Under the shroud
Of His thunder-cloud
Lie we still when His voice is loud,
And our hearts shall feel
The love notes steal,
As a bird sings after the thunder peal--C. F. A.
Not till dusk could Dr. May get back to Stoneborough, and then, in an
evening gleam of that stormy day, he was met at the gate of Bankside by
Richard and Ethel.
'You need not come in, papa,' said Ethel. 'She is asleep. She knows.'
Dr. May sighed with unspeakable relief.
'Mr. Bramshaw telegraphed, and his clerk came down. It was not so very
bad! She saw it in our faces, and she was so worn out with talking and
watching, that--that the very turning her face to the wall with hope
over, became sleep almost directly.'
'That is well,' murmured the Doctor. 'And can you be spared, my dear?
If you could come I should be glad, for poor Aubrey is quite done up.'
'I can come. Mary is with her, and Richard will stay to meet Henry, if
he is coming home, or to send up if they want you; but I think she will
not wake for many hours; and then--oh! what can any one do!'
So Richard turned back to the sorrowful house; and Dr. May, tenderly
drawing Ethel's arm into his own, told her, as they walked back, the
few incidents that she most wanted to hear, as best he could narrate
them. 'You have had a heart-rending day, my dear,' he said; 'you and
Mary, as well as the rest of us.'
'There was one comfort!' said Ethel, 'and that was his own notes. Ave
has all that he has written to her from Whitford under her pillow, and
she kept spreading them out, and making us read them, and--oh! their
braveness and cheeriness--they did quite seem to hold one up! And then
poor little Minna's constant little robin-chirp of faith, "God will not
let them hurt him." One could not bear to tell the child, that though
indeed they cannot hurt him, it may not be in her sense! Look here!
These are her slippers. She has worked on all day to finish them, that
they might be done and out of sight when he came home this evening.
The last stitch was done as Richard came in; and now I thought I could
only take them out of every one's sight.'
'Poor things! poor things! And how was it with the child when she
heard?'
'The old sweet note,' said Ethel, less steadily than she had yet
spoken, '"nothing could hurt him for what he had not done." I don't
know whether she knows what--what is in store. At least she is not
shaken yet, dear child.'
'And Ave--how did you manage with her through all the day?'
'Oh! we did as we could. We tried reading the things Mr. Wilmot had
marked, but she was too restless; her hands would wander off to the
letters, caressing them, and she would go back to talk of him--all his
ways from a baby upwards. I hope there was no harm in letting her do
it, for if there is anything to do one good, it is his noble spirit.'
'If you had only seen his face to-day,' exclaimed the Doctor, half
angrily, 'you would not feel much comfort in the cutting off such a
fellow. No, no, it won't be. We'll petition--petition--petition--and
save him, we will! Minna will be right yet! They shall not hurt him!'
'Is there really hope in that way?' said Ethel, and a quiver of relief
agitated her whole frame.
'Every hope! Every one I have seen, or Tom either, says so. We have
only to draw up a strong enough representation of the facts, his
character, and all that; and there's his whole conduct before and since
to speak for itself. Why, when it was all over, George heard every one
saying, either he was a consummate hypocrite, or he must be innocent.
Harvey Anderson declares the press will take it up. We shall certainly
get him off.'
'You don't mean pardoned!'
'Commutation of the penalty. Come on,' said the Doctor, hurrying at
his headlong pace, 'there's no time to be lost in getting it drawn up.'
Ethel was dragged on so fast, that she could not speak; but it was with
willing haste, for this was the sort of suspense in which motion and
purpose were a great relief after the day's weary waiting. Gertrude,
quite spent with excitement and tears, had wisely betaken herself to
bed; and it would have been well had Aubrey followed her example,
instead of wandering up and down the room in his misery, flushed though
wan, impetuously talking treason against trial by jury, and abusing
dignitaries. They let him have it out, in all its fury and violence,
till he had tired out his first vehemence, and could be persuaded to
lie on the sofa while the rough draught of the petition was drawn up,
Tom writing, and every one suggesting or discussing, till the Doctor,
getting thorough mastery over the subject, dictated so fluently and
admirably, that even Tom had not a word to gainsay, but observed to
Ethel, when his father had gone up to bed, and carried Aubrey off,
'What an exceedingly able man my father is!'
'Is this the first time you have found that out?' said Ethel.
'Why, you know it is not his nature to make the most of himself! But
studying under him brings it out more; and there's a readiness about
him that I wish was catching. But I say, Ethel, what's this? I no
more doubt who did the deed, than I do who killed Abel; but I had once
seen Cain's face, and I knew it again. Is it true that the boy was
aware, and told my father?'
'Did he tell you so?'
'Only asked if he had betrayed the secret. If they both know it--why,
if it be Leonard's taste, I suppose I must say nothing to the contrary,
but he might as well consider his sister.'
'What do you know, Tom?' said she, perplexed.
'Only that there's some secret; and if it be as I am given to
understand, then it is a frenzy that no lucid person should permit.'
'No, Tom,' said Ethel, feeling that the whole must be told, 'it is no
certainty--only unsupported suspicion, which he could not help telling
papa after binding him on honour to make no use of it. Putting things
together, he was sure who the man in the yard was; but it was not
recognition, and he could not have proved it.'
'What Quixotry moved my father not to put the lawyers on the scent?'
