Left in peace, Carlton threw himself into his task with redoubled spirit, and presently forgot the existence of Sir Wilton Gleed. He had just three hours before dark. In this time he succeeded in pulling the rest of the east wall to pieces, even to the loosened plinth, and was adding the good stones to his stack when night fell. It was a night not to be forgotten in the history of Robert Carlton's case. Nothing happened. But he had no proper food in the house, and he began to feel really ill for the want of it. Eggs and bacon he had, but the lighting of the fire fatigued him more than anything he had done all day, and he fell asleep in the kitchen, and the bacon went brittle, and his attempt at bread was become an unmasticable fossil. A very little whisky, from a bottle that had been open for months, did him more good, and enabled him to face the food problem in earnest before he went to bed. It was a very serious problem indeed. Health and strength, success or failure, continued vigour or a swift collapse, all hinged upon the inglorious question, which engrossed till near midnight one of the plainest livers on earth, as his labours had absorbed him since dawn. He had to reckon with his enemies in thematter. He had not the slightest hope of obtaining supplies in the village. But at daylight he walked some miles to see a farmer who had sometimes trudged as many to hear him preach; and the farmer gave him breakfast with a surly pity, which Carlton suffered, as he accepted the meal, for his hard work's sake.
He had explained that he came on business, and after breakfast the farmer asked him, not without suspicion, what his business was.
"Do you kill your own sheep?" inquired Mr. Carlton.
"Only for ourselves."
"When do you kill?"
"Let's see. Friday, is it? Then we kill this mornin'."
"May I wait and watch?"
The other stared.
"I want some mutton," Carlton explained.
"But I don't keep a butcher's shop," growled the farmer. "Well, we'll see what we can do; we may be able to let you have a bit of the neck-end."
"I should be very grateful for it. But I'm afraid I want more."
"What more?"
"A flock of sheep."
He was willing to pay outside prices. So a bargain was struck; and the sheep were in the glebe that night. Meanwhile he had seen one killed and dressed, and was not the less thankful that he had neck-end chops enough to last him that week.
The stacking of the stones was finished early onthe Friday afternoon, and Carlton determined to take the rest of that day easily. So he set himself to retrieve the lectern from the ruins, and did finally wheel it to the rectory, on two barrows; the first broke under its weight. Moreover, this had consumed the entire afternoon, as another would have foreseen at a glance, and Carlton emerged as from a pool of ink. Since he had made himself rather hot and black, however, he thought it a pity not to clear a little more of the interior while the light lasted. It must be done some day; but again the task was more formidable than it appeared to dauntless eyes still aflame with vast endeavour. The firemen had not spared the water when all was over, so the big bones of the roof were not burnt through. Tie-beams and principal rafters, in particular, lay whole and heavy, and immovable less from their weight than from the inextricable tangle in which they had fallen. There was nothing but the saw for these, and Carlton had already sawn the lectern from its grave. He learnt to saw with his left hand that evening; and after all had very little but his own personal condition to show for his labour: only the nucleus of a wood-heap near the stack of stones, and a crooked, blackened, brass thing in the dining-room. But then he had not intended to do much that afternoon; he went indoors, and drew the water for his bath with that consolation.
Meat for the second time that day! Carlton began to feel a man. He paced his study with the old rapid step; and he determined to order and arrange his day's work so that the muscles should relieve each other ingangs: varied exertions; that was the principle of all continuous labour. You cannot sit down to rest when you are working hard; but you can do something else. Carlton never rested till he went to bed. But this evening he sat down at his desk.
A sheet of sermon paper was ruled in six columns and a margin; the columns were headed by the days of the week; down the margin the days were divided into three periods, a short and two long; it was the class-room chart of his school-days over again. In future he would rise at five; four was too early. The short period before breakfast should be daily devoted to work in the house. The place must be made and kept habitably clean; that could be left partly to the wet days. Then there was the kitchen work, the preparation of food for the day, baking two days a week, the occasional slaughter of a sheep; and here Carlton paused to grapple with the appalling problem presented by the hungriest of living men and the smallest of slain sheep . . . Salt seemed the solution . . . Salt mutton? . . . At any rate all carnal cares and menial duties should be disposed of for the day as early as possible in the early morning; not till then would he break his fast; and the real day's work should begin as near eight o'clock as might be, but as often as possible on the right side of the hour. Moreover, it should begin with the lighter labour: scraping and repointing the uncondemned walls, for example; that would take one man weeks or months; but it would not tire him out at the beginning of the day. Then there was the preparation of the stones; the careful scraping of those preserved; classification as to size for the various courses;cutting and fitting of fresh stones; the actual building with trowel and plummet. All this went under one head, and was for the body of the day; a long spell broken by a good meal and a determined rest. The day should finish, for many a day to come, with a savage attack upon the chaos within the walls. A hand too tired for skilled labour would still be fit for that.
