“And have I heard you aright?” began Mr. Carson, with his deep quivering
voice. “Man! have I heard you aright? Was it you, then, that killed my
boy? my only son?”—(he said these last few words almost as if appealing
for pity, and then he changed his tone to one more vehement and fierce).
“Don’t dare to think that I shall be merciful, and spare you, because you
have come forward to accuse yourself. I tell you I will not spare you
the least pang the law can inflict—you, who did not show pity on my boy,
shall have none from me.”
“I did not ask for any,” said John Barton, in a low voice.
“Ask, or not ask, what care I? You shall be hanged—hanged—man!” said he,
advancing his face, and repeating the word with slow grinding emphasis,
as if to infuse some of the bitterness of his soul into it.
John Barton gasped, but not with fear. It was only that he felt it
terrible to have inspired such hatred as was concentrated into every
word, every gesture of Mr. Carson’s.
“As for being hanged, sir, I know it’s all right and proper. I dare say
it’s bad enough; but I tell you what, sir,” speaking with an outburst,
“if you’d hanged me the day after I’d done the deed, I would have gone
down on my knees and blessed you. Death! Lord, what is it to Life? To
such a life as I’ve been leading this fortnight past. Life at best is
no great thing; but such a life as I have dragged through since that
night,” he shuddered at the thought. “Why, sir, I’ve been on the point
of killing myself this many a time to get away from my own thoughts. I
didn’t! and I’ll tell you why. I didn’t know but that I should be more
haunted than ever with the recollection of my sin. Oh! God above only
can tell the agony with which I’ve repented me of it, and part perhaps
because I feared He would think I were impatient of the misery He sent as
punishment—far, far worse misery than any hanging, sir.” He ceased from
excess of emotion.
Then he began again.
“Sin’ that day (it may be very wicked, sir, but it’s the truth) I’ve kept
thinking and thinking if I were but in that world where they say God is,
He would, maybe, teach me right from wrong, even if it were with many
stripes. I’ve been sore puzzled here. I would go through hell-fire if I
could but get free from sin at last, it’s an awful thing. As for hanging,
that’s just nought at all.”
His exhaustion compelled him to sit down. Mary rushed to him. It seemed
as if till then he had been unaware of her presence.
“Ay, ay, wench!” said he feebly, “is it thee? Where’s Jem Wilson?”
Jem came forward. John Barton spoke again, with many a break and gasping
pause:
“Lad! thou hast borne a deal for me. It’s the meanest thing I ever did to
leave thee to bear the brunt. Thou, who wert as innocent of any knowledge
of it as the babe unborn. I’ll not bless thee for it. Blessing from such
as me would not bring thee any good. Thou’lt love Mary, though she is my
child.”
He ceased, and there was a pause for a few seconds.
Then Mr. Carson turned to go. When his hand was on the latch of the door,
he hesitated for an instant.
“You can have no doubt for what purpose I go. Straight to the
police-office, to send men to take care of you, wretched man, and your
accomplice. To-morrow morning your tale shall be repeated to those who
can commit you to gaol, and before long you shall have the opportunity of
trying how desirable hanging is.”
“O sir!” said Mary, springing forward and catching hold of Mr. Carson’s
arm, “my father is dying. Look at him, sir. If you want Death for Death,
you have it. Don’t take him away from me these last hours. He must go
alone through Death, but let me be with him as long as I can. O, sir! if
you have any mercy in you, leave him here to die.”
John himself stood up, stiff and rigid, and replied:
“Mary, wench! I owe him summat. I will go die, where, and as he wishes
me. Thou hast said true, I am standing side by side with Death; and it
matters little where I spend the bit of time left of life. That time I
must pass wrestling with my soul for a character to take into the other
world. I’ll go where you see fit, sir. He’s innocent,” faintly indicating
Jem, as he fell back in the chair.
“Never fear! They cannot touch him,” said Job Legh, in a low voice.
But as Mr. Carson was on the point of leaving the house with no sign of
relenting about him, he was again stopped by John Barton, who had risen
once more from his chair, and stood supporting himself on Jem while he
spoke.
“Sir, one word! My hairs are grey with suffering, and yours with years——”
“And have I had no suffering?” asked Mr. Carson, as if appealing for
sympathy, even to the murderer of his child.
