The Squire's Daughter Part 29

"I beg your pardon," the vicar said, feeling a little confused. "I thought, perhaps----"

"Nothing so pleasant," was the hurried answer. "The fact is, I've come upon a job that--well, I hardly know if I can tell it, now I've come."

The vicar began to feel interested.

"You had better take a seat," he said. "You will feel more comfortable."

The young man dropped into an easy-chair and stared at the fire. He was not a bad-looking young fellow. His face was pale, as though he worked underground, and his cheeks were thin enough to suggest too little nouris.h.i.+ng food.

"The truth is, I only made up my mind an hour ago," he said abruptly.

"Yes?" the vicar said encouragingly.

"You have heard of that poor woman being carried off to the workhouse, I expect."

"You mean Mrs. Penlogan?"

"Ay! Well, that floored me. I felt that I could hold out no longer. I meant to have waited to see which way the trial went----"

"Yes?" the vicar said again, seeing he hesitated.

"I've always believed that no jury that wasn't prejudiced would convict him on the evidence."

"You refer to Ralph Penlogan, of course?"

"The young man who's in prison on the charge of shooting Squire Hamblyn.

Do you think he's anything like me?"

"You certainly are not unlike him in the general outline of your face.

But, of course, anyone who knows young Penlogan----"

"Would never mistake him for me," the other interrupted.

"Well, I should say not, certainly."

"And yet bigger mistakes have been made. But I'd better tell you the whole story. I don't know what'll become of mother and the young ones, but I can't bear it any longer, and that's a fact. When I heard that that poor woman had been took off to the workhouse, I said to myself, 'Jim Brewer, you're a coward.' And that's the reason I'm here----"

"Yes?" said the vicar again, and waited for his visitor to proceed.

"It was I who shot the squire!"

The vicar started, but did not speak.

"I had no notion that he was about, or I shouldn't have ventured into the plantation, you may be quite sure. I was after anything I could get--hare, or rabbit, or pheasant, or barnyard fowl, if nothing else turned up."

"Then you were poaching?" said the vicar.

"Call it anything you like, but if you was in my place, maybe you'd have done the same. There hadn't been a bit of fresh meat in our house for a fortnight, and little Fred, who'd been ill, was just pining away. You see I'd been off work, through crus.h.i.+ng my thumb, for a whole month, and we'd got to the end of the tether. Butcher wouldn't trust us no further, and we'd been living on dry bread and a little skimmed milk, with a vegetable now and then. It was terrible hard on us all. I didn't mind myself so much, but to see the little one go hungry----"

"But what does your father do?" the vicar interrupted.

"Father was killed in the mine six years agone, and I've been the only one as has earned anything since. Well, you see, I took the old musket--though I knew, of course, I had no licence--and I went out on the common to shoot anything as came in the way--but nothing turned up.

Then I went into the plantation, and as I was getting over a hedge I came face to face with the squire.

"Well, I draws back in a moment, and that very moment something catches the trigger, and off the gun went. A minute after I heard the squire a-howling and a-screaming like mad, and when next I looks over the hedge he was running for dear life and shouting at the top of his voice.

"Well, I just hid myself in the 'browse' till it was dark, and then I creeps home empty-handed and never said a word to n.o.body. Well, next day, in the mine, I hears as how young Penlogan had been took up on the charge of trying to murder the squire. I never thought n.o.body would convict him, and if I'd been in the police court when he were sent to the a.s.sizes I couldn't have kept the truth back. But you see I weren't there, and I says to myself that no jury with two ounces of brains will say he's guilty; and so I reckon I'd have held out till the a.s.sizes if I hadn't heard they'd took his poor old mother off to the workhouse. That finished me. I says to myself, 'Jim Brewer, you're a coward,' I says, and I made up my mind then and there to tell the truth. And so I've come to you, being a parson and a magistrate. And the story I've told you is gospel truth, as sure as I'm a living man."

"It seems a very great pity you did not tell this story before," the vicar said reflectively.

"Ay, that's true enough. But I hadn't the courage somehow. You see, I made sure he'd come out all right in the end; and then I thought of mother and little Fred, and Jack and Mary and Peggy, and somehow I couldn't bring myself to face it. It was the poor woman being drove to the workhouse as did it. I think I'd rather die than that my mother should go there."

"I really can't see, for the life of me, why you working people so much object to the workhouse," the vicar said, in a tone of irritation. "It's a very comfortable house; the inmates are well treated in every way, and there isn't a pauper in the House to-day that isn't better off than when outside."

"Maybe it's the name of it, sir," the young man went on. "But I feel terrible bitter against the place. But the point now is, what are we going to do with Ralph Penlogan, and what are you going to do with me?"

"Well, really I hardly know," the vicar said, looking uncomfortable.

"You do not own to committing any crime. You were trespa.s.sing, certainly--perhaps I ought to say poaching. But--well, I think I ought to consult Mr. Tregonning, and--well, yes--Budda. Would you mind waiting while I send and ask Mr. Tregonning to come on?"

"No; I'll do anything you wish. Now I've started, I want to go straight on to the end."

Mr. Seccombe was back again in a few moments.

"May I ask," he said, with his eyes on the carpet, "if you saw anyone on the afternoon in question, or if anyone saw you?"

"Only Bilkins."

"He's one of Sir John's gardeners, I think."

"Very likely."

"And you were in the plantation when he saw you?"

"Oh no; I was on the common."

"And you were carrying the gun?"

"Well, you see, I pushed it into a furze bush when he come along, for, as I told you, I had no gun licence."

"Did he speak to you?"

"Ay. He pa.s.sed the time of day, and asked if I had any sport."

"And you saw no one else?"

"n.o.body but the squire."

Later in the day Bilkins was sent for, and arrived at the vicarage much wondering what was in the wind. He wondered still more when he was ushered into the vicar's library, and found himself face to face with Budda, Mr. Tregonning, and Jim Brewer, in addition to the vicar. For several moments he looked from one to another with an expression of utter astonishment on his face.