by Howard Pyle
Brent was irritated by the explicitness of his sister’s explanation, as a deaf person is irritated by a tone a shade louder than necessary. Really, he could take in her meaning without having it lined out to him as if he were a schoolboy.
“Margaret, I have heard thee through because thou art my sister, and because thou hast in times past been a faithful counsellor; but in this I will be my own master, and I am in no humor to submit to orders from thee. Therefore say no more.”
“So be it, then, Brother! Thy folly be on thine own head; but bear in mind that folly ofttimes claims a more usurious interest than sin. I go back to Kent Fort at daylight, and shall do my best to quell the rising discontent; but I know not what will follow the news of the arrest of a Protestant, especially of such a Protestant, — a man like Christopher Neville, loved and trusted of all men.”
“There, Margaret, thou hast turned the knife in the wound as thou hast a trick of doing. This is the very root of bitterness in my heart. I too loved and trusted this man, and he hath betrayed me. He deceived me about Elinor, whom it seems he hath known and loved for years back. He deceived me about his wealth, letting me believe he had need to work at Cecil Point, when in truth he has lands of value in England. And now worst of all he has betrayed my hospitality by this unpardonable villainy.”
“Enough of this, Giles! It is useless for thee and me to argue this matter, wherein we cannot see alike. Only do not thou deceive thyself with talk of statecraft or public duty; these may be in thy mind, but there is somewhat under them, — thou art jealous—”
Giles Brent started as if a lash had struck him.
“I — jealous!”
“Yes, Giles, the love of long ago still lives in thy memory.”
“And what harm if it do?”
“No harm save as it drives thee to injustice. Beware! and trust not thy judgment when thy heart holds the balance.”
“Good-bye!” said Giles Brent, and turned upon his heel.
CHAPTER X. THE ORDEAL BY TOUCH
THE SECOND DAY after the murder had come, and still Father Mohl’s body lay in the centre of the great hall, the inscrutable smile still on his lips, the fringe of hair streaked over the high, pale forehead. The candles at his head and feet guttered and dripped in their sockets and opposed their yellow flame to the grayness of the January day which seemed to be peering in curiously at the scene in the hall, where all the household of St. Gabriel’s were gathered to watch the final test of Christopher Neville’s guilt or innocence.
The dwellers by Chesapeake Bay two hundred and fifty years ago had not banished the influence of the supernatural from the conduct of life in public or private affairs. If their easy toleration prevented their taking satisfaction in the witch-burning practised by their contemporaries in Massachusetts, they yet found nothing incredible in witchcraft, for they too saw ghosts and felt the malign influence of the evil eye.
To such a generation it was quite natural that a murderer should be arraigned before the dead as well as the living.
“If the vile actors of the heinous deed
Near the dead body happily be brought,
Oft hath’t been proved the breathless corpse will bleed.”
It was a test based half on superstition, half on deep knowledge of human nature; for how indeed could a murderer, brought face to face with the still accusation in his victim’s rigid form, fail to betray himself before the hostile or coldly neutral eyes of the witnesses. And as for the corpse showing signs of recognition of the assassin, why, there were so many ready to swear that they had known that to happen that it would have been flat scepticism to doubt it.
So the household of St. Gabriel’s waited for Neville and his guard to enter the room, a deep silence hanging over all.
Giles Brent, from his end of the long table, sat gazing at his sister, and thinking how strangely her smooth, round face and domestic bearing contrasted with the grim scene around her. It was as if some brown thrush had been caught up from its nest in the bushes by the wind of destiny, and suddenly enveloped in the black cloud of a tornado.
Mary Brent kept her eyes steadily fixed upon the portrait of Lord Baltimore, painted by Van Dyck, and hanging on the wall on the turn of the stairs.
She studied every detail of his costume, — the small clothes of blue velvet, coat embroidered in gold, and doublet embroidered in silver, the open sleeves with their azure lining, the breastplate of blue inlaid with gold, and the sword-hilt studded with jewels, the powdered wig that topped the whole, and the cocked hat, its flap looped and held back with brilliants, which shone bright as real gems.
These seemed real while the figures around her receded from her sight dim and blurred, wavering like figures in a dream. There was Mistress Calvert on the settle below the bend of the stairs. Was she really Elinor Calvert, or a corpse like the one which lay scarcely more white in the middle of the room?
Elinor herself was almost as doubtful as her cousin whether she really lived and breathed. It seemed rather as though she had already tasted the bitterness of death, and now moved about, a pale, miserable ghost in a land where all was ghastly and miserable. Even Cecil seemed unreal, and that worried her more than all the rest. In the last three days the touch of those little arms had in some way lost its power to comfort, and the childish presence had grown irksome because it forbade her giving way to the bursts of wild weeping which had alternated with stony despair.
Just now Cecil was pressing close to her side and whispering in her ear, —
“Mamma, did Thir Chrithtopher Neville kill the priest? Dost thou think he did it?”
“Hush, Cecil!”
“But did he?”
“I know not.”
“Father White thinks he did it.”
Silence on Elinor’s part.
