THE STORM BURSTS
"Why, Ralph, what is the matter?" And Ruth seized one of his hands and
stared eagerly and appealingly into his face.
He shook himself as if he had been asleep, then closed the door quietly
and followed her into the living-room.
"Are you not well, Ralph?" Ruth persisted, as she drew up his chair a
little nearer the fire. Mrs. Penlogan laid her knitting in her lap, and
her eyes echoed Ruth's inquiry.
"I've heard some bad news," he said, speaking with an effort, and he
dropped into his chair and stared at the fire.
"Bad news!" both women echoed. "What has happened, Ralph?"
He hesitated for a moment, then he told them the story as Dorothy had
told it to him.
"But why should you worry?" Ruth questioned quickly. "You were nowhere
near the plantation."
"But how am I to prove it?" he questioned.
"Have you been alone all the afternoon?"
"Absolutely."
"But you have surely seen someone?"
"As bad luck would have it, I have not seen a soul."
"But some people may have seen you."
"That is likely enough. Twenty people in the village looking from behind
their curtains may have seen me walk out with a gun under my arm."
"And it's the first time you've carried a gun since we left Hillside."
"The very first time, and it looks as if it will be the last."
"But surely, Ralph, no one would believe for a moment that you could do
such a thing?" his mother interposed. "It's been some awkward accident,
you may depend. It will all come out right in the morning."
"I'm very sorry for you, mother," he said slowly. "You've had trouble
enough lately, God knows. We all have, for that matter. But it is of no
use shutting our eyes to the fact that this is a very awkward business,
and while we should hope for the best, we should prepare for the worst."
"What worst do you refer to, Ralph?" she asked, a little querulously.
"You surely do not think----"
"I hardly know what to think, mother," he interrupted, for it was quite
clear she did not realise yet the gravity of the situation. "It may mean
imprisonment and the loss of my good name, which would mean the loss of
everything and the end of the world for me."
"Oh no; surely not," and the tears began to gather in her eyes.
"The trouble lies here," he went on. "Everybody knows that I hate the
squire. We all do, for that matter, and for very good reasons. As it
happens, I have been out with a gun this afternoon, and have brought
home a couple of rabbits. I shot them in Dingley Bottom, but no one saw
me. Somebody trespassing in the plantation came upon the squire. He was
climbing over a hedge, and very likely in drawing back suddenly
something caught the trigger and the gun went off. Now unless that man
confesses, what is to become of me?"
"But he will confess. Nobody would let you be wrongfully accused," she
interrupted.
He shook his head dubiously. "Most people are so anxious to save their
own skin," he said, "that they do not trouble much about what becomes of
other people."
"But if the worst should come to the worst, Ralph," Ruth questioned
timidly, "what would it mean?"
"Transportation," he said gloomily.
Mrs. Penlogan began to cry. It seemed almost as if God had forsaken
them, and her faith in Providence was in danger of going from her. She
and Ruth had been bewailing the hardness of their lot that afternoon
while Ralph was out with his gun. The few pounds saved from the general
wreck were nearly exhausted. When the funeral expenses had been paid,
and the removal accounts had been squared, there was very little left.
To make matters worse, Ralph's accident had to be added to their
calamities. He was only just beginning to get about again, and when the
doctor's bill came in they would be worse than penniless, they would be
in debt.
And now suddenly, and without warning, this new trouble threatened them.
A trouble that was worse than poverty--worse even than death. Their good
name, they imagined, was unassailable, and if that went by the board,
everything would be lost.
Ralph sat silent, and stared into the fire. In the main his thoughts
were very bitter, but one sweet reflection came and went in the most
unaccountable fashion. One pure and almost perfect face peeped at him
from between the bars of the grate and vanished, but always came back
again after a few minutes and smiled all the more sweetly, as if to
atone for its absence.
Why had Dorothy Hamblyn taken the trouble to interview him? Why was she
so interested in his fate? How was it that she was so ready to accept
his word? To give any rational answer to these questions seemed
impossible. If she felt what he felt, the explanation would be simple
enough; but since by no exercise of his fancy or imagination could he
bring himself to that view of the case, her conduct--her apparent
solicitude--remained inexplicable.
