Scottish sketches Part 27

"Then G.o.d help me, sister! I know not where they are."

Even Bailie Inkster looked doubtful and troubled at this circ.u.mstance.

Silence, cold and suspicious, fell upon them, and poor John went away half-bereft of all the comfort his mother's trust and Christine's look had given him.

The next day being Sabbath, no one felt at liberty to discuss the subject; but as the little groups pa.s.sed one another on their way to church their solemn looks and their doleful shakes of the head testified to its presence in their thoughts. The dominie indeed, knowing how nearly impossible it would be for them not to think their own thoughts this Lord's day, deemed it best to guide those thoughts to charity. He begged every one to be kind to all in deep affliction, and to think no evil until it was positively known who the guilty person was.

Indeed, in spite of the almost overwhelming evidence against John Sabay, there was a strong disposition to believe him innocent. "If ye believe a' ye hear, ye may eat a' ye see," said Geordie Sweyn. "Maybe John Sabay killed old Peter Fae, but every maybe has a may-not-be."

And to this remark there were more nods of approval than shakes of dissent.

But affairs, even with this gleam of light, were dark enough to the sorrowful family. John's wages had stopped, and the winter fuel was not yet all cut. A lawyer had to be procured, and they must mortgage their little cottage to do it; and although ten days had pa.s.sed, Margaret Fae had not shown, either by word or deed, what was her opinion regarding John's guilt or innocence.

But Margaret, as before said, was naturally slow in all her movements, so slow that even Scotch caution had begun to call her cruel or careless. But this was a great injustice. She had weighed carefully in her own mind everything against John, and put beside it his own letter to her and her intimate knowledge of his character, and then solemnly sat down in G.o.d's presence to take such counsel as he should put into her heart. After many prayerful, waiting days she reached a conclusion which was satisfactory to herself; and she then put away from her every doubt of John's innocence, and resolved on the course to be pursued.

In the first place she would need money to clear the guiltless and to seek the guilty, and she resolved to continue her father's business.

She had a.s.sisted him so long with his accounts that his methods were quite familiar to her; all she needed was some one to handle the rough goods, and stand between her and the rude sailors with whom the business was mainly conducted.

Who was this to be? Ragon Torr? She was sure Ragon would have been her father's choice. He had taken all charge of the funeral, and had since hung round the house, ready at any moment to do her service. But Ragon would testify against John Sabay, and she had besides an unaccountable antipathy to his having any nearer relation with her. "I'll ask Geordie Sweyn," she said, after a long consultation with her own slow but sure reasoning powers; "he'll keep the skippers an' farmers i' awe o' him; an' he's just as honest as any ither man."

So Geordie was sent for and the proposal made and accepted. "Thou wilt surely be true to me, Geordie?"

"As sure as death, Miss Margaret;" and when he gave her his great brawny hand on it, she knew her affairs in that direction were safe.

Next morning the shop was opened as usual, and Geordie Sweyn stood in Peter Fae's place. The arrangement had been finally made so rapidly that it had taken all Stromness by surprise. But no one said anything against it; many believed it to be wisely done, and those who did not, hardly cared to express dissatisfaction with a man whose personal prowess and ready hand were so well known.

The same day Christine received a very sisterly letter from Margaret, begging her to come and talk matters over with her. There were such obvious reasons why Margaret could not go to Christine, that the latter readily complied with the request; and such was the influence that this calm, cool, earnest girl had over the elder woman, that she not only prevailed upon her to accept money to fee the lawyer in John's defence, but also whatever was necessary for their comfort during the approaching winter. Thus Christine and Margaret mutually strengthened each other, and both cottage and prison were always the better for every meeting.

CHAPTER V.

But soon the summer pa.s.sed away, and the storms and snows of winter swept over the lonely island. There would be no court until December to try John, and his imprisonment in Kirkwall jail grew every day more dreary. But no storms kept Christine long away from him. Over almost impa.s.sable roads and mosses she made her way on the little ponies of the country, which had to perform a constant steeple-chase over the bogs and chasms.

All things may be borne when they are sure; and every one who loved John was glad when at last he could have a fair hearing. Nothing however was in his favor. The bailies and the murdered man's servants, even the dominie and his daughter could tell but one tale. "Peter Fae had declared with his last breath that John Sabay had stabbed him."

The prosecution also brought forward strong evidence to show that very bitter words had pa.s.sed, a few days before the murder, between the prisoner and the murdered man.

In the sifting of this evidence other points were brought out, still more convincing. Hacon Flett said that he was walking to Stromness by the beach to meet his sweetheart, when he heard the cry of murder, and in the gloaming light saw John Sabay distinctly running across the moor. When asked how he knew certainly that it was John, he said that he knew him by his peculiar dress, its bright b.u.t.tons, and the glimmer of gold braid on his cap. He said also, in a very decided manner, that John Sabay pa.s.sed Ragon Torr so closely that he supposed they had spoken.

