Lady Good-for-Nothing Part 9

Oliver Vyell walked back to the crowd. It was--a glance a.s.sured him-- more hostile than before; had recovered from its surprise, and was menacing. But it gave way again before him.

He called on them to give more room. He stooped and, spreading the rug over the girl's body, lifted and laid her in the straw of the cart.

A constable would have interfered. The Collector swung round on him.

"You are taking her back to the Court-house? Well, I have business there too. Where is your Court-house?"

The constable pointed.

"Up the road? I am obliged to you. Drive on, if you please."

Chapter X.

THE BENCH.

The wooden Jail and the wooden Court-house of Port Na.s.sau faced one another across an unpaved gra.s.s-grown square planted with maples.

To-day--for the fall of the leaf was at hand--these maples flamed with hectic yellows and scarlets; and indeed thousands of leaves, stripped by the recent gales, already strewed the cross-walks and carpeted the ground about the benches disposed in the shade--pleasant seats to which, of an empty afternoon, wives brought their knitting and gossiped while their small children played within sight; haunts, later in the day, of youths who whittled sticks or carved out names with jack-knives--ancient solace of the love-stricken; rarely thronged save when some transgressor was brought to the stocks or the whipping-post.

These instruments of public discipline stood on the northern side of the square, before the iron-studded door of the Jail. The same hand, may be, that had blackened over the Jail's weather-boarded front with a coat of tar, had with equal propriety whitewashed the facade of the Court-house; an immaculate building, set in the cool shade, its straight-lined front broken only by a recessed balcony, whence, as occasion arose, Mr. George Bellingham, Chief Magistrate, delivered the text of a proclamation, royal or provincial, or declared the poll when the people of Port Na.s.sau chose their Selectmen.

This morning Mr. Bellingham held session within, in the long, airy Court-room, and dispensed justice with the help of three fellow-magistrates--Mr. Trask, Mr. Somershall, and our friend Mr. Wapshott. They sat at a long baize-covered table, with the Justices' Clerk to advise them. On the wall behind and above their heads hung a framed panel emblazoned with the royal escutcheon, the lion and unicorn for supporters, an inscription in old French to the effect that there is shame in evil-thinking, and another:--

CAR II.

FID DEF.

distributed among the four corners of the panel, with the date 1660 below. This had been erected (actually in 1664, but the artist had received instructions to antedate it) when the good people of Ma.s.sachusetts after some demur rejoiced in the Restoration and accepted King Charles II. as defender of their Faith.

The four magistrates had dealt (as we know) with a case of Sabbath-breaking; had inflicted various terms of imprisonment on two drunkards and a beggar-woman; had discharged for lack of evidence (but with admonition) a youth accused of profane swearing; and were now working through a list of commoner and more venial offences, such as cheating by the use of false weights.

These four grave gentlemen looked up in slightly shocked deprecation; for the Collector entered without taking account of the constable at the door, save to thrust him aside. The Clerk called "Silence in the Court!" mechanically, and a deputy-beadle at his elbow as mechanically repeated it.

"Your Wors.h.i.+ps"--the Collector, hat in hand advanced to the table and bowed--"will forgive an interruption which only its urgency can excuse."

"Ah! Captain Vyell, I believe?" Mr. Bellingham arose from his high-backed throne of carved oak, bowed, and extended a hand across the table. "I had heard that you were honouring Port Na.s.sau with a visit; but understanding from our friend Mr. Wapshott that the visit was--er-- not official--that, in fact, it was connected with government business not--er--to be divulged, I forbore to do myself the pleasure--"

Mr. Bellingham had a courtly manner and a courtly presence. He was a tallish man, somewhat thin in the face and forehead, of cla.s.sical features, and a sanguine complexion. He came of a family highly distinguished in the history of Ma.s.sachusetts; but he was in fact a weak man, though he concealed this by some inherited apt.i.tude for public business and a well-trained committee manner.

"I thank you." The Collector shook the preferred hand and bowed again.

"You will pardon my abruptness? A girl has fainted outside here, in the street--"

Mr. Bellingham's well-shaped brows arched themselves a trifle higher.