Ethel explained; and for her pains Tom fell upon her for her folly in
not having told him all, when he could have gone to Blewer and gathered
information as no professional person could do; then lamented that he
had let Aubrey keep him from the inquest, when the fellow's hang-dog
look would have been sure to suggest to him to set Anderson to get him
searched. Even now he would go to the mill, and try to hunt up
something.
'Tom, remember papa's promise!'
'Do you think a man can do nothing without committing himself, like
poor Aubrey? No, Ethel, the Doctor may be clever, but that's no use if
a man is soft, and he is uncommonly soft; and you should not encourage
him in it.'
Ethel was prevented from expressing useless indignation by the arrival
of Mary, asking where papa was.
'Gone to bed. He said he must go off at six to-morrow, there are so
many patients to see. Ave does not want him, I hope?'
No, she is still asleep; I was only waiting for Richard, and he had
dreadful work with that poor Henry.'
'What kind of work?'
'Oh, I believe it has all come on him now that it was his
fault--driving Leonard to that place; and he was in such misery, that
Richard could not leave him.'
'I am glad he has the grace to feel it at last,' said Tom.
'It must be very terrible!' said Mary. 'He says he cannot stay in that
house, for every room reproaches him; and he groaned as if he was in
tremendous bodily pain.'
'What, you assisted at this scene?' said Tom, looking at her rather
sharply.
'No; but Richard told me; and I heard the groans as I sat on the
stairs.'
'Sat on the stairs?'
'Yes. I could not go back to Ave's room for fear of waking her.'
'And how long?'
'Towards an hour, I believe. I did all that piece,' said Mary,
displaying a couple of inches of a stocking leg, 'and I think it was
pretty well in the dark.'
'Sitting on the stairs for an hour in the dark,' said Tom, as he gave
Mary the candle he had been lighting for her. 'That may be called
unappreciated devotion.'
'I never can tell what Tom means,' said Mary, as she went up-stairs
with Ethel. 'It was a very comfortable rest. I wish you had had the
same, dear Ethel, you look so tired and worn out. Let me stay and help
you. It has been such a sad long day; and oh! how terrible this is!
And you know him better than any of us, except Aubrey.'
Mary stopped almost in dismay, for her sister, usually so firm, broke
down entirely, and sitting down on a low chair, threw an arm round her,
and resting her weary brow against her, gave way to long tearless sobs,
or rather catches of breath. 'Oh! Mary! Mary!' she said, between her
gasps, 'to think of last year--and Coombe--and the two bright boys--and
the visions--and the light in those glorious eyes--and that this should
be the end!'
'Dear, dear Ethel,' said Mary, with fast-flowing tears and tender
caresses, 'you have kept us all up; you have always shown us it was for
the best.'
'It is! it is!' cried Ethel. 'I do, I _will_ believe it! If I had
only seen his face as papa tells of it, I could keep hold of the glory
of it and the martyr spirit. Now I only see his earnest, shy,
confiding look--and--and I don't know how to bear it.' And Ethel's
grasp of Mary in both arms was tightened, as if to support herself
under her deep labouring sobs of anguish. Ah! he was very fond of you.'
'There never was any one beyond our own selves that loved me so well. I
always knew it would not last--that it ought not; but oh! it was
endearing; and I did think to have seen him a shining light!'
'And don't you tell us he is a shining light now?' said Mary, among the
tears that really almost seemed to be a relief, as if her sister
herself had shed them; and as she knelt down, Ethel laid her head on
her shoulder, and spoke more calmly.
'He is,' she said, 'and I ought to be thankful for it! I think I am
generally--but now--it makes it the more piteous--the hopes--the
spirit--the determination--all to be quenched, and so quenched--and to
have nothing--nothing to do for him.
'But, Ethel, papa says your messages do him more good than anything;
and papa will let you go and see him, and that will comfort him.'
Ethel's lips gave a strange sort of smile; she thought it was at simple
Mary's trust in her power, but it would hardly have been there but for
the species of hope thus excited, and the sense of sympathy. Mary was
not one to place any misconstruction on what had passed; she well knew
that Leonard had almost taken a brother's place in Ethel's heart, and
she prized him at the rate of her sister's esteem. Perhaps her
prominent thought was how cruel were those who fancied that Ethel's
lofty faith was unfeeling, and how very good Leonard must be to be thus
mourned. At any rate, she was an excellent comforter, in the sympathy
that was neither too acute nor too obtuse; and purely to oblige her,
Ethel for the first time submitted to her favourite panacea of hair
brushing, and found that in very truth those soft and steady
manipulations were almost mesmeric in soothing away the hard oppressive
excitement, and bringing on a gentle and slumberous resignation.
The sisters were early astir next morning, to inflict on their father a
cup of cocoa, which he rebelled against, but swallowed, and to receive
his last orders, chiefly consisting of messages to Tom about taking the
petition to be approved of by Dr. Spencer and others, and then having
it properly drawn out. Mary asked if women might sign it, and was
answered with an impatient 'Pshaw!'
'But ladies do have petitions of their own,' said Mary, with some
diffidence. 'Could not we have one?'
His lips were compressed for another 'Pshaw,' when he bethought
himself. 'Well, I don't know--the more the better. Only it won't do
for you to set it going. Flora must be the woman for that.'
'Oh, then,' cried Mary, eagerly, 'might not I walk over to breakfast at
the Grange, and talk to Flora? Ethel, you would not mind going to Ave
instead? Or will you go to Flora?'
'You had better,' said Ethel. 'I must stay on Aubrey's account; and
this is your doing, Mary,' she added, looking at her warmly.