And as Robert Carlton reached this stage in the laying of his ingenious plans, he leaned back in his chair, and stared at his dull reflection in the diamond panes above his writing table, in a sudden horror of himself and all his ways and works. He was actually happy—he! The reaction was the same in kind as that which had come to him at the shed, in the joy of touching hammer and chisel again, and which had driven him to the hall next morning. But it was greater in degree: for then he had seen how happy he might be; to-night he knew how happy he was.
"But only in my work! Only in my work!" he cried, and fell upon his knees to crave forgiveness from the Almighty for daring to enjoy the consolation which He had ordained for him.
The artist was dead in Carlton for that night. He rose a very miserable sinner, every thought a whip for his poor spirit that had dared to come to life without leave. He had committed deadly sin with deadliest result; let him never forget it! He, God's servant——the morbid rehearsal may be spared. But he did not spare himself. All the aggravating circumstances were recalled, none that extenuated; all that he had suffered he must needs suffer anew, slowly, deliberately, and in due order; that he might not forget, thathe might never forget again! Now he was confessing to Musk, now to George Mellis; poor George, where was he? Now they were breaking his windows, and now Tom Ivey was refusing his hand. But at last he was before the bishop; that strong, queer voice was croaking across the desk; and all at once the croak ended, and the voice rang like a sovereign with words of refined gold.
"Courage, brother! Pray without ceasing. Look forward, not back; do not despair. Despair is the devil's best friend; better give way to deadly sin than to deadlier despair!"
And he prayed again; but not in the house.
"For I will look forward," he said as he went. "But let me never again forget!"
There was neither wind nor moon. The sparrows were still, but not the shrill little swifts. And somewhere a thrush was singing, clear and mellow and certain as a bell; and once a bat's wing brushed the bowed bare head of him who prayed not for forgiveness but for the peace of a soul; for neither was it in the ruins that Robert Carlton knelt once more.
Carlton chose a fresh stone from the heap; he was going to begin all over again. He got it in his arms, and he managed to stagger with it to the front of the shed. The stone was at least two feet long, and its other dimensions were about half that of the length; as Carlton set it down, himself all but on the top of it, he trusted it was the largest size in the heap. It was of a rich reddish yellow, roughly rectangular, but lumpy as ill-made porridge, exactly as it had come from the quarry. Carlton tilted it up against a smaller stone, smooth enough in parts, but palpably untrue in its planes and angles. This was the stone that he had been all day spoiling; it had been as big as the new one that morning, when he had begun upon it with a view to the lower eleven-inch courses; and now he had failed to make even a six-inch job of it. The stone was so soft. It cut like cheese. But he was not going to spoil another.
So he rested a minute before beginning again, and he marshalled his tools upon a barrow within reach of his hand. It was rather late on the Saturday afternoon. In the morning he had felt disinclined for violent exertion, but just equal to trying his hand at that stone-dressing which would presently become his chieflabour; and his hand had disappointed him. It had the wrong kind of cunning: as amateurs will, Carlton had picked up his fancy craft at the fancy end: gargoyles were his specialty, and an even surface beyond him.
"But I can learn," he had been saying all day; and most times the dog had wagged his tail.
Ten minutes ago his tone had changed.
"I'll start afresh! I'll do one to-night! I won't be beaten!"
And that time Glen had leapt up with his master, and lashed his shins with his tail, as much as to say, "Beaten? Not you!" and had accompanied him to the heap, and was pretending to rest with him now. But Carlton was constitutionally impatient of conscious rest; and this afternoon certain sounds, louder though less incessant than those of his constant comrades, the bees and birds, informed him that the Boys' Friendly were not too proud to use the far strip of glebe land which the rector had levelled for them last year. The discovery made him glad. But it also brought him to his feet within the minute that he had promised himself; and the hammer rang swift blows on the cold-chisel as much to drown the music of bat and ball as to clear the grosser irregularities from one surface of the stone.
This done (and this much he had done successfully enough before), hammer and cold-chisel were thrown aside, and the marbling-hammer taken up, because Tom Ivey had always used it to make the rough sufficiently smooth. But it is a mongrel implement at best, being hammer and chisel in one, with changeable bitslike a brace, and yet with less of these than of the pickaxe in its cross-bred composition. Like a pick you wield it, yet lightly and with the one and only curve, or at a stroke you go too deep.
Chip, chip, chip went the sharp seven-eighths-of-an-inch bit; and off curved the soft yellow flakes, to turn to powder as they fell.
Chip, chip, chip along the top; and the keen bit left its mark each time; and the finished row of these was like the key-board of a toy piano.
Chip, chip, chip, always from left to right, a tier below, and then the tier below that. The toy piano is becoming a toy organ of many manuals; and the hue of the keys is not that of the rough outer surface: as they first see the light they are nearer the colour of cigar-ash.
Chip, chip, chip—chip, chip, chip; butswish,swish,swishis a thought nearer the sound. So soft that stone, so sharp that bit, so timorous and tentative the unpractised strokes of Robert Carlton!
