The Verdict
The place fitted up that day as a court of justice was a grand old
hall, now destroyed by fire. The midday light that fell on the close
pavement of human heads was shed through a line of high pointed
windows, variegated with the mellow tints of old painted glass. Grim
dusty armour hung in high relief in front of the dark oaken gallery at
the farther end, and under the broad arch of the great mullioned window
opposite was spread a curtain of old tapestry, covered with dim
melancholy figures, like a dozing indistinct dream of the past. It was
a place that through the rest of the year was haunted with the shadowy
memories of old kings and queens, unhappy, discrowned, imprisoned; but
to-day all those shadows had fled, and not a soul in the vast hall felt
the presence of any but a living sorrow, which was quivering in warm
hearts.
But that sorrow seemed to have made it itself feebly felt hitherto, now
when Adam Bede’s tall figure was suddenly seen being ushered to the
side of the prisoner’s dock. In the broad sunlight of the great hall,
among the sleek shaven faces of other men, the marks of suffering in
his face were startling even to Mr. Irwine, who had last seen him in
the dim light of his small room; and the neighbours from Hayslope who
were present, and who told Hetty Sorrel’s story by their firesides in
their old age, never forgot to say how it moved them when Adam Bede,
poor fellow, taller by the head than most of the people round him, came
into court and took his place by her side.
But Hetty did not see him. She was standing in the same position Bartle
Massey had described, her hands crossed over each other and her eyes
fixed on them. Adam had not dared to look at her in the first moments,
but at last, when the attention of the court was withdrawn by the
proceedings he turned his face towards her with a resolution not to
shrink.
Why did they say she was so changed? In the corpse we love, it is the
_likeness_ we see—it is the likeness, which makes itself felt the more
keenly because something else _was_ and _is not_. There they were—the
sweet face and neck, with the dark tendrils of hair, the long dark
lashes, the rounded cheek and the pouting lips—pale and thin, yes, but
like Hetty, and only Hetty. Others thought she looked as if some demon
had cast a blighting glance upon her, withered up the woman’s soul in
her, and left only a hard despairing obstinacy. But the mother’s
yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the
essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child
even in the debased, degraded man; and to Adam, this pale, hard-looking
culprit was the Hetty who had smiled at him in the garden under the
apple-tree boughs—she was that Hetty’s corpse, which he had trembled to
look at the first time, and then was unwilling to turn away his eyes
from.
But presently he heard something that compelled him to listen, and made
the sense of sight less absorbing. A woman was in the witness-box, a
middle-aged woman, who spoke in a firm distinct voice. She said, “My
name is Sarah Stone. I am a widow, and keep a small shop licensed to
sell tobacco, snuff, and tea in Church Lane, Stoniton. The prisoner at
the bar is the same young woman who came, looking ill and tired, with a
basket on her arm, and asked for a lodging at my house on Saturday
evening, the 27th of February. She had taken the house for a public,
because there was a figure against the door. And when I said I didn’t
take in lodgers, the prisoner began to cry, and said she was too tired
to go anywhere else, and she only wanted a bed for one night. And her
prettiness, and her condition, and something respectable about her
clothes and looks, and the trouble she seemed to be in made me as I
couldn’t find in my heart to send her away at once. I asked her to sit
down, and gave her some tea, and asked her where she was going, and
where her friends were. She said she was going home to her friends:
they were farming folks a good way off, and she’d had a long journey
that had cost her more money than she expected, so as she’d hardly any
money left in her pocket, and was afraid of going where it would cost
her much. She had been obliged to sell most of the things out of her
basket, but she’d thankfully give a shilling for a bed. I saw no reason
why I shouldn’t take the young woman in for the night. I had only one
room, but there were two beds in it, and I told her she might stay with
me. I thought she’d been led wrong, and got into trouble, but if she
was going to her friends, it would be a good work to keep her out of
further harm.”
The witness then stated that in the night a child was born, and she
identified the baby-clothes then shown to her as those in which she had
herself dressed the child.
“Those are the clothes. I made them myself, and had kept them by me
ever since my last child was born. I took a deal of trouble both for
the child and the mother. I couldn’t help taking to the little thing
and being anxious about it. I didn’t send for a doctor, for there
seemed no need. I told the mother in the day-time she must tell me the
name of her friends, and where they lived, and let me write to them.
