When Mr. Ambrose undertook to reason with the detective he went directly
towards the study where John said the man was waiting. But Mr. Booley was
beginning to suspect that the doctor was not coming to speak with him as
the squire had promised, and after hesitating for a few moments followed
John into the library, determining to manage matters himself. As he
opened the door he met Mr. Ambrose coming towards him, and at the same
moment Mr. Juxon and Doctor Longstreet entered from the opposite end of
the long room. The cheerful and active physician was talking in a rather
excited tone.
"My dear sir," said he, "I cannot pretend to say that the man will or
will not recover. I must see him again. Things look quite differently by
daylight, and six or seven hours may make all the change in the world. To
say that he can be moved to-day or even to-morrow, is absurd. I will
stake my reputation as a practitioner--Hulloa!"
The exclamation was elicited by Mr. Booley, who had pushed past Mr.
Ambrose and stood confronting the doctor with a look which was intended
to express a combination of sarcasm, superior cunning and authority.
"This is Mr. Booley," explained the squire. "Doctor Longstreet will tell
you what he has been telling me," he added turning to the detective.
"I must see this man instantly," said the latter somewhat roughly. "I
believe I am being trifled with, and I will not submit to it. No, sir, I
will not be trifled with, I assure you! I must see this man at once. It
is absolutely necessary to identify him."
"And I say," said Doctor Longstreet with equal firmness, "that I must see
him first, in order to judge whether you can see him or not--"
"It is for me to judge of that," returned Mr. Booley, with more haste
than logic.
"After you have seen him, you cannot judge whether you ought to see him
or not," retorted Doctor Longstreet growing red in the face. The
detective attempted to push past him. At this moment John Short hastily
left the room and fled upstairs to warn Mrs. Ambrose of what was
happening.
"Really," said Mr. Ambrose, making a vain attempt to stop the course of
events, "this is very unwarrantable."
"Unwarrantable!" cried Mr. Booley. "Unwarrantable, indeed! I have the
warrant in my pocket. Mr. Juxon, sir, I fear I must insist."
"Permit me," said Mr. Juxon, planting his square and sturdy form between
the door and the detective. "You may certainly insist, but you must begin
by listening to reason."
Charles Juxon had been accustomed to command others for the greater part
of his life, and though he was generally the most unobtrusive and gentle
of men, when he raised his voice in a tone of authority his words carried
weight. His blue eyes stared hard at Mr. Booley, and there was something
imposing in his square head--even in the unruffled smoothness of his
brown hair. Mr. Booley paused and discontentedly thrust his hands into
his pockets.
"Well?" he said.
"Simply this," answered the squire. "You may accompany us to the door of
the room; you may wait with me, while Doctor Longstreet goes in to look
at the patient. If the man is unconscious you may go in and see him. If
he chances to be in a lucid interval, you must wait until he is
unconscious again. It will not be long. That is perfectly reasonable."
"Perfectly," echoed Mr. Ambrose, biting his long upper lip and glaring as
fiercely at Mr. Booley as though he had said it all himself.
"Absolutely reasonable," added Doctor Longstreet.
"Well, we will try it," said the detective moodily. "But I warn you I
will not be trifled with."
"Nobody is trifling with you," answered the squire coldly. "This way if
you please." And he forthwith led the way upstairs, followed by Mr.
Booley, the physician and the vicar.
Before they reached the door, however, the discussion broke out again.
Mr. Booley had been held in check for a few moments by Mr. Juxon's
determined manner, but as he followed the squire he began to regret that
he had yielded so far and he made a fresh assertion of his rights.
"I cannot see why you want to keep me outside," he said. "What difference
can it make, I should like to know?"
"You will have to take my word for it that it does make a difference,"
said the doctor, testily. "If you frighten the man, he will die. Now
then, here we are."
"I don't like your tone, sir," said Booley angrily, again trying to push
past the physician. "I think I must insist, after all. I will go in with
you--I tell you I will, sir--don't stop me."
Doctor Longstreet, who was fifteen or twenty years older than the
detective but still strong and active, gripped his arm quickly, and held
him back.
