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A LIFE SENTENCE.
A NOVEL.
BY
ADELINE SERGEANT,
_Author of "The Luck of the House," "Under False
Pretences," etc., etc._
MONTREAL:
JOHN LOVELL & SON,
23 St. Nicholas Street.
Entered according to Act of Parliament in the year 1889, by John Lovell
& Son, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics at
Ottawa.
A LIFE SENTENCE.
CHAPTER I.
"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"
"We find the prisoner guilty, my lord."
A curious little thrill of emotion--half sigh, half sob--ran through the
crowded court. Even the most callous, the most world-hardened, of human
beings cannot hear unmoved the verdict which condemns a fellow-creature
to a shameful death. The spectators of Andrew Westwood's trial for the
murder of Sydney Vane had expected, had predicted, the result; yet it
came with the force of a shock to their excited nerves. The trial had
lasted for two whole days already, and the level rays of sunshine that
streamed through the west windows of the court-house showed that the
afternoon of a third day was drawing to a close. The attention of the
patient sitters with whom the seats were closely packed had been
strained to the uttermost; the faces of many were white and weary, or
flushed with excitement and fatigue. The short absence of the jurymen
had only strung their nerves to a higher pitch; and the slight murmur
that passed through the heavy air when the verdict was made known showed
the tension which had been reached.
The prisoner was well known in the locality, and so also had been his
victim. This fact accounted for the crowding of the court by friends and
acquaintances of the man murdered and his murderer, and for the
breathless interest with which every step of the legal process had been
followed. Apart from this, the case had excited much attention all over
England; the papers had been filled with its details, and a good deal of
discussion on the laws of circumstantial evidence had arisen during its
course. Not that there could be any reasonable doubt as to the
prisoner's guilt. True, nobody had seen him commit the crime. But he was
a poacher of evil character and violent disposition; he had been sent to
gaol for snaring rabbits by Mr. Vane, and had repeatedly vowed vengeance
upon him; there was a presumption against him from the very first. Then
one evening he had been seen lurking about a covert near which Mr. Vane
passed shortly afterwards; shots were heard by passers-by and Mr. Vane
was discovered lying amongst the springing bracken in the depths of a
shadowy copse, shot through the heart. A scrap of rough tweed found in
the dead man's hand was said to correspond with a torn corner of
Westwood's coat, and the murder was supposed to have been committed by
the poacher with a gun which was afterwards found in Westwood's cottage.
Several persons testified that they had seen Andrew issuing from the
copse or walking along the neighboring road, before or after the hour
when Mr. Vane met his fate, that he had his gun in his hand, that his
demeanor was strange, and that his clothes seemed to have been torn in a
scuffle. Little by little the evidence accumulated against him until it
proved irresistible. Facts which seemed small in themselves became large
and black, and charged with damnatory significance in the lawyer's
hands. The best legal talent of the country was used with crushing
effect against poor Andrew Westwood. Sydney Vane had been a popular man;
he belonged to a well-known county family, and had left a widow and
child. His friends would have moved heaven and earth to bring his
murderer to justice. After all--as was said later--the man Westwood
never had a chance. What availed his steady sullen denial against the
mass of circumstantial evidence accumulated against him? The rope was
round his neck from the time when that morsel of cloth was found clasped
close in the dead man's hand.
If there had been a moment when the hearts of his enemies were softened,
when a throb of pity was felt even by Sydney Vane's elder brother, the
implacable old General who had vowed that he would pursue Andrew
Westwood to the death, it was when the prisoner's little daughter had
been put into the witness-box to give evidence against her father. Every
one felt that the moment was terrible, the situation almost unbearable.
The child was eleven years old, a brown, thin, frightened-looking
little creature, with unnaturally large dark eyes and masses of thick
dark hair. Her appearance evidently agitated the prisoner. He looked at
her with an expression of anguish, and wrung his gaunt nervous hands
together with a groan that haunted for many a long year the memories of
those who heard it. The child's dilated black eyes fixed themselves upon
him, and her lips, drawn back a little from her teeth, turned ashy
white. No one who saw her pathetic little face could feel anything but
compassion for her, and a wish to spare her as much as possible.