'Then put on your hat, Mary, and take a biscuit,' said the Doctor, 'and
you shall have a lift as far as the cross roads.'
Thus the morning began with action and with hope. Mary found herself
very welcome at the Grange, where there was much anxiety to hear of
Aubrey, as well as the more immediate sufferers. The Riverses had
dined at Drydale, and had met the judges, as well as a good many of the
county gentlemen who had been on the grand jury and attended on the
trial. They had found every one most deeply touched by the conduct of
the prisoner. The judge had talked to Flora about her young brother,
and the friendship so bravely avouched; had asked the particulars of
the action to which Leonard had alluded, and shown himself much
interested in all that she related.
She said that the universal impression was that the evidence was dead
against Leonard, and taken apart, led to such conviction of his guilt,
that no one could wonder at the verdict; but that his appearance and
manner were such, that it was almost impossible, under their influence,
not to credit his innocence. She had reason to believe that petitions
were already in hand both from the county and the assize town, and she
eagerly caught at Mary's proposal of one from the ladies of
Stoneborough.
'I'll drive in at once before luncheon, and take you home, Mary,' she
said. 'And, first of all, we will begin with the two widows, and half
the battle will be won.'
Nay, more than half the battle proved to be already gained in that
quarter. The writing-table was covered with sheets of foolscap, and
Mrs. Pugh was hard at work copying the petition which Mr. Harvey
Anderson had kindly assisted in composing, and which the aunt and niece
had intended to have brought to the Grange for Mrs. Rivers's approval
that very day. Harvey Anderson had spent the evening at Mrs. Ledwich's
in drawing it up, and giving his advice; and Flora, going over it word
for word with Mrs. Pugh, felt that it could hardly have been better
worded.
'He is a very clever, a very rising young man, and so feeling, said
Mrs. Ledwich to Mary while this was going on. 'In fact, he is a
perfect knight-errant on this subject. He is gone to London this
morning to see what can be done by means of the press. I tell Matilda
it is quite a romance of modern life; and indeed, the sweet girl is
very romantic still--very young, even after all she has gone through.'
Not understanding this, Mary let it pass in calculations on the number
of possible signatures, which the two ladies undertook to collect.
'That is well,' said Flora, as they went away. 'It could not be in
better hands. It will thrive the better for our doing nothing but
writing our names.'
They met Tom on the like errand, but not very sanguine, for he said
there had of late been an outcry against the number of reprieves
granted, and the public had begun to think itself not sufficiently
protected. He thought the best chance was the discovery of some
additional fact that might tell in favour of Leonard, and confident in
his own sagacity, was going to make perquisitions at the mill. Every
one had been visiting of late, and now that he knew more, if he and his
microscope could detect one drop of human blood in an unexpected place,
they would do better service to the prisoner than all the petitions
that could be signed.
Averil was somewhat better; the feverishness had been removed by her
long sleep of despair, and her energy revived under the bodily relief,
and the fixed purpose of recovering in time to see her brother again;
but the improvement was not yet trusted by Henry, who feared her doing
too much unless he was himself watching over her, and therefore only
paid Leonard a short visit in the forenoon, going and returning by
early trains.
He reported that Leonard was very pale, and owned to want of sleep,
adding, however, 'It does not matter. Why should I wish to lose any
time?' Calm and brave as ever, he had conversed as cheerfully as
Henry's misery would permit, inquiring into the plans of the family,
which he knew were to depend on his fate, and acquiescing in his
brother's intention of quitting the country; nay, even suggesting that
it might be better for his sisters to be taken away before all was
over, though he, as well as Henry, knew that to this Averil would never
have consented. He had always been a great reader of travels, and he
became absolutely eager in planning their life in the wild, as if where
they were he must be, till the casual mention of the word 'rifle'
brought him to sudden silence, and the consciousness of the condemned
cell; but even then it was only to be urgent in consoling his brother,
and crowding message on message for his sisters; begging Henry not to
stay, not to consider him for a moment, but only whatever might be best
for Ave.
In this frame Henry had left him, and late in the afternoon, Dr. May
had contrived to despatch his work and make his way to the jail, where,
as he entered, he encountered the chaplain, Mr. Reeve, a very worthy,
but not a very acute man. Pausing to inquire for the prisoner, he was
met by a look of oppression and perplexity. The chaplain had been with
young Ward yesterday evening, and was only just leaving him; but then,
instead of the admiring words the Doctor expected, there only came a
complaint of the difficulty of dealing with him; so well instructed, so
respectful in manner, and yet there was a coldness, a hardness about
him, amounting to sullenness, rejecting all attempts to gain his
confidence, or bring him to confession.
Dr. May had almost been angry, but he bethought himself in time that
the chaplain was bound to believe the verdict of the court; and
besides, the good man looked so grieved and pitiful, that it was
impossible to be displeased with him, especially when he began to hope
that the poor youth might be less reserved with a person who knew him
better, and to consult Dr. May which of the Stoneborough clergy had
better be written to as likely to be influential with him. Dr. May
recommended Mr. Wilmot, as having visited the boy in his illness, as
well as prepared him for Confirmation; and then, with a heavier load of
sadness on his heart, followed the turnkey on his melancholy way.
When the door was opened, he saw Leonard sitting listlessly on the side
of his bed, resting his head on his hand, entirely unoccupied; but at
the first perception who his visitor was, he sprang to his feet, and
coming within the arms held out to him, rested his head on the kind
shoulder.
