The Broom-Squire, Sabine Baring-Gould [books to read this summer txt] 📗

I'm not very well up in the case, but I say--guilty. 'Ang 'er."

"And you, Mr.--I beg your pardon, I did not catch your name."

"Verstage."

"Not a Kingston gent?"

"Oh, no, from Guildford,"

"What say you, sir?"

"I--emphatically, not guilty." Iver threw himself back in his chair, extended his legs, and thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. "The whole thing is rank nonsense. How could a woman with a baby in her arms knock a man down? You try, gents, any one of you--take your last born, and whilst nursing it, attempt to pull your wife's nose. You can't do it. The thing is obvious." He looked round with assurance. "The man was a curmudgeon. He misused her. He was in bad circumstances through the failure of the Wealden Bank. He wanted money, and the child had just had a fortune left it--something a little under two hundred pounds."

"How do you know that?" asked the foreman. "That didn't come out in evidence."

"P'raps you shut your ears, as Mr. Sniggins shut his peepers. P'raps it came out, p'raps it didn't. But it's true all the same. And the fellow wanted the money. Matabel--I mean the prisoner at the bar thought--rightly or wrongly matters not--that he wished for the death of his child, and she ran away. She was not crazy; she was resolved to protect her child. She swore that she would defend it. That Giles Cheel and Mrs. Rocliffe said. What mother would not do the same? As for those two men, Thomas and Samuel Rocliffe, they never saw her knock down Jonas Kink, for the good reason that she was holding the baby, and couldn't do it. But when she told him, he was seeking his child's life--all for the money left it--then he stumbled back, and fell into the kiln--not guilty. If I sit here till I starve you all--not guilty."

"But, sir, what you state did not come out in the evidence."

"Did it not? So much the worse for the case. It wasn't properly got up. I'll tell you what, gents, if you and me can't agree, then after a time the jury will be dismissed, and the whole case will have to be tried again. Then the evidence will come up that you think you haven't heard now, and she'll be acquitted, and every one will say of this jury--that we were a parcel of noodles."

"Well, sir, not guilty," said the foreman. "What do you say, Mr. Lilliwhite?"

"Sir," answered the gentleman addressed, "I'd like to know what the cost to the county will be of an execution. I say it can't be done under a hundred pounds, if you calculate the carpentering and the timber, and the fees, and the payment of the constables to keep order, and of the hangman. I say it ain't worth it. There'll be another farthing stuck on the rates, all along of this young woman. I'm again' it. Not guilty. Let 'er go."

"And I," said the next juryman, "am averse to capital punishment. I wrote a little tract on the subject. I do not know if any of you gentlemen have seen it. I have copies in my pocket. I shall be happy to present each of you with a copy. I couldn't possibly say guilty and deliver her over to a violent death, without controverting my published opinions, and, so to speak, stultifying myself. So, really, sir, I must positively say not guilty, and would say as much on behalf of the most ferocious murderer, of Blue Beard himself, rather than admit anything which might lead to a sentence of capital punishment. Not guilty."

Nearly an hour and a half elapsed before the jury returned to the court. It was clear that there had been differences of opinion, and some difficulty in overcoming these, and bringing all the twelve, if not to one mind, at all events to one voice.

A silence fell on the whole court.

Mehetabel who had been allowed a seat, rose, and stood pale as death, with her eyes fixed on the jurymen, as they filed in.

The foreman stepped forward, and said: "We find the prisoner not guilty."

Then, in the stillness with which the verdict was received, Mehetabel's voice was heard, tremulous and pleading. She had dropped a curtsey, and said, "Thank you, gentlemen." Then turning to the judge, and again dropping a curtsey, she raised her eyes timidly, modestly, to the judge, and said, "Please, sir, may I go to my baby?"


CHAPTER XLIX.


WELCOME.

Mehetabel was not able to leave Kingston for several days. Her child was too ill to bear the journey to Thursley; and the good-natured jailer's wife kindly urged her to remain as her guest till she thought that the little being might be removed with safety. Joe Filmer would drive her back, and Joe consented to tarry. He had business to discharge, the settlement of the account with the solicitor, or turnkey as he called him, to haggle over the sum, and try to get him to abate a sovereign because paid in ready money. He had also to satisfy the girl who had recommended the attorney, and the ostler who had consulted the girl, and old Clutch, who having found his quarters agreeable at the stable of the Sun, was disinclined to depart, and pretended that he had the strangles, and coughed himself into convulsions. At length, towards the end of the week, Mehetabel thought the child was easier, and Joe having satisfied all parties to whom he was indebted, and Clutch having been denied his food unless he came forth and allowed himself to be harnessed, Mehetabel departed from Kingston, on her return journey.