"If you go into that room without my permission, and if the man dies of
fright, I will have an action brought against you for manslaughter," he
said in a loud voice.
"And I will support it," said the squire. "I am justice of the peace
here, and what is more, I am in my own house. Do not think your position
will protect you."
Again Mr. Juxon's authoritative tone checked the detective, who drew
back, making some angry retort which no one heard. The squire tried the
door and finding it locked, knocked softly, not realising that every word
of the altercation had been heard within.
"Who is there?" asked John, who though he had heard all that had been
said was uncertain of the issue.
"Let in Doctor Longstreet," said the squire's voice.
But meanwhile Mrs. Ambrose and Mary Goddard were standing on each side of
the sick man. He must have heard the noises outside, and they conveyed
some impression to his brain.
"Mary, Mary!" he groaned indistinctly. "Save me--they are coming--I
cannot get away--softly, he is coming--now--I shall just catch him as he
goes by--Ugh! that dog--oh! oh!--"
With a wild shriek, the wretched man sprang up, upon his knees, his eyes
starting out, his face transfigured with horror. For one instant he
remained thus, half-supported by the two terror-struck women; then with a
groan his head drooped forward upon his breast and he fell back heavily
upon the pillows, breathing still but quite unconscious.
Doctor Longstreet entered at that moment and ran to his side. But when he
saw him he paused. Even Mrs. Ambrose was white with horror, and Mary
Goddard stood motionless, staring down at her husband, her hands gripping
the disordered coverlet convulsively.
Mr. Juxon had entered, too, while Mr. Ambrose remained outside with the
detective, who had been frightened into submission by the physician's
last threat. The squire saw what was happening and paced the room in the
greatest agitation, wringing his hands together and biting his lips. John
had closed the door and came to the foot of the bed and looked at
Goddard's face. After a pause, Doctor Longstreet spoke.
"We might possibly restore him to consciousness for a moment--"
"Don't!" cried Mary Goddard, starting as though some one had struck her.
"That is--" she added quickly, in broken tones, "unless he can live!"
"No," answered the physician, gravely, but looking hard at the unhappy
woman. "He is dying."
Goddard's staring eyes were glazed and white. Twice and three times he
gasped for breath, and then lay quite still. It was all over. Mary gazed
at his dead face for one instant, then a faint smile parted her lips: she
raised one hand to her forehead as though dazed.
"He is safe now," she murmured very faintly. Her limbs relaxed suddenly,
and she fell straight backwards. Charles Juxon, who was watching her,
sprang forward and caught her in his arms. Then he bore her from the
room, swiftly, while John Short who was as white and speechless as the
rest opened the door.
"You may go in now," said Juxon as he passed Booley and Mr. Ambrose in
the passage, with his burden in his arms. A few steps farther on he met
Holmes the butler, who carried a telegram on a salver.
"For Mr. Short, sir," said the impassive servant, not appearing to notice
anything strange in the fact that his master was carrying the inanimate
body of Mary Goddard.
"He is in there--go in," said Juxon hurriedly as he went on his way.
The detective and the vicar had already entered the room where the dead
convict was lying. All stood around the bed, gazing at his pale face as
he lay.
"A telegram for Mr. Short," said Holmes from the door. John started and
took the despatch from the butler's hands. He hastily tore it open,
glanced at the contents and thrust it into his pocket. Every one looked
round.
"What is it, John?" whispered the vicar, who was nearest to him.
"Oh--nothing. I am first in the Tripos, that is all," answered John very
simply, as though it were not a matter of the least consequence.
Through all those months of untiring labour, through privation and
anxiety, through days of weariness and nights of study, he had looked
forward to the triumph, often doubting but never despairing. But he had
little guessed that the news of victory would reach him at such a moment.
It was nothing, he said; and indeed as he stood with the group of pale
and awe-struck spectators by the dead man's bed, he felt that the
greatest thing which had ever happened to him was as nothing compared
with the tragedy of which he had witnessed the last act.
It was all over. There was nothing more to be said; the convict had
escaped the law in the end, at the very moment when the hand of the law
was upon him. Thomas Reid, the conservative sexton, buried him "four by
six by two," grumbling at the parish depth as of yore, and a simple stone
cross marked his nameless grave. There it stands to this day in the
churchyard of Billingsfield, Essex, in the shadow of the ancient abbey.
