upon their shrunk limbs. In choosing their delegates, too, the operatives had had more regard to their brains, and power of speech, than to their wardrobes; they might have read the opinions of that worthy Professor Teufelsdreck, in Sartor Resartus, to judge from the dilapidated coats and trousers, which yet clothed men of parts and of power. It was long since many of them had known the luxury of a new article of dress; and air-gaps were to be seen in their garments. Some of the masters were rather affronted at such a ragged detachment coming between the wind and their nobility; but what cared they.
At the request of a gentleman hastily chosen to officiate as chairman, the leader of the delegates read, in a high-pitched, psalm-singing voice, a paper, containing the operatives’ statement of the case at issue, their complaints, and their demands, which last were not remarkable for moderation.
He was then desired to withdraw for a few minutes, with his fellow-delegates, to another room, while the masters considered what should be their definite answer.
When the men had left the room, a whispered earnest consultation took place, every one re-urging his former arguments. The conceders carried the day, but only by a majority of one. The minority haughtily and audibly expressed their dissent from the measures to be adopted, even after the delegates re-entered the room; their words and looks did not pass unheeded by the quick-eyed operatives; their names were registered in bitter hearts.
The masters could not consent to the advance demanded by the workmen. They would agree to give one shilling per week more than they had previously offered. Were the delegates empowered to accept such offer?
They were empowered to accept or decline any offer made that day by the masters.
Then it might be as well for them to consult among themselves as to what should be their decision. They again withdrew.
It was not for long. They came back, and positively declined any compromise of their demands.
Then up sprang Mr. Henry Carson, the head and voice of the violent party among the masters, and addressing the chairman, even before the scowling operatives, he proposed some resolutions, which he, and those who agreed with him, had been concocting during this last absence of the deputation.
They were, firstly, withdrawing the proposal just made, and declaring all communication between the masters and that particular Trades’ Union at an end; secondly, declaring that no master would employ any workman in future, unless he signed a declaration that he did not belong to any Trades’ Union, and pledged himself not to assist or subscribe to any society, having for its object interference with the masters’ powers; and, thirdly, that the masters should pledge themselves to protect and encourage all workmen willing to accept employment on those conditions, and at the rate of wages first offered. Considering that the men who now stood listening with lowering brows of defiance were all of them leading members of the Union, such resolutions were in themselves sufficiently provocative of animosity: but not content with simply stating them, Harry Carson went on to characterise the conduct of the workmen in no measured terms; every word he spoke rendering their looks more livid, their glaring eyes more fierce. One among them would have spoken, but checked himself, in obedience to the stern glance and pressure on his arm, received from the leader. Mr. Carson sat down, and a friend instantly got up to second the motion. It was carried, but far from unanimously. The chairman announced it to the delegates (who had been once more turned out of the room for a division). They received it with deep brooding silence, but spake never a word, and left the room without even a bow.
Now there had been some by-play at this meeting, not recorded in the Manchester newspapers, which gave an account of the more regular part of the transaction.
While the men had stood grouped near the door, on their first entrance, Mr. Harry Carson had taken out his silver pencil, and had drawn an admirable caricature of them–lank, ragged, dispirited, and famine-stricken. Underneath he wrote a hasty quotation from the fat knight’s well-known speech in Henry IV. He passed it to one of his neighbours, who acknowledged the likeness instantly, and by him it was sent round to others, who all smiled and nodded their heads. When it came back to its owner he tore the back of the letter on which it was drawn in two, twisted them up, and flung them into the fireplace; but, careless whether they reached their aim or not, he did not look to see that they fell just short of any consuming cinders.
This proceeding was closely observed by one of the men.
He watched the masters as they left the hotel (laughing, some of them were, at passing jokes), and when all had gone, he re-entered. He went to the waiter, who recognised him.
“There’s a bit on a picture up yonder, as one o’ the gentlemen threw away; I’ve a little lad at home as dearly loves a picture; by your leave I’ll go up for it.”
The waiter, good-natured and sympathetic, accompanied him upstairs; saw the paper picked up and untwisted, and then being convinced, by a hasty glance at its contents, that it was only what the man had called it, “a bit of a picture,” he allowed him to bear away his prize.
Towards seven o’clock that evening, many operatives began to assemble in a room in the Weavers’ Arms public-house, a room appropriated for “festive occasions,” as the landlord, in his circular, on opening the premises, had described it. But, alas! it was on no festive occasion that they met there this night. Starved, irritated, despairing men, they were assembling to hear the answer that morning given by the masters to their delegates; after which, as was stated in the notice, a gentleman from London would have the honour of addressing the meeting on the present state of affairs between the employers and the employed, or (as he chose to term them) the idle and the industrious classes. The room was not large, but its bareness of furniture made it appear so. Unshaded gas flared down upon the lean and unwashed artisans as they entered, their eyes blinking at the excess of light.
They took their seats on benches, and awaited the deputation. The latter, gloomily and ferociously, delivered the masters’ ultimatum, adding thereto not one word of their own; and it sank all the deeper into the sore hearts of the listeners for their forbearance.
Then the “gentleman from London” (who had been previously informed of the masters’ decision) entered. You would have been puzzled to define his exact position, or what was the state of his mind as regarded education. He looked so self-conscious, so far from earnest, among the group of eager, fierce, absorbed men, among whom he now stood. He might have been a disgraced medical student of the Bob Sawyer class, or an unsuccessful actor, or a flashy shopman. The impression he would have given you would have been unfavourable, and yet there was much about him that could only be characterised as doubtful.
He smirked in acknowledgment of their uncouth greetings, and sat down; then glancing round, he inquired whether it would not be agreeable to the gentlemen present to have pipes and liquor handed round, adding, that he would stand treat.
As the man who has had his taste educated to love reading, falls devouringly upon books after a long abstinence, so these poor fellows, whose tastes had been left to educate themselves into a liking for tobacco, beer, and similar gratifications, gleamed up at the proposal of the London delegate. Tobacco and drink deaden the pangs of hunger, and make one forget the miserable home, the desolate future.
They were now ready to listen to him with approbation. He felt it; and rising like a great orator, with his right arm outstretched, his left in the breast of his waistcoat, he began to declaim, with a forced theatrical voice.
After a burst of eloquence, in which he blended the deeds of the elder and the younger Brutus, and magnified the resistless might of the “millions of Manchester,” the Londoner descended to matter-of-fact business, and in his capacity this way he did not belie the good judgment of those who had sent him as a delegate. Masses of people, when left to their own free choice, seem to have discretion in distinguishing men of natural talent: it is a pity they so little regard temper and principles. He rapidly dictated resolutions, and suggested measures. He wrote out a stirring placard for the walls. He proposed sending delegates to entreat the assistance of other Trades’ Unions in other towns. He headed the list of subscribing Unions, by a liberal donation from that with which he was especially connected in London; and what was more, and more uncommon, he paid down the money in real, clinking, blinking, golden sovereigns! The money, alas! was cravingly required; but before alleviating any private necessities on the morrow, small sums were handed to each of the delegates, who were in a day or two to set out on their expeditions to Glasgow, Newcastle, Nottingham, etc. These men were most of them members of the deputation who had that morning waited upon the masters. After he had drawn up some letters, and spoken a few more stirring words, the gentleman from London withdrew, previously shaking hands all round; and many speedily followed him out of the room, and out of the house.
The newly-appointed delegates, and one or two others, remained behind to talk over their respective missions, and to give and exchange opinions in more homely and natural language than they dared to use before the London orator.
“He’s a rare chap, yon,” began one, indicating the departed delegate by a jerk of his thumb towards the door. “He’s getten the gift of the gab, anyhow!”
“Ay! ay! he knows what he’s about. See how he poured it into us about that there Brutus. He were pretty hard, too, to kill his own son!”
“I could kill mine if he took part with the masters; to be sure, he’s but a step-son, but that makes no odds,” said another.
But now tongues were hushed, and all eyes were directed towards the member of the deputation who had that morning returned to the hotel to obtain possession of Harry Carson’s clever caricature of the operatives.
The heads clustered together, to gaze at and detect the likenesses.
“That’s John Slater! I’d ha’ known him anywhere, by his big nose. Lord! how like; that’s me, by G-d, it’s the very way I’m obligated to pin my waistcoat up, to hide that I’ve getten no shirt. That IS a shame, and I’ll not stand it.”
“Well!” said John Slater, after having acknowledged his nose and his likeness; “I could laugh at a jest as well as e’er the best on ’em, though it did tell agen mysel, if I were not clemming” (his eyes filled with tears; he was a poor, pinched, sharp-featured man, with a gentle and melancholy expression of countenance), “and if I could keep from thinking of them at home, as is clemming; but with their cries for food ringing in my ears, and making me afeard of going home, and wonder if I should hear ’em wailing out, if I lay cold and drowned at th’ bottom o’ th’ canal, there–why, man, I cannot laugh at aught. It seems to make me sad that there is any as can make game on what they’ve never knowed; as can make such laughable pictures on men, whose very hearts within ’em are so raw and sore as ours were and are, God help us.”
John Barton began to speak; they turned to him with great attention. “It makes me more than sad, it makes my heart burn within me, to see that folk can make a jest of striving men; of chaps who comed to ask for a bit o’ fire for th’ old granny, as shivers i’ th’ cold; for a bit o’ bedding, and some warm clothing to the poor wife who lies in labour on th’ damp flags; and for victuals for the childer, whose little voices are getting too faint and weak to cry aloud wi’ hunger. For, brothers, is not them the things we ask for when we ask for more wage? We donnot want dainties, we want bellyfuls; we donnot want gimcrack coats and waistcoats, we want warm clothes; and so that we get ’em, we’d not quarrel wi’ what they’re made on. We donnot want their grand houses, we want a roof to cover us from the rain, and the snow, and the storm; ay, and not alone to cover us, but the helpless ones that cling to us in the keen wind, and ask us with their eyes why we brought ’em into th’ world to suffer?”
