DRIFTING TO THE END.
My misery between the time of the murder and the trial was terrible from
many causes: my brother's death; George's position; the knowledge of his
sufferings, and my inability to see or soothe them--and, worst of all,
the firm conviction of his guilt in every one's mind, and Harriet's
ceaseless reproaches. I do not think that I should have lived through
it, but for Dr. Penn. That excellent and revered man's kindness will, I
trust, ever be remembered by me with due gratitude. He went up to town
constantly, at his own expense, and visited my dear George in Newgate,
administering all the consolations of his high office and long
experience, and being the bearer of our messages to each other. From him
also I gleaned all the news of which otherwise I should have been kept
in ignorance; how George's many friends were making every possible
exertion on his behalf, and how an excellent counsel was retained for
him. But far beyond all his great kindness, was to me the simple fact
that he shared my belief in George's innocence; for there were times
when the universal persuasion of his guilt almost shook, not my faith,
but my reason.
There were early prayers in our little church in the morning; too early,
Harriet said, for her to attend much, especially of late, when Dr.
Penn's championship of George Manners had led her to discover more
formalism in his piety, and northern broadness in his accent, than
before. But these quiet services were my daily comfort in those
troublous days; and in the sweet fresh walk home across the park, my
more than father and I hatched endless conspiracies on George's behalf
between the church porch and the rectory gate. Our chief difficulty, I
confess, lay in the question that the world had by this time so terribly
answered--who did it? If George were innocent, who was guilty? My poor
brother had not been popular, and I do not say that one's mind could not
have fixed on a man more likely to commit the crime than George, under
not less provocation. But it was an awful deed, Nelly, to lay to any
man's charge, even in thought; and no particle of evidence arose to fix
the guilt on any one else, or even to suggest an accomplice. As the time
wore on, suspense became sickening.
"Sir," I said to him one day, "I am breaking down. I have brought some
plants to set in your garden. I wish you would give me something to do
for you. Your shirts to make, your stockings to darn. If I were a poor
woman I should work down my trouble. As it is--"
"Hush!" said the doctor; you are what God has made you. My dear
madam, Janet tells me, what my poor eyes have hardly observed, that my
ruffles are more worn than beseems a doctor in divinity. Now for
myself--"
"Hush!" said I, mimicking him. "My dear sir, you have taught me to plot
and conspire, and this very afternoon I shall hold a secret interview
with Mistress Janet. But say something about my trouble. What will
happen?--How will it end?--What shall we do?"
"My love," he said, "keep heart. I fully believe in his innocence. There
is heavy evidence against him, but there are also some strong points in
his favour; and you must believe that the jury have no object to do
anything but justice, or believe anything but the truth, and that they
will find accordingly. And God defend the right!"
Eleanor!--they found him Guilty.
* * * * *
I have asked Dr. Penn to permit me to make an extract from his journal
in this place. It is less harrowing to copy than to recall. I omit the
pious observations and reflections which grace the original. Comforting
as they are to me, it seems a profanity to make them public; besides, it
is his wish that I should withhold them, which is sufficient.
_From the Diary of the Rev. Arthur Penn, D.D.,
Rector of Crossdale, Middlesex._
"When he came into the dock he looked (so it seemed to me) altered since
I had last seen him; more anxious and worn, that is, but yet composed
and dignified. Doubtless I am but a prejudiced witness; but his face to
me lacks both the confusion and the effrontery of guilt. He looks like
one pressed by a heavy affliction, but enduring it with fortitude. I
think his appearance affected and astonished many in the court. Those
who were prepared to see a hardened ruffian, or, at best, a cowering
criminal, must have been startled by the intellectual and noble style of
his beauty, the grace and dignity of his carriage, and the modest
simplicity of his behaviour. I am but a doting old man; for I think on
no evidence could I convict him in the face of those good eyes of his,
to which sorrow has given a wistful look that at times is terrible; as
if now and then the agony within showed its face at the windows of the
soul. Once only every trace of composure vanished--it was when sweet
Mistress Dorothy was called; then he looked simply mad. I wonder--but
no! no!--he did not commit this great crime,--not even in a fit of
insanity.
"Mr. A---- is a very able advocate, and, in his cross-examination of the
man Crosby and of Mistress Dorothy, did his best to atone for the cruel
law which keeps the prisoner's counsel at such disadvantage. The counsel
for the prosecution had pressed hard on my dear lady, especially in
reference to those farewell words overheard by her, which seem to give
the only (though that, I say, an incredible) clue to what remains the
standing mystery of the event--the missing hand. Then Mr. A---- rose to
cross-examine. He said--
"'During that part of the quarrel when you were present, did the
prisoner use any threats or suggestions of personal violence?'