And the murderer of his child answered to the appeal, and groaned in
spirit over the anguish he had caused.
“Have I had no inward suffering to blanch these hairs? Have not I toiled
and struggled even to these years with hopes in my heart that all centred
in my boy! I did not speak of them, but were they not there? I seemed
hard and cold; and so I might be to others, but not to him!—who shall
ever imagine the love I bore to him? Even he never dreamed how my heart
leapt up at the sound of his footstep, and how precious he was to his
poor old father. And he is gone—killed—out of the hearing of all loving
words—out of my sight for ever. He was my sunshine, and now it is night!
Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!” cried the old man aloud.
The eyes of John Barton grew dim with tears. Rich and poor, masters and
men, were then brothers in the deep suffering of the heart; for was not
this the very anguish he had felt for little Tom, in years so long gone
by that they seemed like another life!
The mourner before him was no longer the employer; a being of another
race, eternally placed in antagonistic attitude; going through the world
glittering like gold, with a stony heart within, which knew no sorrow but
through the accidents of Trade; no longer the enemy, the oppressor, but a
very poor and desolate old man.
The sympathy for suffering, formerly so prevalent a feeling with him,
again filled John Barton’s heart, and almost impelled him to speak (as
best he could) some earnest tender words to the stern man, shaking in his
agony.
But who was he that he should utter sympathy or consolation? The cause of
all this woe.
Oh, blasting thought! Oh, miserable remembrance! He had forfeited all
right to bind up his brother’s wounds.
Stunned by the thought, he sank upon the seat, almost crushed with the
knowledge of the consequences of his own action; for he had no more
imagined to himself the blighted home, and the miserable parents, than
does the soldier, who discharges his musket, picture to himself the
desolation of the wife, and the pitiful cries of the helpless little
ones, who are in an instant to be made widowed and fatherless.
To intimidate a class of men, known only to those below them as desirous
to obtain the greatest quantity of work for the lowest wages—at most,
to remove an overbearing partner from an obnoxious firm, who stood in
the way of those who struggled as well as they were able to obtain their
rights—this was the light in which John Barton had viewed his deed; and
even so viewing it, after the excitement had passed away, the Avenger,
the sure Avenger, had found him out.
But now he knew that he had killed a man and a brother—now he knew that
no good thing could come out of this evil, even to the sufferers whose
cause he had so blindly espoused.
He lay across the table, broken-hearted. Every fresh quivering sob of Mr.
Carson’s stabbed him to his soul.
He felt execrated by all; and as if he could never lay bare the perverted
reasonings which had made the performance of undoubted sin appear a duty.
The longing to plead some faint excuse grew stronger and stronger. He
feebly raised his head, and looking at Job Legh, he whispered out:
“I did not know what I was doing, Job Legh; God knows I didn’t! O, sir!”
said he wildly, almost throwing himself at Mr. Carson’s feet, “say you
forgive me the anguish I now see I have caused you. I care not for pain,
or death; you know I don’t; but oh, man! forgive me the trespass I have
done!”
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against
us,” said Job, solemnly and low, as if in prayer: as if the words were
suggested by those John Barton had used.
Mr. Carson took his hands away from his face. I would rather see death
than the ghastly gloom which darkened that countenance.
“Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my
son’s murder.”
There are blasphemous actions as well as blasphemous words: all unloving,
cruel deeds are acted blasphemy.
Mr. Carson left the house. And John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.
They lifted him up, and almost hoping that that deep trance might be to
him the end of all earthly things, they bore him to his bed.
For a time they listened with divided attention to his faint breathings;
for in each hasty hurried step that echoed in the street outside they
thought they heard the approach of the officers of justice.
When Mr. Carson left the house he was dizzy with agitation; the hot
blood went careering through his frame. He could not see the deep blue
of the night heavens for the fierce pulses which throbbed in his head.
And partly to steady and calm himself, he leaned against a railing, and
looked up into those calm majestic depths with all their thousand stars.
And by-and-by his own voice returned upon him, as if the last words he
had spoken were being uttered through all that infinite space; but in
their echoes there was a tone of unutterable sorrow.
“Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my
son’s murder.”