He lowered his deep voice almost to a whisper–
“I’ve seen a father who had killed his child rather than let it clem before his eyes; and he were a tender-hearted man.”
He began again in his usual tone. “We come to th’ masters wi’ full hearts, to ask for them things I named afore. We know that they’ve getten money, as we’ve earned for ’em; we know trade is mending, and they’ve large orders, for which they’ll be well paid; we ask for our share o’ th’ payment; for, say we, if th’ masters get our share of payment it will only go to keep servants and horses–to more dress and pomp. Well and good, if yo choose to be fools we’ll not hinder you, so long as you’re just; but our share we must and will have; we’ll not be cheated. We want it for daily bread, for life itself; and not for our own lives neither (for there’s many a one here, I know by mysel, as would be glad and thankful to lie down and die out o’ this weary world), but for the lives of them little ones, who don’t yet know what life is, and are afeard of death. Well, we come before th’ masters to state what we want, and what we must have, afore we’ll set shoulder to their work; and they say, ‘No.’ One would think that would be enough of hard-heartedness, but it isn’t. They go and make jesting pictures on us! I could laugh at mysel, as well as poor John Slater there; but then I must be easy in my mind to laugh. Now I only know that I would give the last drop of my blood to avenge us on yon chap, who had so little feeling in him as to make game on earnest, suffering men!”
A low angry murmur was heard among the men, but it did not yet take form or words. John continued–
“You’ll wonder, chaps, how I came to miss the time this morning; I’ll just tell you what I was a-doing. Th’ chaplain at the New Bailey sent and gived me an order to see Jonas Higginbotham; him as was taken up last week for throwing vitriol in a knob-stick’s face. Well, I couldn’t help but go; and I didn’t reckon it would ha’ kept me so late. Jonas were like one crazy when I got to him; he said he could na get rest night or day for th’ face of the poor fellow he had damaged; then he thought on his weak, clemmed look, as he tramped, footsore, into town; and Jonas thought, maybe, he had left them at home as would look for news, and hope and get none, but, haply, tidings of his death. Well, Jonas had thought on these things till he could not rest, but walked up and down continually like a wild beast in his cage. At last he bethought him on a way to help a bit, and he got the chaplain to send for me; and he telled me this; and that th’ man were lying in the Infirmary, and he bade me go (to-day’s the day as folk may be admitted into th’ Infirmary) and get his silver watch, as was his mother’s, and sell it as well as I could, and take the money, and bid the poor knob-stick send it to his friends beyond Burnley; and I were to take him Jonas’s kind regards, and he humbly axed him to forgive him. So I did what Jonas wished. But, bless your life, none on us would ever throw vitriol again (at least at a knob-stick) if they could see the sight I saw to-day. The man lay, his face all wrapped in cloths, so I didn’t see that: but not a limb, nor a bit of a limb, could keep from quivering with pain. He would ha’ bitten his hand to keep down his moans, but couldn’t, his face hurt him so if he moved it e’er so little. He could scarce mind me when I telled him about Jonas; he did squeeze my hand when I jingled the money, but when I axed his wife’s name, he shrieked out, ‘Mary, Mary, shall I never see you again? Mary, my darling, they’ve made me blind because I wanted to work for you and our own baby; O Mary, Mary!’ Then the nurse came, and said he were raving, and that I had made him worse. And I’m afeard it was true; yet I were loth to go without knowing where to send the money. . . . . So that kept me beyond my time, chaps.”
“Did you hear where the wife lived at last?” asked many anxious voices.
“No! he went on talking to her, till his words cut my heart like a knife. I axed th’ nurse to find out who she was, and where she lived. But what I’m more especial naming it now for is this,–for one thing I wanted you all to know why I weren’t at my post this morning; for another, I wish to say, that I, for one, ha’ seen enough of what comes of attacking knob-sticks, and I’ll ha’ nought to do with it no more.”
There were some expressions of disapprobation, but John did not mind them.
“Nay! I’m no coward,” he replied, “and I’m true to th’ backbone. What I would like, and what I would do, would be to fight the masters. There’s one among yo called me a coward. Well! every man has a right to his opinion; but since I’ve thought on th’ matter to-day I’ve thought we han all on us been more like cowards in attacking the poor like ourselves; them as has none to help, but mun choose between vitriol and starvation. I say we’re more cowardly in doing that than in leaving them alone. No! what I would do is this. Have at the masters!” Again he shouted, “Have at the masters!” He spoke lower; all listened with hushed breath–
“It’s the masters as has wrought this woe; it’s the masters as should pay for it. Him as called me coward just now, may try if I am one or not. Set me to serve out the masters, and see if there’s aught I’ll stick at.”
“It would give the masters a bit on a fright if one of them were beaten within an inch of his life,” said one.
“Ay! or beaten till no life were left in him,” growled another.
And so with words, or looks that told more than words, they built up a deadly plan. Deeper and darker grew the import of their speeches, as they stood hoarsely muttering their meaning out, and glaring with eyes that told the terror their own thoughts were to them, upon their neighbours. Their clenched fists, their set teeth, their livid looks, all told the suffering which their minds were voluntarily undergoing in the contemplation of crime, and in familiarising themselves with its details.
Then came one of those fierce terrible oaths which bind members of Trades’ Unions to any given purpose. Then under the flaring gaslight, they met together to consult further. With the distrust of guilt, each was suspicious of his neighbour; each dreaded the treachery of another. A number of pieces of paper (the identical letter on which the caricature had been drawn that very morning) were torn up, and one was marked. Then all were folded up again, looking exactly alike. They were shuffled together in a hat. The gas was extinguished; each drew out a paper. The gas was re-lighted. Then each went as far as he could from his fellows, and examined the paper he had drawn without saying a word, and with a countenance as stony and immovable as he could make it.
Then, still rigidly silent, they each took up their hats and went every one his own way.
He who had drawn the marked paper had drawn the lot of the assassin! and he had sworn to act according to his drawing! But no one, save God and his own conscience, knew who was the appointed murderer.
XVII. BARTON’S NIGHT-ERRAND,
“Mournful is’t to say Farewell,
Though for few brief hours we part; In that absence, who can tell
What may come to wring the heart!” –ANONYMOUS.
The events recorded in the last chapter took place on a Tuesday. On Thursday afternoon Mary was surprised, in the midst of some little bustle in which she was engaged, by the entrance of Will Wilson. He looked strange, at least it was strange to see any different expression on his face to his usual joyous beaming appearance. He had a paper parcel in his hand. He came in, and sat down, more quietly than usual.
“Why, Will! what’s the matter with you? You seem quite cut up about something!”
“And I am, Mary! I’m come to say good-bye; and few folk like to say good-bye to them they love.”
“Good-bye! Bless me, Will, that’s sudden, isn’t it?”
Mary left off ironing, and came and stood near the fireplace. She had always liked Will; but now it seemed as if a sudden spring of sisterly love had gushed up in her heart, so sorry did she feel to hear of his approaching departure.
“It’s very sudden, isn’t it?” said she, repeating the question.
“Yes, it’s very sudden,” said he dreamily. “No, it isn’t”; rousing himself to think of what he was saying. “The captain told me in a fortnight he would be ready to sail again; but it comes very sudden on me, I had got so fond of you all.”
Mary understood the particular fondness that was thus generalised. She spoke again.
“But it’s not a fortnight since you came. Not a fortnight since you knocked at Jane Wilson’s door, and I was there, you remember. Nothing like a fortnight!”
“No; I know it’s not. But, you see, I got a letter this afternoon from Jack Harris, to tell me our ship sails on Tuesday next; and it’s long since I promised my uncle (my mother’s brother, him that lives at Kirk-Christ, beyond Ramsay, in the Isle of Man) that I’d go and see him and his, this time of coming ashore. I must go. I’m sorry enough; but I mustn’t slight poor mother’s friends. I must go. Don’t try to keep me,” said he, evidently fearing the strength of his own resolution, if hard pressed by entreaty.
“I’m not a-going, Will. I dare say you’re right; only I can’t help feeling sorry you’re going away. It seems so flat to be left behind. When do you go?”
“To-night. I shan’t see you again.”
“To-night! and you go to Liverpool! Maybe you and father will go together. He’s going to Glasgow, by way of Liverpool.”
“No! I’m walking; and I don’t think your father will be up to walking.”
“Well! and why on earth are you walking? You can get by railway for three-and-sixpence.”
“Ay, but Mary! (thou mustn’t let out what I’m going to tell thee) I haven’t got three shillings, no, nor even a sixpence left, at least, not here; before I came I gave my landlady enough to carry me to the island and back, and maybe a trifle for presents, and I brought the rest here; and it’s all gone but this,” jingling a few coppers in his hand.
“Nay, never fret over my walking a matter of thirty mile,” added he, as he saw she looked grave and sorry. “It’s a fine clear night, and I shall set off betimes, and get in afore the Manx packet sails. Where’s your father going? To Glasgow did you say? Perhaps he and I may have a bit of a trip together then, for, if the Manx boat has sailed when I get into Liverpool, I shall go by a Scotch packet. What’s he going to do in Glasgow?–Seek for work? Trade is as bad there as here, folk say.”
“No; he knows that,” answered Mary sadly. “I sometimes think he’ll never get work again, and that trade will never mend. It’s very hard to keep up one’s heart. I wish I were a boy, I’d go to sea with you. It would be getting away from bad news at any rate; and now, there’s hardly a creature that crosses the door-step, but has something sad and unhappy to tell one. Father is going as a delegate from his Union, to ask help from the Glasgow folk. He’s starting this evening.”
