THE TRIAL.
The miller, as he was starting from his house door, had called
his daughter by her own name for the first time since her return
home,--and Carry had been comforted. But no further comfort came
to her during her journey to Salisbury from her father's speech.
He hardly spoke the whole morning, and when he did say a word as
to any matter on the work they had in hand, his voice was low and
melancholy. Carry knew well, as did every one at Bullhampton, that
her father was a man not much given to conversation, and she had not
expected him to talk to her; but the silence, together with the load
at her heart as to the ordeal of her examination, was very heavy on
her. If she could have asked questions, and received encouragement,
she could have borne her position comparatively with ease.
The instructions with which the miller was furnished required that
Carry Brattle should present herself at a certain office in Salisbury
at a certain hour on that Wednesday. Exactly at that hour she and
her father were at the place indicated, already having visited their
lodgings at Mrs. Stiggs'. They were then told that they would not be
again wanted on that day, but that they must infallibly be in the
Court the next morning at half-past nine. The attorney's clerk whom
they saw, when he learned that Sam Brattle was not yet in Salisbury,
expressed an opinion as to that young man's iniquity which led Carry
to think that he was certainly in more danger than either of the
prisoners. As they left the office, she suggested to her father that
a message should be immediately sent to Bullhampton after Sam. "Let
'un be," said the miller; and it was all that he did say. On that
evening they retired to the interior of one of the bedrooms at
Trotter's Buildings, at four o'clock in the afternoon, and did not
leave the house again. Anything more dreary than those hours could
not be imagined. The miller, who was accustomed to work hard all
day and then to rest, did not know what to do with his limbs.
Carry, seeing his misery, and thinking rather of that than her own,
suggested to him that they should go out and walk round the town.
"Bide as thee be," said the miller; "it ain't no time now for showing
theeself." Carry took the rebuke without a word, but turned her head
to hide her tears.
And the next day was worse, because it was longer. Exactly at
half-past nine they were down at the court; and there they hung about
till half-past ten. Then they were told that their affair would not
be brought on till the Friday, but that at half-past nine on that
day, it would undoubtedly be commenced; and that if Sam was not there
then, it would go very hard with Sam. The miller, who was beginning
to lose his respect for the young man from whom he received these
communications, muttered something about Sam being all right. "You'll
find he won't be all right if he isn't here at half-past nine
to-morrow," said the young man. "There is them as their bark is worse
than their bite," said the miller. Then they went back to Trotter's
Buildings, and did not stir outside of Mrs. Stiggs' house throughout
the whole day.
On the Friday, which was in truth to be the day of the trial, they
were again in court at half-past nine; and there, as we have seen,
they were found, two hours later, by Mr. Fenwick, waiting patiently
while the great preliminary affair of the dealer in meat was being
settled. At that hour Sam had not made his appearance; but between
twelve and one he sauntered into the comfortless room in which Carry
was still sitting with her father. The sight of him was a joy to poor
Carry, as he would speak to her, and tell her something of what was
going on. "I'm about in time for the play, father," he said, coming
up to them. The miller picked up his hat, and scratched his head, and
muttered something. But there had been a sparkle in his eye when he
saw Sam. In truth, the sight in all the world most agreeable to the
old man's eyes was the figure of his youngest son. To the miller no
Apollo could have been more perfect in beauty, and no Hercules more
useful in strength. Carry's sweet woman's brightness had once been as
dear to him,--but all that had now passed away.
"Is it a'going all through?" asked the miller, referring to the mill.
"Running as pretty as a coach-and-four when I left at seven this
morning," said Sam.
"And how did thee come?"
"By the marrow-bone stage, as don't pay no tolls; how else?" The
miller did not express a single word of approbation, but he looked
up and down at his son's legs and limbs, delighted to think that
the young man was at work in the mill this morning, had since that
walked seventeen miles, and now stood before them showing no sign of
fatigue.
"What are they a'doing on now, Sam?" asked Carry, in a whisper. Sam
had already been into the court, and was able to inform them that
the "big swell of all was making a speech, in which he was telling
everybody every 'varsal thing about it. And what do you think,
father?"
"I don't think nothing," said the miller.
"They've been and found Trumbull's money-box buried in old mother
Burrows's garden at Pycroft." Carry uttered the slightest possible
scream as she heard this, thinking of the place which she had known
so well. "Dash my buttons if they ain't," continued Sam. "It's about
up with 'em now."
"They'll be hung--of course," said the miller.
"What asses men is," said Sam; "--to go to bury the box there! Why
didn't they smash it into atoms?"
"Them as goes crooked in big things is like to go crooked in little,"
said the miller.
