Jeremy Poldark

  “Do you know, witness, what the punishment is for perjury?”

  “Perjury?” said Jud. “I ain’t never done nothing like it, yer worship. I can’t even write me own name, leave alone other folk’s. And I was never near the wrecks but once and then twas to lend a ’elping ’and wi’ the folk struggling in the waves. Nobody’d do less’n lend a ’elping ’and.”

  The judge gazed at Paynter for a long steady moment, then said: “I don’t think this witness is going to assist your case, Mr. Bull.”

  Mr. Clymer got up in a very fatigued manner. “May I draw your lordship’s attention to the fact that in the first instance, when called before an examining justice, Paynter gave no such evidence as he is alleged to have done at a later date. He seems to have denied knowledge of the events we are dealing with.”

  There was some angry argument and rustling of papers. But Henry Bull was not giving up. “There is some very important evidence at a later stage, your lordship. If I might put that to the witness…”

  “Very well.”

  “Now, Paynter,” said Bull, fixing him with an eye, “turn your mind to the events on the night of the seventh. You were present when the excise men and the soldiers came upon the beach. In your statement you say that the prisoner, Captain Poldark, was the leader of the men who attacked the excise officers and that you saw him strike John Coppard, who fell to the ground seriously injured. That is a true statement, is it not? Remember his lordship’s warning: you are on oath. You can be sent to prison yourself!”

  Jud sucked his two teeth and hesitated. “Nay!” he said suddenly, almost under his breath. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout’n.”

  “What? What’s that?” said the judge.

  “Tes all a new story to me, your worship. I never heard such words out o’ me mouth. Tedn true. Tedn nothin’!”

  Henry Bull took a deep breath. He turned sharply to the judge. “My lord, I ask your permission to call Mr. Tankard and Mr. Blencowe.”

  Mr. Justice Lister moved the aromatic herbs before his nose.

  “I would remind you, Mr. Bull, of the case of Nairn and Ogilvie—which cannot be unfamiliar to you—when the court remained in session without a break for forty-three hours. I do not intend that to happen here—you have a lot of witnesses yet to call.”

  Bull flapped his gown irritably. “M’Lord, this is a matter of the gravest importance. This man has just made a very serious charge against two junior officers of the Crown. It seems to me vital—”

  “I should have thought, Mr. Bull,” said his lordship wearily, “that the situation was plain to the meanest intelligence. This witness has clearly committed perjury at some period of the proceedings. Whether he committed it at an earlier stage or is committing it now is not surely of great importance to your case, since the evidence of a perjured witness can hardly bear much weight. Whether the Crown wishes to charge him on that account is a matter for the appropriate officers to decide. I should certainly not oppose it. But it must also be perfectly clear that this man is of such low intelligence and limited mental capacity that it would in any case be difficult to draw a distinction between wilful and natural stupidity. If you will accept my advice you will turn him out of the box and get on with your case.”

  “Of course it is as your lordship pleases,” said Bull sulkily, and Jud was ushered unceremoniously from the court.

  Chapter Eleven

  While the next witnesses were making their procession to and from the box Verity watched the jury. They were decently dressed, sober-looking men, mostly of middle age: small gentry and tradesmen. In Cornwall as a whole there would be a certain lack of condemnation for the things Ross had done or was accused of doing. Wrecks were looked on as legitimate spoil. Excise men were the most hated and despised of people. But Henry Bull had been cunning in his final appeal. Among propertied people there was now an almost universal dread of a miners’ insurrection. Jacobin clubs which had opened in England to lend the French revolutionaries support, the wild scenes in Redruth last autumn, the recurring bread riots, and the seething discontent of which they were a symptom, all tended to a feeling of horrid insecurity. One saved one’s twenty pounds a year, one built a new linhay or bought a new farm cart with a sense of uncertainty about the future. It was very unsettling, and if a riot such as this they were hearing about was allowed to pass without heavy punishment for the ringleader…

  Captain Clark was in the box, and described the scenes on the beach that night as a Dante’s Inferno, with great bonfires blazing, hundreds of drunken men and women capering and fighting, mules laden to breaking point with spoils from his ship, assaults upon his poor shipwrecked crew, how he and two other men stood guard over the passengers with knives and a drawn sword to save them from being torn to pieces.

  When it was done there was an unaccustomed silence in the court. The sailor had brought the scene vividly to life, and it seemed that the people in the court were picturing it, some of them shocked that their countryfolk should have gone so far. Eventually Ross said: “Captain Clark, do you recall my coming to you on the beach and offering you and your crew shelter for the night in my house?”

  Clark said: “I do indeed, sir. It was the first act of common charity shown us on that dreadful night.”

  “Did you avail yourself of it?”

  “Yes, most certainly. Nineteen of us in all spent the night in your home.”

  “You were well treated there?”

  “Most kindly treated.”

  “Did you, while you were on the beach, hear me or see me encouraging anyone to wreck your ship?”

  “No, sir…I may say it was dark except for the bonfires. But I hadn’t set eyes on you until you came forward and offered us shelter.”