Mary sighed, for the feeling again came over her that it was very flat to be left alone.
“You say no one crosses the threshold but has something sad to say; you don’t mean that Margaret Jennings has any trouble?” asked the young sailor anxiously.
“No!” replied Mary, smiling a little; “she’s the only one I know, I believe, who seems free from care. Her blindness almost appears a blessing sometimes; she was so down-hearted when she dreaded it, and now she seems so calm and happy when it’s downright come. No! Margaret’s happy, I do think.”
“I could almost wish it had been otherwise,” said Will thoughtfully. “I could have been so glad to comfort her, and cherish her, if she had been in trouble.”
“And why can’t you cherish her, even though she is happy?” asked Mary.
“Oh! I don’t know. She seems so much better than I am! And her voice! When I hear it, and think of the wishes that are in my heart, it seems as much out of place to ask her to be my wife, as it would be to ask an angel from heaven.”
Mary could not help laughing outright, in spite of her depression, at the idea of Margaret as an angel; it was so difficult (even to her dressmaking imagination) to fancy where, and how, the wings would be fastened to the brown stuff gown, or the blue and yellow print.
Will laughed, too, a little, out of sympathy with Mary’s pretty merry laugh. Then he said–
“Ay, you may laugh, Mary: it only shows you’ve never been in love.”
In an instant Mary was carnation colour, and the tears sprang to her soft grey eyes. She that was suffering so much from the doubts arising from love! It was unkind of him. He did not notice her change of look and of complexion. He only noticed that she was silent, so he continued–
“I thought–I think, that when I come back from this voyage, I will speak. It’s my fourth voyage in the same ship and with the same captain, and he’s promised he’ll make me a second mate after this trip; then I shall have something to offer Margaret; and her grandfather, and Aunt Alice, shall live with her, and keep her from being lonesome while I’m at sea. I’m speaking as if she cared for me, and would marry me; d’ye think she does care at all for me, Mary?” asked he anxiously.
Mary had a very decided opinion of her own on the subject, but she did not feel as if she had any right to give it. So she said–
“You must ask Margaret, not me, Will; she’s never named your name to me.” His countenance fell. “But I should say that was a good sign from a girl like her. I’ve no right to say what I think; but, if I was you, I would not leave her now without speaking.”
“No! I cannot speak! I have tried. I’ve been in to wish them good-bye, and my voice stuck in my throat. I could say nought of what I’d planned to say; and I never thought of being so bold as to offer her marriage till I’d been my next trip, and been made mate. I could not even offer her this box,” said he, undoing his paper parcel and displaying a gaudily ornamented accordion; “I longed to buy her something, and I thought, if it were something in the music line, she would maybe fancy it more. So, will you give it to her, Mary, when I’m gone? and, if you can slip in something tender,– something, you know, of what I feel–maybe she would listen to you, Mary.”
Mary promised that she would do all that he asked.
“I shall be thinking on her many and many a night, when I’m keeping my watch in mid-sea; I wonder if she will ever think on me when the wind is whistling, and the gale rising. You’ll often speak of me to her, Mary? And if I should meet with any mischance, tell her how dear, how very dear, she was to me, and bid her, for the sake of one who loved her well, try and comfort my poor aunt Alice. Dear old aunt! you and Margaret will often go and see her, won’t you? She’s sadly failed since I was last ashore. And so good as she has been! When I lived with her, a little wee chap, I used to be wakened by the neighbours knocking her up; this one was ill, and that body’s child was restless; and for as tired as ever she might be, she would be up and dressed in a twinkling, never thinking of the hard day’s wash afore her next morning. Them were happy times! How pleased I used to be when she would take me into the fields with her to gather herbs! I’ve tasted tea in China since then, but it wasn’t half so good as the herb tea she used to make for me o’ Sunday nights. And she knew such a deal about plants and birds, and their ways. She used to tell me long stories about her childhood, and we used to plan how we would go some time, please God (that was always her word), and live near her old home beyond Lancaster; in the very cottage where she was born, if we could get it. Dear! and how different it is! Here is she still in a back street o’ Manchester, never likely to see her own home again; and I, a sailor, off for America next week. I wish she had been able to go to Burton once afore she died.”
“She would maybe have found all sadly changed,” said Mary, though her heart echoed Will’s feeling.
“Ay! ay! I dare say it’s best. One thing I do wish though, and I have often wished it when out alone on the deep sea, when even the most thoughtless can’t choose but think on th’ past and th’ future; and that is, that I’d never grieved her. O Mary! many a hasty word comes sorely back on the heart when one thinks one shall never see the person whom one has grieved again!”
They both stood thinking. Suddenly Mary started.
“That’s father’s step. And his shirt’s not ready!”
She hurried to her irons, and tried to make up for lost time.
John Barton came in. Such a haggard and wildly anxious-looking man, Will thought he had never seen. He looked at Will, but spoke no word of greeting or welcome.
“I’m come to bid you good-bye,” said the sailor, and would in his sociable friendly humour have gone on speaking. But John answered abruptly–
“Good-bye to ye, then.”
There was that in his manner which left no doubt of his desire to get rid of the visitor, and Will accordingly shook hands with Mary, and looked at John, as if doubting how far to offer to shake hands with him. But he met with no answering glance or gesture, so he went his way, stopping for an instant at the door to say–
“You’ll think on me on Tuesday, Mary. That’s the day we shall hoist our blue Peter, Jack Harris says.”
Mary was heartily sorry when the door closed; it seemed like shutting out a friendly sunbeam. And her father! what could be the matter with him? He was so restless; not speaking (she wished he would), but starting up and then sitting down, and meddling with her irons; he seemed so fierce, too, to judge from his face. She wondered if he disliked Will being there; or if he were vexed to find that she had not got further on with her work. At last she could bear his nervous way no longer, it made her equally nervous and fidgety. She would speak.
“When are you going, father? I don’t know the time o’ the trains.”
“And why shouldst thou know?” replied he gruffly. “Meddle with thy ironing, but donnot be asking questions about what doesn’t concern thee.”
“I wanted to get you something to eat first,” answered she gently.
“Thou dost not know that I’m larning to do without food,” said he.
Mary looked at him to see if he spoke jestingly. No! he looked savagely grave.
She finished her bit of ironing, and began preparing the food she was sure her father needed; for by this time her experience in the degrees of hunger had taught her that his present irritability was increased, if not caused by want of food.
He had had a sovereign given him to pay his expenses as delegate to Glasgow, and out of this he had given Mary a few shillings in the morning; so she had been able to buy a sufficient meal, and now her care was to cook it so as to tempt him.
“If thou’rt doing that for me, Mary, thou mayst spare thy labour. I telled thee I were not for eating.”
“Just a little bit, father, before starting,” coaxed Mary perseveringly.
At that instant who should come in but Job Legh. It was not often he came, but when he did pay visits, Mary knew from past experience they were anything but short. Her father’s countenance fell back into the deep gloom from which it was but just emerging at the sound of Mary’s sweet voice, and pretty pleading. He became again restless and fidgety, scarcely giving Job Legh the greeting necessary for a host in his own house. Job, however, did not stand upon ceremony. He had come to pay a visit, and was not to be daunted from his purpose. He was interested in John Barton’s mission to Glasgow, and wanted to hear all about it; so he sat down, and made himself comfortable, in a manner that Mary saw was meant to be stationary.
“So thou’rt off to Glasgow, art thou?” he began his catechism.
“Ay.”
“When art starting?”
“To-night.”
“That I knowed. But by what train?”
That was just what Mary wanted to know; but what apparently her father was in no mood to tell. He got up without speaking, and went upstairs. Mary knew from his step, and his way, how much he was put out, and feared Job would see it too! But no! Job seemed imperturbable. So much the better, and perhaps she could cover her father’s rudeness by her own civility to so kind a friend.
So, half-listening to her father’s movements upstairs (passionate, violent, restless motions they were), and half-attending to Job Legh, she tried to pay him all due regard.
“When does thy father start, Mary?”
That plaguing question again.
“Oh! very soon. I’m just getting him a bit of supper. Is Margaret very well?”
“Yes, she’s well enough. She’s meaning to go and keep Alice Wilson company for an hour or so this evening: as soon as she thinks her nephew will have started for Liverpool; for she fancies the old woman will feel a bit lonesome. Th’ Union is paying for your father, I suppose?”
“Yes, they’ve given him a sovereign. You’re one of th’ Union, Job?”
“Ay! I’m one, sure enough; but I’m but a sleeping partner in the concern. I were obliged to become a member for peace, else I don’t go along with ’em. Yo see they think themselves wise, and me silly, for differing with them. Well! there’s no harm in that. But then they won’t let me be silly in peace and quietness, but will force me to be as wise as they are; now that’s not British liberty, I say. I’m forced to be wise according to their notions, else they parsecute me, and sarve me out.”
What could her father be doing upstairs? Tramping and banging about. Why did he not come down? Or why did not Job go? The supper would be spoilt.
But Job had no notion of going.
“You see my folly is this, Mary. I would take what I could get; I think half a loaf is better than no bread. I would work for low wages rather than sit idle and starve. But, comes the Trades’ Union, and says, ‘Well, if you take the half-loaf, we’ll worry you out of your life. Will you be clemmed, or will you be worried?’ Now clemming is a quiet death, and worrying isn’t, so I choose clemming, and come into th’ Union. But I’d wish they’d leave me free, if I am a fool.”
Creak, creak, went the stairs. Her father was coming down at last.