The counsel certainly wished to spare her. Only one or two questions
were to be asked, and these were not of great importance; but at the
very outset a difficulty occurred. She was small for her age, and the
judge chose to ask whether she was aware of the nature of an oath. He
got no answer but a frightened stare. A few more questions plainly
revealed a state of extraordinary ignorance on the child's part. Did she
know who made her? No. Had she not heard of God? No. Did she attach any
meaning to the words "heaven" or "hell?" Not in the very least. By her
own showing, Andrew Westwood's little daughter was no better than a
heathen.
The judge decided that her evidence need not be taken, and made a severe
remark about the unwisdom of bringing so young and untaught a witness
into court, especially when--as appeared to him--the child was of feeble
intellect and weakly constitution.
It was murmured in reply that the girl had previously shown herself
quick-witted and ready of tongue, and that it was only since the shock
of her father's arrest that she had lapsed into her present state of
apparent semi-imbecility. No further attempt was made however to bring
her forward; and little Jenny Westwood, as she was usually called, on
stepping down from the box, was bidden to go away, as the court in which
her father was being tried for his life was no place for her. But she
did not go. She shrank into a corner, and waited until the Court rose
that day. In the morning she came again, resisting all efforts made by
some kindly countrywomen to take her away to their homes. She did not
speak, but struggled out of their hands with so wild a look in her great
black eyes that they shrank back from her aghast, whispering to each
other that she was purely "not right in the head," and perhaps they had
better leave her alone. They made her sit beside them, and tried to
persuade her to share the food that they had brought to eat in the
middle of the day; but they did not succeed in their kindly efforts. The
child seemed stupefied; she had a blind look, and did not respond when
spoken to.
She heard the foreman declare the finding of the jury--"Guilty, my
lord," but she hardly knew at that moment what was meant. Then came the
usual question. Had the prisoner anything to say? Was there any defence
which even now he desired to urge, any plea in mitigation of his crime?
Andrew Westwood raised his head. He had a sullen, defiant countenance;
his wild dark eyes, the shock of black hair tumbled across his lowering
brows, his rugged features, had told against him in popular estimation
and given him a ruffianly aspect in the eyes of the crowd; and yet, when
he stood up, and with a sudden rough gesture tossed the hair back from
his brows, and faced the judge with a look of unflinching resolution, it
was felt that the man possessed a rude dignity which compelled something
very like admiration. Courage always commands respect, and, whatever his
faults, his vices, his crimes might be, Andrew Westwood was a courageous
man. He gripped the rail of the dock before him with both hands, and
gave a quick look round the court before he spoke. His face was a little
paler than usual, but his strong, hard voice did not falter.
"I have only to say what I said before. I take God to witness that I am
innocent of this murder, and I pray that He'll punish the man that did
kill Mr. Vane and left me to bear the burden of his crime! That's all I
have to say, my lord. You may hang me if you like--I swear that I never
killed him; and I curse the hand that did!"
The hard, defiant tone of his speech effectually dissipated the
momentary sympathy felt for him by his audience. The judge sternly cut
him short, and said a few solemn words on the heinousness of his offence
and the impenitence which he had evinced. Then came the tragic
conclusion of the scene.
It had grown late; lights were brought in and placed before the judge,
upon whose scarlet robes and pale, agitated face they flickered
strangely in the draught from an open window at the back of the
court-house. The greater part of the building was in shadow; here and
there a chance ray of light rested on one or two in a row of raised
faces, and threw some insignificant countenance into startling temporary
distinctness. A breathless hush pervaded the whole room. Every eye was
fixed on the central figures of the scene--on the criminal as he stood
with hands still grasping the side of the dock, his head defiantly
raised, his shoulders braced as if to support a blow; on the judge,
whose pale features quivered with emotion as he donned the black cap and
uttered the fatal words which condemned Andrew Westwood to meet death by
the hangman's hand.
