THE ORDEAL BY TOUCH
The second day after the murder had come, and still Father Mohl's body
lay in the centre of the great hall, the inscrutable smile still on his
lips, the fringe of hair streaked over the high, pale forehead. The
candles at his head and feet guttered and dripped in their sockets and
opposed their yellow flame to the grayness of the January day which
seemed to be peering in curiously at the scene in the hall, where all
the household of St. Gabriel's were gathered to watch the final test of
Christopher Neville's guilt or innocence.
The dwellers by Chesapeake Bay two hundred and fifty years ago had
not banished the influence of the supernatural from the conduct of
life in public or private affairs. If their easy toleration prevented
their taking satisfaction in the witch-burning practised by their
contemporaries in Massachusetts, they yet found nothing incredible in
witchcraft, for they too saw ghosts and felt the malign influence of
the evil eye.
To such a generation it was quite natural that a murderer should be
arraigned before the dead as well as the living.
"If the vile actors of the heinous deed
Near the dead body happily be brought,
Oft hath't been proved the breathless corpse will bleed."
It was a test based half on superstition, half on deep knowledge of
human nature; for how indeed could a murderer, brought face to face
with the still accusation in his victim's rigid form, fail to betray
himself before the hostile or coldly neutral eyes of the witnesses. And
as for the corpse showing signs of recognition of the assassin, why,
there were so many ready to swear that they had known that to happen
that it would have been flat scepticism to doubt it.
So the household of St. Gabriel's waited for Neville and his guard to
enter the room, a deep silence hanging over all.
Giles Brent, from his end of the long table, sat gazing at his sister,
and thinking how strangely her smooth, round face and domestic bearing
contrasted with the grim scene around her. It was as if some brown
thrush had been caught up from its nest in the bushes by the wind of
destiny, and suddenly enveloped in the black cloud of a tornado.
Mary Brent kept her eyes steadily fixed upon the portrait of Lord
Baltimore, painted by Van Dyck, and hanging on the wall on the turn of
the stairs.
She studied every detail of his costume,--the small clothes of blue
velvet, coat embroidered in gold, and doublet embroidered in silver,
the open sleeves with their azure lining, the breastplate of blue
inlaid with gold, and the sword-hilt studded with jewels, the powdered
wig that topped the whole, and the cocked hat, its flap looped and held
back with brilliants, which shone bright as real gems.
These seemed real while the figures around her receded from her sight
dim and blurred, wavering like figures in a dream. There was Mistress
Calvert on the settle below the bend of the stairs. Was she really
Elinor Calvert, or a corpse like the one which lay scarcely more white
in the middle of the room?
Elinor herself was almost as doubtful as her cousin whether she really
lived and breathed. It seemed rather as though she had already tasted
the bitterness of death, and now moved about, a pale, miserable ghost
in a land where all was ghastly and miserable. Even Cecil seemed
unreal, and that worried her more than all the rest. In the last three
days the touch of those little arms had in some way lost its power
to comfort, and the childish presence had grown irksome because
it forbade her giving way to the bursts of wild weeping which had
alternated with stony despair.
Just now Cecil was pressing close to her side and whispering in her
ear,--
"Mamma, did Thir Chrithtopher Neville kill the priest? Dost thou think
he did it?"
"Hush, Cecil!"
"But did he?"
"I know not."
"Father White thinks he did it."
Silence on Elinor's part.
"And Couthin Giles thinks so."
Still silence.
"And Couthin Mary thinks so; but I do not."
"And why?"
"Because he promised me a bow and arrowth and he knew thou wouldst not
let me take a gift from a murderer."
The quick stab of the word was intolerable. Elinor thrust the child
away from her side with a swift, tragic gesture; then, at sight of
the angry flush in his cheeks and the grieved wonder in his eyes, she
caught him to her heart again close, and bowed her head over his curls.
The only person who caught the meaning of the action was Peggy Neville,
who sat in a corner a little back of the Governor's chair. Heart reads
heart in crises like these, and sympathy is second sight. Her first
feeling was a quick thrill and a desire to run across the room and
kiss that cold proud face with the swollen eyelids. Then the blood of
the Nevilles, proud every whit as that of the Calverts, surged angrily
back to her heart. "She to dare to doubt him! Why, nobody thinks great
things of me, but I would never desert any one that I cared even the
least little bit about. I'd stick all the closer when people turned
against him, and as for evidence, what is the use of being a woman if
you are going to be influenced by such things as that!"
