by Ellen Wood
Rupert took the hint, and subsided into silence. He was consigned to his quarters for the night, and no doubt passed it as agreeably as was consistent with the circumstances.
The fire had not spread beyond a rick or two. It was quite out before midnight; and the engines, which had done effectual service, were on their way home again. At eight o’clock the following morning a fly was at the door to convey Rupert Trevlyn to Barmester. Bowen, a cautious man, deemed it well that the chief witness — it may be said, the only witness to any purpose — should be transported there by the same conveyance. But that witness, Mr. Jim Sanders, delayed his appearance unwarrantably, and Dumps, in much wrath, started in search of him. Back he came — it was not more than a quarter-of-a-mile to the mother’s cottage.
“He has gone on, the stupid blunderer,” cried he to Bowen; “Mrs. Sanders says he’s at Barmester by this time. He’ll be at the station there, no doubt.”
So the party started in state: Bowen, Dumps, and Rupert Trevlyn inside; and Chigwell, who had been sent to capture him, on the box. There was just as much necessity for the presence of the two men as for yours or mine; but they would not have missed the day’s excitement for the world: and Bowen did not interpose his veto.
The noise and bustle at the fire had been great, but it was scarcely greater than that which prevailed that morning at Barmester. As a matter of course, various contradictory versions were afloat; it is invariably the case. All that was certainly known were the bare facts; Mr. Chattaway had horsewhipped Rupert Trevlyn; a fire had almost immediately broken out in the rick-yard; and Rupert was in custody on the charge of causing it.
Belief in Rupert’s guilt was accorded a very limited degree. People could not forget the ill-feeling supposed to exist towards him in the breast of Mr. Chattaway; and the flying reports that it was Jim Sanders who had been the culprit, accidentally, if not wilfully, obtained far more credence than the other. The curious populace would have subscribed a good round sum to be allowed to question Jim to their hearts’ content.
But a growing rumour, freezing the very marrow in the bones of their curiosity, had come abroad. It was said that Jim had disappeared: was not to be found under the local skies; and it was this caused the chief portion of the public excitement. For in point of fact, when Bowen and the rest arrived at Barmester, Jim Sanders could not be seen or heard of. Dumps was despatched back to Barbrook in search of him.
The hearing was fixed for ten o’clock; and before that hour struck, the magistrates — a full bench of them — had taken their places. Many familiar faces were to be seen in the crowded court — familiar to you, my readers; for the local world was astir with interest and curiosity. In one part of the crowd might be seen the face of George Ryle, grave and subdued; in another, the dark flashing eyes of Nora Dickson; yonder the red cheeks of Mr. Apperley; nearer, the pale concerned countenance of Mr. Freeman. Just before the commencement of the proceedings, the carriage from Trevlyn Hold drove up, and there descended from it Mr. and Madam Chattaway, and Miss Diana Trevlyn. A strange proceeding, you will say, that the ladies should appear; but it was not deemed strange in the locality. Miss Diana had asserted her determination to be present in tones quite beyond the power of Mr. Chattaway to contradict, even had he wished to do so; and thus he had no plea for refusing his wife. How ill she looked! Scarcely a heart but ached for her. The two ladies sat in a retired spot, and Mr. Chattaway — who was in the commission of the peace, but did not exercise the privilege once in a dozen years — took his place on the bench.
Then the prisoner was brought in, civilly conducted by Superintendent Bowen. He looked pale, subdued, gentlemanly — not in the least like one who would set fire to a hay-rick.
“Have you all your witnesses, Bowen?” inquired the presiding magistrate.
“All but one, sir, and I expect him here directly; I have sent after him,” was the reply. “In fact, I’m not sure but he is here,” added the man, standing on tiptoe, and stretching his neck upwards; “the crowd’s so great one can’t see who’s here and who isn’t. If he can be heard first, his evidence may be conclusive, and save the trouble of examining the others.”
“You can call him,” observed the magistrate. “If he is here, he will answer. What’s the name?”
“James Sanders, your worship.”
“Call James Sanders,” returned his worship, exalting his voice.
