A Martyr to Conscience by Bernard Capes

Name: A Martyr to Conscience
Author: Bernard Capes

Joshua Plumley, a prosperous, self-satisfied widower, appears before a magistrate as a “conscientious objector” or passive resister, refusing to pay an order made against him. Though he affects principled defiance, he privately plans to turn the resulting distraint to his own profit. He tells his impoverished former servant Robert Gardener that auctioneers Bull and Hacker will seize his goods and asks him to hint that an apparently worthless picture, “The Wood Shop,” is valuable. Plumley wants it selected for seizure and sold at auction, where Gardener is to bid it up to fifty pounds against a supposed dealer. Plumley presents the manoeuvre as a triumph of conscience: by submitting to an unjust law while profiting from it, he imagines himself defeating it. In reality, he has learned that Gardener has inherited fifty pounds from an aunt and intends to induce the trusting man to spend it. Gardener reluctantly agrees to bid, while Plumley secretly hires the theatrical Theophilus Bolton to pose as the competing dealer. Their written agreement gives Bolton five per cent of the picture’s ultimate auction price, though Plumley expects the price to stop at fifty pounds and promises him only two pounds ten. The auctioneers seize the picture as Plumley intended. At the sale, Gardener and Bolton bid against one another until Gardener reaches fifty pounds, where Bolton withdraws, leaving him the buyer. Gardener is stunned at having committed his whole inheritance. Then two delayed buyers arrive, eager for the picture. With Gardener persuaded to resell it immediately, the painting is offered again and proves to be a valuable work by Adrian Ostade. It brings a thousand pounds. The lawyer Bittern confronts Plumley, having settled Gardener’s debt to Bull and Hacker and brought Plumley the net proceeds of the distraint. He reveals the thousand-pound resale and condemns Plumley’s scheme as a cruel attempt by a hypocritical “martyr to conscience” to rob a poor dependent. Plumley rages that the affair was a conspiracy and insists the picture and its value were his. Bittern threatens to expose the whole plot. Bolton then arrives to demand his contractual commission: five per cent of the picture’s ultimate selling price, or fifty pounds. Plumley claims the sale was only fifty pounds and offers the smaller sum he expected to pay, but Bolton cites their agreement and warns that he can sell it to the other party if Plumley refuses.

By Bernard Capes · First published 1902 · Genre: Satirical Fiction, Victorian Social Realism, Moral Tale · 4,583 words

First lines

"I have nothing to do with your scruples," said the magistrate; "the law is the law, and I am here to administer it."

Mr. Plumley licked his hand, and stolidly smoothing down his black hair with it, answered, as if at a distance, being a well-fed, unctuous man, "too full for sound and foam," "I'm a conscientious objector."

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A Martyr to Conscience is listed on Textopian as a short story by Bernard Capes, dated 1902 CE.

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Work type: Short story
Author: Bernard Capes
Date: 1902 CE
Language: English
Genres: Satirical Fiction, Victorian Social Realism, Moral Tale, Literary Fiction, Dark Comedy
Length: 4,583 words
Structure: 1 section, 144 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Genres

Satirical Fiction — The story sharply satirizes bourgeois respectability, religious cant, self-proclaimed conscience, and Mr. Plumley's hypocritical attempt to profit from passive resistance.
Victorian Social Realism — Its detailed depiction of suburban domestic life, class dependence, commerce, chapel culture, debt, and auction practices places it firmly in late-Victorian social observation.
Moral Tale — The plot is structured around Plumley's exploitation of the poorer Gardener, ending in an ironic reversal that punishes greed, hypocrisy, and false moral posturing.
Literary Fiction — The work relies on elaborate characterization, ironic narration, vivid prose, social commentary, and a carefully engineered final reversal rather than genre convention alone.