Every now and then he would stop, and anxiously apply a straight lath to the spreading smoothness; but he was improving, and in the end the plane was at least as true as it was smooth. The key-marks of the marbling-hammer were not always parallel or of even length, and the rows declined from left to right like the hand of a weak writer: "bad batting," Tom Ivey would have called it, a "bat" being the mark in question, and long, even bats, "straight along the stone," the mason's ideal, as the inquisitive amateur had discovered the first day Ivey worked for him. But knowledge and skill lie a gulf apart, and on the wholeCarlton felt encouraged. He had done but one side of four, but the one was smooth enough to face the world as coursed rubble; let him but get and keep his angles, and the other three would matter less. So now he took the straight-edge, as the lath was called, and the bit of black slate which Tom had also left behind him; and with these and the mason's square a rectangular parallelogram with eleven-inch ends was duly ruled on the satisfactory surface. Hammer and cold-chisel again. Much use of the square, but no more play with the marbling-hammer. No need to perfect the parts doomed to mortar and eternal night; rough criss-cross work with a mason's axe is the thing for them; as Carlton knew when he rather reluctantly applied himself to the mastery of that implement, just as he was beginning to acquire some proficiency with the other. The mason's axe was the most treacherous of them all. It was a hand pickaxe with a point like a stiletto; a touch, and the steel lay buried. But it was the right tool to use, and Carlton used it to the best of his ability, stooping more and more over his work as the light began to fail him.
He was going to succeed at last! If only he had not lost so much time! Then he might have mixed some mortar and laid the first stone of his own cutting—the first stone of the new church! That would have been something like a day's work; yet he was not dissatisfied with his progress. Swish, swish, swish; he might have done much worse. He had pulled down the bad walls—swish—and what was good of them—swish—he had saved and there they were. He looked up, the perspiration standing thick upon his white forehead, his eyes all eagerness and determination. He stood upright to rest a moment in the mellow light—happy again! Happy because he had not time to think of himself, but only of what he was doing, and of what he felt certain he could do: happy in his aching limbs and soaking flannels, and all that with a happiness he was for once not destined to realise and to check. For, even as he stood, Glen barked, and Carlton turned in time to see the village constable tuck his cane under his arm while he stood still to feel in his pockets. The man was in full uniform—a strange circumstance in itself.
"Good evening, Frost," said Mr. Carlton.
"Evenin', sir."
The constable was an imposing figure of a man, with a handsome stupid face, and a stolid deliberation of word and deed which gave an impression of artless but indefatigable vigilance. In reality the fellow had few inferiors in the parish.
"For me?" and Carlton held out his hand as the other produced a paper.
"For you an' me," said the constable, winking as he kept the paper to himself. And in an impressive voice he read out a warrant for the apprehension of the Reverend Robert Carlton, Clerk in Holy Orders, on a charge of unlawfully and maliciously setting fire to the parish church of Long Stow, in the County of Suffolk, on the night of the 24th or the morning of the 25th June, in the year of grace 1882; the warrant was signed by two justices—Sir Wilton Gleed of Long Stow Hall, and Canon Wilders of Lakenhall.
"Like to see it for yourself?" inquired Frost.
"No, thank you; that's quite enough for me. Well, upon my word!"
And Carlton stood staring into space, a glitter in his eyes, a smile upon his lips, incapable of unmixed indignation: really, Sir Wilton was a better fighter than he had supposed.
"You will have to come with me to Lakenhall," said the constable's voice.
Carlton realised the situation.
"To-night?"
"At once, sir, ifyouplease. They've sent a trap for us from Lakenhall. That's waiting at the gate."
The mason's axe was still in his hand, the unfinished stone at his feet. Carlton looked wistfully from one to the other, and thence in appeal to the officer of the law.
"I say, Frost, is there any hurry for a quarter of an hour? I'd—I'd give a sovereign to finish this stone!"
Virtue blazed in the constable's face.
"You don't bribeme, sir!" he cried. "I'm ashamed of you, I am, for tryin' that on! No, Mr. Carlton, you've got to come straight away."
"But surely I may change first?"
"You'll have to be quick, and I'll have to come with you."
"Is that necessary?" asked Carlton with some heat, as he flung his tools under cover.
"That's left to me, sir, and I don't trust no gentleman in his dressing-room. My orders are to take you alive, Mr. Carlton."
Carlton was upon him in two strides.
"Very well," said he, "you shall; and you shallcome upstairs and see me change. But address another word to me at your peril!"
A small crowd had collected at the gate; a Lakenhall policeman was waiting in the trap. Carlton came down the drive with his long coat flying and his head thrown back. Somehow he was allowed to depart without a groan.
On the way he never spoke, and something kept the constables from speaking before him. They had a slow horse; it was nearly an hour before Carlton saw the inside of a police-station for the first time in his life. Here he was formally charged by a portly inspector with whom he had some slight acquaintance; the charge concluded with the usual warning that anything he said might be given in evidence against him.