Yes, he came down, but more doggedly fierce than before, and made up for his journey, too; with his little bundle on his arm. He went up to Job, and, more civilly than Mary expected, wished him good-bye. He then turned to her, and in a short cold manner, bade her farewell.
“Oh! father, don’t go yet. Your supper is all ready. Stay one moment.”
But he pushed her away, and was gone. She followed him to the door, her eyes blinded by sudden tears; she stood there looking after him. He was so strange, so cold, so hard. Suddenly, at the end of the court, he turned, and saw her standing there; he came back quickly, and took her in his arms.
“God bless thee, Mary!–God in heaven bless thee, poor child!” She threw her arms round his neck.
“Don’t go yet, father; I can’t bear you to go yet. Come in, and eat some supper; you look so ghastly; dear father, do!”
“No,” he said, faintly and mournfully. “It’s best as it is. I couldn’t eat, and it’s best to be off. I cannot be still at home. I must be moving.”
So saying, he unlaced her soft twining arms, and kissing her once more, set off on his fierce errand.
And he was out of sight! She did not know why, but she had never before felt so depressed, so desolate. She turned in to Job, who sat there still. Her father, as soon as he was out of sight, slackened his pace, and fell into that heavy listless step which told, as well as words could do, of hopelessness and weakness. It was getting dark, but he loitered on, returning no greeting to any one.
A child’s cry caught his ear. His thoughts were running on little Tom; on the dead and buried child of happier years. He followed the sound of the wail, that might have been HIS, and found a poor little mortal, who had lost his way, and whose grief had choked up his thoughts to the single want, “Mammy, mammy.” With tender address, John Barton soothed the little laddie, and with beautiful patience he gathered fragments of meaning from the half-spoken words which came mingled with sobs from the terrified little heart. So, aided by inquiries here and there from a passer-by, he led and carried the little fellow home, where his mother had been too busy to miss him, but now received him with thankfulness, and with an eloquent Irish blessing. When John heard the words of blessing, he shook his head mournfully and turned away to retrace his steps.
Let us leave him.
Mary took her sewing after he had gone, and sat on, and sat on, trying to listen to Job, who was more inclined to talk than usual. She had conquered her feeling of impatience towards him so far as to be able to offer him her father’s rejected supper; and she even tried to eat herself. But her heart failed her. A leaden weight seemed to hang over her; a sort of presentiment of evil, or perhaps only an excess of low-spirited feeling in consequence of the two departures which had taken place that afternoon.
She wondered how long Job Legh would sit. She did not like putting down her work, and crying before him, and yet she had never in her life longed so much to be alone in order to indulge in a good hearty burst of tears.
“Well, Mary,” she suddenly caught him saying, “I thought you’d be a bit lonely to-night; and as Margaret were going to cheer th’ old woman, I said I’d go and keep th’ young un company; and a very pleasant chatty evening we’ve had; very. Only I wonder as Margaret is not come back.”
“But perhaps she is,” suggested Mary.
“No, no, I took care o’ that. Look ye here!” and he pulled out the great house-key. “She’ll have to stand waiting i’ th’ street, and that I’m sure she wouldn’t do, when she knew where to find me.”
“Will she come back by hersel?” asked Mary.
“Ay. At first I were afraid o’ trusting her, and I used to follow her a bit behind; never letting on, of course. But, bless you! she goes along as steadily as can be; rather slow to be sure, and her head a bit on one side, as if she were listening. And it’s real beautiful to see her cross the road. She’ll wait above a bit to hear that all is still; not that she’s so dark as not to see a coach or a cart like a big black thing, but she can’t rightly judge how far off it is by sight, so she listens. Hark! that’s her!”
Yes; in she came, with her usually calm face all tear-stained and sorrow-marked.
“What’s the matter, my wench?” said Job hastily.
“O grandfather! Alice Wilson’s so bad!” She could say no more for her breathless agitation. The afternoon, and the parting with Will, had weakened her nerves for any after-shock.
“What is it? Do tell us, Margaret!” said Mary, placing her in a chair, and loosening her bonnet-strings.
“I think it’s a stroke o’ the palsy. Any rate she has lost the use of one side.”
“Was it afore Will set off?” asked Mary.
“No, he were gone before I got there,” said Margaret; “and she were much about as well as she has been for many a day. She spoke a bit, but not much; but that were only natural, for Mrs. Wilson likes to have the talk to hersel, you know. She got up to go across the room, and then I heard a drag wi’ her leg, and presently a fall, and Mrs. Wilson came running, and set up such a cry! I stopped wi’ Alice, while she fetched a doctor; but she could not speak, to answer me, though she tried, I think.”
“Where was Jem? Why didn’t he go for the doctor?”
“He were out when I got there, and he never came home while I stopped.”
“Thou’st never left Mrs. Wilson alone wi’ poor Alice?” asked Job hastily.
“No, no,” said Margaret. “But oh! grandfather, it’s now I feel how hard it is to have lost my sight. I should have so loved to nurse her; and I did try, until I found I did more harm than good. O grandfather; if I could but see!”
She sobbed a little; and they let her give that ease to her heart. Then she went on–
“No! I went round by Mrs. Davenport’s, and she were hard at work; but, the minute I told my errand, she were ready and willing to go to Jane Wilson, and stop up all night with Alice.”
“And what does the doctor say?” asked Mary.
“Oh! much what all doctors say: he puts a fence on this side, and a fence on that, for fear he should be caught tripping in his judgment. One moment he does not think there’s much hope–but while there is life there is hope! th’ next he says he should think she might recover partial–but her age is again her. He’s ordered her leeches to her head.”
Margaret having told her tale, leant back with weariness, both of body and mind. Mary hastened to make her a cup of tea; while Job, lately so talkative, sat quiet and mournfully silent.
“I’ll go first thing to-morrow morning, and learn how she is; and I’ll bring word back before I go to work,” said Mary.
“It’s a bad job Will’s gone,” said Job.
“Jane does not think she knows any one,” replied Margaret. “It’s perhaps as well he shouldn’t see her now for they say her face is sadly drawn. He’ll remember her with her own face better, if he does not see her again.”
With a few more sorrowful remarks they separated for the night, and Mary was left alone in her house, to meditate on the heavy day that had passed over her head. Everything seemed going wrong. Will gone; her father gone–and so strangely too! And to a place so mysteriously distant as Glasgow seemed to be to her! She had felt his presence as a protection against Harry Carson and his threats; and now she dreaded lest he should learn she was alone. Her heart began to despair, too, about Jem. She feared he had ceased to love her; and she–she only loved him more and more for his seeming neglect. And, as if all this aggregate of sorrowful thoughts was not enough, here was this new woe, of poor Alice’s paralytic stroke.
XVIII. MURDER.
“But in his pulse there was no throb, Nor on his lips one dying sob;
Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath Heralded his way to death.”
–“SIEGE OF CORINTH.”
“My brain runs this way and that way; ‘t will not fix On aught but vengeance.”
–“DUKE OF GUISE.”
I must now go back to an hour or two before Mary and her friends parted for the night. It might be about eight o’clock that evening, and the three Miss Carsons were sitting in their father’s drawing-room. He was asleep in the dining-room, in his own comfortable chair. Mrs. Carson was (as was usual with her, when no particular excitement was going on) very poorly, and sitting upstairs in her dressing-room, indulging in the luxury of a headache. She was not well, certainly. “Wind in the head,” the servants called it. But it was but the natural consequence of the state of mental and bodily idleness in which she was placed. Without education enough to value the resources of wealth and leisure, she was so circumstanced as to command both. It would have done her more good than all the ether and sal-volatile she was daily in the habit of swallowing, if she might have taken the work of one of her own housemaids for a week; made beds, rubbed tables, shaken carpets, and gone out into the fresh morning air, without all the paraphernalia of shawl, cloak, boa, fur boots, bonnet, and veil, in which she was equipped before setting out for an “airing,” in the closely shut-up carriage.
So the three girls were by themselves in the comfortable, elegant, well-lighted drawing-room; and, like many similarly situated young ladies, they did not exactly know what to do to while away the time until the tea-hour. The elder two had been at a dancing-party the night before, and were listless and sleepy in consequence. One tried to read “Emerson’s Essays,” and fell asleep in the attempt; the other was turning over a parcel of new songs, in order to select what she liked. Amy, the youngest, was copying some manuscript music. The air was heavy with the fragrance of strongly-scented flowers, which sent out their night odours from an adjoining conservatory.
The clock on the chimney-piece chimed eight. Sophy (the sleeping sister) started up at the sound.
“What o’clock is that?” she asked.
“Eight,” said Amy.
“O dear! how tired I am! Is Harry come in? Tea will rouse one up a little. Are you not worn out, Helen?”
“Yes; I am tired enough. One is good for nothing the day after a dance. Yet I don’t feel weary at the time; I suppose it is the lateness of the hours.”
“And yet, how could it be managed otherwise? So many don’t dine till five or six, that one cannot begin before eight or nine; and then it takes a long time to get into the spirit of the evening. It is always more pleasant after supper than before.”
“Well, I’m too tired to-night to reform the world in the matter of dances or balls. What are you copying, Amy?”
“Only that little Spanish air you sing, ‘Quien quiera.'”
“What are you copying it for?” asked Helen.
“Harry asked me to do it for him this morning at breakfast-time–for Miss Richardson, he said.”
“For Jane Richardson!” said Sophy, as if a new idea were receiving strength in her mind.
“Do you think Harry means anything by his attention to her?” asked Helen.
“Nay, I do not know anything more than you do; I can only observe and conjecture. What do you think, Helen?”
“Harry always likes to be of consequence to the belle of the room. If one girl is more admired than another, he likes to flutter about her, and seem to be on intimate terms with her. That is his way, and I have not noticed anything beyond that in his manner to Jane Richardson.”
