Day by day, Bessy had ground for thinking that her aunt knew more than she had apprehended at first. There was something so very humble and touching in Hester’s blind way of feeling about for her husband – stern, wobegone Nathan – and mutely striving to console him in the deep agony of which Bessy learnt, from this loving, piteous manner, that her aunt was conscious. Her aunt’s face looked blankly up into his, tears slowly running down from her sightless eyes, while from time to time, when she thought herself unheard by any save him, she would repeat such texts as she had heard at church in happier days, and which she thought, in her true, simple piety, might tend to console him. Yet, day by day, her aunt grew more and more sad.
Three or four days before assize-time, two summonses to attend the trial at York were sent to the old people. Neither Bessy, nor John, nor Jane, could understand this; for their own notices had come long before, and they had been told that their evidence would be enough to convict.
But alas! the fact was, that the lawyer employed to defend the prisoners had heard from them that there was a third person engaged, and had heard who that third person was; and it was this advocate’s business to diminish, if possible, the guilt of his clients, by proving that they were but tools in the hands of one who had, from his superior knowledge of the premises and the daily customs of the inhabitants, been the originator and planner of the whole affair. To do this it was necessary to have the evidence of the parents, who, as the prisoners had said, must have recognized the voice of the young man, their son. For no one knew that Bessy, too, could have borne witness to his having been present; and, as it was supposed that Benjamin had escaped out of England, there was no exact betrayal of him on the part of his accomplices.
Wondering, bewildered, and weary, the old couple reached York, in company with John and Bessy, on the eve of the day of trial. Nathan was still so self-contained, that Bessy could never guess what had been passing in his mind. He was almost passive under his old wife’s trembling caresses; he seemed hardly conscious of them, so rigid was his demeanour.
She, Bessy feared at times, was becoming childish; for she had evidently so great and anxious a love for her husband, that her memory seemed going in her endeavours to melt the stonyness of his aspect and manners; she appeared occasionally to have forgotten why he was so changed, in her piteous little attempts to bring him back to his former self.
‘They’ll, for sure, never torture them when they see what old folks they are!’ cried Bessy, on the morning of the trial, a dim fear looming over her mind. ‘They’ll never be so cruel, for sure!’
But ‘for sure’ it was so. The barrister looked up at the judge, almost apologetically, as he saw how hoary-headed and woeful an old man was put into the witness-box, when the defence came on, and Nathan Huntroyd was called on for his evidence.
‘It is necessary, on behalf of my clients, my lord, that I should pursue a course which, for all other reasons, I deplore.’
‘Go on!’ said the judge. ‘What is right and legal must be done.’ But, an old man himself, he covered his quivering mouth with his hand as Nathan, with grey, unmoved face, and solemn, hollow eyes, placing his two hands on each side of the witness-box, prepared to give his answers to questions, the nature of which he was beginning to foresee, but would not shrink from replying to truthfully; ‘the very stones’ (as he said to himself, with a kind of dulled sense of the Eternal Justice) ‘rise up27 against such a sinner’.
‘Your name is Nathan Huntroyd, I believe?’
‘It is.’
‘You live at Nab-end Farm?’
‘I do.’
‘Do you remember the night of November the twelfth?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were awakened that night by some noise, I believe. What was it?’
The old man’s eyes fixed themselves upon his questioner, with the look of a creature brought to bay. That look the barrister never forgets. It will haunt him till his dying day.
‘It was a throwing up of stones against our window.’
‘Did you hear it at first?’
‘No.’
‘What awakened you then?’
‘She did.’
‘And then you both heard the stones. Did you hear nothing else?’
A long pause. Then a low, clear ‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘Our Benjamin asking us for to let him in. She said as it were him, leastways.’
‘And you thought it was him, did you not?’
‘I told her’ (this time in a louder voice) ‘for to get to sleep, and not to be thinking that every drunken chap as passed by were our Benjamin, for that he were dead and gone.’
‘And she?’
‘She said, as though she’d heerd our Benjamin, afore she were welly awake, axing for to be let in. But I bade her ne’er heed her dreams, but turn on her other side, and get to sleep again.’
‘And did she?’
A long pause, – judge, jury, bar, audience, all held their breath. At length Nathan said,
‘No!’
‘What did you do then? (My lord, I am compelled to ask these painful questions.)’
‘I saw she wadna be quiet: she had allays thought he would come back to us, like the Prodigal i’ th’ Gospels.’ (His voice choked a little, but he tried to make it steady, succeeded and went on.) ‘She said, if I wadna get up she would; and just then I heerd a voice. I’m not quite mysel, gentlemen – I’ve been ill and i’ bed, an’ it makes me trembling-like. Some one said, “Father, mother I’m here, starving i’ the cold28 – wunnot yo’ get up and let me in?”’
‘And that voice was?—’
‘It were like our Benjamin’s. I see whatten yo’re driving at, sir, and I’ll tell yo’ truth, though it kills me to speak it. I dunnot say it were our Benjamin as spoke, mind yo’ – I only say it were like—’
‘That’s all I want, my good fellow. And on the strength of that entreaty, spoken in your son’s voice, you went down and opened the door to these two prisoners at the bar, and to a third man?’