All these things happened a long time ago, according to Billingsfield
reckoning, but the story of the tramp who attacked Squire Juxon and was
pulled down by the bloodhound is still told by the villagers, and Mr.
Gall, being once in good cheer, vaguely hinted that he knew who the tramp
was; but from the singular reticence he has always shown in the matter,
and from the prosperity which has attended his constabulary career, it
may well be believed that he has a life interest in keeping his counsel.
Indeed as it is nearly ten years since Mr. Reid buried the poor tramp, it
is possible that Mr. Gall's memory may be already failing in regard to
events which occurred at so remote a date.
It was but an incident, though it was perhaps the only incident of any
interest which ever occurred in Billingsfield; but until it reached its
termination it agitated the lives of the quiet people at the vicarage,
at the cottage and at the Hall as violently as human nature can be moved.
It was long, too, before those who had witnessed the scene of Goddard's
death could shake off the impression of those awful last moments. Yet
time does all things wonderful and in the course of not many months there
remained of Goddard's memory only a great sense of relief that he was no
longer alive. Mary Goddard, indeed, was very ill for a long time; and but
for Mrs. Ambrose's tender care of her, might have followed her husband
within a few weeks of his death. But the good lady never left her, until
she was herself again--absolutely herself, saving that as time passed and
her deep wounds healed her sorrows were forgotten, and she seemed to
bloom out into a second youth.
So it came to pass that within two years Charles Juxon once more asked
her to be his wife. She hesitated long--fully half an hour, the squire
thought; but in the end she put out her small hand and laid it in his,
and thanked God that a man so generous and true, and whom she so honestly
loved, was to be her husband as well as her friend and protector. Charles
James Juxon smoothed his hair with his other hand, and his blue eyes were
a little moistened.
"God bless you, Mary," he said; and that was all.
Then the Reverend Augustin Ambrose married them in the church of Saint
Mary's, between Christmas and New Year's Day; and the wedding-party
consisted of Mrs. Ambrose and Eleanor Goddard and John Short, Fellow of
Trinity College, Cambridge. And again years passed by, and Nellie grew in
beauty as John grew in reputation; and Nellie had both brothers and
sisters, as she had longed to have, and to her, their father was as her
own; so that there was much harmony and peace and goodwill towards men
in Billingsfield Hall. John came often and stayed long, and was ever
welcome; for though Mary Goddard's youth returned with the daffodils and
the roses of the first spring after Walter's death, John's fleeting
passion returned not, and perhaps its place was better taken. Year by
year, as he came to refresh himself from hard work with a breath of the
country air, he saw the little girl grow to the young maiden of sixteen,
and he saw her beauty ripen again to the fulness of womanhood; and at
last, when she was one and twenty years of age he in his turn put out his
hand and asked her to take him--which she did, for better or worse, but
to all appearances for better. For John Short had prospered mightily in
the world, and had come to think his first great success as very small
and insignificant as compared with what he had done since. But his old
simplicity was in him yet, and was the cause of much of his prosperity,
as it generally is when it is found together with plenty of brains. It
was doubtless because he was so very simple that when he found that he
loved Eleanor Goddard he did not hesitate to ask the convict's daughter
to be his wife. His interview with Mr. Juxon was characteristic.
"You know what you are doing, John?" asked the squire. He always called
him John, now.
"Perfectly," replied the scholar, "I am doing precisely what my betters
have done before me with such admirable result."
"Betters?"
"You. You knew about it all and you married her mother. I know all about
it, and I wish to marry herself."
"You know that she never heard the story?"
"Yes. She never shall."
"No, John--she never must. Well, all good go with you."
So Charles Juxon gave his consent. And Mary Juxon consented too; but for
the first time in many years the tears rose again to her eyes, and she
laid her hand on John's arm, as they walked together in the park.
"Oh, John," she said, "do you think it is right--for you yourself?"
"Of course I think so," quoth John stoutly.
"You John--with your reputation, your success, with the whole world at
your feet--you ought not to marry the daughter of--of such a man."