The call was made in obedience, and “James Sanders!” went ringing through the court; and walls and roof echoed the cry.
But there was no other answer.
CHAPTER XL
THE EXAMINATION
The morning sun shone upon the crowded court, as the Bench waited for the appearance of Mr. Jim Sanders. The windows, large, high, and guiltless of blinds, faced the south-east, and the warm autumn rays poured in, to the discomfort of those on whom they directly fell. They fell especially on the prisoner; his fair hair, his winning countenance. They fell on the haughty features of Miss Diana Trevlyn, leaning forward to speak to Mr. Peterby, who had been summoned in haste by herself, that he might watch the interests of Rupert. They fell on the sad face of Mrs. Chattaway, bent downwards until partly hidden under its falling curls; and they fell on the red face of Farmer Apperley, who was in a brown study, gently flicking his top-boot with his riding-whip.
One, who had come pressing through the crowd, extended her hand, and touched the farmer on the shoulder. He turned to behold Nora Dickson.
“Mr. Apperley, did your wife make those inquiries for me about that work-woman at the upholsterer’s, whether she goes out by the day or not?” asked Nora, as though speaking for the benefit of the court in general.
Mr. Apperley paused to collect his thoughts upon the subject. “I did hear the missis say something about that woman,” he remarked at length. “I can’t call to mind what, though. Brown, isn’t her name?”
“We must have her, or somebody else,” continued Nora, in the same tones. “Our drawing-room winter-curtains must be turned top for bottom; and as to the moreen bed-furniture — —”
“Silence there!” interrupted an authoritative voice. And then there came again the same call which had already been echoed through the court twice before —
“James Sanders!”
“Just step here to the back, and I’ll send your wife a message for the woman,” resumed Nora, in defiance of the mandate just issued.
The farmer did not see why the message could not have been given to him where he was; but we are all apt to yield to a ruling power, and he followed Nora.
She struggled through the crowded doorway of the court into a comparatively empty stone hall. The farmer contrived to follow her; but he was short and stout, and emerged purple with the exertion. Nora cast her cautious eyes around, and then bent towards him with the softest whisper.
“Look here, Mr. Apperley. If they examine you, you have no need to tell everything, you know.”
Mr. Apperley, none of the keenest at taking a hint, stared at Nora. He could not understand. “Are you talking about the upholstering woman?” asked he, in his perplexity.
“Rubbish!” retorted Nora. “Do you suppose I brought you here to talk about her? You have not a bit of gumption — as everybody knows. Jim Sanders is not to be found; at least, it seems so,” continued Nora, with a short cough; “for that’s the third time they have called him. Now, if they examine you — as I suppose they will, by Bowen saying you might be wanted, there’s no need to go and repeat what Jim said about Rupert Trevlyn’s guilt when you met him last night down by his cottage.”
“Why! how did you know I met Jim last night?” cried the farmer, staring at Nora.
“There’s no time to explain now: I didn’t dream it. You liked Joe Trevlyn: I have heard you say it.”
“Ay, I did,” replied the farmer, casting his thoughts back.
“Well, then, just bring to your mind how that poor lad, his son, has been wronged and put upon through life; think of the critical position he stan
ds in now; before a hundred eyes — brought to it through that usurper, Chattaway. Don’t you help on the hue and cry against him, I say. You didn’t see him fire the rick; you only heard Jim Sanders say that he fired it; and you are not called upon to repeat that hearsay evidence. Don’t do it, Mr. Apperley.”
“I suppose I am not,” assented he, after digesting the words.
“Indeed you are not. If Jim can’t be found, and you don’t speak, I think it’s not much of a case they’ll make out against him. After all, Jim may have done it himself, you know.”
She turned away, leaving the farmer to follow her, and he, slow at coming to conclusions, stopped where he was, pondering all sides of the question in his mind.
