Bred in the Bone; Or, Like Father, Like Son Part 25

"Yes, yes, I do," she murmured, shuddering. "It is horrible, most horrible! G.o.d help us!"

"We must help ourselves," answered Mrs. Gilbert, sternly.

"Yet G.o.d is surely on our side, and for the truth, madam. If they swear falsely--"

"You must swear also," interrupted the other, angrily; "you must meet them with their own weapons, if you would defend the innocent against them. As it is, the law is with them, and will prove the instrument of their vengeance. The notes were found upon his person; he strove to change them, that he might pa.s.s their subst.i.tutes more easily. He counted upon your father not missing them from his strong-box until it was too late. The case is clear against him that he stole them."

"Great Heaven!" cried Harry, clasping her hands in agony; "and yet he did not mean to steal them."

"Of course not; nay more, he did _not_ steal them, for _you gave them to him_."

"_I_ gave them to him? Nay, I never did."

"You did--you did, girl; you acquiesced in his plan for obtaining your father's consent to your engagement; you undertook to supply him temporarily with the money requisite to establish his pretensions as a man of fortune. Or, if you did _not_"--and here her voice a.s.sumed an intense earnestness--"your Richard, the man you pretend to love, will be a convicted felon--a prisoner for all the summer of his life, and for the rest an outcast!"

Harry was silent; her hands were pressed to her forehead, as though to compel her fevered brain to think without distraction. "I see, I see,"

she murmured, presently; "his fate hangs upon my word. 'So help me, G.o.d,' is what I have first to say, and then say _that_!"

"Why not?" rejoined the other, stoutly. "Will not these men, too, call G.o.d to witness what they know to be a lie? Will not _He_ discern the motive that prompts _you_--desire to see a wronged man righted, the innocent set free--and the motive that prompts _them_--malicious hate?

Or do you deem the all-seeing eye of Heaven is purblind? I tell you this, girl, if I were in _your_ place, and the man I loved stood _justly_ in such peril, I would swear a score such oaths to set him free! Yet here, with justice on your side and truth, and Heaven itself, you hesitate; you shrink from uttering a mere form of words, the spirit of which is contrary to the letter, and for conscience sake, forsooth, will let your lover peris.h.!.+ _Your_ lover! yes, but you were never _his_, although he thinks so. I will go hence, and tell him that you refuse to speak the thing that alone can save him from life-long wretchedness; I will go and tell him that the girl for whose sake he has brought this load of ruin on himself will not so much as lift it with her little finger! You fair, foul devil, how I hate you!" She drew herself up to her full height, and regarded the wretched girl with such contemptuous scorn that even in her abject misery she felt its barb.

"I have not earned your hate," said Harry, with some degree of firmness, "if I have earned your scorn; nor is it meet that you should so despise me, because I fear to anger G.o.d."

"And man," added the other, with bitterness. "You fear your father's wrath far more than Heaven's."

That bolt went home: the unhappy girl did indeed stand in greater terror of her father than of the sin of perjury; and the idea of affirming upon oath what she had but a few days before so solemnly denied to him was filling her with consternation and dismay. Still the picture that had just been drawn of the ruin that would a.s.suredly befall her Richard, unless she interposed to save him, had more vivid colors even than that of Trevethick's anger. Let him kill her, if he would, after the trial was over, but Richard should go free.

"I will do your bidding, madam," said she, suddenly, "though I perish, body and soul."

"You say that now, girl, and it's well and bravely said; but will you have strength to put your words to proof? When I am gone, and there are none but Richard's foes about you, will you resist their menaces, their arguments, their cajolements, and be true as steel?"

"I will, I will; I swear it," answered Harry, pa.s.sionately; "they shall never turn me from it. But suppose they prevent me from leaving Gethin, from attending at the trial at all?"

"Well thought of!" answered Mrs. Gilbert, approvingly; "she has some wits, then, after all, this girl. As for their forbidding you to give evidence, however, Mr. Weasel, who is Richard's lawyer, will see to that. You will be subpoenaed as a witness for the defense. You will say, then, that it was you who opened the strong-box, and took out the notes, and gave them into Richard's hand."

"But how could I open the letter padlock?"

"Good, again!" answered the other; "you have asked the very question for which I have brought the answer. Now, listen! Have you access to your father's watch at times when he does not wear it?"

"Yes; he does not always put it on--never on the day he goes to market, for instance. He comes back late, you see."