"Indeed?" he murmured, at a loss.

"A young girl who--as I understand--was suffering public punishment under sentence of yours."

"Yes?" Mr. Bellingham's smile grew vaguer, and his two hands touched finger-tips in front of his magisterial stomach--an adequate stomach but well on the right side of grossness. He glanced at his fellow-magistrates right and left. "It--er---sometimes happens," he suggested.

"I dare say." Captain Vyell took him up. "But she has fainted under the punishment. She has pa.s.sed the limit of her powers, poor child; and they tell me that what she has endured is to be followed, and at once, by five hours in the stocks. Gentlemen, I repeat I am quite well aware that this is most irregular--you may call it indecent; but I saw the poor creature fall, and, as it happens, I know something that might have softened you before you pa.s.sed sentence."

Here the Clerk interposed, stiffening the Chief Magistrate, who wore a smile of embarra.s.sed politeness.

"As His Honour--as Captain Vyell--suggests, your Wors.h.i.+ps, this is quite irregular."

"To be sure--to be sure--of course," hemm'd Mr. Bellingham. "We can only overlook that, when appealed to by a person of your distinction;"

here he inclined himself gently. "Still, you will understand, a sentence is a sentence. As for a temporary faintness, that is by no means outside our experience. Our Beadle--Shadbolt--invariably manages to revive them sufficiently to endure--er--the rest."

I'll be shot if he will this time, thought the Collector grimly, with a glance down at a smear across the knuckle of his right-hand glove.

The sight of it cheered him and steadied his temper. "Possibly," said he aloud. "But your wors.h.i.+ps may not be aware--and as merciful men may be glad to hear--that this poor creature's offence against the Sabbath was committed under stress. Her mother and grandfather have starved this week through, as I happen to know."

"That may or may not be," put in Mr. Trask--a dry-complexioned, stubborn, malignant-looking man, seated next on the Chairman's right.

"But the girl--if you mean Ruth Josselin--has not been scourged for Sabbath-breaking. For that she will sit in the stocks--our invariable sentence for first offenders in this respect." From under his down-drawn brows Mr. Trask eyed the Collector malevolently.

"Ruth Josselin," he continued, "has suffered the scourge for having resisted Beadle Shadbolt in the discharge of his duty, and for unlawful wounding."

"Excuse me," put in Mr. Somershall, speaking across from the Chairman's left. Mr. Somershall was afflicted with deafness, but liked to a.s.sert himself whenever a word by chance reached him and gave him a cue.

He leaned sideways, arching a palm around his one useful ear.

"Excuse me; we brought it in 'attempted wounding,' I believe? I have it noted so, here on the margin of my charge-sheet." He glanced at the Clerk, who nodded for confirmation.

"It didn't matter," Mr. Trask snapped brutally. "She got it, just the same."

"Oh, quite so!" Mr. Somershall took his hand from his ear and nodded, satisfied with having made his point.

"Wounding?" echoed the Collector, addressing the Chairman. "To be frank with you, sir, I had not heard of this--though it scarcely affects my plea."

Mr. Bellingham smiled indulgently. "Say no more, Captain Vyell--pray say no more! This is not the first time an inclination to deem us severe has been corrected by a fuller acquaintance with the facts. . . .

Yes, yes--chivalrous feeling--I quite understand; but you see--"

He concluded his sentence with a gentle wave of the hand. "You will be glad to hear, since you take an interest in the girl, that Providence overruled her aim and Shadbolt escaped with a mere graze of the jaw--so slight, indeed, that, taking a merciful view, we decided not to consider it an actual wound, and convicted her only of the attempt. By the way, Mr. Leemy, where is the weapon?"

The Clerk produced it from his bag and laid it on the table.

Captain Vyell drew a sharp breath.

"It is my pistol."

"Eh?"

"I have the fellow to it here." He pulled out the other and handed it by the muzzle.

"To be sure--to be sure; the pattern is identical," murmured Mr.

Bellingham, examining it and for the moment completely puzzled.

"You--er--suggest that she stole it?"

"Certainly not. I lent it to her."

There followed a slow pause. It was broken by the grating voice of Mr.