"I hear," said Carlton. "And now?"
The inspector shrugged his personal regret.
"I'm afraid there's only one thing for it now, sir."
"The cells, eh?"
"That's it, Mr. Carlton."
"Till when?"
"Monday morning, sir, the magistrates sit."
"Lead the way, then," said Carlton. "I can spend my Sunday in gaol as well as in my own rectory."
His eye was stern but steady; he was filled with contempt, but without a fear. He knew who was at the bottom of this charge, and had begun by quite admiring the man's resource; but his admiration did not survive a second thought. What a fool the fellow must be! No fool like an old fool, said the proverb; and none so insanely reckless as your prudent people, once they lose their head, thought Robert Carlton in his cell.Of the charge itself he scarcely condescended to think at all; for to his mind, the more innocent on that score for his guilt upon another, the thing seemed more preposterous than it really was. He burn the church! With what object, pray? And what did they suppose he had risked his life for at the fire? Remorse, or show? He could have laughed; he was unable to imagine a shred of evidence against himself.
There was a Testament on the table, but he had brought his Bible in his pocket; and by the gas-jet in its wire guard, that striped the walls with lean shadows like the bars of some wild beast's cage, Robert Carlton forgot his own sins, persecution and imprisonment, in those of his hero St. Paul; and was in another world when the rattle of a key brought him back to this. It was the fat inspector himself, with good news on his face, and in his hand the card of Canon Wilders, Rector of Lakenhall and chairman of the local bench.
"He doesn't want to see me, does he?" said Carlton, in plain alarm.
"If you've no objection to seeing him, sir."
"But he was one of those who signed the warrant! Tell him I can't see anybody. Thank him very much. Say that I appreciate his kindness, but would prefer to be alone."
In a few minutes the man returned.
"That's a pity you won't see the canon, sir; he don't half like it. He couldn't help signing the warrant, not in his position; that seem to me to be the very reason why he come the minute he heard we had you here; and it's my opinion he'd like to see you out of custody."
"You mean on bail?"
"Yes, sir."
"Because I'm a clergyman, and it's a disgrace to the cloth!"
This explanation was a sudden idea impulsively expressed; but the inspector's face was its tacit confirmation.
"Is he here still?" demanded the prisoner.
"Yes, sir, he is."
"You can say I've been taken on a false and abominable charge," cried Carlton, "and I don't want my liberty till the falsehood's proved! But I am equally obliged to Canon Wilders," he added with less scorn, "and you will kindly tell him so with my compliments."
But he paced his cell in a curious twitter for one who had entered it without a qualm. In all his trouble this was the first word from a clerical neighbour: to a man they had stood aloof from him in his shame. His own movements were in part responsible: he had disappeared from view. Nor had he expected or coveted their sympathy; yet, now that one of them had come forward, Carlton was conscious of a wound he had not felt before. There was Preston of Linkworth—but his wife would account for him. There was Bosanquet of Bedingfield, and there were others. They might have inquired at the infirmary (Preston had), but he had never heard of it. As for Wilders, he was a worthy man of local mark, for whom Carlton had preached upon occasion; one prosperous alike in worldly welfare and in spiritual satisfaction; the last person to go into disgrace; and yet, by reason of a certainofficiousness of character, the first to come forward as he had done. Carlton had no wish to be ungracious or ungrateful, or to make a personal matter of the signing of the warrant; but he could not face his fellows with this new charge hanging over him, nor was he going free by the favour of living man. On the other hand, he pondered more upon his brother clergymen that Saturday night in gaol than in all these eight weeks past. And the sense of mere social downfall, the dullest of his aches hitherto, became suddenly acute, so that for that alone he wished they had not put him in prison. But for all the rest he cared as little as before, and showed as little interest in the pending event.
His indifference quite troubled the inspector, who evinced a desire to show the prisoner every possible consideration, and was an early visitor next morning.
"That ain't no business of mine, sir; but you'll be wanting to see a solicitor during the day?"
"Why so?" asked Carlton.
"Well, sir, your case will come up to-morrow morning."
"But what do I want with a solicitor?"
"Why, sir, every pris—that is, accused——"
The inspector boggled at the word, and stood confounded by the other's density.
"Oh, I see!" cried Carlton. "So you're thinking of my defence, are you? Thanks very much, but I don't want a lawyer to defend me. I make your side a present of the lawyers, Mr. Inspector; they'll want them all. It's for them to prove me guilty, not for me to prove my innocence."
"And do you really think we have no case against you?" inquired the inspector, with a change of tone, for he happened to have charge of the case himself.
"I don't think about it," returned Carlton, with unaffected indifference. "The thing's too preposterous to be worth a thought."
"I'm glad you find it so," said the other, nettled; "let's hope you won't change your mind. I only spoke for your own good; there's plenty would blame me for speaking at all. I won't trouble you no more, sir. I might have known I'd get no thanks, after the way you served Canon Wilders last night. Defend yourself, and let's see you do it!"