At about two Sam and Carry were told to go into Court, and way
was made for the old man to accompany them. At that moment the
cross-examination was being continued of the man who, early on the
Sunday morning, had seen the Grinder with his companion in the cart
on the road leading towards Pycroft Common. A big burly barrister,
with a broad forehead and grey eyes, was questioning this witness as
to the identity of the men in the cart; and at every answer that he
received he turned round to the jury as though he would say "There,
then, what do you think of the case now, when such a man as that is
brought before you to give evidence?" "You will swear, then, that
these two men who are here in the dock were the two men you saw that
morning in that cart?" The witness said that he would so swear. "You
knew them both before, of course?" The witness declared that he had
never seen either of them before in his life. "And you expect the
jury to believe, now that the lives of these men depend on their
believing it, that after the lapse of a year you can identify these
two men, whom you had never seen before, and who were at that time
being carried along the road at the rate of eight or ten miles an
hour?" The witness, who had already encountered a good many of these
questions, and who was inclined to be rough rather than timid, said
that he didn't care twopence what the jury believed. It was simply
his business to tell what he knew. Then the judge looked at that
wicked witness,--who had talked in this wretched, jeering way about
twopence!--looked at him over his spectacles, and shaking his head as
though with pity at that witness's wickedness, cautioned him as to
the peril of his body, making, too, a marked reference to the peril
of his soul by that melancholy wagging of the head. Then the burly
barrister with the broad forehead looked up beseechingly to the jury.
Was it right that any man should be hung for any offence against whom
such a witness as this was brought up to give testimony? It was the
manifest feeling of the crowd in the court that the witness himself
ought to be hung immediately. "You may go down, sir," said the burly
barrister, giving an impression to those who looked on, but did not
understand, that the case was over as far as it depended on that
man's evidence. The burly barrister himself was not so sanguine.
He knew very well that the judge who had wagged his head in so
melancholy a way at the iniquity of a witness who had dared to
say that he didn't care twopence, would, when he was summing up,
refer to the presence of the two prisoners in the cart as a thing
fairly supported by evidence. The amount of the burly barrister's
achievement was simply this,--that for the moment a sort of sympathy
was excited on behalf of the prisoners by the disapprobation which
was aroused against the wicked man who hadn't cared twopence.
Sympathy, like electricity, will run so quick that no man may stop
it. If sympathy might be made to run through the jury-box there might
perchance be a man or two there weak enough to entertain it to the
prejudice of his duty on that day. The hopes of the burly barrister
in this matter did not go further than that.
Then there was another man put forward who had seen neither of the
prisoners, but had seen the cart and pony at Pycroft Common, and had
known that the cart and pony were for the time in the possession of
the Grinder. He was questioned by the burly barrister about himself
rather than about his evidence; and when he had been made to own that
he had been five times in prison, the burly barrister was almost
justified in the look he gave to the jury, and he shook his head as
though in sorrow that his learned friend on the other side should
have dared to bring such a man as that before them as a witness.
Various others were brought up and examined before poor Carry's turn
had come; and on each occasion, as one after another was dismissed
from the hands of the burly barrister, here one crushed and
confounded, there another loud and triumphant, her heart was almost
in her throat. And yet though she so dreaded the moment when it
should come, there was a sense of wretched disappointment in that
she was kept waiting. It was now between four and five, and whispers
began to be rife that the Crown would not finish their case that day.
There was much trouble and more amusement with the old woman who
had been Trumbull's housekeeper. She was very deaf; but it had been
discovered that there was an old friendship between her and the
Grinder's mother, and that she had at one time whispered the fact of
the farmer's money into the ears of Mrs. Burrows of Pycroft Common.
Deaf as she was, she was made to admit this. Mrs. Burrows was also
examined, but she would admit nothing. She had never heard of the
money, or of Farmer Trumbull, or of the murder,--not till the world
heard of it, and she knew nothing about her son's doings or comings
or goings. No doubt she had given shelter to a young woman at the
request of a friend of her son, the young woman paying her ten
shillings a week for her board and lodging. That young woman was
Carry Brattle. Her son and that young man had certainly been at her
house together; but she could not at all say whether they had been
there on that Sunday morning. Perhaps, of all who had been examined
Mrs. Burrows was the most capable witness, for the lawyer who
examined her on behalf of the Crown was able to extract absolutely
nothing from her. When she turned herself round with an air of
satisfaction, to face the questions of the burly barrister, she was
told that he had no question to ask her. "It's all as one to me,
sir," said Mrs. Burrows, as she smoothed her apron and went down.
And then it was poor Carry's turn. When the name of Caroline Brattle
was called she turned her eyes beseechingly to her father, as though
hoping that he would accompany her in this the dreaded moment of her
punishment. She caught him convulsively by the sleeve of the coat, as
she was partly dragged and partly shoved on towards the little box
in which she was to take her stand. He accompanied her to the foot
of the two or three steps which she was called on to ascend, but of
course he could go no further with her.