Nevertheless, the thought of Dorothy was the one sweet drop in his
bitter cup. The why and wherefore of her interest might remain a
mystery, yet the fact remained that of her own free will she had come to
see him that she might get the truth from his own lips, and without any
hesitation she had told him that she believed his word. Sir John might
hunt him down with all the venom of a sleuth hound, but he would always
have this crumb of consolation, that the Squire's daughter believed in
him still.
He had given up trying to hate her. Nay, he accepted it as part of the
irony of fate that he should do the other thing. He could not understand
why destiny should be so relentlessly cruel to him, why every
circumstance and every combination of circumstances should unite to
crush him. But he had to accept life as he found it. The world seemed to
be ruled by might, not by justice. The strong worked their will upon the
weak. It was the fate of the feeble to go under; the helpless cried in
vain for deliverance, the poor were daily oppressed.
He found his youthful optimism a steadily diminishing quantity. His
father's fate seemed to mock the idea of an over-ruling Providence. If
there was ever a good man in the parish, his father was that man. No
breath of slander had ever touched his name. Honest, industrious,
pure-minded, God-fearing, he lived and wrought with all his might, doing
to others as he would they should do to him. And yet he died of a broken
heart, defeated and routed in the unequal contest, victimised by the
uncertain chances of life, ground to powder by laws he did not make, and
had no chance of escaping. And in that hour of overwhelming disaster
there was no hand to deliver him save the kindly hand of death.
"And what is there before me?" he asked himself bitterly. "What have I
to live for, or hope for? The very springs of my youth seem poisoned. My
love is a cruel mockery, my ambitions are frost-nipped in the bud."
For the rest of the evening very little was said. Supper was a sadly
frugal meal, and they ate it in silence. Ruth and her mother could not
help wondering how long it would be ere they would have no food to eat.
Ralph kept listening with keen apprehension for the sound of a measured
footstep outside the door. At any moment he might be arrested. Sir John
was one of the most important men in St. Goram, hence the law would be
swift to take its course. The policemen would be falling over each other
in their eagerness to do their duty.
The tall grandfather's clock in the corner beat out the moments with
loud and monotonous click. The fire in the grate sank lower and lower.
All the village noises died down into silence. Mrs. Penlogan's chin, in
spite of her anxiety, began to droop upon her bosom.
"I think we shall be left undisturbed to-night," Ralph said, with a
pathetic smile. "Perhaps we had better get off to bed."
Mrs. Penlogan rose at once and fetched the family Bible and handed it on
to Ruth. It fell open at the 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I
shall not want."
Ruth read it in a low, even voice. It was her father's favourite
portion--his sheet-anchor when the storms of life raged most fiercely.
Now he was beyond the tempest and beyond the strife.
For the first time Ralph felt thankful that he was dead.
"Dear old father," he said to himself. "He has got beyond the worry and
the pain. His heart will ache no more for ever."
They all knelt down when the psalm ended; but no one prayed aloud.
Ralph remained after the others had gone upstairs. It seemed of little
use going to bed, he felt too restless to sleep.
Ever since Dorothy went away he had been expecting Policeman Budda to
call with a warrant for his arrest. Why he had not come he could not
understand. He wondered if Dorothy had interceded with her father, and
his eyes softened at the thought.
He did not blame himself for loving her in a restrained and far-off way.
She was so fair and sweet and generous. That she was beyond his reach
was no fault of his--that he had carried her in his arms and pressed her
to his heart was the tragedy as well as the romance of his life. That
she had watched by him and succoured him in the plantation was only
another cord that bound his heart to her. That he should love her was
but the inevitable sequence of events.
It was foolish to blame himself. He would be something less than man if
he did not love her. He had tried his hardest not to--had struggled with
all his might to put the memory of her out of his heart. But he gave up
the struggle weeks ago. It was of no use fighting against fate. It was
part of the burden he had been called upon to bear, and he would have to
bear it as bravely and as patiently as he knew how.
He was not so vain as to imagine that she cared for him in the smallest
degree--or ever could care. Moreover, she was engaged to be married, and
would have been married months ago but for her accident.