“And Couthin Giles thinks so.”
Still silence.
“And Couthin Mary thinks so; but I do not.”
“And why?”
“Because he promised me a bow and arrowth and he knew thou wouldst not let me take a gift from a murderer.”
The quick stab of the word was intolerable. Elinor thrust the child away from her side with a swift, tragic gesture; then, at sight of the angry flush in his cheeks and the grieved wonder in his eyes, she caught him to her heart again close, and bowed her head over his curls.
The only person who caught the meaning of the action was Peggy Neville, who sat in a corner a little back of the Governor’s chair. Heart reads heart in crises like these, and sympathy is second sight. Her first feeling was a quick thrill and a desire to run across the room and kiss that cold proud face with the swollen eyelids. Then the blood of the Nevilles, proud every whit as that of the Calverts, surged angrily back to her heart. “She to dare to doubt him! Why, nobody thinks great things of me, but I would never desert any one that I cared even the least little bit about. I’d stick all the closer when people turned against him, and as for evidence, what is the use of being a woman if you are going to be influenced by such things as that!”
Oh, little Peggy! women do not own the only minds superior to evidence. From across the hall a young man is watching every expression of your face, feeling sure that your brother is innocent because you think him so — confident that Governor Brent is a cold, hard man, eager to believe evil of a friend, and vowing that as for him, Romney Huntoon, his sword, his honor, his life itself are at the service of Christopher Neville, with whom he has scarcely spoken, and of Christopher’s sister Peggy whom he has known for a matter of ten days.
A silence deeper than before falls on the company as the tramp of feet is heard at the door and Neville enters between two guards. The Coroner’s inquest is formed after the fashion of the day, Giles Brent as Chief-Justice and Chief Coroner of the province, under that charter which in Maryland invested the governor with the regia potestas, on the platform at the end of the hall.
Associated with him by courtesy is the lady of the manor, while on either side are ranged Councillo
rs Neale and Cornwaleys. All face the central figure stretched rigid on the bier in the middle of the hall, and as the prisoner walks the length of the room that lies between him and the bier, all eyes are fixed upon him. To each person present his bearing denotes a different thing. It is not beauty alone that is in the eye of the gazer.
To Peggy Neville that bearing speaks lofty consciousness of innocence.
To Mary Brent it swaggers with the effrontery of brazen guilt.
To Giles Brent the face is an impenetrable mask.
To Elinor Calvert — but how describe the emotions that surge through her soul, each obliterating the former like waves on a beach of sand!
Her first feeling, as she watched Neville stride up the room, was a thrill of pride in his imperious personality as he towered taller by a head than his guard, and in his bearing outranking all present in courtliness.
Then came a longing to speak out before them all and claim him for her true love; then, as her glance travelled upward to that pale set face, the deadly chill of doubt and distrust struck cold upon her heart, and she bowed her head upon her hands.
When she awoke to consciousness of what was passing around she heard the voice of Giles Brent saying, —
“That all here present may understand the business which is going forward, let me first set forth my duties under the law. ‘A coroner of our lord the King,’ says the statute, ‘shall go to the places where any be slain, and shall summon the honest men of the neighborhood, and of them shall inquire what they know touching the death; and if any person is said to be guilty of the murder he shall be brought before the coroner and his inquest, and shall be put upon his defence that he may, if he can, purge himself of the charge.’”
“Oh, dear, how Giles doth love form! I believe he would see us all hung if he might pronounce sentence in Latin.” Elinor’s foot kept time to her angry thoughts, and that so loud that it caught Brent’s ear and brought a frown to his brow.
“Christopher Neville, you stand accused of a dastardly crime, — the murder of Andrew Mohl, a priest of the Jesuit order, who lies here before us, and who is known to have come to his death on the night of January twentieth.”
“Who are mine accusers?”
Brent turned and whispered first to Neale and Cornwaleys, then to his sister, and finally, turning again toward the prisoner, he said, —
“‘Twill serve no good turn to press that question.”
“I stand upon my rights.”
“Is it not enough that there be a dozen here who are convinced of thy guilt?”
“I stand upon my rights. I will have the name.”
“Then, since thou dost demand the name of him who lodged the charge, ’tis that of Father Fisher, come hither to-day from St. Mary’s.”
“Father Fisher? The head of the Jesuit colony at St. Inigo’s?”
“Ay; yet he makes his charge not as a priest, but a citizen.”
“No doubt.”
“Sneers, sir, will not help your case, with which we will now go on. What plea are you fain to enter, ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’?”
“Not guilty.”
“Master Neale, kindly act as secretary and record the plea. Sir Christopher, will you hear the evidence against you?”
“I will.”
“On any disputed point you shall confront witnesses; but that we may not waste time, let us settle first that whereon we agree. First, you are a Protestant.”
Neville bowed assent.
“Second, here in this house you did quarrel with the dead priest touching matters of faith and doctrine.”
“We had words, certainly.”
“And angry words, as I am told.”
“I was angry. Belike he was angry, too.”
“He admits that he was angered. Put that down,” whispered Mary Brent to Neale.