"I'll bide nigh thee, Carry," he said; and it was the only word which
he had spoken to comfort her that day. It did, however, serve to
lessen her present misery, and added something to her poor stock of
courage. "Your name is Caroline Brattle?" "And you were living on the
thirty-first of last August with Mrs. Burrows at Pycroft Common?" "Do
you remember Sunday the thirty-first of August?" These, and two or
three other questions like them were asked by a young barrister in
the mildest tone he could assume. "Speak out, Miss Brattle," he said,
"and then there will be nothing to trouble you." "Yes, sir," she
said, in answer to each of the questions, still almost in a whisper.
Nothing to trouble her, and all the eyes of that cruel world around
fixed upon her! Nothing to trouble her, and every ear on the alert
to hear her,--young and pretty as she was,--confess her own shame
in that public court! Nothing to trouble her, when she would so
willingly have died to escape the agony that was coming on her! For
she knew that it would come. Though she had never been in a court of
law before, and had had no one tell her what would happen, she knew
that the question would be asked. She was sure that she would be made
to say what she had been before all that crowd of men.
The evidence which she could give, though it was material, was very
short. John Burrows and Lawrence Acorn had come to the cottage on
Pycroft Common on that Sunday morning, and there she had seen both
of them. It was daylight when they came, but still it was very early.
She had not observed the clock, but she thought that it may have
been about five. The men were in and out of the house, but they had
some breakfast. She had risen from bed to help to get them their
breakfast. If anything had been buried by them in the garden, she
had known nothing of it. She had then received three sovereigns from
Acorn, whom she was engaged to marry. From that day to the present
she had never seen either of the men. As soon as she heard of the
suspicion against Acorn, and that he had fled, she conceived her
engagement to be at an end. All this she testified, with infinite
difficulty, in so low a voice that a man was sworn to stand by her
and repeat her answers aloud to the jury;--and then she was handed
over to the burly barrister.
She had been long enough in the court to perceive, and had been
clever enough to learn, that this man would be her enemy. Though
she had been unable to speak aloud in answering the counsel for
the prosecution, she had quite understood that the man was her
friend,--that he was only putting to her those questions which
must be asked,--and questions which she could answer without much
difficulty. But when she was told to attend to what the other
gentleman would say to her, then, indeed, her poor heart failed her.
It came at once. "My dear, I believe you have been indiscreet?"
The words, perhaps, had been chosen with some idea of mercy, but
certainly there was no mercy in the tone. The man's voice was loud,
and there was something in it almost of a jeer,--something which
seemed to leave an impression on the hearer that there had been
pleasure in the asking it. She struggled to make an answer, and the
monosyllable, yes, was formed by her lips. The man who was acting as
her mouthpiece stooped down his ears to her lips, and then shook his
head. Assuredly no sound had come from them that could have reached
his sense, had he been ever so close. The burly barrister waited in
patience, looking now at her, and now round at the court. "I must
have an answer. I say that I believe you have been indiscreet. You
know, I dare say, what I mean. Yes or no will do; but I must have
an answer." She glanced round for an instant, trying to catch her
father's eye; but she could see nothing; everything seemed to swim
before her except the broad face of that burly barrister. "Has she
given any answer?" he asked of the mouthpiece; and the mouthpiece
again shook his head. The heart of the mouthpiece was tender, and he
was beginning to hate the burly barrister. "My dear," said the burly
barrister, "the jury must have the information from you."
Then gradually there was heard through the court the gurgling sounds
of irrepressible sobs,--and with them there came a moan from the old
man, who was only divided from his daughter by the few steps,--which
was understood by the whole crowd. The story of the poor girl, in
reference to the trial, had been so noised about that it was known
to all the listeners. That spark of sympathy, of which we have said
that its course cannot be arrested when it once finds its way into
a crowd, had been created, and there was hardly present then one,
either man or woman, who would not have prayed that Carry Brattle
might be spared if it were possible. There was a juryman there, a
father with many daughters, who thought that it might not misbecome
him to put forward such a prayer himself.
"Perhaps it mayn't be necessary," said the soft-hearted juryman.
But the burly barrister was not a man who liked to be taught his duty
by any one in court,--not even by a juryman,--and his quick intellect
immediately told him that he must seize the spark of sympathy in
its flight. It could not be stopped, but it might be turned to his
own purpose. It would not suffice for him now that he should simply
defend the question he had asked. The court was showing its aptitude
for pathos, and he also must be pathetic on his own side. He knew
well enough that he could not arrest public opinion which was going
against him, by shewing that his question was a proper question; but
he might do so by proving at once how tender was his own heart.