The door shut with a clang, and Carlton watched the vibrations in some distress. He was sorry to hurt the feelings of his would-be friends, but he needed no man's friendship in the present crisis. God would be his friend; his faith in Him was as profound as his contempt of the false charge hanging over himself. The latter, he felt convinced, must break down as it deserved; but if not, then the meaning would be clear. It would mean that he had not been punished sufficiently for what he had done, and must accordingly be prepared to suffer something for that which he had not done, but of which his sin had indubitably caused the doing. And Robert Carlton was so prepared in his heart of hearts. Yet he was unable to carry his pious fatalism to its logical conclusion, and to abate his bitterness against the human instruments of a vengeance he was willing to think Divine.
On the contrary, he condescended at intervals ofthe day to give his mind to the proceedings of the next; and he did recall one or two circumstances which prejudice and malice might twist against him. To consider these was to be instantly inspired with a conclusive reply on every point; but Carlton was not sure whether the law would permit him to reply at all. So in the afternoon he begged for newspapers, and his request, though acceded to, was all over Lakenhall by nightfall. A suspended clergyman who thought so little of his notorious sins that he could ask for newspapers on a Sunday afternoon! The inference drawn by a small community, greatly excited about the case, and unconsciously anxious to believe the worst of one who was bad enough at best, will be readily imagined. The whole town shook its head.
Meanwhile the object of popular detestation was comparatively happy in the exercise of his receptive powers. By good luck his bundle of provincial newspapers contained that which can only be met with in a local press: a verbatim report of the police-court proceedings in a painful case of infinitesimal interest to the world at large. The interest, however, was all-absorbing to Robert Carlton. The accused had been represented by a solicitor. The solicitor had fought his case tooth-and-nail. There had been certain "scenes in court"; all were reported in the local paper, and no point involved was lost upon the alert brain of the imprisoned clergyman. It was with difficulty that he dismissed the subject from his mind when the church-bells rang once more through the quiet country town. It happened, however, that theparish church was quite near the police-court; and in the morning Carlton had been enabled to follow the whole service, partly through knowing it by heart, partly from the strains of hymn or psalm that reached him at due intervals through the grated window: and ever since then he had been looking forward to evensong. So now when first the bells ceased, and then the voluntary, the prisoner presently rehearsed the exhortation (in silence) on his feet, the general confession (half aloud) upon his knees; then followed the psalms, also from memory, his lips moving, his hands folded; then knelt again to pray the prayers. And his eyes were as earnest, his attitude as reverent, and even certain gestures as punctilious, as though he were back in his church that had been burnt, instead of lying in gaol for burning it.
The August evening came early to its close; a little while the new moon glimmered in the cell; then the organ pealed the people out of church, and a few steps passed that way, and a few voices floated in through the bars, before all was quiet in the little old town. And Robert Carlton thought no more that night upon his enemies, and took no further heed for the morrow.
Canon Wilders was supported by Mr. Preston, of Linkworth, and by a youthful justice whom Robert Carlton did not know by name, but who sat like the graven image of Rhadamanthus, encased in the atrocious trousers and the excruciating collar of the year 1882.
Considering the romantic interest of the case, this was by no means "a full bench"; there were, however, some conspicuous and deliberate absentees, including Sir Wilton Gleed and Dr. Marigold. Carlton was less surprised at his enemy's abstinence than at the position voluntarily occupied by James Preston, an indolent cleric but genial gentleman, who had been his friend. His surprise deepened when Preston nodded to him, hastily enough, and with a change of colour, but yet in a way that thrilled Carlton with a doubt as to whether he had altogether lost that friend. He was in no such suspense concerning the stately chairman, who very properly looked at the prisoner as though he had never seen him before, and never addressed him without tuning his voice to the proper pitch of distant disapproval. This was not a question of losing a friend, but of having made an enemy of the most potent personage in the court.
The latter was densely crowded when the stout inspector opened the case, but the familiar faces stood out in quick succession, and they were not a few. In a doorway apart stood a Long Stow trio—the saddler, the sexton, and Tom Ivey; all three were in their Sunday clothes, and more or less visibly ill at ease; but it was only Ivey who reddened and looked away when the prisoner caught his eye. As for Carlton, he became so lost in sudden and absorbing speculation that it was some minutes before he realised that the inspector had finished a bald brief statement of his case, and that a witness was already in the box and giving evidence. The witness, however, was only Frost, the village constable, and his evidence merely that of the arrest on the Saturday at Long Stow. Carlton nevertheless whipped out his pocket-book, and the witness waited before standing down.
"May I ask him two or three questions?" said the prisoner, addressing himself with courtesy to the bench.
"As many as you please," replied the chairman, "provided they are relevant."
Carlton bowed before turning to the witness.
"How far were you responsible for the warrant on which you arrested me?"