But there’s a word to say about Policeman Dumps. Nothing could exceed the consternation experienced by that functionary at the non-appearance of Jim Sanders. On their arrival at Barmester, they had searched for him in vain. Dumps would not believe that he had been purposely deceived, although the stern eyes of his superior were bent on him with a very significant look. “Get the fleetest conveyance you can, and be off to Barbrook and see about it,” were the whispered commands of the latter. “A pretty go, this is! I shall have the Bench blowing me up in public!”
The Bench, vexed at the fruitless calls for Jim Sanders, looked much inclined to blow some one up. They were better off in regard to the sun than their audience, since they had their backs to it. The chairman, who sat in the middle, was a Mr. Pollard, a kindly, but hasty and opinionated man. He ordered the case to proceed, while the principal witness, Jim Sanders, was being looked for.
Mr. Flood, the lawyer from Barmester, acting for Mr. Chattaway, stated the case shortly and concisely. And the first witness called upon was Mr. Chattaway, who descended from the bench to give his evidence.
He was obliged to confess to his shame. He stood there before the condemning faces around, and acknowledged that the chastisement spoken to was a fact — that he had laid his horsewhip on the shoulders of Rupert Trevlyn. He was pressed for the why and wherefore — Chattaway was no favourite with his brother-magistrates, and they did not show him any remarkable favour — and he had further to confess that the provocation was totally inadequate to the punishment.
“State your grounds for charging your nephew, Rupert Trevlyn, with the crime,” said the Bench.
“There is not the slightest doubt that he did it in a fit of passion,” said Mr. Chattaway. “There was no one but him in the rick-yard, so far as I saw, and he had a lighted torch in his hand. This torch he dropped for a moment, but I suppose picked it up again.”
“It is said that James Sanders was also in the rick-yard; and the torch was his.”
“I did not see James Sanders. I saw only Rupert Trevlyn, and he had the torch in his hand when I went up. Not many minutes after I quitted the rick-yard the flames broke out.”
Apparently this was all Mr. Chattaway knew of the actual facts. The man Hatch was called, and testified to the fact that Jim Sanders was in the rick-yard. Bridget, the kitchenmaid, in a state of much tremor, confirmed this, and confessed she was there subsequently with Jim, that he had a torch, and they saw the flames break out. She related her story pretty circumstantially, winding up with the statement that Jim told her Mr. Rupert had set it on fire.
“Stop a bit, lass,” interrupted Mr. Peterby. “You have just stated to their worships that Jim Sanders flew off the moment he saw the flames burst forth, never stopping to speak a word. Now you say he told you it was Mr. Rupert who fired it. How do you reconcile the contradiction?”
“He had told me first, sir,” answered the girl. “He said he saw the master horsewhip Mr. Rupert, and Mr. Rupert in his passion caught up the torch which had fell, thrust it into the rick, and then leaped over the palings and got away. Jim pulled the torch out of the rick, and all the hay that had caught, as he thought; he told me all this when he was showing me the puppy. I suppose a spark must have been left in to smoulder, unknown to him.”
“Now don’t you think that you and he and the torch and the puppy, between you, managed to get the spark there, instead of its having ‘smouldered,’ eh, girl?” sarcastically asked Mr. Peterby.
Bridget burst into tears. “No, I am sure we did not,” she answered.
“Don’t you likewise think that this pretty little bit of news regarding Mr. Rupert may have been a fable of Mr. Jim’s invention, to excuse his own carelessness?” went on the lawyer.
“I am certain it was not, sir,” she sobbed. “When Jim told me about Mr. Rupert, he never thought the rick was on fire.”
They could not get on at all without Jim Sanders. Mr. Peterby’s insinuations were pointed; nay, more; for he boldly asserted that the rick was far more likely to have been fired by Jim than Rupert — that is, by a spark from that gentleman’s torch, whilst engaged with two objects so exacting as a puppy and Bridget. Jim himself could alone clear up the knotty question, and the Court gave vent to its impatience, and wished they were at the heels of Policeman Dumps who had gone in search of him.