The pace at which old Clutch moved was slow, the slightest elevation in the ground gave him an excuse for a walk, and he turned his head inquiringly from side to side as he went along, to observe the scenery. If he passed a hedge, or a field in which was a horse, he persisted in standing still and neighing. Whereupon the beast addressed, perhaps at the plough, perhaps a hunter turned out to graze, responded, and till the conversation in reciprocal neighs had concluded to the satisfaction of the mind of Clutch, that venerable steed refused to proceed.

"I suppose you've heard about Betty Chivers?" said Joe.

"About Betty! What?"

"She got a bad chill at the trial, or maybe coming to it; and she is not returned to Thursley. I heard she was gone to her sister, who married a joiner at Chertsey, for a bit o' a change, and to be nussed. Poor thing, she took on won'erful about your little affair. So you'll not see her at Thursley."

"I am sorry for that," said Mehetabel, "and most sorry that I have caused her inconvenience, and that she is ill through me."

"I heard her say it was damp sheets, and not you at all. Old wimen are won'erful tender, more so than gals. And, of course, you've heard about Iver."

"Iver! What of Iver?" asked Mehetabel, with a flush in her cheek.

"Well, Mister Colpus, he had a talk wi' Iver about matters at the Ship. He told him that the girl Polly were gettin' the upper hand in everythin', and that if he didn't look smart and interfere she'd be marryin' the old chap right off on end, and gettin' him to leave everythin' to her, farm and public house and all his savings. Though she's an innercent lookin' wench, and wi' a head like a suet puddin' she knows how to get to the blind side of the master, and though she's terrible at breakages, she is that smooth-tongued that she can get him to believe that the fault lies everywhere else but at her door. So Iver, he said he'd go off to Thursley at once, and send Polly to the right-abouts. And a very good thing too. I'll be glad to see the back of her. 'Twas a queer thing now, Iver gettin' on to jury, weren't it?"

"Yes, Joe, I was surprised."

"I reckon the Rocliffes didn't half like it, but they made no complaint to the lawyer, and so he didn't think there was aught amiss. You see, the Rocliffes be won'erful ignorant folk. If that blackguard lawyer chap as sed what he sed about you had known who Iver was, he'd have turned him out. That insolent rascal. I sed I'd punish him. I will. They told me he comes fishin' to the Frensham Ponds and Pudmoor. He stays at the Hut Inn. I'll be in waitin' for him next time, and give him a duckin' in them ponds, see if I don't."

The journey home was not to be made in a day when old Clutch was concerned, and it had to be broken at Guildford. Moreover, at Godalming it was interrupted by the obstinacy of the horse, which--whether through revival of latent sentiment toward the gray mare, or through conviction that he had done enough, refused to proceed, and lay down in the shafts in the middle of the road. Happily he did this with such deliberation, and after having announced his intention so unequivocally, that Mehetabel was able to escape out of the taxcart with her baby unhurt.

"It can't be helped," said Joe Filmer, "we'll never move him out but by levers; what will you do, Matabel? Walk on or wait?"

Mehetabel elected to proceed on foot. The distance was five miles. She would have to carry her child, but the babe was not a heavy weight. Gladly would she have carried it twice the distance if only it were more solid and a greater burden. The hands were almost transparent, the face as wax, and the nose unduly sharp for an infant of such a tender age.

"I daresay," said Joe aside, "that if I can blind old Clutch and turn him round so that he don't know his bearin's, that I may get him up and to run along, thinkin' he's on his way back to Gorlmyn. But he's deep--terrible deep."

Accordingly Mehetabel walked on, and walked for nearly two hours without being overtaken. She reached that point of the main road whence a way diverges on the right to the village of Thursley, whereas the Ship Inn lies a little further forward on the highway. She purposed going to the dame's schoolhouse, to ascertain whether Mrs. Chivers had returned. If she had not, then Mehetabel did not know what she should do, whither she should go. Return to the Punch-Bowl she would not. Anything was preferable to that. The house of Jonas Kink was associated with thoughts of wretchedness, and she could not endure to enter it again.

She reached the cottage and found it locked. She applied at the house of the nearest neighbor, to learn whether Betty Chivers was expected home shortly, and also whether she had left the key. She was told that news had reached Thursley that the schoolmistress was still unwell, and the neighbor added, that on leaving, Betty had carried the key of the cottage with her.

"May I sit down?" asked Mehetabel; her brow was bathed in perspiration, and her knees were shaking under her, whilst her arms ached and seemed to have lost the power to hold the precious burden any longer. "I have walked from Gorlmyn," she explained; "and can you tell me where I can be taken in for a night or two. I have a little money, and will pay for my lodgings."

The woman drew her lips together and signed to a chair. Presently she said in a restrained voice: "That