'My dear boy--my brave fellow,' said Dr. May, 'you got through
yesterday nobly.'
There was none either of the calmness or the reserve of which Dr. May
had been told, in the hot hands that were wringing his own, nor in the
choking struggling voice that tried to make the words clear--'Thank you
for what you said--And dear Aubrey--how is he?'
'I came away at six, before he was awake,' said the Doctor; 'but he
will not be the worse for it, never fear! I hope his evidence was less
trying than you and he expected.'
Leonard half smiled. 'I had forgotten that,' he said, 'it was so long
ago! No, indeed--the dear fellow was--like a bright spot in that
day--only--only it brought back all we were--all that is gone for ever.'
The tenderness of one whom he did not feel bound to uphold like his
brother had produced the outbreak that could not fail to come to so
warm, open, and sensitive a nature, and at such an age. He was bold
and full of fortitude in the front of the ordeal, and solitude pent up
his feelings, but the fatherly sympathy and perfect confidence drew
forth expression, and a vent once opened, the rush of emotion and
anguish long repressed was utterly overpowering. His youthful manhood
struggled hard, but the strangled sobs only shook his frame the more
convulsively, and the tears burnt like drops of fire, as they fell
among the fingers that he spread over his face in the agony of weeping
for his young vigorous life, his blasted hopes, the wretchedness he
caused, the disgrace of his name.
'Don't, don't fight against it,' said Dr. May, affectionately drawing
him to his seat on the bed, as, indeed, the violence of the paroxysm
made him scarcely able to stand. 'Let it have its way; you will be all
the better for it. It ought to be so--it must.'
And in tears himself, the Doctor turned his back, and went as far away
as the cell would permit, turning towards the books that lay on a
narrow ledge that served for a table. 'How long, O Lord, how long?'
were the words that caught his eye in the open Psalms; and, startled as
if at unauthorized prying, he looked up at the dull screened and spiked
window above his head, till he knew by the sounds that the worst of the
uncontrollable passion had spent itself, and then he came back with the
towel dipped in water, and cooled the flushed heated face as a sister
might have done.
'Oh--thank you--I am ashamed,' gasped the still sobbing boy.
'Ashamed! No; I like you the better for it,' said the Doctor,
earnestly. 'There is no need that we should not grieve together in
this great affliction, and say out all that is in our hearts.'
'All!' exclaimed Leonard. 'No--no words can say that! Oh! was it for
such as this that my poor mother made so much of me--and I got through
the fever--and I hoped--and I strove--Why--why should I be cut off--for
a disgrace and a misery to all! and again came the heart-broken sobs,
though less violently.
'Not to those who look within, and honour you, Leonard.'
'Within! Why, how bad I have been, since _this_ is the reckoning! I
deserve it, I know--but--' and his voice again sank in tears.
'Ethel says that your so feeling comforts her the most; to know that
you have not the terrible struggle of faith disturbed by injustice.'
'If--I have not,' said Leonard, 'it is her doing. In those happy days
when we read Marmion, and could not believe that God would not always
show the right, she showed me how we only see bits and scraps of His
Justice here, and it works round in the end! Nay, if I had not done
that thing to Henry, I should not be here now! It is right! It is
right!' he exclaimed between the heaving sobs that still recurred. 'I
do try to keep before me what she said about Job--when it comes burning
before me, why should that man be at large, and I here? or when I think
how his serpent-eye fell under mine when I tried that one word about
the receipt, that would save my life. Oh! that receipt!'
'Better to be here than in his place, after all!'
'I'd rather be a street-sweeper!' bitterly began Leonard.--'Oh, Dr.
May, do let me have that!' he cried, suddenly changing his tone, and
holding out his hand, as he perceived in the Doctor's button-hole a
dove-pink, presented at a cottage door by a grateful patient. For a
space he was entirely occupied with gazing into its crimson depths,
inhaling the fragrance, and caressingly spreading the cool damask
petals against his hot cheeks and eyelids. 'It is so long since I saw
anything but walls!' he said.
'Three weeks,' sadly replied the Doctor.
'There was a gleam of sunshine when I got out of the van yesterday. I
never knew before what sunshine was. I hope it will be a sunny day
when I go out for the last time!'
'My dear boy, I have good hopes of saving you. There's not a creature
in Stoneborough, or round it, that is not going to petition for
you--and at your age--'
Leonard shook his head in dejection. 'It has all gone against me,' he
said. 'They all say there's no chance. The chaplain says it is of no
use unsettling my mind.'
'The chaplain is an old--' began Dr. May, catching himself up only just
in time, and asking, 'How do you get on with him!'
'I can hear him read,' said Leonard, with the look that had been
thought sullen.
'But you cannot talk to him?'
'Not while he thinks me guilty.' Then, at a sound of warm sympathy
from his friend, he added, 'I suppose it is his duty; but I wish he
would keep away. I can't stand his aiming at making me confess, and I
don't want to be disrespectful.'
'I see, I see. It cannot be otherwise. But how would it be if Wilmot
came to you?'
'Would Mr. May?' said Leonard, with a beseeching look.
'Richard? He would with all his heart; but I think you would find more
support and comfort in a man of Mr. Wilmot's age and experience, and
that Mr. Reeve would have more trust in him; but it shall be exactly as
will be most comforting to you.'