"And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"
The words were scarcely spoken before a loud scream rang through the
hall. Westwood turned round sharply; his eyes roved anxiously over the
throng of faces, and seemed to pierce the gloom that had gathered about
the benches in the background. He saw a little group of persons gathered
about the body of a child whom they were carrying into the fresh air. It
was his own little daughter who had cried out and fainted at the sound
of those fateful words.
The prisoner was instantly removed by two warders; but it was noted that
before he left the dock he threw up his hands as if in a wild gesture of
supplication to the heavens that would not hear. He made eager inquiries
of the warders as to the welfare of his child; and it was perhaps owing
to the compassion of one of them that the chaplain came to him an hour
later in his cell with news of her. She was better, she was in the hands
of kindly women who would take care of her, and she would come to see
her father by-and-bye. A convulsive twitch passed over Andrew's face.
"No, no," he said; "I don't want to see her. What good would that do?"
The chaplain, a kindly man whose sensibilities were not yet blunted by
the painful scenes through which he had constantly to pass, uttered a
word of remonstrance.
"Surely," he said, "you would like to see her again? She seems to love
you dearly."
"I'm not saying that I don't love her myself," said the man, turning
away his face. Then, after a moment's pause, and in a stifled
voice--"She's dearer to me than the apple of my eye. And that's where
the sting is. I'm to go out of the world, it seems, with a blot on my
name, and she'll never know who put it there."
"If you saw her yourself----"
"Nay," said Westwood resolutely--"I won't see her again. She'd remember
me all her life then, and she'd better forget. You're a good man, sir,
and a kind--couldn't you take her away somewhere out of hearing of all
this commotion, to some place where they would not know her father's
story, and where she'd never hear whether he was alive or dead?"
The chaplain shook his head.
"I'm afraid not, Westwood," he said compassionately. "I know of no place
where she could be safe from gossip."
"She will hear my story wherever she goes, I suppose you mean," said
Westwood wearily. "Ah, well, she will learn to bear it in time, poor
soul."
The chaplain looked at him curiously. There was more sincerity of tone,
less cant and affectation in this man than in any criminal he had ever
known.
"I suppose, sir," said the prisoner, after a short silence, during which
he sat with his eyes fixed on the floor--"I suppose there is no chance
of a reprieve--of the sentence being commuted?"
"I'm afraid not, Westwood. And you must let me say that your own conduct
during the trial makes it more improbable that any commutation of the
sentence should be obtained. If, my man, you could have shown any
penitence--if you had confessed your crime----"
"The crime that I never committed?" said Westwood, with a flash of his
sullen dark eyes. "Ah, you all speak alike! It's the same
story--'Confess--repent.' I may have plenty to confess and repent of,
but not this, for I never murdered Sydney Vane."
The chaplain shook his head.
"I am sorry that you persist in your story," he said sadly. "I had hoped
that you would come to a better mind."
"Do you want me to go into eternity with a lie on my lips?" asked
Westwood, fiercely. "I tell you that I am speaking the truth now. My
coat was torn on a briar; I fired my gun at a crow as I went over the
fields to my cottage. I saw a man go into the copse after Mr. Vane just
as I came out. Find him, if you want to know who killed Mr. Vane."
"You have told us the same story before," said the chaplain, in a
discouraged tone. "For your own sake, Westwood, I wish I could believe
you. Who was the man? What was he like? Where did he go? Unless those
questions are answered, it is impossible that your story should be
believed."
"I can't answer them," said Westwood, in a sullen tone. "I did not know
the man, and I did not look at him. All I know is that he has murdered
me as well as Mr. Vane, and blasted the life of my innocent child. And I
shall pray God night and morning as long as the breath is in my body to
punish him, and to bring shame and sorrow on himself and all that he
loves, as he has brought shame and sorrow on me and mine."
Then he turned his face to the wall and would say no more.