weeks. No, I'm quite sure she knows nothing of the case.”

“Then what can it be that has disturbed her? It is sure enough something wrong with her nerves. It can't be the effects of that beach fright yet?”

“No, it's something I can't make out. I really think we should see the doctor.”

“Well, if she doesn't improve while I'm away, get Dr. Bright to have a look at her. I don't think you should worry about her. If you let her alone it will wear off.”

With this comforting assurance Mr. Bruce dismissed the subject, and his wife's attention was diverted towards the necessary preparations for his journey.

The “let-alone” policy is as often as not a proper and successful one in cases of the kind Mr. Bruce thought he was dealing with, but it is not therefore one to be handled with impunity, or by any rule of thumb.

More evil is perhaps wrought by wrong action than by want of action; but there is a time when vigorous measures are called for, and the neglect of them becomes a crime.

“Diseases, desperate grown,
By desperate appliances are relieved,
Or not at all.”

page 118

That Mr. Bruce did not regard his daughter's state as “desperate,” or, indeed, in any degree dangerous, was due to the fact that the whole course of her conduct from childhood upwards had been a peculiar one, and a gradual falling off from the beaten tracks of girlhood's life. She had imperceptibly to herself and her parents acquired habits of seclusion, which more and more unfitted her for converse with the other members of the household, and seemed to induce as little desire in them for intercourse with her as she evinced towards all. Thus it was that her present state seemed to the busy mind and unobservant eye of Mr. Bruce to be merely the crossing of a very narrow line from that of the immediate past.

The following day, therefore, Mr. Bruce left for the northern capital—left home on an errand of mercy, leaving disregarded a clearer duty.

It was with no feeling of carelessness or want of concern for his daughter that Mr. Bruce overlooked the pressing need for his attention to his own household, while he went abroad to do a good action.

The same feeling in a different degree leads beneficent folks to the endeavour to christianise the benighted heathen, and, in so doing, cast their laudable efforts for good right over the heads of degraded and suffering humanity at their own doors.