'If Mr. Wilmot would be so good, then' said Leonard, meekly. 'Indeed, I
want help to bear it patiently! I don't know how to die; and yet it
seemed not near so hard a year ago, when they thought I did not notice,
and I heard Ave go away crying, and my mother murmuring, again and
again, "Thy will be done!"--the last time I heard her voice. Oh, well
that she has not to say it now!'
'Well that her son can say it!'
'I want to be able to say it,' said the boy, fervently; 'but this seems
so hard--life is so sweet.' Then, after a minute's thought: 'Dr. May,
that morning, when I awoke, and asked you for them--papa and mamma--you
knelt down and said the Lord's Prayer. Won't you now?'
And when those words had been said, and they both stood up again,
Leonard added: 'It always seems to mean more and more! But oh, Dr.
May! that forgiving--I can't ask any one but you if--' and he paused.
'If you forgive, my poor boy! Nay, are not your very silence and
forbearance signs of practical forgiveness? Besides, I have always
observed that you have never used one of the epithets that I can't
think of him without.'
'Some feelings are too strong for common words of abuse,' said Leonard,
almost smiling; 'but I hope I may be helped to put away what is
wrong.--Oh, must you go?'
'I fear I must, my dear; I have a patient to see again, on my way back,
and one that will be the worse for waiting.'
'Henry has not been able to practise. I want to ask one thing, Dr.
May, before you go. Could not you persuade them, since home is
poisoned to them, at any rate to go at once? It would be better for my
sisters than being here--when--and they would only remember that last
Sunday at home.'
'Do you shrink from another meeting with Averil?'
His face was forced into calmness. 'I will do without it, if it would
hurt her.'
'It may for the time, but to be withheld would give her a worse
heart-ache through life.'
'Oh, thank you!' cried Leonard, his face lighting up; 'it is something
still to hope for.'
'Nay, I've not given you up yet,' said the Doctor, trying for a
cheerful smile. 'I've got a prescription that will bring you through
yet--London advice, you know. I've great faith in the consulting
surgeon at the Home Office.'
By the help of that smile and augury, the Doctor got away, terribly
beaten down, but living on his fragment of hope; though obliged to
perceive that every one who merely saw the newspaper report in black
and white, without coming into personal contact with the prisoner,
could not understand how the slightest question of the justice of the
verdict could arise. Even Mr. Wilmot was so convinced by the papers,
that the Doctor almost repented of the mission to which he had invited
him, and would, if he could, have revoked what had been said. But the
vicar of Stoneborough, painful as was the duty, felt his post to be by
the side of his unhappy young parishioner, equally whether the gaol
chaplain or Dr. May were right, and if he had to bring him to
confession, or to strengthen him to 'endure grief, suffering
wrongfully.'
And after the first interview, no more doubts on that score were
expressed; but the vicar's tone of pitying reverence in speaking of the
prisoner was like that of his friends in the High Street.
Tom May spared neither time nor pains in beating up for signatures for
the petition, but he had a more defined hope, namely, that of detecting
something that might throw the suspicion into the right quarter. The
least contradiction of the evidence might raise a doubt that would save
Leonard's life, and bring the true criminal in peril of the fate he so
richly deserved. The Vintry Mill was the lion of the neighbourhood,
and the crowds of visitors had been a reason for its new master's
vacating it, and going into lodgings in Whitford; so that Tom, when he
found it convenient to forget his contempt of the gazers and curiosity
hunters who thronged there, and to march off on a secret expedition of
investigation, found no obstacle in his way, and at the cost of a fee
to Mrs. Giles, who was making a fortune, was free to roam and search
wherever he pleased. Even his careful examination of the cotton blind,
and his scraping of the window-sill with a knife, were not remarked;
for had not the great chair been hacked into fragmentary relics, and
the loose paper of the walls of Leonard's room been made mincemeat of,
as memorials of 'the murderer, Ward'?
One long white hair picked out of a mat below the window, and these
scrapings of the window-sill, Tom carried off, and also the scrapings
of the top bar of a stile between the mill and the Three Goblets. That
evening, all were submitted to the microscope. Dr. May was waked from
a doze by a very deferential 'I beg your pardon, sir,' and a sudden
tweak, which abstracted a silver thread from his head; and Mab showed
somewhat greater displeasure at a similar act of plunder upon her white
chemisette. But the spying was followed by a sigh; and, in dumb show,
Ethel was made to perceive that the Vintry hair had more affinity with
the canine than the human. As to the scrapings of the window, nothing
but vegetable fibre could there be detected; but on the stile, there
was undoubtedly a mark containing human blood-disks; Tom proved that
both by comparison with his books, and by pricking his own finger, and
kept Ethel to see it after every one else was gone up to bed. But as
one person's blood was like another's, who could tell whether some one
with a cut finger had not been through the stile? Tom shook his head,
there was not yet enough on which to commit himself. 'But I'll have
him!--I'll have him yet!' said he. 'I'll never rest while that villain
walks the earth unpunished!'
Meantime, Harvey Anderson did yeoman's service by a really powerful
article in a leading paper, written from the very heart of an able man,
who had been strongly affected himself, and was well practised in
feeling in pen and ink. Every word rang home to the soul, and all the
more because there was no defence nor declamation against the justice
of the verdict, which was acknowledged to be unavoidable; it was merely
a pathetic delineation of a terrible mystery, with a little meditative
philosophy upon it, the moral of which was, that nothing is more
delusive than fact, more untrue than truth. However, it was copied
everywhere, and had the great effect of making it the cue of more than
half the press to mourn over, rather than condemn, 'the unfortunate
young gentleman.'