"'No.'
"'In the fragment of conversation that you overheard at the last, did
you at the time understand the prisoner to be conveying taunts or
threats?'
"'No.'
"'How did you interpret the unaccountable anxiety on the prisoner's part
to shake hands with a man by whom he believed himself to be injured, and
with whom he was quarrelling!'
"'Mr. Manners' tone was such as one uses to a spoilt child. I believed
that he was determined to avoid a quarrel at any price, in deference to
my brother's infirmity and his own promise to me. He was very angry
before Edmund came in; but I believe that afterwards he was shocked and
sobered at the obviously irresponsible condition of my poor brother when
enraged. He had never seen him so before.'
"'Is it true that Mr. Manners' pocket-knife was in your possession at
the time of the murder?'
"'It is.'
"'Does your window look upon the "Honeysuckle Walk," where the prisoner
says that he spent the time between leaving your house and the finding
of the body?'
"'Yes.'
"'Was the prisoner likely to have any attractive associations connected
with it, in reference to yourself?'
"'We had often been there together before we were engaged. It was a
favourite walk of mine.'
"'Do you suppose that any one in this walk could hear cries proceeding
from the low gate?'
"'Certainly not.'
"The cross-examination of Crosby was as follows:--
"Mr. A.---- 'Were the prisoner's clothes much disordered, as if
he had been struggling?'
"'No; he looked much as usual; but he was covered with blood.'
"'So we have heard you say. Do you think that a man, in perfectly clean
clothes, could have lifted the body out of the ditch without being
covered with blood?'
"'No: perhaps not.'
"'Was there any means by which so much blood could have been accumulated
in the ditch, unless the body had been thrown there?'
"'I think not. The pool were too big.'
"'I have two more questions to ask, and I beg the special attention of
the jury to the answers. Is the ditch, or is it not, very thickly
overgrown with brambles and brushwood?'
"'Yes; there be a many brambles.'
"'Do you think that any single man could drag a heavy body from the
bottom of the ditch on to the bank, without severely scratching his
hands?'
"'No; I don't suppose he could.'
"'That is all I wish to ask.'
"Not being permitted to address the jury, it was all that he could do.
Then the Recorder summed up. God forgive him the fatal accuracy
with which he placed every link in a chain of evidence so condemning
that I confess poor George seemed almost to have been taken _in
flagrante delicto_. The jury withdrew; and my sweet Mistress Dorothy,
who had remained in court against my wish, suddenly dropped like an
apple-blossom, and I carried her out in my arms. When I had placed her
in safety, I came back, and pressed through the crowd to hear the
verdict.
"As I got in, the Recorder's voice fell on my ear, every word like a
funeral knell,--'_May the Lord have mercy on your soul!_'
"I think for a few minutes I lost my senses. I have a confused
remembrance of swaying hither and thither in a crowd; of execration, and
pity, and gaping curiosity; and then I got out, and some one passed me,
whose arm I grasped. It was Mr. A----.
"'Tell me,' I said, 'is there no hope? No recommendation to mercy?
Nothing?'
"He dragged me into a room, and, seizing me by the button, exclaimed--
"'We don't want mercy; we want justice! I say, sir, curse the present
condition of the law! It _must_ be altered, and I shall live to see it.
If I might have addressed the jury--there were a dozen points--we should
have carried him through. Besides,' he added, in a tone that seemed to
apologize for such a secondary consideration, 'I may say to you that I
fully believe that he is innocent, and am as sorry on his account as on
my own that we have lost the case.'
"And so the day is ended. _Fiat voluntas Domini!_"
* * * * *
Yes, Eleanor! Dr. Penn was right. The day did end--and the next--and
the next; and drop by drop the cup of sorrow was drained. And when the
draught is done, should we be the better, Nelly, if it had been nectar?
I had neither died nor gone mad when the day came--the last complete day
that George was to see on earth. It was Sunday; and, after a sleepless
night, I saw the red sun break through the grey morning. I always sleep
with my window open; and, as I lay and watched the sunrise, I thought--
"He will see this sunrise, and to-morrow's sunrise; but no other! No,
no!--never more!"
But then a stronger thought seemed to rise involuntarily against that
one--
"Peace, fool! If this be the sorrow, it is one that must come to all
men."
And then, Nelly (it is strange, but it was so), there broke out in the
stone pine by my window a chorus of little birds whom the sunbeams had
awakened; and they sang so sweet and so loud (like the white bird that
sang to the monk Felix), that earthly cares seemed to fade away, and I
fell asleep, and slept the first sound, dreamless sleep that had blessed
me since our great trouble came.