Oh, little Peggy! women do not own the only minds superior to evidence.
From across the hall a young man is watching every expression of your
face, feeling sure that your brother is innocent because you think
him so--confident that Governor Brent is a cold, hard man, eager to
believe evil of a friend, and vowing that as for him, Romney Huntoon,
his sword, his honor, his life itself are at the service of Christopher
Neville, with whom he has scarcely spoken, and of Christopher's sister
Peggy whom he has known for a matter of ten days.
A silence deeper than before falls on the company as the tramp of
feet is heard at the door and Neville enters between two guards. The
Coroner's inquest is formed after the fashion of the day, Giles Brent
as Chief-Justice and Chief Coroner of the province, under that charter
which in Maryland invested the governor with the _regia potestas_, on
the platform at the end of the hall.
Associated with him by courtesy is the lady of the manor, while on
either side are ranged Councillors Neale and Cornwaleys. All face the
central figure stretched rigid on the bier in the middle of the hall,
and as the prisoner walks the length of the room that lies between him
and the bier, all eyes are fixed upon him. To each person present his
bearing denotes a different thing. It is not beauty alone that is in
the eye of the gazer.
To Peggy Neville that bearing speaks lofty consciousness of innocence.
To Mary Brent it swaggers with the effrontery of brazen guilt.
To Giles Brent the face is an impenetrable mask.
To Elinor Calvert--but how describe the emotions that surge through her
soul, each obliterating the former like waves on a beach of sand!
Her first feeling, as she watched Neville stride up the room, was a
thrill of pride in his imperious personality as he towered taller by
a head than his guard, and in his bearing outranking all present in
courtliness.
Then came a longing to speak out before them all and claim him for her
true love; then, as her glance travelled upward to that pale set face,
the deadly chill of doubt and distrust struck cold upon her heart, and
she bowed her head upon her hands.
When she awoke to consciousness of what was passing around she heard
the voice of Giles Brent saying,--
"That all here present may understand the business which is going
forward, let me first set forth my duties under the law. 'A coroner of
our lord the King,' says the statute, 'shall go to the places where any
be slain, and shall summon the honest men of the neighborhood, and of
them shall inquire what they know touching the death; and if any person
is said to be guilty of the murder he shall be brought before the
coroner and his inquest, and shall be put upon his defence that he may,
if he can, purge himself of the charge.'"
"Oh, dear, how Giles doth love form! I believe he would see us all hung
if he might pronounce sentence in Latin." Elinor's foot kept time to
her angry thoughts, and that so loud that it caught Brent's ear and
brought a frown to his brow.
"Christopher Neville, you stand accused of a dastardly crime,--the
murder of Andrew Mohl, a priest of the Jesuit order, who lies here
before us, and who is known to have come to his death on the night of
January twentieth."
"Who are mine accusers?"
Brent turned and whispered first to Neale and Cornwaleys, then to his
sister, and finally, turning again toward the prisoner, he said,--
"'Twill serve no good turn to press that question."
"I stand upon my rights."
"Is it not enough that there be a dozen here who are convinced of thy
guilt?"
"I stand upon my rights. I will have the name."
"Then, since thou dost demand the name of him who lodged the charge,
'tis that of Father Fisher, come hither to-day from St. Mary's."
"Father Fisher? The head of the Jesuit colony at St. Inigo's?"
"Ay; yet he makes his charge not as a priest, but a citizen."
"No doubt."
"Sneers, sir, will not help your case, with which we will now go on.
What plea are you fain to enter, 'guilty' or 'not guilty'?"
"Not guilty."
"Master Neale, kindly act as secretary and record the plea. Sir
Christopher, will you hear the evidence against you?"
"I will."
"On any disputed point you shall confront witnesses; but that we may
not waste time, let us settle first that whereon we agree. First, you
are a Protestant."
Neville bowed assent.
