The Stargteller.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 221, 11 December 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Stargteller.

• DOROTHY.

By James Workman.

Tub judge had dined, and was enjoying an after-dinner cigar, before turning to a pile of papers that lay on the tablo at his elbow. Yet even as he watched the flickering fire, and puffed dreamily at his cigar, luxuriating in a little relaxation after a hard day's work in a close and crowded court, his mind was busy formulating the scathing sentences in which ho intended to sum up a case that had been tried that day. There could be no doubt as to the guilt of the prisoner, who had been accused of a most impudent fraud, and though it was a first offence the judge intended passing the severest sentence the law allowedThe judge was no believer in short sentences. He regarded leniency to a criminal as an offence against society, a direct encouragement to those who hesitated on the. brink of vicious courses, and were only restrained by fear of punishment. The well-meaning people who got up petitions to mitigate the sentence upon a justly convicted thief or murderer, were, in his eyes, guilty of mawkish sentimentality. There, was no trace of whiteness or effeminacy in his own face, with its grizzled eyebrows, somewhat cold, grey eyes, thin lips, and massive chin. He was a just man, just to the splitting of a hair, but austere and unemotional. He had conducted the trial with tho most scrupulous impartiality, but now that a verdict of guilty was a foregone conclusion, he determined to make an example of one who had so shamefully abused the confidence placed in him, Stated briefly, the situation was as follows. The prisoner, Arthur Maxwell, was a cashier to a firm of solicitors, Messrs. Lightbody and Dufton. The only surviving partner of the original firm, Mr Lightbody, had recently died, leaving the business to his nephew, Thomas Faulkner. Faulkner accused Arthur Maxwell of having embezzled a sum of £250. Maxwell admitted having taken the money, but positively asserted that it had been presented to him as a free gift by Mr Lightbody. Unfortunately for tho prisoner, the letter which he had stated had accompanied the cheque could not be prodnced, and Faulkner, supported by the evidence of several well-known experts, declared the signature on the cheque to be a forgery. When the chequebook was examined the counterfoil was discovered to be a blank. The prisoner asserted that Mr Lightbody had himself taken out a blank cheque and had filled it up and signed it at his private residence, tie could, however, produce no proof of this assertion, and all the evidence available was opposed to his unsupported statement. " Arthur Maxwell," soliloquized the judge, " you have been con victed on evidence that leaves no shadow of a doubt of your guilt of a crime which I must characterize as one of the basest " The chattering of voices in the hall brought the soliloquy to an abrupt conclusion. The judge required absolute silence and solitude when he was engaged in study, and the servants, who stood in considerable awe of him, wer6 extremely careful to prevent the least disturbance taking place within earshot of his sanctum. He jerked the bell impatiently, intending to give a good " wigging " to those responsible for the disturbance. But the door was thrown open by his daughter Mabel, a pretty girl of twelve, who was evidently in a state of breathless excitement. " Oh, papa !" she exclaimed, " here's such a queer, little object wants to see you. Please let her come in." Before tho judge could remonstrate, a little child, a rosy-faced girl of between five and six, in a red hcod and cloak, hugging a black puppy under one arm and a brown paper parcel under the other, trotted briskly into the room. The judge roso to his feet with an expression which caused his daughter to vanish with remarkable celerity. The door closed with a bang. He could hear her feet scurrying rapidly upstairs, and he found himself alone with the small creature before him. " What on earth arc you doing here child V he asked, irritably. " What can you possibly want with me ?" She remained silent, staring at him with round frightened eyes. "Come, come, can't you find your tongue, little girl V he asKetl, more gently. " What is it you want with me 1" " If you please," she said, timidly, "I've brought you Tommy." Tommy was clearly tho fat puppy, for as she bent her face towards him he wagged his tail and promptly licked the end of her nose. The judge's eyes softened in spite of himself. " Come here," he said, sitting down, " and tell me all about it." She advanced fearlessly towards him, as animals and children always 'did in his unofficial moods. " This is Tommy, 1 suppose 1" ho said, taking the puppy on his knee, where it expressed its delight by ecstatic contortions of tho body, and