"Just so; and sometimes, perhaps, not altogether sober. Very good. Now, you once opened that watch from curiosity, and saw a paper in its case with B N Z upon it. Those letters formed the secret by which the lock was opened. You tried it, just in fun at first, and found they did. Do you understand?"

"I do," said Harry.

"You will not forget, then, what you have to say; or shall I recapitulate it?"

"There is no need," groaned Harry. "I shall remember it forever, be sure of that, and on my death-bed most of all." With a wearied look on her wan face, and a heavy sigh, the young girl rose to go. "Good-night, madam. We need not speak of this again to-morrow, need we?"

"Surely not, child. My mission here is done. The rain is falling still, and that will be a sufficient excuse for my departure. I had a sick headache to-night--remember that--but it will be better after a night's sleep."

"Do you sleep?" asked Harry, simply. "Ah me, I would that _I_ could sleep!"

"Of course I do. Is it not necessary for Richard's sake that I should be well and strong? I could weep all night and fast all day, if I let my foolish heart have its own will. It is easy enough to grieve at any time; one has only to think to do that. Sleep, child, sleep, and dream of him as he will be when you have set him free; then wake to work his freedom. I will tell him that you will do so. Press your lips to mine, that I may carry their sweet impress back to him. One moment more. Do not get your lesson by heart, lest they should doubt you; but hold by this one sentence, and never swerve from it: 'I gave Richard Yorke the notes with my own hand.' That is the key which can alone unlock his prison-door. Good-night, good-night."

CHAPTER XXVI.

MR. ROBERT BALFOUR.

An author of sensitive organization has always a difficulty in treating the subject of prison life. If he avoids details, the critics do not ascribe it to delicacy, but to incompetence; if, on the other hand, he enters into them, they nudge the elbow of the public, and hint that this particular phase of human experience is his specialty--that he "ought to know," because he has been "through the mill" himself. This is not kind, of course; but the expression, "a little more than kin and less than kind," is exceedingly applicable to the critic in relation to his humble brother, the author. We will take a middle course, then, and exhibit only just so much of Cross Key as may be seen in a "justice's visit."

Twenty years ago, the system of treatment of prisoners before trial incarcerated in her Majesty's jails was not so uniform as it now is. In some they were permitted few privileges not enjoyed by the convicts themselves; in others a considerable difference was made between the two cla.s.ses. The establishment at Cross Key leaned to the side of indulgence. Its inmates who were awaiting their trial were allowed to wear their own clothes; to write letters to their friends without supervision (though not without the suspicion of it on their own part); and to mingle together for some hours in a common room, where that unbroken silence which pervades all our modern Bastiles, and is perhaps their most terrible feature, was not insisted upon. In this common room Richard Yorke was sitting on the afternoon following his incarceration.

The princ.i.p.al meal of the day had been just concluded, and himself and his fellow-guests were brooding moodily over their troubles. The platters, the block-tin knives, so rounded that the most determined self-destroyer could never job himself with them into Hades, and the metal mugs had been removed, and their places on the narrow deal table were occupied by a few periodicals of a somewhat depressing character, though "devoted to the cultivation of quiet cheerfulness," and by a leaden inkstand much too large to be swallowed. The prisoners--upon the ground, perhaps, of not needing the wings of liberty for any other purpose--were expected to furnish (from them) their own pens. There were but half a dozen of these unfortunates; all, with two exceptions, were of the same type--that of the ordinary agricultural criminal. Ignorant, slouching, dogged, they might have fired a rick, or killed a keeper, or even--sacrilegious but unthinking boors--have shot a great man's pheasant. They did not make use of their privileges of conversation beyond a muttered word or two, but stared stupidly at the pictures in the magazines, wondering (as well they might) at the benevolent faces of the landlords, clergymen, and all persons in authority therein portrayed, or perhaps not wondering at them at all, but rather pondering whether Bet and the children had gone into "the House" or not by this time, or whether the man in the big wig would be hard upon themselves next Wednesday three weeks.