Ralph got up from his chair and began to walk about the room. Dorothy
Hamblyn was not for him, he knew well enough, and yet whenever he
thought of her marrying Lord Probus his whole soul revolted. It seemed
to him like sacrilege, and sacrilege in its basest form.
It was nearly midnight when he stole silently and stealthily to his
little room, and soon after he fell fast asleep.
When he opened his eyes again the light of a new day filled the room,
and a harsh and unfamiliar voice was speaking rapidly in the room below.
Ralph leaned over the side of his bed for a moment or two and listened.
"It's Budda's voice," he said to himself at length, and he gave a little
gasp. If Dorothy had interceded for him, her intercession had failed.
The law would now have to take its course.
He dressed himself carefully and with great deliberation. He would not
show the white feather if he could help it. Besides, it was just
possible he might be able to clear himself. He would not give up hope
until he was compelled to.
Budda was very civil and even sympathetic. He sat by the fire while
Ralph ate his breakfast, and retailed a good deal of the gossip of the
village so as to lessen the strain of the situation. Ralph replied to
him with an air of well-feigned indifference and unconcern. He would
rather die than betray weakness before a policeman.
Mrs. Penlogan and Ruth moved in and out of the room with set faces and
dry eyes. They knew how to endure silently. So many storms had beaten
upon them that it did not seem to matter much what came to them now.
Also they knew that the real bitterness would come when Ralph's place
was empty.
Budda appeared to be in no hurry. It was all in his day's work, and
since Ralph showed no disposition to bolt, an hour sooner or later made
no difference. He read the terms of the warrant with great deliberation
and in his most impressive manner. Ralph made no reply. This was neither
the time nor the place to protest his innocence.
Breakfast over, Ralph stretched his feet for a few moments before the
fire. Budda talked on; but Ralph said nothing. He sprang to his feet at
length and got on his hat and overcoat, while his mother and Ruth were
out of the room.
"Now I am ready," he said; and Budda at once led the way.
He met his mother and sister in the passage and kissed them a hurried
good-morning, and almost before they knew what had happened the door
closed, and Ralph and the policeman had disappeared.
On the following morning he was brought before the magistrates and
remanded for a week, bail being refused.
It was fortunate for him that in the solitude of his cell he had no
conception of the tremendous sensation his arrest produced. There had
been nothing like it in St. Goram for more than a generation, and for a
week or two little else was talked about.
Of course, opinions varied as to the measure of his guilt or innocence.
But, in the main, the current of opinion went strongly against him. When
a man is down, it is surprising how few his friends are. The bulk of the
St. Goramites were far more ready to kick him than defend him. Wiseacres
and busybodies told all who cared to listen how they had predicted some
such catastrophe. David Penlogan was a good man, but he had not trained
his children wisely. He had spent more on their education than his
circumstances warranted, with the result that they were exclusive and
proud, and discontented with the station in life to which Providence had
called them.
Ralph would have been infinitely pained had he known how indifferent the
mass of the people were to his fate, and how ready some of those whom he
had regarded as his friends were to listen to tales against him. Even
those who defended him, did it in a very tepid and half-hearted way; and
the more strongly the current ran against him, the more feeble became
his defence.
At the end of a week Ralph was brought up and remanded again. Sir John
Hamblyn was still confined to his bed, and the doctor could not say when
he would be well enough to appear and give evidence.
So time after time he was dragged into the dock, only to be hustled
after a few minutes back into his cell.
But at length, after weary weeks of waiting, Sir John appeared at the
court-house with his arm in a sling. The bench was crowded with
magistrates, all of whom were loud in their expressions of sympathy and
emphatic in their denunciation of the crime that had been committed.
Sir John being a baronet and a magistrate, and a very considerable
landowner, was accommodated with a cushion, and allowed to sit while he
gave evidence. The court-room was packed, and the crowd outside was
considerably larger than that within.
Ralph was led into the dock looking but a ghost of his former self. The
long weeks of confinement--following upon his illness--the scanty prison
fare in place of nourishing food, had wasted him almost to a shadow. He
stood, however, erect and defiant, and faced the bench of country
squires with a fearless light in his eyes. They might have the power to
shut him up within stone walls, but they could not break his spirit.