He tried to shake off the spiritual impression made by this imagination.
He was feverish and ill—and no wonder.
So he turned to go homewards; not, as he had threatened, to the
police-office. After all (he told himself) that would do in the morning.
No fear of the man escaping, unless he escaped to the grave.
So he tried to banish the phantom voices and shapes which came unbidden
to his brain, and to recall his balance of mind by walking calmly and
slowly, and noticing everything which struck his senses.
It was a warm soft evening in spring, and there were many persons in the
streets. Among others a nurse with a little girl in her charge, conveying
her home from some children’s gaiety—a dance most likely, for the lovely
little creature was daintily decked out in soft, snowy muslin; and her
fairy feet tripped along by her nurse’s side as if to the measure of some
tune she had lately kept time to.
Suddenly, up behind her there came a rough, rude errand-boy, nine or
ten years of age; a giant he looked by the fairy-child as she fluttered
along. I don’t know how it was, but in some awkward way he knocked the
poor little girl down upon the hard pavement as he brushed rudely past,
not much caring whom he hurt so that he got along.
The child arose, sobbing with pain; and not without cause, for blood
was dropping down from the face but a minute before so fair and
bright—dropping down on the pretty frock, making those scarlet marks so
terrible to little children.
The nurse, a powerful woman, had seized the boy just as Mr. Carson (who
had seen the whole transaction) came up.
“You naughty little rascal! I’ll give you to a policeman, that I will!
Do you see how you’ve hurt the little girl? Do you?” accompanying every
sentence with a violent jerk of passionate anger.
The lad looked hard and defying; but withal terrified at the threat of
the policeman, that ogre of our streets to all unlucky urchins. The nurse
saw it, and began to drag him along, with a view of making what she
called “a wholesome impression.”
His terror increased, and with it his irritation; when the little sweet
face, choking away its sobs, pulled down nurse’s head, and said—
“Please, dear nurse, I’m not much hurt; it was very silly to cry, you
know. He did not mean to do it. _He did not know what he was doing_, did
you, little boy? Nurse won’t call a policeman, so don’t be frightened.”
And she put up her little mouth to be kissed by her injurer, just as she
had been taught to do at home to “make peace.”
“That lad will mind, and be more gentle for the time to come, I’ll be
bound, thanks to that little lady,” said a passer by, half to himself and
half to Mr. Carson, whom he had observed to notice the scene.
The latter took no apparent heed of the remark, but passed on. But the
child’s pleading reminded him of the low, broken voice he had so lately
heard, penitently and humbly urging the same extenuation of his great
guilt.
“I did not know what I was doing.”
He had some association with those words; he had heard or read of that
plea somewhere before. Where was it?
Could it be——?
He would look when he got home. So when he entered his house he went
straight and silently upstairs to his library, and took down the large
handsome Bible, all grand and golden, with its leaves adhering together
from the bookbinder’s press, so little had it been used.
On the first page (which fell open to Mr. Carson’s view) were written the
names of his children, and his own.
“Henry John, son of the above John
and Elizabeth Carson
Born, Sept. 29th, 1815.”
To make the entry complete, his death should now be added. But the page
became hidden by the gathering mist of tears.
Thought upon thought, and recollection upon recollection, came crowding
in, from the remembrance of the proud day when he had purchased the
costly book in order to write down the birth of the little babe of a day
old.
He laid his head down on the open page, and let the tears fall slowly on
the spotless leaves.
His son’s murderer was discovered; had confessed his guilt; and yet
(strange to say) he could not hate him with the vehemence of hatred
he had felt when he had imagined him a young man, full of lusty life
defying all laws, human and divine. In spite of his desire to retain the
revengeful feeling he considered as a duty to his dead son, something of
pity would steal in for the poor, wasted skeleton of a man, the smitten
creature, who had told him of his sin, and implored his pardon that night.
In the days of his childhood and youth, Mr. Carson had been accustomed
to poverty, but it was honest, decent poverty; not the grinding, squalid
misery he had remarked in every part of John Barton’s house, and which
contrasted strangely with the pompous sumptuousness of the room in which
he now sat. Unaccustomed wonder filled his mind at the reflection of the
different lots of the brethren of mankind.