"It is a pain and grief to me," said he, "to bring sorrow upon
any one. But look at those prisoners at the bar, whose lives are
committed to my charge, and know that I, as their advocate, love them
while they are my clients as well as any father can love his child. I
will spend myself for them, even though it may be at the risk of the
harsh judgment of those around me. It is my duty to prove to the jury
on their behalf that the life of this young woman has been such as
to invalidate her testimony against them;--and that duty I shall do,
fearless of the remarks of any one. Now I ask you again, Caroline
Brattle, whether you are not one of the unfortunates?"
This attempt of the burly barrister was to a certain extent
successful. The juryman who had daughters of his own had been put
down, and the barrister had given, at any rate, an answer to the
attack that had been silently made on him by the feeling of the
court. Let a man be ready with a reply, be it ever so bad a reply,
and any attack is parried. But Carry had given no answer to the
question, and those who looked at her thought it very improbable that
she would be able to do so. She had clutched the arm of the man who
stood by her, and in the midst of her sobs was looking round with
snatched, quick, half-completed glances for protection to the spot on
which her father and brother were standing. The old man had moaned
once; but after that he uttered no sound. He stood leaning on his
stick with his eyes fixed upon the ground, quite motionless. Sam was
standing with his hands grasping the woodwork before him and his bold
gaze fastened on the barrister's face, as though he were about to fly
at him. The burly barrister saw it all and perceived that more was to
be gained by sparing than by persecuting his witness, and resolved to
let her go.
"I believe that will do," he said. "Your silence tells all that I
wish the jury to know. You may go down." Then the man who had acted
as mouthpiece led Carry away, delivered her up to her father, and
guided them both out of court.
They went back to the room in which they had before been seated, and
there they waited for Sam, who was called into the witness-box as
they left the court.
"Oh, father," said Carry, as soon as the old man was again placed
upon the bench. And she stood over him, and put her hand upon his
neck.
"We've won through it, girl, and let that be enough," said the
miller. Then she sat down close by his side, and not another word was
spoken by them till Sam returned.
Sam's evidence was, in fact, but of little use. He had had dealings
with Acorn, who had introduced him to Burrows, and had known the two
men at the old woman's cottage on the Common. When he was asked, what
these dealings had been, he said they were honest dealings.
"About your sister's marriage?" suggested the crown lawyer.
"Well,--yes," said Sam. And then he stated that the men had come over
to Bullhampton and that he had accompanied them as they walked round
Farmer Trumbull's house. He had taken them into the Vicar's garden;
and then he gave an account of the meeting there with Mr. Fenwick.
After that he had known and seen nothing of the men. When he
testified so far he was handed over to the burly barrister.
The burly barrister tried all he knew, but he could make nothing of
this witness. A question was asked him, the true answer to which
would have implied that his sister's life had been disreputable. When
this was asked Sam declared that he would not say a word about his
sister one way or the other. His sister had told them all she knew
about the murder, and now he had told them all he knew. He protested
that he was willing to answer any questions they might ask him about
himself; but about his sister he would answer none. When told that
the information desired might be got in a more injurious way from
other sources, he became rather impudent.
"Then you may go to--other sources," he said.
He was threatened with all manner of pains and penalties; but he made
nothing of these threats, and was at last allowed to leave the box.
When his evidence was completed the trial was adjourned for another
day.
Though it was then late in the afternoon the three Brattles returned
home that night. There was a train which took them to the Bullhampton
Road station, and from thence they walked to the mill. It was a weary
journey both for the poor girl and for the old man; but anything was
better than delay for another night in Trotter's Buildings. And then
the miller was unwilling to be absent from his mill one hour longer
than was necessary. When there came to be a question whether he could
walk, he laughed the difficulty to scorn in his quiet way. "Why
shouldn't I walk it? Ain't I got to 'arn my bread every day?"
It was ten o'clock when they reached the mill, and Mrs. Brattle, not
expecting them at that hour, was in bed. But Fanny was up, and did
what she could to comfort them. But no one could ever comfort old
Brattle. He was not susceptible to soft influences. It may almost
be said that he condemned himself because he gave way to the daily
luxury of a pipe. He believed in plenty of food, because food for the
workman is as coals to the steam-engine, as oats to the horse,--the
raw material out of which the motive power of labour must be made.
Beyond eating and working a man had little to do, but just to wait
till he died. That was his theory of life in these his latter days;
and yet he was a man with keen feelings and a loving heart.
But Carry was comforted when her sister's arms were around her. "They
asked me if I was bad," she said, "and I thought I should a' died,
and I never answered them a word,--and at last they let me go."
When Fanny inquired whether their father had been kind to her, she
declared that he had been "main kind." "But, oh, Fanny! if he'd only
say a word, it would warm one's heart; wouldn't it?"
On the following evening news reached Bullhampton that the Grinder
had been convicted and sentenced to death, but that Lawrence Acorn
had been acquitted. The judge, in his summing up, had shown that
certain evidence which applied to the Grinder had not applied to his
comrade in the dock, and the jury had been willing to take any excuse
for saving one man from the halter.