“But I don’t think she knows it’s only his way. Just watch her the next time we meet her when Harry is there, and see how she crimsons, and looks another way when she feels he is coming up to her. I think he sees it, too, and I think he is pleased with it.”
“I dare say Harry would like well enough to turn the head of such a lovely girl as Jane Richardson. But I’m not convinced that he’s in love, whatever she may be.”
“Well, then!” said Sophy indignantly, “though it is our own brother, I do not think he is behaving very wrongly. The more I think of it, the more sure I am that she thinks he means something, and that he intends her to think so. And then, when he leaves off paying her attention”–
“Which will be as soon as a prettier girl makes her appearance,” interrupted Helen.
“As soon as he leaves off paying her attention,” resumed Sophy, “she will have many and many a heartache, and then she will harden herself into being a flirt, a feminine flirt, as he is a masculine flirt. Poor girl!”
“I don’t like to hear you speak so of Harry,” said Amy, looking up at Sophy.
“And I don’t like to have to speak so, Amy, for I love him dearly. He is a good, kind brother, but I do think him vain, and I think he hardly knows the misery, the crime, to which indulged vanity may lead him.”
Helen yawned.
“Oh! do you think we may ring for tea? Sleeping after dinner makes me so feverish.”
“Yes, surely. Why should not we?” said the more energetic Sophy, pulling the bell with some determination.
“Tea, directly, Parker,” said she authoritatively, as the man entered the room.
She was too little in the habit of reading expressions on the faces of others to notice Parker’s countenance,
Yet it was striking. It was blanched to a dead whiteness; the lips compressed as if to keep within some tale of horror; the eyes distended and unnatural. It was a terror-stricken face.
The girls began to put away their music and books, in preparation for tea. The door slowly opened again, and this time it was the nurse who entered. I call her nurse, for such had been her office in bygone days, though now she held rather an anomalous situation in the family. Seamstress, attendant on the young ladies, keeper of the stores; only “Nurse” was still her name. She had lived longer with them than any other servant, and to her their manner was far less haughty than to the other domestics. She occasionally came into the drawing-room to look for things belonging to their father or mother, so it did not excite any surprise when she advanced into the room. They went on arranging their various articles of employment.
She wanted them to look up. She wanted them to read something in her face–her face so full of woe, of horror. But they went on without taking any notice. She coughed; not a natural cough; but one of those coughs which asks so plainly for remark.
“Dear nurse, what is the matter?” asked Amy. “Are not you well?”
“Is mamma ill?” asked Sophy quickly.
“Speak, speak, nurse!” said they all, as they saw her efforts to articulate choked by the convulsive rising in her throat. They clustered round her with eager faces, catching a glimpse of some terrible truth to be revealed.
“My dear young ladies! my dear girls!” she gasped out at length, and then she burst into tears.
“Oh! do tell us what it is, nurse!” said one. “Anything is better than this. Speak!”
“My children! I don’t know how to break it to you. My dears, poor Mr. Harry is brought home”–
“Brought home–BROUGHT home–how?” Instinctively they sank their voices to a whisper; but a fearful whisper it was. In the same low tone, as if afraid lest the walls, the furniture, the inanimate things which told of preparation for life and comfort, should hear, she answered–
“Dead!”
Amy clutched her nurse’s arm, and fixed her eyes on her as if to know if such a tale could be true; and when she read its confirmation in those sad, mournful, unflinching eyes, she sank, without word or sound, down in a faint upon the floor. One sister sat down on an ottoman, and covered her face, to try and realise it. That was Sophy. Helen threw herself on the sofa, and burying her head in the pillows, tried to stifle the screams and moans which shook her frame.
The nurse stood silent. She had not told ALL.
“Tell me,” said Sophy, looking up, and speaking in a hoarse voice, which told of the inward pain, “tell me, nurse! Is he DEAD, did you say? Have you sent for a doctor? Oh! send for one, send for one,” continued she, her voice rising to shrillness, and starting to her feet. Helen lifted herself up, and looked, with breathless waiting, towards nurse.
“My dears, he is dead! But I have sent for a doctor. I have done all I could.”
“When did he–when did they bring him home?” asked Sophy.
“Perhaps ten minutes ago. Before you rang for Parker.”
“How did he die? Where did they find him? He looked so well. He always seemed so strong. Oh! are you sure he is dead?”
She went towards the door. Nurse laid her hand on her arm.
“Miss Sophy, I have not told you all. Can you bear to hear it? Remember, master is in the next room, and he knows nothing yet. Come, you must help me to tell him. Now, be quiet, dear! It was no common death he died!” She looked in her face as if trying to convey her meaning by her eyes.
Sophy’s lips moved, but nurse could hear no sound.
“He has been shot as he was coming home along Turner Street, to-night.”
Sophy went on with the motion of her lips, twitching them almost convulsively.
“My dear, you must rouse yourself, and remember your father and mother have yet to be told. Speak! Miss Sophy!”
But she could not; her whole face worked involuntarily. The nurse left the room, and almost immediately brought back some sal-volatile and water. Sophy drank it eagerly, and gave one or two deep gasps. Then she spoke in a calm, unnatural voice.
“What do you want me to do, nurse? Go to Helen and poor Amy. See, they want help.”
“Poor creatures! we must let them alone for a bit. You must go to master; that’s what I want you to do, Miss Sophy. You must break it to him, poor old gentleman! Come, he’s asleep in the dining-room, and the men are waiting to speak to him.”
Sophy went mechanically to the dining-room door.
“Oh! I cannot go in. I cannot tell him. What must I say?”
“I’ll come with you, Miss Sophy. Break it to him by degrees.”
“I can’t, nurse. My head throbs so, I shall be sure to say the wrong thing.”
However, she opened the door. There sat her father, the shaded light of the candle-lamp falling upon, and softening his marked features, while his snowy hair contrasted well with the deep crimson morocco of the chair. The newspaper he had been reading had dropped on the carpet by his side. He breathed regularly and deeply.
At that instant the words of Mrs. Hemans’s song came full in Sophy’s mind–
“Ye know not what ye do,
That call the slumberer back
From the realms unseen by you,
To life’s dim weary track.”
But this life’s track would be to the bereaved father something more than dim and weary, hereafter.
“Papa,” said she softly. He did not stir.
“Papa!” she exclaimed, somewhat louder.
He started up, half awake.
“Tea is ready, is it?” and he yawned.
“No! papa, but something very dreadful–very sad, has happened!”
He was gaping so loud that he did not catch the words she uttered, and did not see the expression of her face.
“Master Henry has not come back,” said nurse. Her voice, heard in unusual speech to him, arrested his attention, and rubbing his eyes, he looked at the servant.
“Harry! oh, no! he had to attend a meeting of the masters about these cursed turn-outs. I don’t expect him yet. What are you looking at me so strangely for, Sophy?”
“O papa, Harry is come back,” said she, bursting into tears.
“What do you mean?” said he, startled into an impatient consciousness that something was wrong. “One of you says he is not come home, and the other says he is. Now, that’s nonsense! Tell me at once what’s the matter. Did he go on horseback to town? Is he thrown? Speak, child, can’t you?”
“No! he’s not been thrown, papa,” said Sophy sadly.
“But he’s badly hurt,” put in the nurse, desirous to be drawing his anxiety to a point.
“Hurt? Where? How? Have you sent for a doctor?” said he, hastily rising, as if to leave the room.
“Yes, papa, we’ve sent for a doctor–but I’m afraid—I believe it’s of no use.”
He looked at her for a moment, and in her face he read the truth. His son, his only son, was dead.
He sank back in his chair, and hid his face in his hands, and bowed his head upon the table. The strong mahogany dining-table shook and rattled under his agony.
Sophy went and put her arms round his bowed neck.
“Go! you are not Harry,” said he; but the action roused him.
“Where is he? where is the”–said he, with his strong face set into the lines of anguish, by two minutes of such intense woe.
“In the servants’ hall,” said nurse. “Two policemen and another man brought him home. They would be glad to speak to you when you are able, sir.”
“I am now able,” replied he. At first when he stood up he tottered. But steadying himself, he walked, as firmly as a soldier on drill, to the door. Then he turned back and poured out a glass of wine from the decanter which yet remained on the table. His eye caught the wine-glass which Harry had used but two or three hours before. He sighed a long quivering sigh, and then mastering himself again, he left the room.
“You had better go back to your sisters, Miss Sophy,” said nurse.
Miss Carson went. She could not face death yet.
The nurse followed Mr. Carson to the servants’ hall. There on their dinner-table lay the poor dead body. The men who had brought it were sitting near the fire, while several of the servants stood round the table, gazing at the remains.
THE REMAINS!
One or two were crying; one or two were whispering; awed into a strange stillness of voice and action by the presence of the dead. When Mr. Carson came in they all drew back and looked at him with the reverence due to sorrow.
He went forward and gazed long and fondly on the calm, dead face; then he bent down and kissed the lips yet crimson with life. The policemen had advanced, and stood ready to be questioned. But at first the old man’s mind could only take in the idea of death; slowly, slowly came the conception of violence, of murder. “How did he die?” he groaned forth.
The policemen looked at each other. Then one began, and stated that having heard the report of a gun in Turner Street, he had turned down that way (a lonely, unfrequented way Mr. Carson knew, but a short cut to his garden door, of which Harry had a key); that as he (the policeman) came nearer, he had heard footsteps as of a man running away; but the evening was so dark (the moon not having yet risen) that he could see no one twenty yards off. That he had even been startled when close to the body by seeing it lying across the path at his feet. That he had sprung his rattle; and when another policeman came up, by the light of the lantern they had discovered who it was that had been killed. That they believed him to be dead when they first took him up, as he had never moved, spoken, or breathed. That intelligence of the murder had been sent to the superintendent, who would probably soon be here. That two or three policemen were still about the place where the murder was committed, seeking out for some trace of the murderer. Having said this, they stopped speaking.