  “Thank you.” Ross leaned over and had a whispered consultation with Mr. Clymer. “Captain Clark, did you see the meeting between myself and the sergeant of dragoons?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there any quarrel between us?”

  “As far as I remember, you warned him not to go down to the beach and he accepted your warning.”

  “Would you consider it a friendly warning that I offered, meant to avoid bloodshed?”

  “It could have been. Yes, I think it’s fair to say so.”

  “There was no fight between us?”

  “Not when I was there, certainly not.”

  “Did I accompany you into the house?”

  “You did.”

  “Thank you.”

  “One moment, Captain,” said Henry Bull, whisking up as the sailor was about to leave the box. “How long did the accused stay with you when you entered the house?”

  “Oh, about ten minutes.”

  “And when did you see him next?”

  “About an hour later.”

  “Were there any excise men in the party when you met the troopers?”

  “Not that I saw or noticed.”

  “There was nothing, so far as you know, to prevent the accused leaving the house again as soon as you were settled, and having a further argument with the soldiers?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you. Call Captain Ephraim Trevail.”

  A short thin man came to the stand, and stated that he had witnessed the fight between the excise men and the soldiers, and verified that he had seen Ross as the ringleader and identified him as the man who had struck John Coppard down. So far as Ross knew he had never seen him before, but he could not shake his evidence. Mr. Jeffery Clymer passed up a note telling him not to press a hostile witness. Then Eli Clemmow was called and told exactly the same story. It was more than three years since Ross had seen this man. He felt his anger rise.

  When it was his turn to speak he said: “Where do you live, Clemmow?”

  The man’s lips slipped back to expose his prominent teeth. They were like a special malice which had been k
ept hidden until now. “Truro.”

  “How was it that you were at Hendrawna, nine miles away, when the wreck came in?”

  “I wasn’t. I ’eard tell about the first wreck and walked over to see the fun.”

  “At one time you lived on my land, didn’t you?”

  “Slight.”

  “But I turned you off, d’you remember, because you were a constant worry and disturbance to the neighbourhood.”

  “You mean you turned brother out of house and home—for doin’ nothing ’t all!”

  “You hate me for it, don’t you?”

  Eli checked. “Nay…nay. I care naught for ee.”

  Mr. Clymer passed Ross a note which read: “Can you shake him as to detail?”

  Ross said slowly: “Tell me, Clemmow, which of the two wrecks came in closest to my house?”

  The lips sucked but there was no reply. After a time Ross said: “Did you hear my question?”

  “Twas dark when I got there.”

  “Which was the bigger of the two ships?”

  After a long pause: “Pride o’ Madras.”

  “How many masts had she?”

  “…two or three.”

  “How did you know which she was?”

  “I ’eard tell.”

  “Was the bigger one nearest my house or farthest away?”

  Another pause.

  Ross said: “I suppose you saw the bonfire on Damsel Point?”

  “…Yes.”

  “There was no bonfire on Damsel Point or near it. You were never on Hendrawna Beach that night, were you? You never left Truro.”

  “Yes, I were! You’re only tryin’ to trick me!” Eli Clemmow’s face was white and tight. He went on to explain; but Mr. Henry Bull, rising again, cut him short.

  “Have you ever been to sea, Mr. Clemmow?”

  “Well—er—no, not so’s you could say ‘to sea.’ But—”

  “So that if there were two shipwrecks on a beach in the dark, some distance from each other, you might find it hard, having no expert knowledge, to say which was the larger?”

  “Yes, that’s true ’nough!”

  “Much harder, no doubt, than if you had helped actively to wreck the ships and assault the crews?”

  Eli nodded gratefully.

  “Did you notice where the bonfires were particularly?”

  “No. They was about—just ’ere and thur.”

  “How far were you from the struggle which developed between the prisoner and the excise men?”

  “Which it is alleged developed,” said Mr. Jeffery Clymer, getting up and sitting down again all in one movement.

  “Which it is alleged developed?”

  “Oh…close as you are to me.”

  “And the story you have told on oath—that is a true eyewitness account of what took place?”

  “Yes, true as I’m standing here!”

  ***

  Demelza’s faintness kept coming in waves. It would lean over her and then at the last moment move away again, leaving her shaken and sick. The excise man, Coppard, had been called, had confirmed the general story, but, to give him credit, had been vague as to whether he had been attacked by the accused or even whether the accused man had been there at all. The sergeant of dragoons had come and gone. The afternoon was half spent, and so far there had been no break for refreshments. Two street sellers had got in through the half-closed doors and were doing brisk if illicit business in the back rows. The heat and the smell were stifling.

  The last witness for the prosecution was Hick, the justice who had taken all the depositions, including Ross’s own. Some difficulty had arisen on the Truro bench when it became known that the law expected them to proceed with this case. Some of the magistrates were so favourably disposed towards the accused man that it would have been plainly unfair for them to have taken charge. Others, such as the Revd. Dr. Halse, were equally prejudiced against him. In the end the nonentity, Ephraim Hick, had been chosen to preside. Hick’s main interest was the brandy bottle—but the depositions had come through with a fair enough degree of impartiality.