"Re-spon-si-ble!" exclaimed the chairman in separate syllables. "What do you mean?"
"I wish to ascertain exactly in what measure the witness has been concerned in trumping up this charge against me."
"That is not the language in which to inquire!"
"Your worships may discover that it is exceedingly mild language, before the case is over."
"I shall not allow you to cross-examine witnesses unless you do so with due respect to the bench."
The clerk to the justices, who had examined the witness, was the means of averting an immediate scene.
"I think, your worship, that he wishes to know whether the witness laid the information against him."
"I thank you," said Carlton, an incredible twinkle in his eye, as he again turned to the witness. "I do desire to ask you, with due respect to the bench, whether you 'laid this information' against me, or whether you did not?"
"I did," said Frost.
"Before whom did you 'lay' it?"
"The magistrate."
"What magistrate?"
"Sir Wilton Gleed."
"And when?"
"Last Friday."
"The date, please!"
"That would be the 18th."
"The 18th of August! And the church was burnt on the morning of the 25th of June! How is it that it took you eight weeks all but two days to 'lay your information' against me?"
The witness looked confused; but the chairman was quick to interpose; he had been waiting his opportunity.
"That may or may not transpire in the evidence,"said he; "it is in either event an absolutely inadmissible question, and I should strongly recommend you to employ a solicitor. If you like I will adjourn the court for half-an-hour while you instruct one; but I will not have the time of the court wasted by irrelevant and inadmissible questions such as you seem inclined to put. If you have nothing better to ask the witness I shall order him to stand down."
"Let him stand down," returned the prisoner, indifferently. "I have done with him."
Robert Carlton had surprised himself. He had come into court with the most admirable intentions that it was possible to entertain: he was to have kept cool but humble, to have curbed his contempt of proceedings conducted (if not instituted) in the best of good faith, and never for an instant to have forgotten his guilt of sin in his innocence of crime. In this spirit he had risen from his knees that morning, and with this resolve he had left his cell and been ushered into court; but the very atmosphere of the place had made the blood sing in his veins; and it needed but the chairman's voice to make it boil. He had sinned, and chosen to suffer for his sin: so no crime was too dastardly to lay at his door. He was down, and deservedly down, so friends and acquaintances alike must gather and conspire to trample him. Carlton's point of view went round like a weathercock in the wind; flesh and blood flew to the front, in despite of spirit; and all the man in him rebelled at man's injustice, in despite of his prayers.
So when the next witness was being sworn (itwas his own sexton), and James Preston whispered to Canon Wilders, the man who had preached for both of them looked on grimly.
"As you seem bent upon conducting your own case," said Wilders, leaning back, "you may possibly prefer a chair at the table; if so, there is one at your disposal." And he pointed into the well of the court.
Carlton thanked him in the voice that all his will could not purge of all its scorn; he was perfectly comfortable where he was. Then he looked pointedly at Preston, and his face and tone softened together. "But I shall not forget the suggestion," he said; and again his friend changed colour.
The decrepit hero of the overweening hallucination had hobbled into the witness-box meanwhile. Carlton had not come in contact with him since the morning before the fire, and he little thought that his last conversation with the sexton was about to come up in evidence against him. Yet such was the case.
Old Busby had been responsible for the lighting of the church. He had kept the paraffin and filled the lamps. But in the month of June the lamps were rarely needed. They had not been lighted on the Sunday before the fire. There would have been even less occasion for them—by one minute—the following Sunday. And yet, on the Saturday morning, the prisoner had ordered the witness to see that the lamps were full!
So Busby deposed; and the point seemed of sinister significance. It took the prisoner plainly by surprise: the circumstance had escaped his memory.In a minute, however, he had recalled it in detail; and his cross-examination, though provocative of some mirth, and curtailed in consequence, was by no means ineffectual.
"You remember when the lamps went out, through your neglect, in the middle of even-song?"
"I'm like to remember it. That was when I swallowed the frog."
The court laughed, but not the prisoner, who was too much in earnest even to smile.
"I reminded you pretty often about the lamps after that?"
"Ay, you were for ever at me about 'em."
"Now, on the morning you mention, where was I when I told you to go and fill the lamps?"
The sexton thought.
"In your study, sir."
"And what were you doing there? Do you remember?"
"I do that! I was telling you about the frog."
This time the prisoner smiled himself.
"And did I listen to you?" he demanded, a sudden change upon his face, as though the act of smiling had put him in pain.
"No, that you didn't," the old man grumbled; "you fared as though you didn't hear."
"So I told you to go away and fill your lamps," said Carlton, sadly, "even though it was Midsummer Day! I have finished with the witness."
He was as one who had brilliantly parried a deadly thrust, and yet received a secret wound in the onset. He rested his head upon his hand to hide his pain,and only raised it at the sound of James Preston's voice putting the first question from the bench:
"As sexton, did you keep the key of the church?"