Mr. Carson had listened attentively, never taking his eyes off the dead body. When they had ended, he said–
“Where was he shot?”
They lifted up some of the thick chestnut curls, and showed a blue spot (you could hardly call it a hole, the flesh had closed so much over it) in the left temple. A deadly aim! And yet it was so dark a night!
“He must have been close upon him,” said one policeman.
“And have had him between him and the sky,” added the other.
There was a little commotion at the door of the room, and there stood poor Mrs. Carson, the mother.
She had heard unusual noises in the house, and had sent down her maid (much more a companion to her than her highly-educated daughters) to discover what was going on. But the maid either forgot, or dreaded, to return; and with nervous impatience Mrs. Carson came down herself, and had traced the hum and buzz of voices to the servants’ hall.
Mr. Carson turned round. But he could not leave the dead for any one living.
“Take her away, nurse. It is no sight for her. Tell Miss Sophy to go to her mother.” His eyes were again fixed on the dead face of his son.
Presently Mrs. Carson’s hysterical cries were heard all over the house. Her husband shuddered at the outward expression of the agony which was rending his heart.
Then the police superintendent came, and after him the doctor. The latter went through all the forms of ascertaining death, without uttering a word, and when at the conclusion of the operation of opening a vein, from which no blood flowed, he shook his head, all present understood the confirmation of their previous belief. The superintendent asked to speak to Mr. Carson in private.
“It was just what I was going to request of you,” answered he; so he led the way into the dining-room, with the wine-glass still on the table.
The door was carefully shut, and both sat down, each apparently waiting for the other to begin.
At last Mr. Carson spoke.
“You probably have heard that I am a rich man.”
The superintendent bowed in assent.
“Well, sir, half–nay, if necessary, the whole of my fortune I will give to have the murderer brought to the gallows.”
“Every exertion, you may be sure, sir, shall be used on our part; but probably offering a handsome reward might accelerate the discovery of the murderer. But what I wanted particularly to tell you, sir, is that one of my men has already got some clue, and that another (who accompanied me here) has within this quarter of an hour found a gun in the field which the murderer crossed, and which he probably threw away when pursued, as encumbering his flight. I have not the smallest doubt of discovering the murderer.”
“What do you call a handsome reward?” said Mr. Carson.
“Well, sir, three, or five hundred pounds is a munificent reward: more than will probably be required as a temptation to any accomplice.”
“Make it a thousand,” said Mr. Carson decisively. “It’s the doing of those damned turn-outs.”
“I imagine not,” said the superintendent. “Some days ago the man I was naming to you before, reported to the inspector when he came on his beat, that he had to separate your son from a young man, who by his dress he believed to be employed in a foundry; that the man had thrown Mr. Carson down, and seemed inclined to proceed to more violence, when the policeman came up and interfered. Indeed, my man wished to give him in charge for an assault, but Mr. Carson would not allow that to be done.”
“Just like him!–noble fellow!” murmured the father.
“But after your son had left, the man made use of some pretty strong threats. And it’s rather a curious coincidence that this scuffle took place in the very same spot where the murder was committed; in Turner Street.”
There was some one knocking at the door of the room. It was Sophy, who beckoned her father out, and then asked him, in an awestruck whisper, to come upstairs and speak to her mother.
“She will not leave Harry, and talks so strangely. Indeed–indeed– papa, I think she has lost her senses.”
And the poor girl sobbed bitterly.
“Where is she?” asked Mr. Carson.
“In his room.”
They went upstairs rapidly and silently. It was a large comfortable bedroom; too large to be well lighted by the flaring, flickering kitchen-candle which had been hastily snatched up, and now stood on the dressing-table.
On the bed, surrounded by its heavy, pall-like green curtains, lay the dead son. They had carried him up, and laid him down, as tenderly as though they feared to waken him; and, indeed, it looked more like sleep than death, so very calm and full of repose was the face. You saw, too, the chiselled beauty of the features much more perfectly than when the brilliant colouring of life had distracted your attention. There was a peace about him which told that death had come too instantaneously to give any previous pain.
In a chair, at the head of the bed, sat the mother–smiling. She held one of the hands (rapidly stiffening, even in her warm grasp), and gently stroked the back of it, with the endearing caress she had used to all her children when young.
“I am glad you are come,” said she, looking up at her husband, and still smiling. “Harry is so full of fun, he always has something new to amuse us with; and now he pretends he is asleep, and that we can’t waken him. Look! he is smiling now; he hears I have found him out. Look!”
And, in truth, the lips, in the rest of death, did look as though they wore a smile, and the waving light of the unsnuffed candle almost made them seem to move.
“Look, Amy,” said she to her youngest child, who knelt at her feet, trying to soothe her, by kissing her garments.
“Oh, he was always a rogue! You remember, don’t you, love? how full of play he was as a baby; hiding his face under my arm, when you wanted to play with him. Always a rogue, Harry!”
“We must get her away, sir,” said nurse; “you know there is much to be done before”–
“I understand, nurse.” said the father, hastily interrupting her in dread of the distinct words which would tell of the changes of mortality.
“Come, love,” said he to his wife. “I want you to come with me. I want to speak to you downstairs.”
“I’m coming,” said she, rising; “perhaps, after all, nurse, he’s really tired, and would be glad to sleep. Don’t let him get cold, though,–he feels rather chilly,” continued she, after she had bent down, and kissed the pale lips.
Her husband put his arm around her waist, and they left the room. Then the three sisters burst into unrestrained wailings. They were startled into the reality of life and death. And yet in the midst of shrieks and moans, of shivering and chattering of teeth, Sophy’s eye caught the calm beauty of the dead; so calm amidst such violence, and she hushed her emotion.
“Come,” said she to her sisters, “nurse wants us to go; and besides, we ought to be with mamma. Papa told the man he was talking to, when I went for him, to wait, and she must not be left.”
Meanwhile, the superintendent had taken a candle, and was examining the engravings that hung round the dining-room. It was so common to him to be acquainted with crime, that he was far from feeling all his interest absorbed in the present case of violence, although he could not help having much anxiety to detect the murderer. He was busy looking at the only oil-painting in the room (a youth of eighteen or so, in a fancy dress), and conjecturing its identity with the young man so mysteriously dead, when the door opened, and Mr. Carson returned. Stern as he had looked before leaving the room, he looked far sterner now. His face was hardened into deep-purposed wrath.
“I beg your pardon, sir, for leaving you.” The superintendent bowed. They sat down, and spoke long together. One by one the policemen were called in, and questioned.
All through the night there was bustle and commotion in the house. Nobody thought of going to bed. It seemed strange to Sophy to hear nurse summoned from her mother’s side to supper, in the middle of the night, and still stranger that she could go. The necessity of eating and drinking seemed out of place in the house of death.
When night was passing into morning, the dining-room door opened, and two persons’ steps were heard along the hall. The superintendent was leaving at last. Mr. Carson stood on the front-door step, feeling the refreshment of the caller morning air, and seeing the starlight fade away into dawn.
“You will not forget,” said he. “I trust to you.” The policeman bowed.
“Spare no money. The only purpose for which I now value wealth is to have the murderer arrested, and brought to justice. My hope in life now is to see him sentenced to death. Offer any rewards. Name a thousand pounds in the placards. Come to me at any hour, night or day, if that be required. All I ask of you is, to get the murderer hanged. Next week, if possible–to-day is Friday. Surely with the clues you already possess, you can muster up evidence sufficient to have him tried next week.”
“He may easily request an adjournment of his trial, on the ground of the shortness of the notice,” said the superintendent.
“Oppose it, if possible. I will see that the first lawyers are employed. I shall know no rest while he lives.”
“Everything shall be done, sir.”
“You will arrange with the coroner. Ten o’clock if convenient.”
The superintendent took leave.
Mr. Carson stood on the step, dreading to shut out the light and air, and return into the haunted, gloomy house.
“My son! my son!” he said at last. “But you shall be avenged, my poor murdered boy.”
Ay! to avenge his wrongs the murderer had singled out his victim, and with one fell action had taken away the life that God had given. To avenge his child’s death, the old man lived on; with the single purpose in his heart of vengeance on the murderer. True, his vengeance was sanctioned by law, but was it the less revenge?
Are ye worshippers of Christ? or of Alecto?
Oh! Orestes, you would have made a very tolerable Christian of the nineteenth century!
XIX. JEM WILSON ARRESTED ON SUSPICION,
“Deeds to be hid which were not hid, Which, all confused, I could not know, Whether I suffered or I did,
For all seemed guilt, remorse, or woe.” –COLERIDGE.
I left Mary, on that same Thursday night which left its burden of woe at Mr. Carson’s threshold, haunted with depressing thoughts. All through the night she tossed restlessly about, trying to get quit of the ideas that harassed her, and longing for the light when she could rise, and find some employment. But just as dawn began to appear, she became more quiet, and fell into a sound heavy sleep, which lasted till she was sure it was late in the morning, by the full light that shone in.
She dressed hastily, and heard the neighbouring church clock strike eight. It was far too late to do as she had planned (after inquiring how Alice was, to return and tell Margaret), and she accordingly went in to inform the latter of her change of purpose, and the cause of it; but on entering the house she found Job sitting alone, looking sad enough. She told him what she came for.
“Margaret, wench! why, she’s been gone to Wilson’s these two hours. Ay! sure, you did say last night you would go; but she could na rest in her bed, so was off betimes this morning.”