Mrs. Pugh showed every one the article, and confided to most that she
had absolutely ventured to suggest two or three of the sentences. But a
great deal might be borne from Mrs. Pugh, in consideration of her
indefatigable exertions with the ladies' petition, and it was a decided
success. The last census had rated Market Stoneborough at 7561
inhabitants, and Mrs. Pugh's petition bore no less than 3024 female
names, in which she fairly beat that of the mayor; but then she had
been less scrupulous as to the age at which people should be asked to
sign; as long as the name could be written at all, she was not
particular whose it was.
Dr. May made his patients agree to accept as his substitute Dr. Spencer
or Mr. Wright, to whom Henry Ward intended to resign practice and
house. He himself was to go to London for a couple of nights with
George Rivers, who was exceedingly gratified at having the charge of
him all to himself, and considered that the united influence of member
and mayor must prevail. Dr. Spencer, on the contrary, probably by way
of warning, represented Mr. Mayor as ruining everything by his headlong
way of setting about it, declaring that he would abuse everybody all
round, and assure the Home Secretary, that, as sure as his name was
Dick May, it was quite impossible the boy could have hurt a fly; though
a strict sense of truth would lead him to add the next moment, that he
was terribly passionate, and had nearly demolished his brother.
Dr. May talked of his caution and good behaviour, which, maybe, were
somewhat increased by this caricature, but he ended by very hearty
wishes that these were the times of Jeanie Deans; if the pardon
depended on our own good Queen, he should not doubt of it a moment.
Why, was not the boy just the age of her own son?
And verily there was no one in the whole world whom poor Averil envied
like Jeanie Deans.
So member and mayor went to London together, and intense were the
prayers that speeded them and followed them. The case was laid before
the Home Secretary, the petitions presented, and Dr. May said all that
man might say on ground where he felt as if over-partisanship might be
perilous. The matter was to have due consideration: nothing more
definite or hopeful could be obtained; but there could be no doubt that
this meant a real and calm re-weighing of the evidence, with a
consideration of all the circumstances. It was something for the
Doctor that a second dispassionate study should be given to the case,
but his heart sank as he thought of that cold, hard statement of
evidence, without the counter testimony of the honest, tearless eyes
and simple good faith of the voice and tone.
And when he entered the railway carriage on his road home, the
newspaper that George Rivers attentively pressed upon him bore the
information that Wednesday, the 21st, would be the day, according to
usage, for the execution of the condemned criminal, Leonard Axworthy
Ward. If it had been for the execution of Richard May, the Doctor
could hardly have given a deeper groan.
He left the train at the county town. He had so arranged, that he
might see the prisoner on his way home; but he had hardly the heart to
go, except that he knew he was expected, and no disappointment that he
could help must add to the pangs of these last days.
Leonard was alone, but was not, as before, sitting unemployed; he
carefully laid down his etching work ere he came forward to meet his
friend; and there was not the bowed and broken look about him, but a
fixed calmness and resolution, as he claimed the fatherly embrace and
blessing with which the Doctor now always met him.
'I bring you no certainty, Leonard. It is under consideration.'
'Thank you. You have done everything,' returned Leonard, quietly;
'and--' then pausing, he added, 'I know the day now--the day after my
birthday.'
'Let us--let us hope,' said the Doctor, greatly agitated.
'Thank you,' again said Leonard; and there was a pause, during which
Dr. May anxiously studied the face, which had become as pale and almost
as thin as when the lad had been sent off to Coombe, and infinitely
older in the calm steadfastness of every feature.
'You do not look well, Leonard.'
'No; I am not quite well; but it matters very little,' he said, with a
smile. 'I am well enough to make it hard to believe how soon all sense
and motion will be gone out of these fingers!' and he held up his hand,
and studied the minutiae of its movements with a strange grave sort of
curiosity.
'Don't--don't, Leonard!' exclaimed the Doctor. 'You may be able to
bear it, but I cannot.'
'I thought you would not mind, you have so often watched death.'
'Yes; but--' and he covered his face with his hands.
'I wish it did not pain you all so much,' said Leonard, quietly. 'But
for that, I can feel it to be better than if I had gone in the fever,
when I had no sense to think or repent; or if I had--I hardly knew my
own faults.'
'You seem much happier now, my boy.'
'Yes,' said Leonard. 'I am more used to the notion, and Mr. Wilmot has
been so kind. Then I am to see Ave to-morrow, if she is well enough.
Henry has promised to bring her, and leave her alone with me; and I do
hope--that I shall be able to convince her that it is not so very bad
for me--and then she may be able to take comfort. You know she would,
if she were nursing me now in my bed at Bankside; so why should she not
when she sees that I don't think this any worse, but rather better?'
The Doctor was in no mood to think any comfort possible in thus losing
one like Leonard, and he did not commit himself to an untruth. There
was a silence again, and Leonard opened his book, and took out his
etchings, one which he had already promised the Doctor, another for
Aubrey, and at the third the Doctor exclaimed inarticulately with
surprise and admiration.
It was a copy of the well-known Cross-bearing Form in the Magdalen
College Chapel Altar-piece, drawn in pen and ink on a half-sheet of
thick note-paper; but somehow, into the entire Face and Figure there
was infused such an expression as now and then comes direct from the
soul of the draughtsman--an inspiration entirely independent of manual
dexterity, and that copies, however exact, fail to render, nay, which
the artist himself fails to renew. The beauty, the meekness, the
hidden Majesty of the Countenance, were conveyed in a marvellous
manner, and were such as would bring a tear to the eye of the gazer,
even had the drawing been there alone to speak for itself.
