It is impossible to describe the joy and satisfaction with which the
excellent people at Emberton had heard that Mr. Tims, the old miser at
Ryebury, had been murdered. I do not, of course, mean to say that
every one in the whole town had those enlarged and general views which
made them take in at once all the infinite advantages, both moral and
physical, which that event was likely to afford them. Some, indeed,
only calculated on the overflowing and inexhaustible source of bustle,
excitement, surmise, and gossip, which was thus opened to them. Some
fixed their thoughts upon the renown that Emberton would acquire
throughout the world, as the place where the dreadful murder was
committed, and others calculated upon wealth and emolument, from the
number of visitors that it would bring to see the place. But only a
few, of more vast and comprehensive minds, saw all these particulars
in one general view, and rubbed their hands in great anticipations, as
sharing in the sweet excitement of the moment, they talked over the
murder with their neighbors, and added many bright touches from their
own fancy to ornament the bloody deed.
The first news of the event that reached Emberton had been conveyed by
farmer Ritson's hind, who supplied the old miser with his quotidian
pennyworth of milk, and who had discovered the deed on applying in
vain for admission. He alarmed his master, whose house was half a mile
distant, and the good farmer instantly sent the intelligence to
Emberton. The messenger's arrival took place just five minutes after
Mr. Tims, junior, had driven through the town on his way to the
mansion at the park; and as both Dr. Wilton and Mr. Egerton, the
nearest magistrates, had passed the preceding evening and night at
Emberton, inquiring into some suspicious circumstances connected with
the burning of Mrs. Darlington's house, they were instantly called
from their breakfast, and proceeded to examine into this fresh crime,
which was destined to illustrate the annals of the neighborhood.
They found the house at Ryebury already surrounded by a number of
people; and from among them various persons stepped forward to offer
some little item of testimony; but an unexpected visitor soon appeared
in the person of the lawyer, who, on leaving the park, in not the most
placable humor, ordered the post-boy to drive to his uncle's house,
and arrived just as the magistrates were about to leave the premises.
No sooner did he hear of the event than he determined, if possible, to
involve the family of Sir Sidney Delaware in the consequences, and
entered into an examination of the circumstances, which soon not only
furnished him with the means of doing so, but also really convinced
him that Captain Delaware was guilty of the crime that he proposed to
impute to him. He at once laid his charge, and related the
circumstances of his late transaction with Sir Sidney Delaware's
family in his own particular way. He would fain, indeed, have involved
the father, too, in the accusation he brought against the son; but his
own clerk, and the sheriff's-officer, distinctly stated before the
magistrates, that it had been evident throughout, that Sir Sidney had
not been aware, on their first arrival, that his son was in possession
of the money necessary to pay the debt; and, for fear of spoiling a
very hopeful case against Captain Delaware, the lawyer was obliged to
abandon all charge against the baronet.
If the news of the murder alone had so soothed and gratified each of
those mixed feelings--the love of the marvelous, the passion for
talking, and the general dislike to our fellow-creatures, which
all--combined with, or rather, as it were, embedded in a soft stratum
of vanity--enter into the spirit of gossiping; how much more were the
good folks of Emberton delighted and stimulated when they heard the
charge against Captain Delaware, and learned that the result of the
coroner's inquest was a verdict of willful murder against him. The
reason why we are so much better pleased when a person in our own or a
superior station commits a crime, or enacts a folly--why we tell it
immediately to every one we meet, and aggravate it by our own
comments--is, probably, that a person in that rank having had as great
advantages in circumstances and education as ourselves, our vanity has
the full opportunity of complimenting us on not having done the same,
without the necessity of admitting one deduction on the score of
greater temptations, or inferior knowledge, which we are compelled to
do when the criminal is low, ignorant, or poor. The fact is, in all
these cases, we make ourselves a bow on our own good behavior, and the
lowness of the bow depends upon the relative situation of the sinner
or the fool over whom we crow.
Thus, when the matter came to be discussed at Emberton, every one
cried out, "Well, one would have thought that a young man of such
hopes, and such an education as this Captain Delaware, would be the
last to commit so dreadful a crime! A poor, ignorant wretch, driven to
vice from necessity, one might have suspected; but not the son of a
baronet, and a master and commander in the king's navy!"
Among such speculations fled away the evening; and, as we have
said--although the people did not illuminate the town--the verdict of
the coroner's jury certainly did make them as happy as the gossiping,
envious, scandalous community of a little country town could be made.