  Hick now had to put in this testimony and this testimony was dangerous in the extreme.

  From the answers the prisoner had made at his interrogation it appeared that he fully admitted the charge of having roused the neighbourhood when the first wreck came in. To the question, “What purpose had you in mind?” he had answered, “There were families in the district who were starving.” Question, “Did you lead these people to the wreck?” Answer, “They needed no leading. They knew the district as well as I did.” Question, “Did you incite them to attack the crew of the Queen Charlotte?” Answer, “None of the crew of the Queen Charlotte was attacked.” “Were you the first to board her, and, if so, what was your purpose in so doing?” “My purpose was to see what cargo she carried.” “Was any of the crew left on board when you reached her?” “No, only one passenger, and he was dead.” “Was he dead when you reached the ship?” “Of course. Are you accusing me of murdering him?” “Did you help your friends to board the ship by means of a line?” “ Yes.” “Did you make any effort to get the body of the dead man ashore?” “None whatever.” “Did you help to wreck the ship and carry away its cargo?” “No.” “Were you present while this was being done?” “Yes.” “Did you make any attempt to stop it?” “None at all. I am not a magistrate.”“But you were the only gentleman present, the only person with sufficient authority to stop this plundering in its early stages?” “You exaggerate my influence.”

  Later on the interrogation went on: “Were you among the first persons to see the second shipwreck?” “I believe so.” “Did you encourage your friends to attack the crew of the Pride of Madras?” “Certainly not.” “Did you stand by and let them be assaulted without protest?” “They were not assaulted by any men known to me. By this time great numbers of miners were on the beach from farther afield.” “That doesn’t answer my question.” “It is all the answer I can give you. I was not able to be in every place at the same time.” “But you went aboard the Pride of Madras?” “I did.” “Long before offering the shipwrecked sailors any help?” “Some time before.” “Did you approve of this riot which had started?” “I did not consider it a riot.” “Do you approve of it now?” “Do you approve of whole families being without enough food to keep them alive?”

  At the end the accused had denied all knowledge of the attack upon the soldiers and excise men.

  This concluded the Crown’s case.

  There were only five witnesses for the defence. First were John and Jane Gimlett, who were called to testify that the prisoner had not left the house again after entering it with the shipwrecked crew. The first hour, while they were serving hot drinks to the castaways, he had spent by the bedside of his sleeping wife, who was seriously ill. Henry Bull did much to intimidate them but nothing at all to shake them. If the prisoner had left the house again it could not have been until very much later—until well after the time of the assault. Then came Zacky Martin and “Whitehead” Scoble, who testified to Ross’s seemly behaviour at an earlier stage. Last witness was Dwight Enys.

  He did not know how the case had gone up to this time. The sun was out now, and beat down through the tall windows. Among the spectators he caught sight of a vivid auburn head. So she was here as she had said.

  It was a strange position to be confronted by Ross and asked to give his testimony. After speaking for a moment or two he turned more directly to the judge.

  “My lord, I am the physician who attended on Captain Poldark’s wife and child during their attack of malignant sore throat (morbus strangulatorius). During this attack I was very constantly in the house, and I know that Captain Poldark had had no sleep for almost a week. His only child died, and she was buried the day before the wreck. His wife was still dangerously ill. I attended him profes
sionally the night before the wreck, and formed the opinion that he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. That breakdown, I consider, did take place—and any strangeness in his actions during the next two days is almost wholly to be attributed to that condition.”

  There was silence. Everyone was listening intently now. Henry Bull glanced at Ross, whisked his gown and got up. This witness’s testimony was dangerous to the prosecution’s case.

  “You are an apothecary, Dr. Enys?”

  “No. A physician.”

  “I understand that is a distinction without a difference—at least in the provinces.”

  “I don’t know all the provinces. In fact there’s a very great difference.”

  “Cannot almost any man set himself up as a physician if he wants to?”

  “He has no right to.”

  “What right have you?”

  “I am a licentiate of the London College of Physicians.”

  Mr. Bull stared out of the window. He had not expected that reply.

  “You have travelled a long way to practise, Dr. Enys.”

  “I am a Cornishman by birth.”

  “How old are you, may I ask?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “And have you been qualified long?”

  “Nearly three years.”

  “Three years. And under whom did you study in London?”

  “I studied the theory and practice of physic under Dr. Fordyce in Essex Street, midwifery under Dr. Leake in Craven Street—and some surgery with Mr. Percival Pott at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.”

  “Oh, surgery too! Very interesting. And under whom did you study mental afflictions?”

  “Under no one in particular…”

  “Then your views on the subject can hardly be expected to carry much weight, can they?”

  Dwight stared at the King’s attorney. “You must know, sir, that no practical medical instruction is available on this subject. It is one of which knowledge can only be gained by clinical experience—”

  “Which no doubt you must have had in great measure.”

  “…I have had some experience. I couldn’t say in great measure.”