JASON’S STORY
The court was full of commotion. Pasco Pepperill had fallen, as though
struck down by a hammer, and was insensible. He was carried out with
difficulty, and with the crowd rushing about him and his bearers, unable
to realise what had taken place, anxious to see if he were dead.
He was not dead: a doctor was hastily summoned to the house into which
he was taken, and he pronounced the case to be one of apoplexy brought
on by sudden and violent emotion.
Meantime, inside the court order was gradually restored.
The chairman made a feeling allusion to the sudden illness which had
fallen on the most important witness in the case’which was the less to
be wondered at, since the case was one that must deeply move Mr.
Pepperill, as he had to appear against a member of his own family.
Then Mr. Pooke, with a mottled face, pushed up to the Bench, and
whispered something in the ear of the chairman.
“I beg pardon, I do not understand,” said he.
“Sir,” said Mr. Pooke, “the real culprit has come to deliver himself
up’Jason Quarm, who set fire to the rick, for which his daughter stands
here accused wrongfully by the biggest rascal that ever breathed.”
“Call Jason Quarm!” said the magistrate.
Jason at once hobbled forward and pushed himself in beside Kate, who was
trembling with emotions of the most varied nature. Jason cleared his
throat and said’
“I, your worships, I, and none but I, set fire to the rick at Coombe
Cellars, and I did it by inadvertence. Please you to remove my daughter
from this dock, and hear her presently as witness.”
“Let us hear first what you have to say. We cannot discharge her till we
know that she is innocent.”
“She is innocent, as innocent as the day. May it please your worships to
hear what I have to relate. It’s a main long story,” said Jason.
“What is to the point we will listen to. So you surrender yourself as
having fired the rick.”
“I did it, your worship. This is how it came about’you may put me on
oath if you will.”
“Stay a moment. I have to caution you that you are not obliged to say
anything, unless you desire to do so; but whatever you say will be taken
down in writing, and may be given in evidence against you upon your
trial.”
“I quite understand that,” said Quarm. “If I may be allowed a seat, I
shall be obliged. I’ve got one leg a bit shorter than the other, and
it’s rayther a trouble for me to stand long, and I’ve a goodish long
tale to tell.”
“I again remind you that what you say must be to the point.”
“I shan’t wander,” answered Jason. “But I shall have to begin some way
back, and that in March last, when Mr. Pooke’s rick was set a-blazin’.
That were thought to ha’ been the doin’ of Roger Redmore, and there was
a warrant out agin him, but he wor niver ketched.”
“Does this concern the case before the court?”
“Ay, it do’intimate like.”
“Very well, then, proceed. We have ordered you to be accommodated with a
chair, and your daughter likewise.”
“Roger Redmore, he runned away, and the constables never ketched he. My
daughter Kitty, her took on terrible over the poor wife as was turned
out of house and home by Mr. Pooke, and her persuaded me to let the
woman have my cottage, for she and the little ones. I didn’t mind, as I
was away on the moor busy about Brimpts oak wood, and when I comed back
to Coombe, I wor mostly at the Cellars. My sister Zerah, she be that
rapscallion Pasco’s wife, you understand, your worship.”
“Is this really to the point? You are speaking of the fire at Mr.
Pooke’s, not of that at Mr. Pepperill’s.”
“One fire hangs on to the other. You’ll find that out, gents, when
you’ve heard my tale.”
“Proceed, then.”
“Well’it seems that Roger Redmore felt mighty grateful because of what
Kitty and I had done. I was agent for an insurance company, and I
persuaded my brother-in-law to insure in it, but I must say he rather
astonished me at the figure at which he insured, and made me a bit
uneasy; I hadn’t such a terrible high opinion of him as to think he
might not be up to tricks.”
“What do you mean by tricks?”