But the heels of Policeman Dumps could not by any means have flown more quickly over the ground, had the whole court been after him in full cry. In point of fact, they were not his own heels that were at work, but those of a fleet little horse, drawing the light gig in which the policeman sat. So effectually did he whip up this horse, that in considerably less time than half-an-hour, Mr. Dumps was nearing Jim’s dwelling. As he passed the police-station at Barbrook, the only solitary policeman left to take care of the interests of the district was fulfilling his duty by taking a lounge against the door-post.
“Have you seen anything of Jim Sanders?” called out Mr. Dumps, partially checking his horse. “He has never made his appearance yonder, and I’m come after him.”
“I hear he’s off,” answered the man.
“Off! Off where?”
“Cut away,” was the explanatory reply. “He hasn’t been seen since last night.”
Allowing himself a whole minute to take in the news, Mr. Dumps whipped on his horse, and gave utterance to a very unparliamentary word. When he burst into Mrs. Sanders’s cottage, which was full of steam, and she before a washing-tub, he seized that lady’s arm in so emphatic a manner that perceiving what was coming, she gave a scream, and very nearly plunged her head into the soap-suds.
Mr. Dumps ungallantly shook her. “Now, you just answer me,” cried he; “and if you speak a word of a lie this time you’ll get transported, or something as bad. What made you tell me last night Jim had come home and was in bed? Where is he?”
She supposed he knew all — all the wickedness of her conduct in screening him; and it had the effect of hardening her. She was, as it were, at bay; and deceit was no longer possible.
“If you did transport me I couldn’t tell where he is. I don’t know. I never set eyes on him all the blessed night, and that’s the naked truth. Let me go, Mr. Dumps: it’s no good choking me.”
Mr. Dumps looked ready to choke himself. He had been deceived, and turned aside from the execution of his duty, his brother constables would have the laugh against him, Bowen would blow up, the Bench at Barmester was waiting, Jim was off — and that wretched woman had done it all! Mr. Dumps ground his teeth in impotent rage.
“I’ll have you punished as sure as my name’s what it is, Madge Sanders, if you don’t tell me the truth,” he foamed. “Is Jim in this here house?”
“You be welcome to search the house,” she replied, throwing open the staircase door, which led to the loft. “I’m telling nothing but truth now, though I was frighted into doing summit else last night; frighted to death a’most, and so I was this morning when I said he’d gone on to Barmester.”
Mr. Dumps felt inclined to shake her again: we are sure to be more angry with others when we have ourselves to blame; how could he have been fool enough to place such blind confidence in Farmer Apperley? One thing forced itself on his conviction; the woman was stating nothing but fact now.
“You
persist in it to my face that you don’t know where Jim is?” he cried.
“I swear I don’t. There! I swear I have never set eyes on him since last night when he came home after work, and went out to take his black puppy to Trevlyn Hold. He never came in after that.”
“You just dry those soap-suddy arms of yours, put your bonnet on, and come straight off, and tell that to the magistrates,” commanded Mr. Dumps, in sullen tones.
She did not dare resist. Putting on her bonnet, flinging her old shawl across her shoulders, she was marshalled by Mr. Dumps to the gig. To look after Jim was a secondary consideration. To make his own excuse good was the first; and if Jim had had a matter of twelve-hours’ start, he might be at twelve-hours’ distance.
Not to be found! Jim Sanders had made his escape, and was not to be found! reiterated the indignant Bench, when Mrs. Sanders and her escort appeared. What did Bowen mean, by asserting that Jim was ready to be called upon?
Bowen shifted the blame from his own shoulders to those of Dumps; and Dumps, with a red face, shifted it on to Mrs. Sanders. She was sternly questioned, and made the same excuse she had made to Dumps — it was his saying to her that Jim had returned, and was in bed, that caused her in her fright to agree with it, and reply that he was. But she had not seen Jim, and he had never been a-nigh home since he went out with the puppy in the earlier part of the evening. She knew no more where Jim was than Dumps himself knew.
That she told the truth appeared to be pretty clear to the magistrates, and to punish her for having so far used deceit to screen her son, might have been neither just nor legal. They turned back on Dumps.
“What induced you to put such a leading question to the woman, assuming the boy was at home and in bed?” they severely asked.