Mary could do nothing but feel guilty of her long morning nap, and hasten to follow Margaret’s steps; for late as it was, she felt she could not settle well to her work, unless she learnt how kind good Alice Wilson was going on.
So, eating her crust-of-bread breakfast, she passed rapidly along the street. She remembered afterwards the little groups of people she had seen, eagerly hearing, and imparting news; but at the time her only care was to hasten on her way, in dread of a reprimand from Miss Simmonds.
She went into the house at Jane Wilson’s, her heart at the instant giving a strange knock, and sending the rosy flush into her face, at the thought that Jem might possibly be inside the door. But I do assure you, she had not thought of it before. Impatient and loving as she was, her solicitude about Alice on that hurried morning had not been mingled with any thought of him.
Her heart need not have leaped, her colour need not have rushed so painfully to her cheeks, for he was not there. There was the round table, with a cup and saucer, which had evidently been used, and there was Jane Wilson sitting on the other side, crying quietly, while she ate her breakfast with a sort of unconscious appetite. And there was Mrs. Davenport washing away at a night-cap or so, which, by their simple, old-world make, Mary knew at a glance were Alice’s. But nothing–no one else.
Alice was much the same, or rather better of the two, they told her: at any rate she could speak, though it was sad rambling talk. Would Mary like to see her?
Of course she would. Many are interested by seeing their friends under the new aspect of illness; and among the poor there is no wholesome fear of injury or excitement to restrain this wish.
So Mary went upstairs, accompanied by Mrs. Davenport, wringing the suds off her hands, and speaking in a loud whisper far more audible than her usual voice.
“I mun be hastening home, but I’ll come again to-night, time enough to iron her cap; ‘twould be a sin and a shame if we let her go dirty now she’s ill, when she’s been so rare and clean all her life long. But she’s sadly forsaken, poor thing! She’ll not know you, Mary; she knows none of us.”
The room upstairs held two beds, one superior in the grandeur of four posts and checked curtains to the other, which had been occupied by the twins in their brief lifetime. The smaller had been Alice’s bed since she had lived there; but with the natural reverence to one “stricken of God and afflicted,” she had been installed, since her paralytic stroke the evening before, in the larger and grander bed; while Jane Wilson had taken her short broken rest on the little pallet.
Margaret came forwards to meet her friend, whom she half expected, and whose step she knew. Mrs. Davenport returned to her washing.
The two girls did not speak; the presence of Alice awed them into silence. There she lay with the rosy colour, absent from her face since the days of childhood, flushed once more into it by her sickness nigh unto death. She lay on the affected side, and with her other arm she was constantly sawing the air, not exactly in a restless manner, but in a monotonous, incessant way, very trying to a watcher. She was talking away, too, almost as constantly, in a low indistinct tone. But her face, her profiled countenance, looked calm and smiling, even interested by the ideas that were passing through her clouded mind.
“Listen!” said Margaret, as she stooped her head down to catch the muttered words more distinctly.
“What will mother say? The bees are turning homeward for th’ last time, and we’ve a terrible long bit to go yet. See! here’s a linnet’s nest in this gorse-bush. Th’ hen bird is on it. Look at her bright eyes, she won’t stir. Ay! we mun hurry home. Won’t mother be pleased with the bonny lot of heather we’ve got! Make haste, Sally, maybe we shall have cockles for supper. I saw th’ cockleman’s donkey turn up our way fra’ Arnside.”
Margaret touched Mary’s hand, and the pressure in return told her that they understood each other; that they knew how in this illness to the old, world-weary woman, God had sent her a veiled blessing: she was once more in the scenes of her childhood, unchanged and bright as in those long departed days; once more with the sister of her youth, the playmate of fifty years ago, who had for nearly as many years slept in a grassy grave in the little churchyard beyond Burton.
Alice’s face changed; she looked sorrowful, almost penitent.
“O Sally! I wish we’d told her. She thinks we were in church all morning, and we’ve gone on deceiving her. If we’d told her at first how it was–how sweet th’ hawthorn smelt through the open church door, and how we were on th’ last bench in the aisle, and how it were the first butterfly we’d seen this spring, and how it flew into th’ very church itself; oh! mother is so gentle, I wish we’d told her. I’ll go to her next time she comes in sight, and say, ‘Mother, we were naughty last Sabbath.'”
She stopped, and a few tears came stealing down the old withered cheek, at the thought of the temptation and deceit of her childhood. Surely many sins could not have darkened that innocent child-like spirit since. Mary found a red-spotted pocket-handkerchief, and put it into the hand which sought about for something to wipe away the trickling tears. She took it with a gentle murmur.
“Thank you, mother.”
Mary pulled Margaret away from the bed.
“Don’t you think she’s happy, Margaret?”
“Ay! that I do, bless her. She feels no pain, and knows nought of her present state. Oh! that I could see, Mary! I try and be patient with her afore me, but I’d give aught I have to see her, and see what she wants. I am so useless! I mean to stay here as long as Jane Wilson is alone; and I would fain be here all to-night, but”–
“I’ll come,” said Mary decidedly.
“Mrs. Davenport said she’d come again, but she’s hardworked all day”–
“I’ll come,” repeated Mary.
“Do!” said Margaret, “and I’ll be here till you come. Maybe, Jem and you could take th’ night between you, and Jane Wilson might get a bit of sound sleep in his bed; for she were up and down the better part of last night, and just when she were in a sound sleep this morning, between two and three, Jem came home, and th’ sound o’ his voice roused her in a minute.”
“Where had he been till that time o’ night?” asked Mary.
“Nay! it were none of my business; and, indeed, I never saw him till he came in here to see Alice. He were in again this morning, and seemed sadly downcast. But you’ll, maybe, manage to comfort him to-night, Mary,” said Margaret, smiling, while a ray of hope glimmered in Mary’s heart, and she almost felt glad, for an instant, of the occasion which would at last bring them together. Oh! happy night! when would it come? Many hours had yet to pass.
Then she saw Alice, and repented, with a bitter self-reproach. But she could not help having gladness in the depths of her heart, blame herself as she would. So she tried not to think, as she hurried along to Miss Simmonds’, with a dancing step of lightness.
She was late–that she knew she should be. Miss Simmonds was vexed and cross. That also she had anticipated, and had intended to smooth her raven down by extraordinary diligence and attention. But there was something about the girls she did not understand–had not anticipated. They stopped talking when she came in; or rather, I should say, stopped listening, for Sally Leadbitter was the talker to whom they were hearkening with deepest attention. At first they eyed Mary, as if she had acquired some new interest to them since the day before. Then they began to whisper; and, absorbed as Mary had been in her own thoughts, she could not help becoming aware that it was of her they spoke.
At last Sally Leadbitter asked Mary if she had heard the news?
“No! What news?” answered she.
The girls looked at each other with gloomy mystery. Sally went on.
“Have you not heard that young Mr. Carson was murdered last night?”
Mary’s lips could not utter a negative, but no one who looked at her pale and terror-stricken face could have doubted that she had not heard before of the fearful occurrence.
Oh, it is terrible, that sudden information, that one you have known has met with a bloody death! You seem to shrink from the world where such deeds can be committed, and to grow sick with the idea of the violent and wicked men of earth. Much as Mary had learned to dread him lately, now he was dead (and dead in such a manner) her feeling was that of oppressive sorrow for him.
The room went round and round, and she felt as though she should faint; but Miss Simmonds came in, bringing a waft of fresher air as she opened the door, to refresh the body, and the certainty of a scolding for inattention to brace the sinking mind. She, too, was full of the morning’s news.
“Have you heard any more of this horrid affair, Miss Barton?” asked she, as she settled to her work.
Mary tried to speak; at first she could not, and when she succeeded in uttering a sentence, it seemed as though it were not her own voice that spoke.
“No, ma’am, I never heard of it till this minute.”
“Dear! that’s strange, for every one is up about it. I hope the murderer will be found out, that I do. Such a handsome young man to be killed as he was. I hope the wretch that did it may be hanged as high as Haman.”
One of the girls reminded them that the assizes came on next week.
“Ay,” replied Miss Simmonds, “and the milkman told me they will catch the wretch, and have him tried and hung in less than a week. Serve him right, whoever he is. Such a handsome young man as he was.”
Then each began to communicate to Miss Simmonds the various reports they had heard.
Suddenly she burst out–
“Miss Barton! as I live, dropping tears on that new silk gown of Mrs. Hawkes’! Don’t you know they will stain, and make it shabby for ever? Crying like a baby, because a handsome young man meets with an untimely end. For shame of yourself, miss! Mind your character and your work, if you please. Or if you must cry” (seeing her scolding rather increased the flow of Mary’s tears, than otherwise), “take this print to cry over. That won’t be marked like this beautiful silk,” rubbing it, as if she loved it, with a clean pocket-handkerchief, in order to soften the edges of the hard round drops.
Mary took the print, and, naturally enough, having had leave given her to cry over it, rather checked the inclination to weep.
Everybody was full of the one subject. The girl sent out to match silk, came back with the account gathered at the shop, of the coroner’s inquest then sitting; the ladies who called to speak about gowns first began about the murder, and mingled details of that, with directions for their dresses. Mary felt as though the haunting horror were a nightmare, a fearful dream, from which awakening would relieve her. The picture of the murdered body, far more ghastly than the reality, seemed to swim in the air before her eyes. Sally Leadbitter looked and spoke of her, almost accusingly, and made no secret now of Mary’s conduct, more blamable to her fellow-workwomen for its latter changeableness, than for its former giddy flirting.
“Poor young gentleman,” said one, as Sally recounted Mary’s last interview with Mr. Carson.