“Doin’ something to his insured goods that weren’t worth much, and
gettin’ for ’em payment as if they was gold. But, your worship, that
you’ll say ain’t to the point. No more it is’we come to facts, not
opinions, don’t us? Well, I had been to Brimpts about the oak we was
fellin’ and barkin’, and I wanted to tell my brother-in-law as how I
thought we could deal with the dockyard at Portsmouth. So I left the
moor and drove down in my conveyance,’which is nothing but a donkey cart
and a jackass to draw’n,’and when I came in the dark o’ the evening to
my cottage, there I found Roger Redmore in the bosom of his family, so
to speak. ’Twas awk’ard for he and awk’ard for me, as there was a
warrant out again’ him, and so I drove right on and on to the Cellars. I
found Pasco there in the house all by hisself, which was coorious. He
had sent his wife, my sister Zerah, away somewhere, and Kitty, my
daughter, away somewhere else, and he was in a pretty take-on because I
turned up unexpected. I didn’t quite understand why he was in so poor a
temper, and why he should turn me out of the house as he did’and I had
got nowhere to go to for a night’s lodgin’. You see, your worships, I
couldn’t go home, what wi’ all the beds and every hole and corner
chockfull o’ childer as thick as fleas in a dog’s back, not to mention
the woman and that chap Roger in hiding, who didn’t want to be found.
But Pasco, he wouldn’t listen to reason, and he was that suspicious and
that queer in all his goings-on, that I thought some mischief wor up,
and that I’d bide handy and keep an eye on him. Well, gentlemen, when he
jostled me out o’ the house door, I went to the warehouse, and it wasn’t
locked, so I stepped in and found the ladder and clambered up that.
Thinks I to myself, if Pasco don’t mean no wickedness, well, I can sleep
here comfortable enough, anyhow. There were plenty o’ fleeces’they
weren’t over clean and sweet, but in such a case one can’t be
partic’lar. I hadn’t been there a terrible long time before I heard the
door open and I see’d a light. So I went to the ladder head and looked
down, and there sure enough wor Pasco! I watched him awhile to see what
May-games he wor up to, and at last I spied what it wor. He were
arranging and settling shavings among the coal knobs, so as to make up
grand fires, and he was gettin’ everything ready to burn down the whole
consarn, coals and fleeces and building, and me in it, if I were that
jack fool to bide where I was. So I hollered out to he, and let ’n
understand who was there, and that I marked his little game. I were on
the ladder. He looked towards me, and came at me, and shook the ladder,
and shook me down, and I fell on my head, I reckon, and remember nothing
more till I came to myself, bound hand and foot in a sack, and throwed
a-top of a heap o’ coal, that were afire and fizzing out in flame and
smoke, and a’most stifled I were, and didn’t know ’xactly where I were,
whether I’d got to the wrong place down below. I cried out, and I tried
to get free, but couldn’t move, and then I rolled myself down over fire
and coals, and scorched I were a bit; but what’d been the end I cannot
tell, if it had not been for Roger Redmore, who broke open the door and
came in, and dragged me out of the smoke and smother, and cut the bands
and got me out o’ the sack, and helped me off to where his missis were,
that is to say, my cottage.”
Jason paused and looked about him.
“That, I reckon, is the first chapter. Now to go on. When I came there,
I thought it all over, and I got Roger to put me in the outhouse, where
none of the children might see, and himself he dursn’t bide more than
the night lest he should be took, but he told Jane to mind me and let me
have what I wanted. Well, I turned the matter well over in my head, and
I thought as how Pasco were my brother-in-law, and if all came out, I’d
bring trouble on Zerah, and on my own child; I’d have to say as how
Pasco had fired his own building so as to get the insurance money, and
tried to kill me too, ’cause I see’d what he were up to. So I didn’t
like to do that, and I thought it ’ud be best for all parties if I got
out o’ the way. I dursn’t stir all the day that followed. But at night I
got out when I knowed the tide was suitable, and I took the old boat at
the Cellars and I made off wi’ that, and I rowed out to sea, and rowed
along the coast to Torquay, and I landed there, and there I ha’ been,
unbeknown to the Coombe folk’there or in London. When I’d been a bit to
Torquay, I seemed to smell money. I see’d as how a lot o’ fortune could
be got there by building and making a great place of it for invalids and
such folk; and I went up to London to start a company, and get a
building firm to take the matter up. I’ve been off and on about this
idee, and a fine idee it is like to turn out’so I reckon. I did hear as
how Pasco, he’d dra’ed twelve hundred pounds out o’ the insurance
company. Blessed if I knowed ’xactly what I should do. On the one side,
I were agent for the company; on the other, I were brother-in-law to
Pasco, and if I peached on Pasco, I might just as well ha’ stuck a knife
into my sister’s heart. And then I owed him something for having reared
my daughter in his house since she wor a baby. And Pasco and me, us got
on famous together about speculations, and taken in the lump he weren’t
a bad chap till he began to look to gettin’ money by burning down his
warehouse.”