Then Ragon being put upon his oath, and asked solemnly to declare who was the man that had thus pa.s.sed him, tremblingly answered,

"_John Sabay!_"

John gave him such a look as might well haunt a guilty soul through all eternity; and old Dame Alison, roused by a sense of intolerable wrong, cried out,

"Know this, there's a day coming that will show the black heart; but traitors' words ne'er yet hurt the honest cause."

"Peace, woman!" said an officer of the court, not unkindly.

"Weel, then, G.o.d speak for me! an' my thoughts are free; if I daurna say, I may think."

In defence Margaret Fae swore that she had been with John on Brogar Bridge until nearly time to meet her father, and that John then wore a black broadcloth suit and a high hat; furthermore, that she believed it utterly impossible for him to have gone home, changed his clothes, and then reached the scene of the murder at the time Hacon Flett and Ragon Torr swore to his appearance there.

But watches were very uncommon then; no one of the witnesses had any very distinct idea of the time; some of them varied as much as an hour in their estimate. It was also suggested by the prosecution that John probably had the other suit secreted near the scene of the murder.

Certain it was that he had not been able either to produce it or to account for its mysterious disappearance.

The probability of Sandy Beg being the murderer was then advanced; but Sandy was known to have sailed in a whaling vessel before the murder, and no one had seen him in Stromness since his departure for Wick after his dismissal from Peter Fae's service.

No one? Yes, some one had seen him. That fatal night, as Ragon Torr was crossing the moor to Peter's house--he having some news of a very particular vessel to give--he heard the cry of "Murder," and he heard Hacon Flett call out, "I know thee, John Sabay. Thou hast stabbed my master!" and he instantly put himself in the way of the flying man.

Then he knew at once that it was Sandy Beg in John Sabay's clothes.

The two men looked a moment in each other's face, and Sandy saw in Ragon's something that made him say,

"She'll pat Sandy safe ta night, an' that will mak her shure o' ta la.s.s she's seeking far."

There was no time for parley; Ragon's evil nature was strongest, and he answered, "There is a cellar below my house, thou knows it weel."

Indeed, most of the houses in Stromness had underground pa.s.sages, and places of concealment used for smuggling purposes, and Ragon's lonely house was a favorite rendezvous. The vessel whose arrival he had been going to inform Peter of was a craft not likely to come into Stromness with all her cargo.

Towards morning Ragon had managed to see Sandy and send him out to her with such a message as insured her rapid disappearance. Sandy had also with him a sum of money which he promised to use in transporting himself at once to India, where he had a cousin in the forty-second Highland regiment.

Ragon had not at first intended to positively swear away his friend's life; he had been driven to it, not only by Margaret's growing antipathy to him and her decided interest in John's case and family, but also by that mysterious power of events which enable the devil to forge the whole chain that binds a man when the first link is given him. But the word once said, he adhered positively to it, and even a.s.serted it with quite unnecessary vehemence and persistence.

After such testimony there was but one verdict possible. John Sabay was declared guilty of murder, and sentenced to death. But there was still the same strange and unreasonable belief in his innocence, and the judge, with a peculiar stretch of clemency, ordered the sentence to be suspended until he could recommend the prisoner to his majesty's mercy.

A remarkable change now came over Dame Alison. Her anger, her sense of wrong, her impatience, were over. She had come now to where she could do nothing else but trust implicitly in G.o.d; and her mind, being thus stayed, was kept in a strange exultant kind of perfect peace. Lost confidence? Not a bit of it! Both Christine and her mother had reached a point where they knew

"That right is right, since G.o.d is G.o.d, And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin."

CHAPTER VI.

Slowly the weary winter pa.s.sed away. And just as spring was opening there began to be talk of Ragon Torr's going away. Margaret continued to refuse his addresses with a scorn he found it ill to bear; and he noticed that many of his old acquaintances dropped away from him.

There is a distinct atmosphere about every man, and the atmosphere about Ragon people began to avoid. No one could have given a very clear reason for doing so; one man did not ask another why; but the fact needed no reasoning about, it was there.

One day, when Paul Calder was making up his spring cargoes, Ragon asked for a boat, and being a skilful sailor, he was accepted. But no sooner was the thing known, than Paul had to seek another crew.

"What was the matter?"

"Nothing; they did not care to sail with Ragon Torr, that was all."

This circ.u.mstance annoyed Ragon very much. He went home quite determined to leave Stromness at once and for ever. Indeed he had been longing to do so for many weeks, but had stayed partly out of bravado, and partly because there were few opportunities of getting away during the winter.

He went home and shut himself in his own room, and began to count his h.o.a.rded gold. While thus employed, there was a stir or movement under his feet which he quite understood. Some one was in the secret cellar, and was coming up. He turned hastily round, and there was Sandy Beg.

"Thou scoundrel!" and he fairly gnashed his teeth at the intruder, "what dost thou want here?"

"She'll be wanting money an' help."