'This is your doing, Leonard?'
'I have just finished it. It has been one of my greatest comforts--'
'Ah!'
'Doing those lines;' and he pointed to the thorny Crown, 'I seem to get
ashamed of thinking this hardness. Only think, Dr. May, from the very
first moment the policeman took me in charge, nobody has said a rough
word to me. I have never felt otherwise than that they meant justice
to have its way as far as they knew, but they were all consideration
for me. To think of that, and then go over the scoffs and
scourgings!'--there was a bright glistening tear in Leonard's eye
now--'it seems like child's play to go through such a trial as mine.'
'Yes! you have found the secret of willingness.'
'And,' added the boy, hesitating between the words, but feeling that he
must speak them, as the best balm for the sorrow he was causing, 'even
my little touch of the shame and scorn of this does make me know better
what it must have been, and yet--so thankful when I remember why it
was--that I think I could gladly bear a great deal more than this is
likely to be.'
'Oh! my boy, I have no fears for you now.'
'Yes, yes--have fears,' cried Leonard, hastily. 'Pray for me! You
don't know what it is to wake up at night, and know something is coming
nearer and nearer--and then this--before one can remember all that
blesses it--or the Night of that Agony--and that He knows what it is--'
'Do we not pray for you?' said Dr. May, fervently, 'in church and at
home? and is not this an answer? Am I to take this drawing, Leonard,
that speaks so much?'
'If--if you think Miss May--would let me send it to her? Thank you, it
will be very kind of her. And please tell her, if it had not been for
that time at Coombe, I don't know how I could ever have felt the ground
under my feet. If I have one wish that never can be--'
'What wish, my dear, dear boy? Don't be afraid to say. Is it to see
her?'
'It was,' said Leonard, 'but I did not mean to say it. I know it
cannot be.'
'But, Leonard, she has said that if you wished it, she would come as if
you were lying on your bed at home, and with more reverence.'
Large tears of gratitude were swelling in Leonard's eyes, and he
pressed the Doctor's hand, but still said, almost inarticulately,
'Ought she?'
'I will bring her, my boy. It will do her good to see how--how her
pupil, as they have always called you in joke, Leonard, can be willing
to bear the Cross after his Master. She has never let go for a moment
the trust that it was well with you.'
'Oh! Dr. May, it was the one thing--and when I had gone against all her
wishes. It is so good of her! It is the one thing--' and there was no
doubt from his face that he was indeed happy.
And Dr. May went home that day softened and almost cheered, well-nigh
as though he had had a promise of Leonard's life, and convinced that in
the region to which the spirits of Ethel and her pupil could mount,
resignation would silence the wailings of grief and sorrow; the things
invisible were more than a remedy for the things visible.
That Ethel should see Leonard before the last, he was quite resolved;
and Ethel, finding that so it was, left the _when_ in his hands,
knowing the concession to be so great, that it must be met by grateful
patience on her own side, treasuring the drawing meanwhile with
feelings beyond speech. Dr. May did not wish the meeting to take place
till he was really sure that all hope was at an end; he knew it would
be a strong measure, and though he did not greatly care for the world
in general, he did not want to offend Flora unnecessarily; in matters
of propriety she was a little bit of a conscience to him, and though he
would brave her or any one else when a thing was right, especially if
it were to give one last moment of joy to Leonard, she was not to be
set at naught till the utmost extremity.
And for one day, the sight of Averil would be enough. She had
struggled into something sufficiently like recovery to be able to
maintain her fitness for the exertion; and Henry had recognized that
the unsatisfied pining was so preying on her as to hurt her more than
the meeting and parting could do, since, little as he could understand
how it was, he perceived that Leonard could be depended on for support
and comfort. With him, indeed, Leonard had ever shown himself cheerful
and resolute, speaking of anything rather than of himself and never
grieving him with the sight of those failings of flesh and heart that
would break forth where there was more congenial sympathy, yet where
they were not a reproach.
So Averil, with many a promise to be 'good,' and strongly impressed
with warnings that the chance of another meeting depended on the
effects of this one, was laid back in the carriage, leaving poor little
Minna to Mary's consolation. Minna was longing to go too, but Henry
had forbidden it, and not even an appeal to Dr. May had prevailed; so
she was taken home by Mary, and with a child's touching patience, was
helped through the weary hours, giving wandering though gentle
attention to Ella's eager display of the curiosities of the place, and
explanations of the curious games and puzzles taught by 'Mr. Tom.'
Ethel, watching the sweet wistful face, and hearing the subdued voice,
felt a reverence towards the child, as though somewhat of the shadow of
her brother's cross had fallen on her.
The elder brother and sister meanwhile arrived at the building now only
too familiar to one of them, and, under her thick veil, unconscious of
the pitying looks of the officials, Averil was led, leaning on Henry's
arm, along the whitewashed passages, with their slate floors, and up
the iron stairs, the clear, hard, light coldness chilling her heart
with a sense of the stern, relentless, inevitable grasp in which the
victim was held. The narrow iron door flew open at the touch of the
turnkey; a hand was on her arm, but all swam round with her, and she
only knew it was the well-known voice; she did not follow the words
between her brothers and the turnkey about the time she was to be left
there, but she gave a start and shudder when the door sprung fast again
behind her, and at the same instant she felt herself upheld by an arm
round her waist.