“What a shame!” exclaimed another, looking indignantly at Mary.
“That’s what I call regular jilting,” said a third. “And he lying cold and bloody in his coffin now!”
Mary was more thankful than she could express, when Miss Simmonds returned, to put a stop to Sally’s communications, and to check the remarks of the girls.
She longed for the peace of Alice’s sick-room. No more thinking with infinite delight of her anticipated meeting with Jem; she felt too much shocked for that now; but longing for peace and kindness, for the images of rest and beauty, and sinless times long ago, which the poor old woman’s rambling presented, she wished to be as near death as Alice; and to have struggled through this world, whose sufferings she had early learnt, and whose crimes now seemed pressing close upon her. Old texts from the Bible, that her mother used to read (or rather spell out) aloud in the days of childhood, came up to her memory. “Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.” “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,” etc. And it was to that world Alice was hastening! Oh! that she were Alice!
I must return to the Wilsons’ house, which was far from being the abode of peace that Mary was picturing it to herself. You remember the reward Mr. Carson offered for the apprehension of the murderer of his son? It was in itself a temptation, and to aid its efficacy came the natural sympathy for the aged parents mourning for their child, for the young man cut off in the flower of his days; and besides this, there is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty. This feeling, I am sure, gives much impetus to the police. Their senses are ever and always on the qui-vive, and they enjoy the collecting and collating evidence, and the life of adventure they experience: a continual unwinding of Jack Sheppard romances, always interesting to the vulgar and uneducated mind, to which the outward signs and tokens of crime are ever exciting.
There was no lack of clue or evidence at the coroner’s inquest that morning. The shot, the finding of the body, the subsequent discovery of the gun, were rapidly deposed to; and then the policeman who had interrupted the quarrel between Jem Wilson and the murdered young man was brought forward, and gave his evidence, clear, simple, and straightforward. The coroner had no hesitation, the jury had none, but the verdict was cautiously worded. “Wilful murder against some person unknown.”
This very cautiousness, when he deemed the thing so sure as to require no caution, irritated Mr. Carson. It did not soothe him that the superintendent called the verdict a mere form,–exhibited a warrant empowering him to seize the body of Jem Wilson committed on suspicion,–declared his intention of employing a well-known officer in the Detective Service to ascertain the ownership of the gun, and to collect other evidence, especially as regarded the young woman, about whom the policeman deposed that the quarrel had taken place; Mr. Carson was still excited and irritable; restless in body and mind. He made every preparation for the accusation of Jem the following morning before the magistrates: he engaged attorneys skilled in criminal practice to watch the case and prepare briefs; he wrote to celebrated barristers coming the Northern Circuit, to bespeak their services. A speedy conviction, a speedy execution, seemed to be the only things that would satisfy his craving thirst for blood. He would have fain been policeman, magistrate, accusing speaker, all; but most of all, the judge, rising with full sentence of death on his lips.
That afternoon, as Jane Wilson had begun to feel the effect of a night’s disturbed rest, evinced in frequent droppings off to sleep, while she sat by her sister-in-law’s bedside, lulled by the incessant crooning of the invalid’s feeble voice, she was startled by a man speaking in the house-place below, who, wearied of knocking at the door, without obtaining any answer, had entered and was calling lustily for–
“Missis! missis!”
When Mrs. Wilson caught a glimpse of the intruder through the stair-rails, she at once saw he was a stranger, a working-man, it might be a fellow-labourer with her son, for his dress was grimy enough for the supposition. He held a gun in his hand.
“May I make bold to ask if this gun belongs to your son?”
She first looked at the man, and then, weary and half asleep, not seeing any reason for refusing to answer the inquiry, she moved forward to examine it, talking while she looked for certain old-fashioned ornaments on the stock. “It looks like his; ay, it is his, sure enough. I could speak to it anywhere by these marks. You see it were his grandfather’s as were gamekeeper to some one up in th’ north; and they don’t make guns so smart nowadays. But, how comed you by it? He sets great store on it. Is he bound for th’ shooting-gallery? He is not, for sure, now his aunt is so ill, and me left all alone”; and the immediate cause of her anxiety being thus recalled to her mind, she entered on a long story of Alice’s illness, interspersed with recollections of her husband’s and her children’s deaths.
The disguised policeman listened for a minute or two, to glean any further information he could; and then, saying he was in a hurry, he turned to go away. She followed him to the door, still telling him her troubles, and was never struck, until it was too late to ask the reason, with the unaccountableness of his conduct, in carrying the gun away with him. Then, as she heavily climbed the stairs, she put away the wonder and the thought about his conduct, by determining to believe he was some workman with whom her son had made some arrangement about shooting at the gallery; or mending the old weapon; or something or other. She had enough to fret her, without moidering herself about old guns. Jem had given it to him to bring it to her; so it was safe enough; or, if it was not, why she should be glad never to set eyes on it again, for she could not abide firearms, they were so apt to shoot people.
So, comforting herself for the want of thought in not making further inquiry, she fell off into another dose, feverish, dream-haunted, and unrefreshing.
Meanwhile, the policeman walked off with his prize, with an odd mixture of feelings; a little contempt, a little disappointment, and a good deal of pity. The contempt and the disappointment were caused by the widow’s easy admission of the gun being her son’s property, and her manner of identifying it by the ornaments. He liked an attempt to baffle him; he was accustomed to it; it gave some exercise to his wits and his shrewdness. There would be no fun in fox-hunting, if Reynard yielded himself up without any effort to escape. Then, again, his mother’s milk was yet in him, policeman, officer of the Detective Service though he was; and he felt sorry for the old woman, whose “softness” had given such material assistance in identifying her son as the murderer. However, he conveyed the gun, and the intelligence he had gained, to the superintendent; and the result was, that, in a short time afterwards, three policemen went to the works at which Jem was foreman, and announced their errand to the astonished overseer, who directed them to the part of the foundry where Jem was then superintending a casting.
Dark, black were the walls, the ground, the faces around them, as they crossed the yard. But, in the furnace-house, a deep and lurid red glared over all; the furnace roared with mighty flame. The men, like demons, in their fire-and-soot colouring, stood swart around, awaiting the moment when the tons of solid iron should have melted down into fiery liquid, fit to be poured, with still, heavy sound, into the delicate moulding of fine black sand, prepared to receive it. The heat was intense, and the red glare grew every instant more fierce; the policemen stood awed with the novel sight. Then, black figures, holding strange-shaped bucket-shovels, came athwart the deep-red furnace light, and clear and brilliant flowed forth the iron into the appropriate mould. The buzz of voices rose again; there was time to speak, and gasp, and wipe the brows; and then one by one, the men dispersed to some other branch of their employment.
No. B72 pointed out Jem as the man he had seen engaged in a scuffle with Mr. Carson, and then the other two stepped forward and arrested him, stating of what he was accused, and the grounds of the accusation. He offered no resistance, though he seemed surprised; but calling a fellow-workman to him, he briefly requested him to tell his mother he had got into trouble, and could not return home at present. He did not wish her to hear more at first.
So Mrs. Wilson’s sleep was next interrupted in almost an exactly similar way to the last, like a recurring nightmare.
“Missis! missis!” some one called out from below.
Again it was a workman, but this time a blacker-looking one than before.
“What don ye want?” said she peevishly.
“Only nothing but”–stammered the man, a kind-hearted matter-of-fact person, with no invention, but a great deal of sympathy.
“Well, speak out, can’t ye, and ha’ done with it?”
“Jem’s in trouble,” said he, repeating Jem’s very words, as he could think of no others.
“Trouble?” said the mother, in a high-pitched voice of distress. “Trouble! God help me, trouble will never end, I think. What d’ye mean by trouble? Speak out, man, can’t ye? Is he ill? My boy! tell me, is he ill?” in a hurried voice of terror.
“Na, na, that’s not it. He’s well enough. All he bade me say was, ‘Tell mother I’m in trouble, and can’t come home tonight.'”
“Not come home to-night! And what am I to do with Alice? I can’t go on, wearing my life out wi’ watching. He might come and help me.”
“I tell you he can’t,” said the man.
“Can’t, and he is well, you say? Stuff! It’s just that he’s getten like other young men, and wants to go a-larking. But I’ll give it him when he comes back.”
The man turned to go; he durst not trust himself to speak in Jem’s justification. But she would not let him off.
She stood between him and the door, as she said–
“Yo shall not go till yo’ve told me what he’s after. I can see plain enough you know, and I’ll know too, before I’ve done.”
“You’ll know soon enough, missis!”
“I’ll know now, I tell ye. What’s up that he can’t come home and help me nurse? Me, as never got a wink o’ sleep last night wi’ watching.”
“Well, if you will have it out,” said the poor badgered man, “the police have got hold on him.”
“On my Jem!” said the enraged mother. “You’re a downright liar, and that’s what you are. My Jem, as never did harm to any one in his life. You’re a liar, that’s what you are.”
“He’s done harm enough now,” said the man, angry in his turn, “for there’s good evidence he murdered young Carson, as was shot last night.”
She staggered forward to strike the man for telling the terrible truth; but the weakness of old age, of motherly agony, overcame her, and she sank down on a chair, and covered her face. He could not leave her.
When next she spoke, it was in an imploring, feeble, child-like voice.
“O master, say you’re only joking. I ax your pardon if I have vexed ye, but please say you’re only joking. You don’t know what Jem is to me.”
She looked humbly, anxiously up to him.
“I wish I were only joking, missis; but it’s true as I say. They’ve taken him up on charge of murder. It were his gun as were found near th’ place; and one o’ the police heard him quarrelling with Mr. Carson a few days back, about a girl.”
“About a girl!” broke in the mother, once more indignant, though too