Nathan nodded assent, and even that counsel was too merciful to force him to put more into words.
‘Call Hester Huntroyd.’
An old woman, with a face of which the eyes were evidently blind, with a sweet, gentle, careworn face, came into the witness-box, and meekly curtseyed to the presence of those whom she had been taught to respect – a presence she could not see.
There was something in her humble, blind aspect, as she stood waiting to have something done to her – what, her poor troubled mind hardly knew – that touched all who saw her, inexpressibly. Again the counsel apologized, but the judge could not reply in words; his face was quivering all over, and the jury looked uneasily at the prisoners’ counsel. That gentleman saw that he might go too far, and send their sympathies off on the other side; but one or two questions he must ask. So, hastily recapitulating much that he had learned from Nathan, he said, ‘You believed it was your son’s voice asking to be let in?’
‘Ay! Our Benjamin came home, I’m sure; choose where he is gone.’
She turned her head about, as if listening for the voice of her child, in the hushed silence of the court.
‘Yes; he came home that night – and your husband went down to let him in?’
‘Well! I believe he did. There was a great noise of folk down stair.’
‘And you heard your son Benjamin’s voice among the others?’
‘Is it to do him harm, sir?’ asked she, her face growing more intelligent and intent on the business in hand.
‘That is not my object in questioning you. I believe he has left England, so nothing you can say will do him any harm. You heard your son’s voice, I say?’
‘Yes, sir. For sure, I did.’
‘And some men came up stairs into your room? What did they say?’
‘They axed where Nathan kept his stocking.’
‘And you – did you tell them?’
‘No, sir, for I knew Nathan would not
like me to.’
‘What did you do then?’
A shade of reluctance came over her face, as if she began to perceive causes and consequences.
‘I just screamed on Bessy – that’s my niece, sir.’
‘And you heard some one shout out from the bottom of the stairs?’
She looked piteously at him, but did not answer.
‘Gentlemen of the jury, I wish to call your particular attention to this fact: she acknowledges she heard some one shout – some third person, you observe – shout out to the two above. What did he say? That is the last question I shall trouble you with. What did the third person, left behind down stairs, say?’
Her face worked – her mouth opened two or three times as if to speak – she stretched out her arms imploringly; but no word came, and she fell back into the arms of those nearest to her. Nathan forced himself forward into the witness-box:
‘My Lord Judge, a woman bore ye, as I reckon; it’s a cruel shame to serve a mother so. It wur my son, my only child, as called out for us t’ open door, and who shouted out for to hold th’ oud woman’s throat if she did na stop her noise, when hoo’d fain ha’ cried for her niece to help. And now yo’ve truth, and a’ th’ truth, and I’ll leave yo’ to th’ Judgment o’ God for th’ way yo’ve getten at it.’
Before night the mother was stricken with paralysis, and lay on her death-bed. But the broken-hearted go Home, to be comforted of God.
Curious, if True1
(EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM RICHARD WHITTINGHAM, ESQ.)2
You were formerly so much amused at my pride in my descent from that sister of Calvin's,3 who married a Whittingham, Dean of Durham, that I doubt if you will be able to enter into the regard for my distinguished relation that has led me to France, in order to examine registers and archives, which, I thought, might enable me to discover collateral descendants of the great reformer, with whom I might call cousins. I shall not tell you of my troubles and adventures in this research; you are not worthy to hear of them; but something so curious befell me one evening last August, that if I had not been perfectly certain I was wide awake, I might have taken it for a dream.
For the purpose I have named, it was necessary that I should make Tours my head-quarters for a time. I had traced descendants of the Calvin family out of Normandy into the centre of France; but I found it was necessary to have a kind of permission from the bishop of the diocese before I could see certain family papers, which had fallen into the possession of the Church; and, as I had several English friends at Tours, I awaited the answer to my request to Monseigneur de —, at that town. I was ready to accept any invitation; but I received very few; and was sometimes a little at a loss what to do with my evenings. The table d'hête4 was at five o'clock; I did not wish to go to the expense of a private sitting-room, disliked the dinnery atmosphere of the salle à manger,5 could not play either at pool or billiards, and the aspect of my fellow guests was unprepossessing enough to make me unwilling to enter into any tête-à-tête gamblings with them. So I usually rose from table early, and tried to make the most of the remaining light of the August evenings in walking briskly off to explore the surrounding country; the middle of the day was too hot for this purpose, and better employed in lounging on a bench in the Boulevards, lazily listening to the distant band and noticing with equal laziness the faces and figures of the women who passed by.
