THE TRAGEDY ENDS.
’Lizabeth Bampfylde went on to Stanton that same afternoon, where the
remains of her two sons were lying. But she would not go in Lady
Stanton’s carriage.
“Nay, nay; carriages were never made for me. I will walk, my lady. It’s
best for me, body and soul.”
She had recovered herself after the anguish of that discovery. Before
the sympathisers round her had ceased to sob, ’Lizabeth had raised
herself up in the midst of them like an old tower. The storm had raged
round her, but had not crushed her. Her face and even her lips had lost
all trace of colour, her eyes were hollow and widened out in their
sockets, like caves to hold the slow welling out of salt tears. There
was a convulsive trembling now in the pose of her fine head, and in her
hands; but her strength was not touched.
“Oh, how can you walk?” Lady Stanton said; “you are not able for it.”
“I am able for anything it’s God’s pleasure to send,” she said; “though
it’s little even He can do to me now.” The women stood round her with
pitiful looks, some of them weeping unrestrainedly; but the tears that
’Lizabeth shed came one by one, slow gathering, rarely falling. She put
on her red handkerchief over her cap again, with hands that were steady
enough till that twitch of nervous movement took them. “It should be
black,” she said, with a half-smile; “ay, I should be a’ black from head
to foot, from head to foot, if there was one left to mind.” Then she
turned upon them with again her little stately curtsey. “I’m not a woman
of many words, and ye may judge what heart I have to speak; but I thank
ye all,” and, with once more a kind of smile, she set out upon her way.
John Musgrave had been standing by; he had spoken to no one, not even to
Lady Stanton, who, trembling with a consciousness that he was there, had
not been able, in the presence of this great anguish, to think of any
other. He, and his story, and his return, altogether had been thrown
entirely into the background by these other events. He came forward now,
and followed ’Lizabeth out of the gate. “I am going with you,” he said.
The name “mother” was on his lips, but he dared not say it. She gave a
slight glance at him, and recognised him. But if one had descended from
heaven to accompany her, what would that have been to ’Lizabeth? It was
as if they had parted yesterday.
“Ay,” she said; then, after a pause, “it’s you that has the best right.”
The tragedy had closed very shortly after that penultimate chapter which
ended with the death of Wild Bampfylde. When the carriage and its
attendants arrived to remove him to Stanton he was lying on Geoff’s
shoulder, struggling for his last breath. It was too late then to
disturb the agony. The men stood about reverentially till the last gasp
was over, then carried the vagrant tenderly to the foot of the hill,
with a respect which no one had ever shown him before. One of the party,
a straggler, who had strayed further up the dell in the interval of
waiting, saw traces above among the broken bushes, which made him call
some of his comrades as soon as their first duty was done. And there on
the little plateau, where Walter Stanton’s body had been found fifteen
years before, lay that of his murderer, the madman who had wrought so
much misery. He was found lying across the stream as if he had stooped
to drink, and had not been able to raise himself. The running water had
washed all traces of murder from him. When they lifted him, with much
precaution, not knowing whether his stillness might mean a temporary
swoon, or a feint of madness to beguile them, his pale marble
countenance seemed a reproach to the lookers-on. Even with the aspect of
his victim fresh in their eyes, the men could not believe that this had
ever been a furious maniac or man slayer. One of them went to look for
Geoff, and to arrest the progress of the other funeral procession.
“There’s another one, my lord,” he said, “all torn and tattered in his
clothes, but with the look of a king.” And Geoff, notwithstanding his
horror, could not but look with a certain awe upon the worn countenance.
It might have been that of a man worn with great labours, with thought,
with the high musings of philosophy, or schemes of statesmanship. He was
carried down and laid by the side of his brother whom he had killed. All
the cottagers, the men from the field, the passengers on the way, stood
looking on, or followed the strange procession. Such a piece of news, as
may be supposed, flew over the country like wildfire. There was no
family better known than the Bampfyldes, notwithstanding their humble
rank. The handsome Bampfyldes: and here they had come to an end!