"In the old days I did, sir; but that's been open church ever since Mr. Carlton come."
"You mean that the church was open day and night?"
"To be sure it was."
"Thank you," said Preston hastily, as though glad to relapse into silence. Carlton did not add to his embarrassment by a glance, but his heart throbbed with gratitude for the goodwill he could no longer question.
"Didyou fill the lamps?" asked the chairman as the witness was preparing to hobble from the box.
"Yes, sir, I did."
And, watching the chairman's face, Carlton was still more thankful to have one friend upon the bench; for it seemed to him that the young gentleman in the tall collar and the tight trousers was alone in preserving a Rhadamanthine impartiality.
What surprised him equally was the strength and the nature of the evidence produced. In his complete innocence of the crime imputed to him, he had been unable to conceive or to recall a single incriminating circumstance not susceptible of an easy and immediate explanation. Yet more than one arose during the afternoon, when first the saddler, and afterwards Tom Ivey, went into the box to bear witness against him; and more than once the explanation, so full and clear in his own mind, was incapable of confirmation or admission in the form of evidence.The more striking instances were afforded by Fuller, whose testimony, though convincing enough, and not the less so for its real or apparent reluctance, came as a complete surprise to the prisoner. It appeared that the saddler had returned to the rectory on the fatal night, more than an hour after his first visit and summary dismissal, in order to have his "say," and "not let the reverend have it all his own way." The midnight visitor had found a light in the study, but the door shut, and only the dog within. He had not entered, but had waited about the drive, till, seeing a light in the church, he had made up his mind that "the reverend" was there, and had decided not to interrupt him. So the saddler had gone home and to bed, and was fast asleep when the church-bells sounded the alarm.
"And what made you so sure that it was Mr. Carlton in the church with the light?" inquired Mr. Preston.
"Because I couldn't find him in the rectory."
"But you did not go in?"
"I knocked and called, but I only made the dog bark."
The chairman leaned forward in his turn.
"Was the barking loud?" he asked. "Loud enough to be heard all over the house?"
Carlton sprang to his feet. He had been accommodated with a chair, of which he had quietly availed himself during the examination of this witness, and the suddenness of his movement brought all eyes to his face. It was quick with impatience and sarcastic disregard.
"If you are labouring to prove that I was not at my house, but in the church," he cried, "your worship may save himself the time and trouble. I was in the church. I lit one of the lamps."
This did not strike the prisoner as the sensational statement that it was; he was therefore amazed at its effect upon the bench, where even Rhadamanthus came to life, while James Preston opened eyes of horror, and Wilders whispered to the clerk.
"That," said the chairman, "is an extremely serious statement, and one that you are surely ill-advised in making. It is not evidence, but it is being taken down in writing, and may be given in evidence against you at your trial. I should certainly advise you to refrain from further statements of the kind."
"I thought you wanted to get at the truth?"
"So we do. But I have warned you. Have you any questions to ask the witness?"
"Not one; he is equally correct in his statements and his suppositions."
Thomas Ivey was then sworn, amid the hush of deepening interest, and gave his evidence in a manly, straightforward, level-headed fashion, that added its own weight to what he said for good or ill; and his testimony told both ways. He described the scene in the church on his arrival; the character of the fire, and the attitude of Mr. Carlton; both of which, he admitted (in answer to a question from the chairman), had struck him as suspicious at the first glance.
"But did you see himdoanything that you thought suspicious?" asked the well-meaning Mr. Preston.
"I did, sir."
"What was that?" from the chairman.
"He threw something into the flames. But I couldn't see what that was."
"Did you afterwards find out?"
"No, sir."
Once more the prisoner attracted every eye. It was felt that he would make another of his reckless and voluntary declarations. But this time he was silent enough; and though the evidence now took a turn in his favour, that silence left its mark.
Everybody knew how the clergyman had risked his life, when it was too late, to save the church. But the story had not yet been told as Mr. Preston contrived to elicit it from the lips of Tom Ivey. The Rector of Linkworth had been from home when the fire took place. There was nothing unnatural in his desire for details, nor did he put an improper question. The chairman, however, betrayed more than a little impatience, while the junior justice, on the other hand, displayed excitement of another kind, and actually put in his word at last.
"Do you mean to say you let him throw the water single-handed," said he, "while the rest of you stayed outside?"
"There was no stopping him, sir," said Ivey. "He would have all the danger to himself."
"Then you could not see what use he made of the water?" suggested the chairman, dryly.
"No, sir," said Tom; "I could only see the steam." And his tone was still more dry.
Wilders looked at the clock as the examinationconcluded. The case had not been taken till the afternoon; it was now nearly five. Wilders beckoned and spoke to the inspector, subsequently addressing the prisoner in his coldest tone.
"I understand that this is the last witness to be called against you," said he. "Do you propose to cross-examine him?"
"I do."
"And may I ask if you have any witnesses to call for your defence?"
"I may have one."