One Thursday evening, the 18th of August it was, I think, I had gone further than usual in my walk, and I found that it was later than I had imagined when I paused to turn back. I fancied I could make a round; I had enough notion of the direction in which I was, to see that by turning up a narrow straight lane to my left I should shorten my way back to Tours. And so I believe I should have done, could I have found an outlet at the right place, but field-paths are almost unknown in that part of France, and my lane, stiff and straight as any street, and marked into terribly vanishing perspective by the regular row of poplars on each side, seemed interminable. Of course night came on, and I was in darkness. In England I might have had a chance of seeing a light in some cottage only a field or two off, and asking my way from the inhabitants; but here I could see no such welcome sight; indeed, I believe French peasants go to bed with the summer daylight, so if there were any habitations in the neighbourhood I never saw them. At last – I believe I must have walked two hours in the darkness, – I saw the dusky outline of a wood on one side of the weariful lane, and, impatiently careless of all forest laws and penalties for trespassers, I made my way to it, thinking that if the worst came to the worst, I could find some covert – some shelter where I could lie down and rest, until the morning light gave me a chance of finding my way back to Tours. But the plantation, on the outskirts of what appeared to me a dense wood, was of young trees, too closely planted to be more than slender stems growing up to a good height, with scanty foliage on their summits. On I went towards the thicker forest, and once there I slackened my pace, and began to look about me for a good lair. I was as dainty as Lochiel’s grandchild, who made his grandsire indignant at the luxury of his pillow of snow;6 this brake was too full of brambles, that felt damp with dew; there was no hurry, since I had given up all hope of passing the night between four walls; and I went leisurely groping about, and trusting that there were no wolves to be poked up out of their summer drowsiness by my stick, when all at once I saw a château before me, not a quarter of a mile off, at the end of what seemed to be an ancient avenue (now overgrown and irregular), which I happened to be crossing, when I looked to my right, and saw the welcome sight. Large, stately and dark was its outline against the dusky night-sky; there were pepper-boxes and tourelles and what-not fantastically going up into the dim starlight. And more to the purpose still, though I could not see the details of the building that I was now facing, it was plain enough that there were lights in many windows, as if some great entertainment was going on.
‘They are hospitable people, at any rate,’ thought I. ‘Perhaps they will give me a bed. I don’t suppose French propriétaires have traps and horses quite as plentiful as English gentlemen; but they are evidently having a large party, and some of their guests may be from Tours, and will give me a cast back to the Lion d’Or. I am not proud, and I am dog-tired. I am not above hanging on behind, if need be.’
So, putting a little briskness and spirit into my walk, I went up to the door, which was standing open, most hospitably, and showing a large lighted hall, all hung round with spoils of the chase, armour, &c., the details of which I had not time to notice, for the instant I stood on the threshold a huge porter appeared, in a strange, old-fashioned dress, a kind of livery which well befitted the general appearance of the house. He asked me, in French (so curiously pronounced that I thought I had hit upon a new kind of patois7), my name, and whence I came. I thought he would not be much the wiser, still it was but civil to give it before I made my request for assistance; so, in reply, I said –
‘My name is Whittingham – Richard Whittingham, an English gentleman, staying at—.’ To my infinite surprise, a light of pleased intelligence came over the giant’s face; he made me a low bow, and said (still in the same curious dialect) that I was welcome, that I was long expected.
‘Long expected!’ What could the fellow mean? Had I stumbled on a nest of relations by John Calvin’s side, who had heard of my genealogical inquiries, and were gratified and interested by them? But I was too much pleased to be under shelter for the night to think it necessary to account for my agreeable reception before I enjoyed it. id="page_274" Just as he was opening the great heavy battants8 of the door that led from the hall to the interior, he turned round and said, –
‘Apparently Monsieur le Géanquilleur9 is not come with you.’
‘No! I am all alone; I have lost my way,’ – and I was going on with my explanation, when he, as if quite indifferent to it, led the way up a great stone staircase, as wide as many rooms, and having on each landing-place massive iron wickets, in a heavy framework; these th
e porter unlocked with the solemn slowness of age. Indeed, a strange, mysterious awe of the centuries that had passed away since this château was built, came over me as I waited for the turning of the ponderous keys in the ancient locks. I could almost have fancied that I heard a mighty rushing murmur (like the ceaseless sound of a distant sea, ebbing and flowing for ever and for ever), coming forth from the great vacant galleries that opened out on each side of the broad staircase, and were to be dimly perceived in the darkness above us. It was as if the voices of generations of men yet echoed and eddied in the silent air. It was strange, too, that my friend the porter going before me, ponderously infirm, with his feeble old hands striving in vain to keep the tall flambeau10 he held steadily before him, – strange, I say, that he was the only domestic I saw in the vast halls and passages, or met with on the grand staircase. At length we stood before the gilded doors that led into the saloon where the family – or it might be the company, so great was the buzz of voices – was assembled. I would have remonstrated when I found he was going to introduce me, dusty and travel-smeared, in a morning costume that was not even my best, into this grand salon, with nobody knew how many ladies and gentlemen assembled; but the obstinate old man was evidently bent upon taking me straight to his master, and paid no heed to my words.
The doors flew open, and I was ushered into a saloon curiously full of pale light, which did not culminate on any spot, nor proceed from any centre, nor flicker with any motion of the air, but filled every nook and corner, making all things deliciously distinct; different from our light of gas or candle, as is the difference between a clear southern atmosphere and that of our misty England.