“And you don’t look a bad ’un—you didn’t kick me or pull me about
as I’ve seen some do, never thinkin’ they’ll be old themselves one
day. You’ve a gal, mebbe?—one you’ve sort o’ set your heart on!” he
added, hooking his bony fingers on one of my arms and fixing me with
those searching eyes of his. “How’d you feel if any one stole her
out of your bosom, and ruined her, and cast her at your feet—a poor,
bleeding, crushed thing, ready to lie down and die? Wouldn’t you feel
like killing that man? I see it in your face. Well, that’s just how I
felt; we’re both alike, only that I’ve done it, and you haven’t come
to that yet.”
At the Office he quietly and calmly gave his name as Philip
Huddlestone, and when asked if he had any statement to make, he said—
“I’ve nothing to say but that I shot the man, and that I’m not
sorry I did it. I’m only a poor man, a journeyman painter by trade,
but I’ve my feelings the same as the richest. I’ve a daughter I
set my heart on, and though she was only a barmaid, you mustn’t
think she wasn’t good and pure. That man—him that I shot, and ain’t
sorry for—met her at the bar, and got talking to her about love and
nonsense, and kept telling her of his estate that he’d come into
when his father died, and of the money he had coming to him. Well,
the poor gal didn’t know no better, and made up to run away with him
to Paris. He was to marry her there, and I believe did go through
some affair of the kind to blind her eyes when he saw she was set on
coming back if he didn’t. But then the law ain’t strong enough there
to make it binding in England, and he knowd she was no more his wife
in this country than I am. Well, he kept her till he was tired of
her, and then bolted and left her. She got helped across the water,
and then came back to her poor old dad. I didn’t know my own gal—my
own flesh and blood. I think she’s dying, and I left her in safe
hands while I came up to Scotland to see her righted. She sent me to
do that, but she didn’t know I meant to do it with a pistol. I walked
most of the way, ’cause we’re very poor, and I’m not so able to work
as I used to be.”
That was the substance of the prisoner’s declaration, and, after
emitting the same, he was taken away and locked up, his wounded arm
being first properly dressed. But before a week had elapsed there
came a surprise for us all. The wounded man had so far recovered as
to be able to receive an account of the prisoner’s declaration, when
he expressed the most unbounded astonishment, and emphatically denied
all knowledge of the circumstances. That he spoke the truth few could
doubt, for it was ascertained beyond question that Stephen Barbour
had not been in Paris for more than a year. The complication seemed
so mysterious, and the statements of both men remained so emphatic,
that a messenger was despatched to the prisoner’s home, and that man
found the daughter as emphatic in her statements as her father, and
in the end brought her to Scotland to see the wounded man whom she
claimed as her lawful husband. This step proved a wise one, for on
the poor girl being introduced to the invalid, she at once cried out—
“That is not Stephen Barbour—he is like him, but older and fairer.”
This answer gave the old laird the first clue to the mystery. His
second son, a fast youth whom it was impossible to keep at home,
spent most of his time in London, and often got into good society by
passing himself off as the eldest son and heir. Thus he had been
introduced to the pretty barmaid, and by the name of Stephen he had
been married to her in Paris.
This, his latest piece of villainy, plunged the whole family into
grief, involving as it did not only the family honour, but almost
costing his innocent and beloved brother and another man their lives.
So enraged were his relatives that the case was given into the
hands of the police, and Adam Barbour, to his profound disgust and
surprise, was arrested in London, and tried and convicted of false
impersonation, for which he was sent for three months to prison.
Stephen Barbour made a good recovery, and was able at the trial of
Huddlestone to speak so feelingly and kindly of the prisoner, that
all—even the accused—were moved, and the sentence was the light one
of nine months’ imprisonment. The daughter Meg was cared for by the
Barbours, and ultimately, I believe, on the death of the man she
had married, received the second son’s portion, supplemented by a
handsome addition from Stephen Barbour. Her father rejoined her in
London at the expiry of his sentence; but either the excitement of
his journey to Scotland, or the prison life which followed it, had
been too much for his slender frame, and he scarcely saw the end of
the year.