She said, by and by she would write herself, but not to-day. She would
have no nay, but she would get up and be dressed, in spite of
everything I could say. She said she felt quite strong enough; and it
was wonderful what spirit she showed. But I wasn’t quite easy what I
should do about her, and towards evening I made up my mind I’d go,
after Meeting was over, and speak to our minister about it. I left the
house about half-past eight o’clock. I didn’t go out at the shop door,
but at the back door, which opens into a narrow alley. I’ve only got
the ground-floor of the house, and the kitchen and bedroom both look
into the alley. I left the prisoner sitting up by the fire in the
kitchen with the baby on her lap. She hadn’t cried or seemed low at
all, as she did the night before. I thought she had a strange look with
her eyes, and she got a bit flushed towards evening. I was afraid of
the fever, and I thought I’d call and ask an acquaintance of mine, an
experienced woman, to come back with me when I went out. It was a very
dark night. I didn’t fasten the door behind me; there was no lock; it
was a latch with a bolt inside, and when there was nobody in the house
I always went out at the shop door. But I thought there was no danger
in leaving it unfastened that little while. I was longer than I meant
to be, for I had to wait for the woman that came back with me. It was
an hour and a half before we got back, and when we went in, the candle
was standing burning just as I left it, but the prisoner and the baby
were both gone. She’d taken her cloak and bonnet, but she’d left the
basket and the things in it.... I was dreadful frightened, and angry
with her for going. I didn’t go to give information, because I’d no
thought she meant to do any harm, and I knew she had money in her
pocket to buy her food and lodging. I didn’t like to set the constable
after her, for she’d a right to go from me if she liked.”
The effect of this evidence on Adam was electrical; it gave him new
force. Hetty could not be guilty of the crime—her heart must have clung
to her baby—else why should she have taken it with her? She might have
left it behind. The little creature had died naturally, and then she
had hidden it. Babies were so liable to death—and there might be the
strongest suspicions without any proof of guilt. His mind was so
occupied with imaginary arguments against such suspicions, that he
could not listen to the cross-examination by Hetty’s counsel, who
tried, without result, to elicit evidence that the prisoner had shown
some movements of maternal affection towards the child. The whole time
this witness was being examined, Hetty had stood as motionless as
before: no word seemed to arrest her ear. But the sound of the next
witness’s voice touched a chord that was still sensitive, she gave a
start and a frightened look towards him, but immediately turned away
her head and looked down at her hands as before. This witness was a
man, a rough peasant. He said:
“My name is John Olding. I am a labourer, and live at Tedd’s Hole, two
miles out of Stoniton. A week last Monday, towards one o’clock in the
afternoon, I was going towards Hetton Coppice, and about a quarter of a
mile from the coppice I saw the prisoner, in a red cloak, sitting under
a bit of a haystack not far off the stile. She got up when she saw me,
and seemed as if she’d be walking on the other way. It was a regular
road through the fields, and nothing very uncommon to see a young woman
there, but I took notice of her because she looked white and scared. I
should have thought she was a beggar-woman, only for her good clothes.
I thought she looked a bit crazy, but it was no business of mine. I
stood and looked back after her, but she went right on while she was in
sight. I had to go to the other side of the coppice to look after some
stakes. There’s a road right through it, and bits of openings here and
there, where the trees have been cut down, and some of ’em not carried
away. I didn’t go straight along the road, but turned off towards the
middle, and took a shorter way towards the spot I wanted to get to. I
hadn’t got far out of the road into one of the open places before I
heard a strange cry. I thought it didn’t come from any animal I knew,
but I wasn’t for stopping to look about just then. But it went on, and
seemed so strange to me in that place, I couldn’t help stopping to
look. I began to think I might make some money of it, if it was a new
thing. But I had hard work to tell which way it came from, and for a
good while I kept looking up at the boughs. And then I thought it came
from the ground; and there was a lot of timber-choppings lying about,
and loose pieces of turf, and a trunk or two. And I looked about among
them, but could find nothing, and at last the cry stopped. So I was for
giving it up, and I went on about my business. But when I came back the
same way pretty nigh an hour after, I couldn’t help laying down my
stakes to have another look. And just as I was stooping and laying down
the stakes, I saw something odd and round and whitish lying on the
ground under a nut-bush by the side of me. And I stooped down on hands
and knees to pick it up. And I saw it was a little baby’s hand.”