Jason stood up, stretched his limbs, sat down again, and proceeded’after
a word of cheer to his daughter, who had risen and was standing
speechless, looking at him with dismayed eyes. She knew that her uncle
was false, but Jason had revealed a depth of wickedness in the man which
she had not conceived to be possible.
She had been satisfied that he had set fire to his magazines for the
sake of the insurance, and she knew that, basely, he endeavoured to
throw the guilt of the act on her. She had feared that her father had
been sacrificed when the warehouse was burned, but had never supposed
that her uncle had done this deliberately.
“Now,” continued Quarm, “I reckon I come to the third chapter. After a
bit, I thought I’d come back to Coombe, but not openly, and see how
Kitty were getting along. So I came unbeknown to everyone, and went to
Mrs. Redmore, and her put me in the same old outhouse as I were in
before, and I told her, as she worked at the Cellars, to say nothing
about it to Kitty, but find an excuse for getting her out from the house
after dark. That is what Jane Redmore did, and I met Kitty at the rick,
and us went together behind the rick, so as the light might not be seen
from the house whilst we talked. Well, I’d been wi’out my bacca-pipe for
some time, and seein’ as how Kitty had a light, I told her to open the
lantern, and I’d have a bit o’ a smoke for comfort. Her opened the
lantern door’but Lor’! gentlemen, I han’t told you how struck wi’ amaze
and main glad the little maid was to see her father, whom she had
believed to be dead, come to life again, hearty and wi’ fine prospects
of makin’ money out of building speculations to Torquay. But you must
imagine all that, your worships; it ain’t, as you may say, to the point;
but this here little affair o’ the pipe and lightin’ it is. Well, when
she opened the lantern door, I took out the bit end of a candle as was
therein, and I put it to my pipe to kindle my ’baccy. She was talkin’
and tellin’ of me all as had happened, and when her said as how Pasco
Pepperill had tried to lay the firing of his warehouse on she, then I
were that angry I burnt my fingers wi’ the candle-end, not thinking what
I were about, and throwed it down right among the straw, and afore I
could say Jack Robinson, there was a blaze as no stamping would put out.
The first thing Kate did was to run in, and the first thing I did was to
tumble into the boat and make off. I didn’t know what the consequences
might be, and I first thought I’d consider it, and learn what came of it
all before I stirred. If Pasco didn’t make a fuss, why, it might pass
and no harm come of it; if he made a stir, why, all must come out. The
little maid, I reckon, she would say nothing, because her knowed it was
my doing the stack catching alight, and thought she’d bring me into
trouble; and then there was that other fire behind; she didn’t know what
might come if it were examined into, and I made my appearance as one
returned from the dead. But I heard of it all. Jane Redmore sent to tell
me. And now, your worships, I reckon I’m the guilty one of the fire, but
it was accident, and she’s innocent and may be discharged. That is my
story.”
The Bench withdrew for a few minutes. When the magistrates returned, the
buzz of voices in court ceased at once.
“We have decided,” said the chairman, “that the case against Kate Quarm
be dismissed. She leaves the court without an imputation against her
character. You, Mr. Jason Quarm, must stand security in yourself and
find two others to stand bail for you to reappear before the court when
required.”