"Second, here in this house you did quarrel with the dead priest
touching matters of faith and doctrine."
"We had words, certainly."
"And angry words, as I am told."
"I was angry. Belike he was angry, too."
"He admits that he was angered. Put that down," whispered Mary Brent to
Neale.
"Tell us what happened after your talk with Father Mohl."
"He rose and started to walk to St. Mary's."
"And what did you then?"
"I followed him."
"For what purpose?"
"To beg his pardon."
"Ah! Now we have it. You felt you had done him wrong."
"I did not."
"Then why ask his pardon?"
"Because I had wounded other hearts than his, and, moreover, I had
offended against Mistress Brent's hospitality."
Mary Brent's lips drew themselves into a tight, straight line.
"Now, Sir Christopher, will you tell the court something we are most
urgent to know,--did you, or did you not, return from that search
agitated and distraught in bearing, with garments torn and stained with
blood?"
"I did."
There was an ominous pause, during which one could well nigh count
heart-beats.
"Christopher Neville, do you know this knife?"
"Yea; 'tis mine own."
"Ay, and found in the folds of the priest's garments, and fitting with
fatal exactness the wound in the breast. Now, one more question: when
you came in that night did you, or did you not, crave blessing and
absolution from Father White?"
"No--not absolution!"
"A mere quibble! You confessed to him that you had sinned, and you
begged his blessing. Not one of these points do you deny; and, indeed,
denial were worse than useless, for, as you well know, I have witnesses
enough at hand to prove them all. The explanations in your written
statement, which lies before me and which I have examined, your silly
tales of the wild animal, the brush and briar, do credit neither to
your mind nor your conscience. Rather I beg of you while there is yet
time make a clean breast of it here before God, before me, and before
this assembled household of St. Gabriel's." Here Brent's voice took a
tone almost of pleading, strangely at variance with his magisterial
manner at the beginning.
"We all know," he went on, "that the priest had the cause of the
Church so much at heart that he might have been tempted to use words
to a heretic hard for hot blood to brook. Tell us all that happened,
and there may be circumstances making for leniency if not for
justification."
"I did not kill the priest."
The dulness of the speaker's tone might be the result of the reaction
from strong excitement, or the apathy of guilt. It angered Brent.
"Neville, I would like to stand your friend; but the Governor of the
Palatinate of Maryland declines to be a compounder of felony. I ask
once more, have you any confession to make?"
"None."
"Gentlemen, are you ready for the test?"
Councillor Neale and Cornwaleys bowed assent.
"Mistress Brent, do you, as lady of the manor, approve the aforesaid
test that Christopher Neville be commanded to lay his hand upon the
breast of Father Mohl yonder and take oath before God that he knoweth
naught of how the dead man came by his death?"
"I approve it," said Mary Brent, rising in her place, "and I do command
all those here present to draw near the bier and keep watch upon the
face of the dead while the oath proceeds."
Slowly and solemnly the assembled household drew together in a circle
about the corpse. Neville placed his right hand upon the breast of the
dead man. For an instant he stood silent so, then raising the hand
to heaven he said slowly, calmly, distinctly: "I swear to God I am
innocent of this man's death, and I know naught touching it."
Why did all present suddenly shrink back as if a leper stood among
them? The dead priest lay rigid as ever, the folded hands had not
stirred, the inscrutable smile had not wavered on the lips or given
any hint of its meaning. Surely there was no accusation in those still
eyelids. Neville himself looked round in some bewilderment, till he
caught his sister's murmur of horror,--
"Kit! oh, Kit!--YOUR HAND!"
Yes, as he turned it he saw for himself, a drop or two of blood
trickling from a tiny wound in the palm, made by a rough place on the
crucifix as he drew his hand from the corpse. A scratch so slight that
it yielded no sensation to one in his tense, nervous state.
"Ay," he said coolly, but bitterly enough, "that ends it, I reckon.
Such testimony as that closes the case against me; yet, before God--"
"Hush! no more blasphemy!" It was Giles Brent's voice that spoke, and
all echo of friendliness was gone out of it. "Guards, remove your
prisoner to the tobacco-house and keep him close. Gentlemen, the
inquest is ended."