“Tell us what happened after your talk with Father Mohl.”
“He rose and started to walk to St. Mary’s.”
“And what did you then?”
“I followed him.”
“For what purpose?”
“To beg his pardon.”
“Ah! Now we have it. You felt you had done him wrong.”
“I did not.”
“Then why ask his pardon?”
“Because I had wounded other hearts than his, and, moreover, I had offended against Mistress Brent’s hospitality.”
Mary Brent’s lips drew themselves into a tight, straight line.
“Now, Sir Christopher, will you tell the court something we are most urgent to know, — did you, or did you not, return from that search agitated and distraught in bearing, with garments torn and stained with blood?”
“I did.”
There was an ominous pause, during which one could well nigh count heart-beats.
“Christopher Neville, do you know this knife?”
“Yea; ’tis mine own.”
“Ay, and found in the folds of the priest’s garments, and fitting with fatal exactness the wound in the breast. Now, one more question: when you came in that night did you, or did you not, crave blessing and absolution from Father White?”
“No — not absolution!”
“A mere quibble! You confessed to him that you had sinned, and you begged his blessing. Not one of these points do you deny; and, indeed, denial were worse than useless, for, as you well know, I have witnesses enough at hand to prove them all. The explanations in your written statement, which lies before me and which I have examined, your silly tales of the wild animal, the brush and briar, do credit neither to your mind nor your conscience. Rather I beg of you while there is yet time make a clean breast of it here before God, before me, and before this assembled household of St. Gabriel’s.” Here Brent’s voice took a tone almost of pleading, strangely at variance with his magisterial manner at the beginning.
“We all know,” he went on, “that the priest had the cause of the Church so much at heart that he might have been tempted to use words to a heretic hard for hot blood to brook. Tell us all that happened, and there may be circumstances making for leniency if not for justification.”
“I did not kill the priest.”
The dulness of the speaker’s tone might be the result of the reaction from strong excitement, or the apathy of guilt. It angered Brent.
“Neville, I would like to stand your friend; but the Governor of the Palatinate of Maryland declines to be a compounder of felony. I ask once more, have you any confession to make?”
“None.”
“Gentlemen, are you ready for the test?”
Councillor Neale and Cornwaleys bowed assent.
“Mistress Brent, do you, as lady of the manor, approve the aforesaid test that Christopher Neville be commanded to lay his hand upon the breast of Father Mohl yonder and take oath before God that he knoweth naught of how the dead man came by his death?”
“I approve it,” said Mary Brent, rising in her place, “and I do command all those here present to draw near the bier and keep watch upon the face of the dead while the oath proceeds.”
Slowly and solemnly the assembled household drew together in a circle about the corpse. Neville placed his right hand upon the breast of the dead man. For an instant he stood silent so, then raising the hand to heaven he said slowly, calmly, distinctly: “I swear to God I am innocent of this man’s death, and I know naught touching it.”
Why did all present suddenly shrink back as if a leper stood among them? The dead priest lay rigid as ever, the folded hands had not stirred, the inscrutable smile had not wavered on the lips or given any hint of its meaning. Surely there was no accusation in those still eyelids. Neville himself looked round in some bewilderment, till he caught his sister’s murmur of horror, —
“Kit! oh, Kit! — YOUR HAND!”
Yes, as he turned it he saw for himself, a drop or two of blood trickling from a tiny wound in the palm, made by a rough place on the crucifix as he drew his hand from the corpse. A scratch so slight that it yielded no
sensation to one in his tense, nervous state.
“Ay,” he said coolly, but bitterly enough, “that ends it, I reckon. Such testimony as that closes the case against me; yet, before God—”
“Hush! no more blasphemy!” It was Giles Brent’s voice that spoke, and all echo of friendliness was gone out of it. “Guards, remove your prisoner to the tobacco-house and keep him close. Gentlemen, the inquest is ended.”
CHAPTER XI. THE GREATER LOVE
THE GUARDS TURNED, one holding Neville by the wrist, the other marching behind, and thus he walked down the hall between the rows of unfriendly faces. As he passed Elinor she looked up timidly, but met a glance of freezing contempt.
So she read the language of his eyes, and he knew not that they spoke any such thing. Instead he had but a vague consciousness that among the dull ranks of meaningless faces his eyes suddenly fell upon a glory, a brilliancy of sunny tresses straying over cheeks of a luminous pallor.
That was Elinor Calvert. Oh, yes! he knew that very well. Who else had that bearing, with its strange blending of a dignity too unconscious to be majestic, with a simplicity too dignified to be wholly simple? And those purple eyes, why were they so sad? Ah, because he was guilty. He had forgotten that; but Giles Brent had said so, and all these hostile faces confirmed the verdict. At any rate, since she thought so, it mattered little whether the verdict were true or false.
Suddenly there came to him a vision of a new circle in the Inferno, a circle where one forever questioned the eyes he loved and dared not read the answer written therein.
“My son, harden not thine heart; but rather submit thyself in penitence and humility to the sentence of justice.”