'Take off your bonnet, Ave; let me see you,' he said, himself undoing
the strings, and removing it, then bending his face to hers for a long,
almost insatiable kiss, as they stood strained in one intense embrace,
all in perfect silence on the sister's part.
'I have been making ready for you,' he said at length, partly releasing
her; 'you are to sit here;' and he deposited her, still perfectly
passive in his hands, upon his bed, her back against the wall. 'Put up
your feet! There!' And having settled her to his satisfaction, he
knelt down on the floor, one arm round her waist, one hand in hers,
looking earnestly up into her face, with his soul in his eyes, her
other hand resting on his shoulder.
'How are the little ones, Ave?'
'Very well. Minna so longed to come.'
'Better not,' said Leonard; 'she is so little, and these white walls
might distress her fancy. They will remember our singing on the last
Sunday evening instead. Do you remember, Ave, how they begged to stay
on and on till it grew so dark that we could not see a word or a note,
and went on from memory?' and he very softly hummed the restful
cadence, dying away into
'Till in the ocean of Thy love
We lose ourselves in Heaven above.'
'How can you bear to think of those dear happy days!'
'Because you will be glad of them by and by, said Leonard; 'and I am
very glad of them now, though they might have been so much better, if
only we had known.'
'They were the only happy days of all my life!'
'I hope not--I trust not, dearest. You may and ought to have much
better and happier days to come.'
She shook her head, with a look of inexpressible anguish, almost of
reproach.
'Indeed I mean it, Ave,' he said; 'I have thought it over many times,
and I see that the discomfort and evil of our home was in the spirit of
pride and rebellion that I helped you to nurse. It was like a wedge,
driving us farther and farther apart; and now that it is gone, and you
will close up again, when you are kind and yielding to Henry--what a
happy peaceful home you may make out in the prairie land!'
'As if we could ever--'
'Nay, Averil, could not you recover it if I were dying now of sickness?
I know you would, though you might not think so at the time. Believe
me, then, when I say that I am quite willing to have it as it is--to be
my own man to the last--to meet with such precious inestimable kindness
from so many. Of course I should like to live longer, and do something
worth doing; but if I am to die young, there is so much blessing even
in this way, that nothing really grieves me but the thought of you and
Henry; and if it makes you one together, even that is made up.'
Awe-struck, and as if dreaming, she did not answer, only smoothing
caressingly the long waves of bright brown hair on his forehead. She
was surprised by his next question.
'Ave! how has Mrs. Pugh behaved?'
'Oh! the woman! I have hardly thought of her! She has been very
active about the petition, somebody said; but I don't believe Henry can
bear to hear of her any more than I can. What made you think of her?'
'Because I wanted to know how it was with Henry, and I could not ask
him. Poor fellow! Well, Ave, you see he will depend on you entirely
for comfort, and you must promise me that shall be your great business
and care.'
'How you do think of Henry!' she said, half jealously.
'Of course, Ave. You and I have no past to grieve over together, but
poor Henry will never feel free of having left me to my self-willed
obstinacy, and let me go to that place. Besides, the disgrace in the
sight of the world touches him more, and you can tread that down more
easily than he.' Then, in answer to a wondering look, 'Yes, you can,
when you recollect that it is crime, not the appearance of it, that is
shame. I do not mean that I do not deserve all this--but--but--' and
his eye glistened, 'Ave, dear, if I could only bring out the words to
tell you how much peace and joy there is in knowing that--with that
vast difference--it is like in some degree what was borne to save us, I
really don't think you could go on grieving over me any more; at least
not more than for the loss,' he added, tenderly; 'and you'll not miss
me so much in a new country, you know, with Henry and the children to
take care of. Only promise me to be kind to Henry.'
And having drawn forth a faint promise, that he knew would have more
force by and by, Leonard went on, in his low quiet voice, into
reminiscences that sounded like random, of the happy days of childhood
and early youth, sometimes almost laughing over them, sometimes linking
his memory as it were to tune or flower, sport or study, but always for
joy, and never for pain; and thus passed the time, with long intervals
of silent thought and recollection on his part, and of a sort of dreamy
stupor on his sister's, during which the strange peaceful hush seemed
to have taken away her power of recalling the bitter complaints of
cruel injustice, and the broken-hearted lamentations she had imagined
herself pouring out in sympathy with her victim brother. Instead of
being wrung with anguish, her heart was lulled and quelled by wondering
reverence; and she seemed to herself scarcely awake, and only dimly
conscious of the pale-cheeked bright-eyed face upturned to her, so calm
and undaunted, yet so full of awe and love, the low steady tender
voice, and the warm upholding arm.
A great clock struck, and Leonard said, 'There! they were to come at
four, and then the chaplain is coming. He is grown so very kind now!
Ave, if they would let you be with me at my last Communion! Will you?
Could you bear it? I think then you would know all the peace of it!'
'Oh, yes! make them let me come.'
'Then it is not good-bye,' he said, as he fetched her bonnet and cloak,
and put them on with tender hands, as if she were a child, in readiness
as steps approached, and her escort reappeared.
'Here she is, Henry,' he said, with a smile. 'She has been very good;
she may come again.' And then, holding her in his arms once more, he
resigned her to Henry, saying, 'Not good-bye, Ave; we will keep my
birthday together.'