At these words a thrill ran through the court. Hetty was visibly
trembling; now, for the first time, she seemed to be listening to what
a witness said.
“There was a lot of timber-choppings put together just where the ground
went hollow, like, under the bush, and the hand came out from among
them. But there was a hole left in one place and I could see down it
and see the child’s head; and I made haste and did away the turf and
the choppings, and took out the child. It had got comfortable clothes
on, but its body was cold, and I thought it must be dead. I made haste
back with it out of the wood, and took it home to my wife. She said it
was dead, and I’d better take it to the parish and tell the constable.
And I said, ‘I’ll lay my life it’s that young woman’s child as I met
going to the coppice.’ But she seemed to be gone clean out of sight.
And I took the child on to Hetton parish and told the constable, and we
went on to Justice Hardy. And then we went looking after the young
woman till dark at night, and we went and gave information at Stoniton,
as they might stop her. And the next morning, another constable came to
me, to go with him to the spot where I found the child. And when we got
there, there was the prisoner a-sitting against the bush where I found
the child; and she cried out when she saw us, but she never offered to
move. She’d got a big piece of bread on her lap.”
Adam had given a faint groan of despair while this witness was
speaking. He had hidden his face on his arm, which rested on the
boarding in front of him. It was the supreme moment of his suffering:
Hetty was guilty; and he was silently calling to God for help. He heard
no more of the evidence, and was unconscious when the case for the
prosecution had closed—unconscious that Mr. Irwine was in the
witness-box, telling of Hetty’s unblemished character in her own parish
and of the virtuous habits in which she had been brought up. This
testimony could have no influence on the verdict, but it was given as
part of that plea for mercy which her own counsel would have made if he
had been allowed to speak for her—a favour not granted to criminals in
those stern times.
At last Adam lifted up his head, for there was a general movement round
him. The judge had addressed the jury, and they were retiring. The
decisive moment was not far off. Adam felt a shuddering horror that
would not let him look at Hetty, but she had long relapsed into her
blank hard indifference. All eyes were strained to look at her, but she
stood like a statue of dull despair.
There was a mingled rustling, whispering, and low buzzing throughout
the court during this interval. The desire to listen was suspended, and
every one had some feeling or opinion to express in undertones. Adam
sat looking blankly before him, but he did not see the objects that
were right in front of his eyes—the counsel and attorneys talking with
an air of cool business, and Mr. Irwine in low earnest conversation
with the judge—did not see Mr. Irwine sit down again in agitation and
shake his head mournfully when somebody whispered to him. The inward
action was too intense for Adam to take in outward objects until some
strong sensation roused him.
It was not very long, hardly more than a quarter of an hour, before the
knock which told that the jury had come to their decision fell as a
signal for silence on every ear. It is sublime—that sudden pause of a
great multitude which tells that one soul moves in them all. Deeper and
deeper the silence seemed to become, like the deepening night, while
the jurymen’s names were called over, and the prisoner was made to hold
up her hand, and the jury were asked for their verdict.
“Guilty.”
It was the verdict every one expected, but there was a sigh of
disappointment from some hearts that it was followed by no
recommendation to mercy. Still the sympathy of the court was not with
the prisoner. The unnaturalness of her crime stood out the more harshly
by the side of her hard immovability and obstinate silence. Even the
verdict, to distant eyes, had not appeared to move her, but those who
were near saw her trembling.
The stillness was less intense until the judge put on his black cap,
and the chaplain in his canonicals was observed behind him. Then it
deepened again, before the crier had had time to command silence. If
any sound were heard, it must have been the sound of beating hearts.
The judge spoke, “Hester Sorrel....”
The blood rushed to Hetty’s face, and then fled back again as she
looked up at the judge and kept her wide-open eyes fixed on him, as if
fascinated by fear. Adam had not yet turned towards her, there was a
deep horror, like a great gulf, between them. But at the words “and
then to be hanged by the neck till you be dead,” a piercing shriek rang
through the hall. It was Hetty’s shriek. Adam started to his feet and
stretched out his arms towards her. But the arms could not reach her:
she had fallen down in a fainting-fit, and was carried out of court.