One of these two exceptions was, of course, our hero, who looked, by contrast with these poor, simple malefactors, like a being from another world, a fallen angel, but with the evil forces of his new abode already gathering fast within him. His capacities for ill, indeed, were ten times theirs; and the dusky glow of his dark eyes evinced that they were at work, though they did but ineffectually reflect the h.e.l.l of hate that was beginning to be lit within him. It flamed against the whole world of his fellow-creatures, so mad he was with pride and scorn and rage; his hand should be against every man henceforth, as theirs was now against him; his motto, like the _exeunt_ exclamation of the mob in the play, should be: "Fire, burn, slay!" He was like a spoiled child who for the first time has received a severe punishment--for a wonder, not wholly deserved--and who wishes, in his vengeful pa.s.sion, that all mankind might have one neck in common with his persecutor, that (forgetting he is no Hercules) his infant arms might throttle it off-hand. The love which he still felt for Harry and his mother, far from softening him toward others, rather increased his bitterness of spirit. They, too, were suffering wrong and ill-treatment, and needed an avenger. His fury choked him, so that he had eaten nothing of what had been set before him, and he now sat leaning with his elbows on the bare boards, staring with heated eyes at the blank wall before him, and feeding on his own heart.

"This is your first time in quod, I guess, young gentleman," observed a quiet voice beside him.

Richard started. He had thrown one contemptuous glance upon the company when they first a.s.sembled, and had decided that they possessed no more interest for him than a herd of cattle; buried in his own sombre thoughts, he had lost consciousness of their very presence, as of that of the warder, who was pacing up and down the room with monotonous tread. But now that his attention was thus drawn to his next neighbor, he saw that he differed somewhat from the rest; not that he was more intelligent-looking--for, indeed, there was a reckless brutality in his expression which the others lacked--but there was a certain resolution and strength of will in his face, which at least told of power. But it was the tone of voice, which, coming from such a man, though it was a gruff voice enough in itself, had something conciliatory and winning in it, that chiefly attracted Richard. Perhaps, too, the phrase "young gentleman" flattered his vanity. We can not throw off all our weaknesses at a moment's notice, no matter how stupendous the crisis in our fortunes, any more than, though our boat be sinking under us, we can divest ourselves of our clothes with a single shrug; and sympathy and deferential respect had still their weight with Richard Yorke. Perhaps, too, his nature had not yet even got quit of its gregariousness, and he was not sorry to have his acquaintance sought, though by this hang-dog thief.

"I have never been in prison before, if that is what you mean," returned he, civilly.

He who asked the question was a stout-built, grizzled fellow, of about fifty years. He was dressed like a well-to-do farmer, but his accent smacked of London rather than the country; and his hands, Richard observed, were not so coa.r.s.e and rough as might be expected in one used to manual labor, though his limbs and frame were powerful enough for the most arduous toil. His gray eyes looked keenly at Richard from under their bushy brows, as he propounded a second inquiry:

"What are you in for? Forgery or embezzlement, I reckon--which is it?"

"Neither," answered Richard, laconically, a bitter smile parting his lips in spite of himself.

"Well, now, that's curious," observed the other, coolly. "If it was not that you were sent here with the rest of us, and not shut up by yourself, I should have guessed 'Murder' outright, for you were looking all that a minute ago; and since it could not be murder, I thought it must be one of the other two."

"I don't know what I am here for," said Richard, gloomily, "except that the charge is false."

"Oh, of course," rejoined the other, with a grim chuckle; "it's always false the first time, and as often afterward as we can get the juries to believe us. I'm an old hand myself, and my feelings are not easily wounded; but I have never yet disgraced myself by pleading guilty. It's throwing a chance away, unless you are a very beautiful young woman who has put away her baby, and that I never was, nor did."

"Beauty in distress mollifies the court, does it?" inquired Richard, willing to be won from his own wretchedness by talk even with a man like this.

"Mollifies!--yes, it makes a molly of every body. I have known a judge shed tears about it, which he is not bound to do unless he has the black cap on--that always set him going like an onion. Why, I've seen even an attorney use his pocket-handkerchief because of a pretty face in trouble; but then she was his client, to be sure. Talking of attorneys, you'll have Weasel, of course?"

Richard nodded an affirmative.

"Quite right. I should have him myself, if there was a shadow of a chance; but, as it is, it's throwing good money out o' winder. I wish you better luck, young gentleman, than mine is like to be; not that you want luck, of course, but only justice."

Richard did not relish this tone of banter, and he showed it in his look.

"Come, come," said the other, good-humoredly, "it is a pity to curdle such a handsome face as yours with sour thoughts. Let us be friends, for you may be glad of even a friend like me some dirty day."