Early the next moment, however, just as the chaise which was to convey
the prisoner to the county town was about to set out for his father's
house, and as all the people of Emberton were preparing to turn out,
and stare at him as he passed, a buzzing rumor began to spread abroad
that Captain Delaware had escaped in the night.
"Escaped!" cried the old maiden in the house at the corner of the
bridge, letting fall the china cup from her hand as the maid announced
the fatal intelligence--"Escaped! then we shall all be murdered in our
beds! Escaped!--why did they let the ruffian escape?"
In a different manner did the mercer bear the tidings; for, without
replying one word to the shop-boy who told him, he proceeded to carry
the news direct to the stationer's; and, as he detailed it, he added,
"So there can be no doubt of his guilt now!"
"There never was any! There never was any!" replied the linen-draper
in the same charitable spirit. "But you have heard that wild Wat
Harrison, the widow's son, has not been seen or heard of for the last
two or three days, and that there are manifold suspicions--"
"To be sure! To be sure! Those Delawares were always fond of him,"
replied the mercer. "He sailed with this very captain, you know; and
it seems he has been under his orders once too often. I always said he
would come to be hanged!"
While such charitable conversation was passing at Emberton, the
magistrates were not inactive; warrants, horses, and constables were
dispatched in all directions, and both Dr. Wilton and Mr. Egerton,
well knowing the blame that would attach to themselves, returned to
the mansion to investigate by what means the prisoner had escaped. The
constables in whose charge the prisoner had been left, and the room
which he had occupied, were first examined. The two men declared upon
oath, that no one had been admitted to the accused but themselves,
since he had been remanded; that they had both slept in the ante-room;
that the door had been locked all night; that the window was far too
high to afford the means of evasion; and that they had both seen and
spoken to Captain Delaware as late as eleven the preceding night. The
inferior constable at the same time handed the fugitive's letter to
Dr. Wilton, who opened and read it, while Mr. Egerton made the first
superficial examination of the room; and, as his fellow-magistrate was
about to institute a more rigorous investigation, the clergyman
exclaimed--
"Stay, stay, Mr. Egerton, this letter concerns us both, and in it
William Delaware alludes, in some measure, to the method of his
intended escape. See here! He says the officers are entirely guiltless
of it, as it is by a passage they are not acquainted with."
"Then there must be some private entrance," said Mr. Egerton.
"I dare say there is," answered Dr. Wilton; "but this letter, in many
points, throws some new light upon the subject. Read it! Read it!
and, at all events, let us, as far as we can, do the poor boy justice.
Read it, my dear sir!"
Mr. Egerton took it to the window, and read it attentively over. He
then gave the letter back to Dr. Wilton, saying, "He makes out a good
case against his accuser; but I am afraid, my dear doctor, that it
will not screen himself. However, on every account--for charity's
sake, and for the sake of mere justice--I will, of course, exert
myself to the utmost--that is to say, quietly--quietly, you know, for
the matter is nearly out of our hands--but I will exert myself to the
utmost to discover every fact connected with the charge. In the mean
time, we must do our duty, and endeavor to recover our prisoner: Let
us examine the walls."
"First examine the floor," said Dr. Wilton. "Sliding panels have not
been to be found since the epoch of Udolpho, but trap-doors are to be
met with in all these old houses."
The hint was instantly complied with; and the trap-door was discovered
at once, together with its communication with the park. Nothing
farther, however, could be made of this fact. The way the fugitive had
taken remained still undiscovered; and the only effect which their
investigation produced upon the minds of the two magistrates was, that
each perceived at once that the means which Captain Delaware had taken
to make his escape, might very well have served another person for the
purpose of placing the money in his chamber unseen; and thus his tale
acquired a degree of probability which it had not before possessed.
When the examination was concluded, as far as it could be carried at
the time, and every necessary measure for overtaking the fugitive had
been put in train for execution, Mr. Egerton went back to Emberton to
confer with the coroner, who was hourly expected to return to that
little town, in order to see the prisoner dispatched to the county
jail. Dr. Wilton, in the mean while, laying aside his magisterial
capacity, proceeded, as a friend and a clergyman, to visit Sir Sidney
Delaware and his daughter. He found them, as he had expected,
depressed in the extreme, and saw that they were naturally in a high
state of nervous anxiety in regard to Captain Delaware's safety. At
first there was a degree of painful embarrassment in the whole
deportment of Sir Sidney Delaware, which made him treat even Dr.