"My dear Mrs. Juxon," said John Short, "is she not your daughter as well
as his? Pray, pray do not mention that objection. I assure you I have
thought it all over. There is really nothing more to be said, which I
have not said to myself. Dear Mrs. Juxon--do say Yes!"
"You are very generous, John, as well as great," she answered looking up
to his face. "Well--I have nothing to say. You must do as you think best.
I am sure you will be kind to Nellie, for I have known you for ten
years--you may tell her I am very glad--" she stopped, her eyes brimming
over with tears.
"Do you remember how angry I was once, when you told me to go and talk to
Nellie?" said John. "It was just here, too--"
Mary Juxon laughed happily and brushed the tears from her eyes. So it was
all settled.
Once more the Reverend Augustin Ambrose united two loving hearts before
the altar of Saint Mary's. He was well stricken in years, and his hair
and beard were very white. Mrs. Ambrose also grew more imposing with each
succeeding season, but her face was softer than of old, and her voice
more gentle. For the sorrow and suffering of a few days had drawn
together the hearts of all those good people with strong bands, and a
deep affection had sprung up between them all. The good old lady felt as
though Mary Juxon were her daughter--Mary Juxon, by whom she had stood in
the moment of direst trial and terror, whom she had tended in illness and
cheered in recovery. And the younger woman's heart had gone out towards
her, feeling how good a thing it is to find a friend in need, and
learning to value in her happiness the wealth of human kindness she had
found in her adversity.
They are like one family, now, having a common past, a common present,
and a common future, and there is no dissension among them. Honest and
loyal men and women may meet day after day, and join hands and exchange
greetings, without becoming firm friends, for the very reason that they
have no need of each other. But if the storm of a great sorrow breaks
among them and they call out to each other for help, and bear the brunt
of the weather hand in hand, the seed of a deeper affection is brought
into their midst; and when the tempest is past the sweet flower of
friendship springs up in the moistened furrows of their lives.
So those good people in the lonely parish of Billingsfield gathered round
Mary Goddard, as they called her then, and round poor little Nellie, and
did their best to protect the mother and the child from harm and
undeserved suffering; and afterwards, when it was all over, and there was
nothing more to be feared in the future, they looked into each other's
faces and felt that they were become as brothers and sisters, and that so
long as they should live--may it be long indeed!--there was a bond
between them which could never be broken. So it was that Mrs. Ambrose's
face softened and her voice was less severe than it had been.
Mary Juxon is the happiest of women; happy in her husband, in her
eldest daughter, in John Short and in the little children with bright
faces and ringing voices who nestle at her knee or climb over the sturdy
sailor-squire, and pull his great beard and make him laugh. They will
never know, any more than Nellie knew, all that their mother suffered;
and as she looks upon them and strokes their long fair hair and listens
to their laughter, she says to herself that it was perhaps almost worth
while to have been dragged down towards the depths of shame for the sake
of at last enjoying such pride and glory of happy motherhood.
THE END.
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD
I. Mr. Isaacs
II. Doctor Claudius
III. To Leeward
IV. A Roman Singer
V. An American Politician
VI. Marzio's Crucifix Zoroaster
VII. A Tale of a Lonely Parish
VIII. Paul Patoff
IX. Love in Idleness: A Tale of Bar Harbor Marion Darche
X. Saracinesca
XI. Sant' Ilario
XII. Don Orsino
XIII. Corleone: A Sicilian Story
XIV. With the Immortals
XV. Greifenstein
XVI. A Cigarette-Maker's Romance Khaled
XVII. The Witch of Prague
XVIII. The Three Fates
XIX. Taquisara
XX. The Children of the King
XXI. Pietro Ghisleri
XXII. Katharine Lauderdale
XXIII. The Ralstons
XXIV. Casa Braccio (Part I)
XXV. Casa Braccio (Part II)
XXVI. Adam Johnstone's Son A Rose of Yesterday
XXVII. Via Crucia
XXVIII. In the Palace of the King
XXIX. Marietta: A Maid of Venice
XXX. Cecilia: A Story of Modern Rome
XXXI. The Heart of Rome
XXXII. Whosoever Shall Offend