appeared to consider his watch-chain a fascinating article of diet. " I've broughted you othpr things as well," she said, opening the brown paper parcel, and revealing a doll with a very beautiful complexion, large blue eyas, and hair of the purest gold, a diminutive Noah's Ark, a white pig, a woolly sheep, a case of crayons a penholder, a broken-bladed knife, a small paintbox, a picture-book or two, and what bore some faint resemblance to a number of water-colour sketches. She seemed particularly proud of the last-named. " I painted them all by myself," she explained. The judge thought it not unlikely, as she glanced with twinkling eyes at the highly unconventional forms and daring colours of these strikingly original works or art. '« Well," he said, " it is very kind of you to bring me all these pretty things, but why do you want to give them to me ?" "I— I don't want to give them to you," she faltered. The judge regarded her with very friendly eyes. He was so used to hearing romantic deviations from the truth from the lips of imaginative witnesses, that frankness was at all times delightful to him. " Come," said he, with a quiet laugh, " that's honest, at least Well, why do you give them to me if you don't want to?" •' I'll give them to you, and Tommy too " —the words were accompanied by a very wistful glance at the fat puppy—"if—if you'll promise not to send poor papa f.o prison." A silence, such as precedes some awful convulsion of Nature, pervaded the room for several seconds after this audacious proposal. Even Tommy, as though cower.ng before the outraged majesty of the law, buried his head between the judge's coat and vest, and lay motionless excepting a propitiatory wag of his tail. " What is your name, child V asked the judge, grimly. •' Dorothy Maxwell," faltered the little girl, timidly, awed by the sudden silence and the perhaps unconsciously stern expression upon his lordship's face. "Dorothy Maxwell," said the judge, severly, as though the little figure before him were standing in the prisoner's dock awaiting sentence, " you have been convicted at the close of the nineteenth century of the almost unparalleled crime of attempting to corrupt ono of Her Majesty's judges, to persuade him, by means of bribery, to defeat the ends of justice. I shall not further enlarge upon the enormity of your crime, Havo you anything to say why sentence should not be No, no, don't cry. Poor little thing, I didn't mean to frighten you. Bin not the least bit angry with you—really and truly. Come and sit on my knee, and show me all these pretty things. Get down, you little beast." The last words were addressed to Tommy, who fell with a flop on the floor, and was replaced on the judge's knee by his little mistress. " This is very like condoning a criminal offence," thought the judge to himself with a grim smile, as he wiped the tears from the poor little creature's face,and tried tointeresther in the contents of the brown paper parcel. But the thoughts the tears had aroused did not vanish with thom. Arthur Maxwell was no longer a kind of impersonal representative of the criminal classes, to be dealt with as sexerely as tho law allowed in the interests of society in general. He was the father of this soft, plump, rosycheeked, blue-eyed, golden-haired little maid, who would inevitably have to share, now or in future, her father's humilation and disgrace. For the first time, perhaps, the judge felt a pang of pity for the wretched man who at that moment was probably pacing his cell in agonizing apprehension of the inevitable verdict. A vivid picture started up before him of the prisoner's white face, twitching lips and tragic oyes. He remembered his own emotion when he first sentenced a fellow-creature to penal servitude. Had he grown callous since then ? Did he take sufficiently into account the frailty of human nature, the brevity of life, the farreaching consequences that the fate of the most insignificant unit of humanity must entail ? At this moment the door opened and his wife, a slexder, graceful woman, considerably younger than himself, with a refined, delica'e face came quietly in. " Ah," exclaimed the judge, with a sudden inspiration, " I believe you are at the bottom of all this, Agnes. What is this child doing here V " You are not vexed, Matthew ?" she said half-timidly. " Hardly that," he answered, slowly ; " but what good can it do ? It is impossible to explain the situation to this poor little mite. It was cruel to let her come on such an errand. How did she get here '" "It was her own idea—entirely her own idea; but her mother brought her, and asked to see me. The poor woman was distracted, nearly frantic with grief and despair and ready to clutch at any straw. She was so dreadfully miserable, poor thing, and I thought it was sujh a pretty idea, T—l couldn't refuse her, Matthew." " But, my dear," expostulated the judge, " you must havo known that, it could do no good."

