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CHAPTER LXVII
Public feeling in Marlshire was much excited about the Caresfoottragedy, and, when it became known that Lady Bellamy had attempted tocommit suicide, the excitement was trebled. It is not often that thedullest and most highly respectable part of an eminently dull andrespectable county gets such a chance of cheerful and interestingconversation as these two events gave rise to. We may be sure that thegodsend was duly appreciated; indeed, the whole story is up to thishour a favourite subject of conversation in those parts.
Of course the members of the polite society of the neighbourhood ofRoxham were divided into two camps. The men all thought that Angelahad been shamefully treated, the elder and most intensely respectableladies for the most part inclined to the other side of the question.It not being their habit to look at matters from the same point ofview in which they present themselves to a man's nicer sense ofhonour, they could see no great harm in George Caresfoot's stratagems.A man so rich, they argued, was perfectly entitled to buy his wife.The marriage had been arranged, like their own, on the soundestproperty basis, and the woman who rose in rebellion against a husbandmerely because she loved another man, or some such romantic nonsense,deserved all she got. Gone mad, had she?--well, it was a warning! Andthese aristocratic matrons sniffed and turned up their noses. Theyfelt that Angela, by going mad and creating a public excitement, hadentered a mute protest against the recognized rules of marriage sale-and-barter as practised in this country--and Zululand. Havingdaughters to dispose of, they resented this, and poor Angela was foryears afterwards spoken of among them as that "immoral girl."
But the lower and more human strata of society did not sympathize withthis feeling. On the contrary, they were all for Angela and the dogAleck who was supposed to have chocked that "carroty warmint," George.
The inquest on George's body was held at Roxham, and was the object ofthe greatest possible interest. Indeed, the public excitement was sogreat that the coroner was, perhaps insensibly, influenced by it, andallowed the inquiry to travel a little beyond its professed object ofascertaining the actual cause of death, with the result that many ofthe details of the wicked plot from which Angela had been theprincipal sufferer became public property. Needless to say that theydid not soothe the feelings of an excited crowd. When Philip, afterspending one of the worst half-hours of his life in the witness-box,at length escaped with such shreds of reputation as he had hithertopossessed altogether torn off his back, his greeting from the moboutside the court may fairly be described as a warm one. As thewitnesses' door closed behind him, he found himself at one end of along lane, that was hedged on both sides by faces not without a touchof ferocity about them, and with difficulty kept clear by theavailable force of the five Roxham policemen.
"Who sold his daughter?" shouted a great fellow in his ear.
"Let me come, there's a dear man, and have a look at Judas," said askinny little woman with a squint, to an individual who blocked herview.
The crowd caught at the word. "Judas!" it shouted, "go and hangyourself! Judas! Judas!"
How Philip got out of that he never quite knew, but he did get outsomehow.
Meanwhile, Sir John Bellamy was being examined in court, and,notwithstanding the almost aggressive innocence of his appearance, hewas not having a very good time. It chanced that he had fallen intothe hands of a rival lawyer, who hated him like poison, and had goodreason to hate him. It is wonderful, by the way, how enemies do springup round a man in trouble like dogs who bite a wounded companion todeath, and on the same principle. He is defenceless. This gentlemanwould insist on conducting the witnesses' examination on the basisthat he knew all about the fraud practised with reference to thesupposed death of Arthur Heigham. Now, it will be remembered that SirJohn, in his last interview with Lady Bellamy, had declared that therewas no tittle of evidence against him, and that it would be impossibleto implicate him in the exposure that must overtake her. To a certainextent he was right, but on one point he had overshot himself, for atthat very inquest Mr. Fraser stated on oath that he (Mr. Fraser) hadspoken of Arthur Heigham's death in the presence of Sir John Bellamy,and had not been contradicted.
In vain did Sir John protest that Mr. Fraser must be mistaken. Boththe jury and the public looked at the probabilities of the matter,and, though his protestations were accepted in silence, when he leftthe witness-box there was not a man in court but was morally certainthat he had been privy to the plot, and, so far as reputation wasconcerned, he was a ruined man. And yet legally there was not a jot ofevidence against him. But public opinion required that a scapegoatshould be found, and it was now his lot to figure as that unluckyanimal.
By the time he reached the exit into the street, the impression thathe had had a hand in the business had, in some mysterious way,communicated itself to the mob outside, many a member of which hadsome old grudge to settle with "Lawyer Bellamy," if only chance put anopportunity in their way. As he stepped through the door, utterlyignorant of the greeting which awaited him, his ears were assailed byan awful yell, followed by a storm of hoots and hisses.
Sir John turned pale, and looked for a means of escape; but thepoliceman who had let him out had locked the door behind him, and allround him was the angry mob.
"Here comes the ---- that started the swim," roared a voice, as soonas there was a momentary lull.
"Gentlemen----" piped Sir John, with all the pippin hue gone from hischeeks, and rubbing his white hands together nervously.
"Yah! he poisoned his own poor wife!" shouted a woman with a baby.
"Ladies----" went on Sir John, in agonized tones.
"Pelt him!" yelled a sweet little boy of ten or so, suiting the actionto the word, and planting a rotten egg full upon Sir John's imposingbrow.
"No, no," said the woman who had nicknamed Philip "Judas." "Why don'tyou drop him in the pond? There's only two feet of water, and it'ssoft falling on the mud. You can pelt him _afterwards_."
The idea was received with acclamation, and notwithstanding his ownefforts to the contrary, backed as they were by those of the fivepolicemen, before he knew where he was, Sir John found himself beinghustled by a lot of sturdy fellows towards the filthy duck-pond, likean aristocrat to the guillotine. They soon arrived, and then followedthe most painful experience of all his life, one of which the verythought would ever afterwards move him most profoundly. Two strongmen, utterly heedless of his yells and lamentations, took him by theheels, and two yet stronger than they caught him by his plump andtender wrists, and then, under the directions of the woman with thesquint, they began to swing him from side to side. As soon as the ladydirectress considered that the impetus was sufficient, she said,"Now!" and away he went like a swallow, only to land, when his flyingpowers were exhausted, plump in the middle of the duck-pond.
Some ten seconds afterwards, a pillar of slimy mud arose and staggeredtowards the bank, where a crowd of little boys, each holding somethingoffensive in his right hand, were eagerly awaiting its arrival. Thesquint-eyed woman contemplated the figure with the most intensesatisfaction.
"He sold me up once," she murmured; "but we're quits now. That's it,lads, let him have it."
But we will drop a veil over this too painful scene. Sir John Bellamywas unwell for some days afterwards; when he recovered he shook thedust of Roxham off his shoes for ever.