Then he roused himself from his reverie, and turned to the object of his
search—the Gospel, where he half expected to find the tender pleading:
“They know not what they do.”
It was murk midnight by this time, and the house was still and quiet.
There was nothing to interrupt the old man in his unwonted study.
Years ago the Gospel had been his task-book in learning to read. So many
years ago that he had become familiar with the events before he could
comprehend the Spirit that made the Life.
He fell to the narrative now afresh, with all the interest of a
little child. He began at the beginning, and read on almost greedily,
understanding for the first time the full meaning of the story. He came
to the end; the awful End. And there were the haunting words of pleading.
He shut the book and thought deeply.
All night long, the Archangel combated with the Demon.
All night long others watched by the bed of Death. John Barton had
revived a fitful intelligence. He spoke at times with even something of
his former energy, and in the racy Lancashire dialect he had always used
when speaking freely.
“You see, I’ve so often been hankering after the right way; and it’s a
hard one for a poor man to find. At least it’s been so to me. No one
learned me, and no one telled me. When I was a little chap they taught me
to read, and then they never gave no books; only I heard say the Bible
was a good book. So when I grew thoughtful and puzzled, I took to it. But
you’d never believe black was black, or night was night, when you saw
all about you acting as if black was white, and night was day. It’s not
much I can say for myself in t’other world, God forgive me; but I can
say this, I would fain have gone after the Bible rules if I’d seen folk
credit it; they all spoke up for it, and went and did clean contrary. In
those days I would ha’ gone about wi’ my Bible, like a little child, my
finger in th’ place, and asking the meaning of this or that text, and no
one told me. Then I took out two or three texts as clear as glass, and I
tried to do what they bid me do. But I don’t know how it was, masters and
men, all alike cared no more for minding those texts than I did for th’
Lord Mayor of London; so I grew to think it must be a sham put upon poor
ignorant folk, women, and such like.
“It was not long I tried to live Gospelwise, but it was liker heaven than
any other bit of earth has been. I’d old Alice to strengthen me; but
everyone else said, ‘Stand up for thy rights, or thou’lt never get them;’
and wife and children never spoke, but their helplessness cried aloud,
and I was driven to do as others did—and then Tom died. You know all
about that—I’m getting scant o’ breath, and blind like.”
Then again he spoke, after some minutes of hushed silence.
“All along it came natural to love folk, though now I am what I am. I
think one time I could e’en have loved the masters if they’d ha’ letten
me; that was in my Gospel-days, afore my child died o’ hunger. I was tore
in two oftentimes, between my sorrow for poor, suffering folk, and my
trying to love them as caused their sufferings (to my mind).
“At last I gave it up in despair, trying to make folks’ actions square
wi’ th’ Bible; and I thought I’d no longer labour at following th’ Bible
mysel’. I’ve said all this afore, maybe. But from that time I’ve dropped
down, down—down.”
After that he only spoke in broken sentences.
“I did not think he’d been such an old man—oh, that he had but forgiven
me!” and then came earnest, passionate, broken words of prayer.
Job Legh had gone home like one struck down with the unexpected shock.
Mary and Jem together waited the approach of death; but as the final
struggle drew on, and morning dawned, Jem suggested some alleviation to
the gasping breath, to purchase which he left the house in search of a
druggist’s shop which should be open at that early hour.
During his absence, Barton grew worse; he had fallen across the bed, and
his breathing seemed almost stopped; in vain did Mary strive to raise
him, her sorrow and exhaustion had rendered her too weak.
So, on hearing someone enter the house-place below, she cried out for Jem
to come to her assistance.
A step, which was not Jem’s, came up the stairs.
Mr. Carson stood in the doorway. In one instant he comprehended the case.
He raised up the powerless frame; and the departing soul looked out of
the eyes with gratitude. He held the dying man propped in his arms. John
Barton folded his hands as if in prayer.
“Pray for us,” said Mary, sinking on her knees, and forgetting in that
solemn hour all that had divided her father and Mr. Carson.
No other words would suggest themselves than some of those he had read
only a few hours before:
“God be merciful to us sinners.—Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
them that trespass against us.”
And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson’s
arms.
So ended the tragedy of a poor man’s life.