Wilton with no small haughtiness and reserve. But the good clergyman
came to console and to soothe; and he persevered with all those kindly
and feeling attentions, which are sure ultimately to win their way to
an amiable heart, however much the road thither may be obstructed by
the pride of undeserved shame, or the reckless repulsiveness of bitter
disappointment.
When he found Sir Sidney unwilling to listen, impatient of
consolation, or heedless of conversation, he turned to Blanche, and
won her into the innocent man[oe]uvre of wiling her father from his
bitterer thoughts. Gradually the feelings of the baronet relaxed; he
was brought more and more to speak of his own sorrows, and of his
son's unhappy fate; and though a tear or two forced themselves through
his eyelids, his griefs and even his apprehensions--as a sometimes the
case--were partly lost as they were poured forth into a friendly ear.
We must do justice to all, however. Dr. Wilton was not the only friend
who came to soothe and console the unhappy family at Emberton Park;
and the person who next appeared was certainly one whom they did not
expect to see. It was Mrs. Darlington, who had lately taken a house at
the distance of about ten miles. After spending a part of the
preceding day at Emberton, she had returned to her dwelling, in no
small horror at the charge which she heard had been brought against
her young friend, William Delaware.
Now Mrs. Darlington, as we have shown before, was not without her
foibles and absurdities, but withal she had a far greater share of
real goodness of heart, and of the milk of human kindness, than
generally falls to the lot of that amphibious class called very good
sort of people. It must also be remarked, that though she was in no
degree very brilliant, and only made herself ridiculous by the
smattering of pretty accomplishments which she possessed, yet there
was a certain rectitude of understanding about her, which, in early
years, taking the form of tact, enabled her to assume at once the tone
of a society above the rank in which she was born; and which, in after
life, had often guided her to just conclusions, when people without
half her little weaknesses, and who pretended to ten times her
abilities, were all in the wrong.
In the present instance, no sooner did she hear of the accusation
against Captain Delaware, than, from her previous knowledge of his
character, she pronounced it at once to be perfect nonsense; and when
Dr. Wilton informed her that he and Mr. Egerton had remanded the young
officer on suspicion, she merely asked, "How they could be so
foolish?" The coroner's inquest produced no other effect. She still
pronounced it all nonsense together; and quietly declared to her maid
that she was sure it would ultimately be found that the people who had
murdered the poor old man were the very same who had set fire to her
house and carried off her plate.
The worthy lady, however, passed the whole of that evening and the
next morning in a state of considerable perturbation. She was a great
stickler for proprieties--hated every thing in the world that made a
noise--liked a small lion, it is true but had a great aversion to a
bear, even if, like a late learned Grecian, it affected to be a lion
solely on the strength of being a wild beast--and, finally, she did
not at all approve of personages who were in any way doubtful. All
this operated strongly upon the prudential organs of her cerebral
development, and would have induced her to stay at home quietly, and
watch the course of events in regard to the Delaware family, had not
the goodness of heart we have spoken of, and the rectitude of judgment
which established Captain Delaware's innocence in her mind beyond all
manner of doubt, both pressed her strongly forward to show countenance
and kindness to the ruined family in their distress.
There was a considerable struggle for it, however, in her own mind;
but, nevertheless, at ten o'clock, she again declared that it was all
nonsense together, and ordered the chariot as soon as possible.
By this time her resolution was taken; and stepping lightly in, she
ordered the coachman to drive to Emberton Park.
It is not impossible that on her arrival she might have been denied
admittance--for just inasmuch as one never knows all the coldness of
the general world till one tries it, one does not know the kindness of
the exceptions either--but, without any questions, she walked out of
the carriage, and, tripping across the hall with a step a good deal
too juvenile, she entered the library unannounced.
Sir Sidney bowed with stately formality; but Blanche, who understood
the whole business better, exclaimed, while the bright tears rose in
her eyes, "Oh, Mrs. Darlington, this is very kind of you, indeed!"
"Not at all, my dear Blanche! not at all!" replied Mrs. Darlington, in
her usual quick, but little-meaning manner. "Where is your brother I
am resolved to see him, and tell him how foolish I think all the
magistrates of the county have grown together. Beg your pardon, Dr.
Wilton; but it is true, indeed!"
"You can not see him, madam, I am afraid," replied Dr. Wilton,
gravely; "for he has made his escape from confinement."
"Oh, dear! I am very glad to hear it," she replied. "You surely would
not have had him stay in a nasty, filthy prison for two or three
weeks, because a great rogue chose to accuse him of a crime nobody
believes he committed? I am very glad to hear it, indeed!"