Old ’Lizabeth, as she made her way to Stanton, was followed everywhere
by the same atmosphere of sympathy. The women came out to their doors to
look after her, and even strong men sobbed as she passed. What would
become of her, poor lonely woman? She gave a great cry when she saw the
two pale faces lying peacefully together. They were both men in the full
prime of life, in the gravity of middle age, fully developed, strongly
knit, men all formed for life, and full of its matured vigour. They lay
side by side as they had lain when they were children. That one of them
had taken the life of the other, who could have imagined possible? The
poacher and vagrant looked like some great general nobly dead in
battle, the madman like a sage. Death had redeemed them from their
misery, their poverty, the misfortunes which were greater than either.
Their mother gave a great cry of anguish yet pride as she stood beside
them. “My lads,” she cried, “my two handsome lads, my bonny boys!”
’Lizabeth had come to that pass when words have no meaning to express
the depths and the heights. What could a woman say who sees her sons
stretched dead before her? She uttered one inarticulate wail of anguish,
as a dumb creature might have done, and then her overwrought soul
reeling, tottered almost on the verge of reason, and she cried out in
pride and agony, “My handsome lads! my bonny boys!”
“Come home with me,” said John Musgrave. “We have made a bad business of
it, ’Lizabeth, you and I. This is all our sacrifice has come to. Nothing
left but your wreck of life, and mine. But come home with me. Where I
am, there will always be a place for Lily’s mother. And there is little
Lily still, and she will comfort you----”
“Eh! comfort me!” She smiled at the word. “Nay, I must go to my own
house. I thank you, John Musgrave, and I do not deserve it at your hand.
This fifteen years it has been me that has murdered you, not my lad
yonder, not my Abel. What did he know? And I humbly beg your pardon, and
your little bairns’ pardon, on my knees--but nay, nay, I must go home.
My own house--there is no other place for me.”
They came round her and took her hands, and pleaded with her too--Geoff,
and his mother, with the tears streaming from her eyes. “Oh, my poor
woman, my poor woman!” Lady Stanton cried, “stay here while _they_ are
here.” But nothing moved ’Lizabeth. She made her little curtsey to them
all, with that strange smile like a pale light wavering upon her face.
“Nay, nay,” she said. “Nay, nay--I humbly thank my lady and my lord, and
a’ kind friends--but my own house, that is the only place for me.”
“But you cannot go so far, if that were all. You must be worn out with
walking only--if there was nothing more----”
“Me--worn out!--with walking!” It was a kind of laugh which came from
her dry throat. “Ay, very near--very near it--that will come soon, if
the Lord pleases. But good-day to you all, and my humble thanks, my lord
and my lady--you’re kind--kind to give them house-room; till Friday; but
they’ll give no trouble, no trouble!” she said, with again that
something which sounded like a laugh. Laughing or crying, it was all one
to ’Lizabeth. The common modes of expression were garments too small for
her soul.
“Stay only to-night--it will be dark long before you can be there. Stay
to-night,” they pleaded. She broke from them with a cry.
“I canna bide this, I canna bide it! I’m wanting the stillness of the
fells, and the arms of them about me. Let me be--oh, let me be! There’s
a moon,” she added, abruptly, “and dark or light, I’ll never lose my
way.”
Thus they had to leave her to do as she pleased in the end. She would
not eat anything, or even sit down, but went out with her hood over her
head into the gathering shadows. They stood watching her till the sound
of her steps died out on the way--firm, steady, unfaltering steps. Life
and death, and mortal anguish, and wearing care, had done their worst
upon old ’Lizabeth. She stood like a rock against them all.
She came down to the funeral on Friday, as she had herself appointed,
and saw her sons laid in their grave, and again she was entreated to
remain. But even little Lilias, whom her father brought forward to aid
the pleadings of the others, could not move her. “Honey-sweet!” she
said, with a tender light in her eyes; but she had more room for the
children when her heart was full of living cares. It was empty now, and
there was no room. A few weeks after, she was found dying peaceably in
her bed, giving all kinds of directions to her children. “Abel will have
your father’s watch, he aye wanted it from a baby--and Lily gets all my
things, as is befitting. They will set her up for her wedding. And Dick,
my little Dick, that has aye been the little one--who says I was not
thinking of Dick? He’s been my prop and my right hand when a’ deserted
me. The poor little house and the little bit of land, and a’ his mother
has--who should they be for, but Dick?” Thus she died tranquilly, seeing
them all round her; and all that was cruel and bitter in the lot of the
Bampfyldes came to an end.