CONFESSION
The ruins of Deep Moat Grange were black and cold--almost level with
the ground, also. For the folk had pulled the house almost stone from
stone, partly in anger, partly in their search for hidden treasure.
Elsie was home again in the white cottage at the Bridge End, and my
father was attending to his business quietly, as if nothing had
happened.
The authorities, of course, had made a great search among the
subterranean passages of the monks' storehouses, without, however,
discovering more than Elsie and my father could have told them. Mr.
Ablethorpe was still silent. So, being bound by my promise to him, I
judged it best to hold my peace also.
But in spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, the country
continued in a ferment. The deaths of Mad Jeremy and Mr. Stennis,
instead of quieting public clamour, made the mystery still more
mysterious. The weird sisters remained at liberty, and the wildest
reports flew about. None would venture out of doors after dark.
Children were told impossible tales of Spring-heeled Jacks in
petticoats, who (much less judicious than the usual bogie--"Black Man,"
"Hornie Nick," the lord of the utter and middle darkness), confounded
the innocent with the guilty, and made off with good children as
readily as with children the most advanced in depravity.
Of course, knowing what I knew, I had none of these fears. I
understood why Mr. Ablethorpe had arranged for the carrying off of
Honorine, Camilla, and Sidonia. They were, I knew, housed with the
"Little Sisters of the Weak-Minded." But to me, as to others, Aphra
remained the stumbling-block.
But even this was soon to be removed.
On March the sixteenth, one month and five days after the burning of
the house of Deep Moat Grange, the sheriff's court of Bordershire was
held in the courthouse at Longtown. My father and I, with many people
from Breckonside, were there, and practically all Bewick to a man. For
great interest was felt in a case of night-poaching in which these two
firm friends, Davie Elshiner and Peter Kemp, officially had repeatedly
given each other the lie.
"There is rank perjury somewhere," commented the sheriff, "but as I
cannot bring it home to any particular person, I must discharge the
accused."
A certain subdued hush of various movement ran along the benches, as
the listeners got ready to go. Sheriff Graham Duffus, a red-faced,
jolly man, was conferring in hushed tones with the fiscal or public
prosecutor, when two tall young men in irreproachable clerical attire
pushed their way up the central passage, kept clear for witnesses by a
couple of burly policemen at either end. A woman walked between them.
She was tall, veiled, angular, and bore herself singularly erect, even
with an air of pride.
The murmur of the people changed to an awe-stricken hush, as the woman
lifted her veil.
It was Aphra Orrin, and she stood there between Mr. De la Poer and Mr.
Ablethorpe!
"My lord," said Mr. Ablethorpe, in a clear and dominating voice, "I and
my friend, Mr. De la Poer, are ordained clergymen of the Church of
Scotland, Episcopal. We are not aware of the formula with which we
ought to approach you, seated as a judge in a court of justice. But we
are here because we know of no way more direct to carry out the wishes
of this poor woman, whose conscience has been touched, and who by full
confession, by condemnation, and by the suffering of punishment,
desires to make what amends she can for the dreadful iniquities in
which, for many years, she has been involved."
In a moment all present knew that it was a matter of the mysteries of
Deep Moat Grange.
"Who is this woman?" asked Sheriff Graham Duffus, the jovial air
suddenly stricken from his face. The fiscal had subsided into the
depths of an official armchair. He reclined in it, apparently seated
upon his shoulder blades, and with half-shut eyes watched proceedings
from under the twitching penthouse of his brows.
"Her name is Aphra or Euphrasia Orrin," said Mr. Ablethorpe, "and she
comes to make full confession before men, of what she has already
confessed to me concerning the murders in which she has been implicated
at Deep Moat Grange."
"And why," said the sheriff, "did not you yourself immediately inform
the justice of your country?"
Mr. Ablethorpe turned upon Sheriff Duffus with a pitying look.
"I was bound," he said simply, "by the secret of the confessional!"
"In Scotland," said the sheriff severely, "we do not acknowledge any
such obligation. But no matter for that, if now, even though
discreditably late, you have by your influence brought this woman to
make public confession!"
"I take my friend by my side to witness--I take Euphrasia Orrin--I take
Him who hears all confessions which come from the heart, to witness
that never have I put the least pressure on this poor woman's
conscience! What she is now doing is by her own desire!"
The sheriff shrugged his shoulders, and the ghost of a smile flickered
among the crafty wrinkles about the corner of the fiscal's mouth. His
work was being done for him.
"You refuse the crumb of credit I was willing to allow you," said the
sheriff. "Well, I put no limit to what any man's conscience may
prescribe to itself, when once it begins to set up rules for its own
guidance. Let us get to business. What has the woman to say?"
The woman had much to say. It was the early afternoon of mid-March
when Aphra began to speak, and long before she had finished the
court-keeper and his temporary assistant were lighting the dim gas jets
arranged at wide distances along the wall.
Her crape veil thrown back over a bonnet showing a face, as it were,
carven in grey granite, Aphra Orrin stood before her country's justice
fingering a brown rosary. Every time she paused, even for a second,
one could hear the click of the beads mechanically dropped from nervous
fingers. Strong men's ears sang. It was as if the terrible things her
lips were relating had been some history of old, long-punished crimes,
the record of which she was recalling as a warning. Yet within what of
soul she had, doubtless the woman was at her prayers.
Not once did she manifest the least emotion or contrition, still less
fear. And she made her recital in the calmest manner, with some
occasional rhapsodical language certainly, but with none of the madness
which I should have expected.
She stood up, most like some formal, old-fashioned schoolmistress
reciting a piece of prose learned by heart, without animation and
without interest. The dry click of the beads alone marked the
emphasis. The young Anglican priests towered one on either side, and
the quivering silence of the crowded courthouse alone evidenced the
terrible nature of the disclosures.