The good lady then paused for a moment; and perceiving that, although
her avowal of disbelief in regard to Captain Delaware's guilt had been
not a little pleasing to his father, Sir Sidney still remained sad and
depressed, she turned to him, kindly saying, "Come, come, Sir Sidney,
I will not have you look so gloomy. You are as careworn as if your son
were really guilty; and as we all know very well that he is not, you
should make yourself quite sure that he will easily be able to cause
his innocence to appear. But I have laid out a little scheme for you
and Blanche. I have nobody staying with me in my new house, and the
place is quite quiet. You will do nothing here but grow dull and
melancholy, and I will have you get into the chariot with me, and come
away and spend a week or two till all this is settled."
Although Sir Sidney Delaware felt that the invitation was most kind,
and in his own dwelling experienced that sickening disgust which one
feels toward all once-loved things, when some fatal change has
poisoned them with bitter associations, yet he declined Mrs.
Darlington's offer on his own part, though he much pressed his
daughter to accept it. Blanche, however, refused to leave her father;
and the matter would have ended thus, had not Mrs. Darlington
discovered that one great motive in Sit Sidney's desire to remain at
his own dwelling, at least for that night, was to hear the first news
brought by the messengers dispatched to intercept his son.
As soon as she found how much weight this had upon him, she proposed
to go forward with Dr. Wilton to Emberton, and there hear all that had
been done in her own business: after which, she said, she would return
at six o'clock for Sir Sidney and his daughter, who must have received
tidings from the three county towns to which officers had been
dispatched.
Some slight difficulties having been discussed and overcome, this plan
was agreed to. Mrs. Darlington and Dr. Wilton departed; and the fact
that Mrs. Darlington had visited the ruined family at Emberton having
been ascertained by the appearance of her carriage rolling down the
avenue from the house, threw the town into a state of agitation which
might have afforded matter of envy to the arch-agitator himself.
In the mean while, the various messengers charged with the warrants
against Captain William Delaware, proceeded toward their destinations.
It may be only necessary to follow one of them, however; as all the
rest, being sent in various wrong directions, might have gone onward
in a direct line till they met at the antipodes, without setting eyes
upon William Delaware. The one, then, who was directed to ride with
all speed to the seaport town of ----, and having got his warrant
backed by the proper authorities, to search for and take the person of
the accused, arrived in that place at about two o'clock of the
afternoon; and, finding that no less than five foreign vessels had
sailed that day at high water, which took place at eight of the clock,
he proceeded as he had been directed, to inquire at the offices of all
the foreign vice-consuls what passports had been granted during the
morning.
The consuls and their clerks were as civil as possible, and the names
and descriptions were read over to him; but the poor man might as well
have been in Babel, such a confused multitude of unchristianlike
Christian names were pronounced in his ears. His next attempt was at
the descriptions; but he found that, during that one morning, people
of all colors and complexions, of all ages and sizes, of all features
and professions, had sailed for foreign parts, or obtained their
passports, which was quite as good; and therefore, bewildered and in
despair, he gave up the search; and, having committed his charge to
the constables of the place, once more mounted and returned to
Emberton.
These tidings were balm to the hearts of Sir Sidney and Blanche
Delaware, but were not quite so pleasing to the people of Emberton,
who next to a murder enjoyed a hanging--which, indeed, is generally
much the same thing. Another messenger, however, arrived about the
same time, who brought news which somewhat diverted their attention.
This was the mast who had been sent the day before to London, by Dr.
Wilton, in search of Mr. Beauchamp, and who was a shrewd, intelligent
fellow, not likely to miss the track of any one he sought for. But the
tidings he brought back imported, that Mr. Beauchamp had never reached
his house in town; and that, along the whole line of road, no person
resembling him had either fed a horse, taken a post-chaise, mounted a
stage, or entered an inn for the last four days.
Every one opened their eyes; and the people of Emberton all went to
bed with the consolatory reflection that Mr. Beauchamp, or rather Mr.
Burrel, as they termed him, must undoubtedly have been murdered also.
Dr. Wilton was himself uneasy. Sir Sidney Delaware said that the
absence of Henry Beauchamp was most unfortunate on many accounts; but
Blanche turned deadly pale when she heard the tidings, and the vague
apprehensions by which they were accompanied; and it would require no
great skill in the book of the human heart to read the silent
commentary that went on in her own bosom, on the unexplained absence
of one she dearly loved.