<< I—l knew what the verdict would be," answered his wife. " I read a report of the trial in an evenin" paper. But, then, there was the sentence, you know—and—and I thought the poor child might soften you a little, Matthew." The judge's hand strayed mechanically among the toys, and to interest the child he began to examine one of the most vivid of her pictorial efforts. " You think I am very hard and unjust, Agnes ?" he asked. " No, no, no," she answered, hurriedly ; " not unjust, never unjust. There is not a more impartial judge upon the bench—the whole world says it. But don't you think, dear, that justice without—without mercy is always, a little hard 1 Don't, don't be angry, Matthew. I never spoke to you like this before. I wouldn't now but for the poor woman in the next room and the innocent little thing at your knee." The judge made no reply. He bent still more closely over the scarlet animal straying amid emerald fields, and burnt umber trees of a singularly original shape. "That's a cow," said Dorothy, proudly. " Don't you see its horns 1 —and that's its tail—it isn't a tree. Therms a cat on the other side. 1 can draw cats better than cows." In her anxiety to exhibit her artistic abilities in their higher manifestations she took the paper out of his hands, and presented the opposite side. At first he glanced at it listlessly, and then his eyes suddenly flashed, and he examined it with breathless interest. " Well, Bin blessed !" he exclaimed, excitedly. It was not a very judicial utterance, but the circumstances were exceptional. " Here's tho very letter Maxwell declared he had received from Lightbody along with the cheque. His reference to it, as he couldn't produce it, did him more harm than good; but I believe it's genuine, upon my word I do. Listen ; it's datfcd from The Hollies, Liglubody's private address : "' My dear Maxwell.—l have just heard from the doctor that my time hera will be very short, and I am trying to arrange my affairs as far as possible. I have long recognised the unostentatious, but thorough and entirely satisfactory, manner in which you have discharged your duties, and as some little and perhaps too tardy recognition of your long and faithful service, and as a token of my personal esteem for you, I hope you will accept the enclosed cheque for £250. With best wishes for your future, believe me, yours sincerely, "' Thomas Lightbody.' '« What do you think of that ? I'll send it round to Maxwell's solicitor at once." " Oh, Matthew, then the poor fellow's innocent, after all 1" "It looks like it. If this letter is genuine, he certainly is. There, don't look miserable again. I'm sure it is. If it had been a forgery, you may be sure it would have been ready for production at a moment's notice. Where did you get this paper, little girl ?" Dorothy blushed guiltily and hung her head. " I took it out of pa's desk. I —I wanted some paper to draw on, and I took it without asking. You won't tell him, will you 1 He'll bo over so cross." " Well, we may perhaps have to let him know about it my dear ; but I don't think he'll be a bit cross. Now, this lady will take you to your mother, and you can tell her that your papa won't go prison, and that he'll bo home to-morrow night." lie kissed her, and his wife held out her hand. But Dorothy lingered, with hanging head and twitching lips. "May I—may I say good-bye to Tommy, please ?" she faltered. " You sweet little thing," exclaimed his wife, kissing her impulsively. " Tommy's going with you," said the laughing kindly. " I wouldn't deprive you of Tommy's company for Tommy's weight in gold. I fancy there are limits to the pleasure which Tommy and I would derive from each other's society. There, run away, and take Tommy with you." Dorothy eagerly pursued the fat puppy, captured him after an exciting chase, and took him in her arms. Then she walked towards the door, but the corner of her eye rested wistfully on the contents of tho brown paper parcel, The judge hastily gathered the toys, rolled them up in the paper, and presented them to her. But Dorothy looked disappointed. The thought of giving them to purchase her father's pardon had been sweet as well as bitter. She was willing to compro miso in order to escape tho pang that the loss of Tommy and the doll and the paint-box and other priceless treasures would havo inflicted, but she still wished—poor little epitome of our complex human nature —to tasto the joy of heroic self-sacrifice. Besides, she was afraid that the judge might after all refuse to pardon her father if she took away all the gifts with which she ha I attempted to propitiate him. She put the parcel on a chair and opened it out. Holding the wriggling puppy in her arms, she gazed at her treasures, trying to make up her mind which she could most easily part with that would be

sufficiently valuable in the judge's eyes to accomplish her purpose. Finally she selected the sheep, and presented the meek-looking animal to the judge. " You may have that and the pretty picture for bein' kind to papa," she said, with tho air of one who confers inestimable favours. lie was about to decline the honour, but, catching his wife's eye he meekly accepted it, and Dorothy and the puppy and the brown paper parcel disappeared through the door.

" Well, well," said tho judge, with a queer smile, as he placed the fluffy white sheep on the mantelpiece, " I never thought I should be guilty of accepting a bribe, but we never know what we may come to." The next day Maxwell was acquitted, and assured by the judge that he left the court without a stain upon his character. The following Christmas, Dorothy received a brown paper parcel containing toys of the most wonderful description from an unknown friend, and it was asserted by his intimates that ever afterwards the judge's sentences seldom erred on the side of severity, and that he was disposed whenever possible, to give a prisoner the benefit of the doubt