"Then it becomes my duty to adjourn the case." He whispered again to the inspector, and at greater length with his colleagues, James Preston appearing tenacious of some point upon which the chairman ultimately gave way. "As the police have completed their case," continued Wilders, "a remand of one day will be sufficient, and we shall simply adjourn until to-morrow morning. But you may, if you like, apply for bail; though the question, having due regard to the evidence which we have heard, is one that would now require our grave consideration."
"You may spare yourselves the trouble," said Carlton shortly. "I don't want bail."
And he went back to prison to lament his temper, but not to go through the form of further prayer for patience and humility; for he felt that these were beyond him in that public court, packed with prejudice from door to door.
"I told you what he'd say," grumbled Wilders in the retiring-room.
"I don't blame him," said Mr. Preston. "My dear sir, he's innocent of this!"
"I shall formmyopinion to-morrow," returned the canon, with dignity. "Meanwhile I confess to some curiosity as to whom he thinks of calling as his witness."
"The chappie shows us sport," quoth Rhadamanthus, "guilty or not guilty; and I'm not giving odds either way."
Rhadamanthus reappeared without a visible garment that he had worn the day before. He came spurred and breeched from the saddle, with a horseshoe pin in his snowy tie, a more human collar, and a keener front for the proceedings withal. Carlton felt his eye upon him from the first, and returned the compliment by taking a new interest in the nameless youth; he had long read the minds of the other two; his fate was in this young fellow's keeping. He had no time, however, for idle speculation as to the result. Tom Ivey was back in the witness-box, and the accused was invited to cross-examine without delay.
Carlton soon showed that the interval had enabled him to profit by the experience of the previous day. His questions were cunningly prepared. He began with one not easy to put in an admissible form, yet he succeeded in so putting it.
"You have sworn," said he, "that your very first glimpse of me in the burning church was sufficient to create a certain suspicion in your mind. Did you mention this suspicion to anybody—that night?"
"Not that night."
"That month?"
"Nor yet that month, sir."
"And why?"
"I didn't suspect you any more, sir."
Carlton tried hard to suppress his satisfaction, as a sensation to which he was no longer entitled. He had come back to this in the night; but it was harder to abide by it during the day. He paused a little, in honest effort to rid his mind and tone of any taint of triumph; but his advantage had to be pursued.
"May I ask when this suspicion perished?"
"Before we had been five minutes together, trying to save the church!"
"You are getting upon dangerous ground," said the chairman. "What the witness thought, or when he ceased to think it, is not evidence."
"Another point, then," said Carlton: "do you remember the appearance of the lamps?"
"Yes."
"What was it?"
"They were crooked."
"Did you notice any paraffin spilt about?"
"Yes, when my attention was called to it."
"Where was this paraffin?"
"On the pews that were catching fire."
"And who called your attention to it?"
"You did yourself, sir."
"I did myself!" repeated Carlton, struggling with his tone. "That will do for that. I am going back for a moment to those suspicions of yours. Have you never mentioned them to a human being?"
"Yes, sir, I have."
"As things of the past?"
"As things of the past."
"When was it that you first spoke of them?"
"Last Friday—the eighteenth, sir."
"And did you then speak of your own accord, or were you questioned?"
"I was questioned."
"As the first man to reach the burning church?"
"Yes, sir."
"Take care!" cried Wilders. "That was a leading question."
"It is the last," replied Carlton. "I have finished with the witness. I would take this opportunity, however, of apologising to your worships for the various errors and excesses which I have committed, and may still commit, in my ignorance and inexperience of the law, and my indignation at the charge. In this respect, and this alone, I crave the indulgence of the bench, and beg leave to rectify one of my mistakes. I spoke in haste when I said, yesterday, that I had no questions to ask the witness Fuller. I desire, with your worships' permission, to have that witness recalled."
The chairman was rather sharp: subsequent evidence might make the recall of witnesses a necessity, but the lost opportunities of counsel, or of accused persons conducting their own defence, were an altogether insufficient reason. However, the man was in court, and the application would be allowed.
"I appreciate the privilege," said Carlton, "and promise that it shall not detain us many moments."
He was becoming as fluent and adroit as a past practitioner; in the pauses of the fight he felt ashamed of his facility, a haunting sense that it was indecentin him to defend himself at all. Yet he was one against many; and, in this matter, an innocent man. Fight he must, and that with all the skill and spirit in his power. His liberty, his self-respect; his one remaining chance, object, and desire in life; nay, his very life itself was at stake with these. It was no time for dwelling upon the past. The sin that he had committed was one thing; the crime that he had not committed was another. It was his duty to be just to himself. Yet this was how he treated himself, whenever he had time to think! He resolved to give himself fairer play than he seemed likely to receive at the hands of others; and his resolve declared itself in the ringing voice that shocked not a few who heard it, having found him guilty already in their hearts.
"About that very story of the empty rectory and the light in the church," he began, with Fuller—"about that perfectly true story," he added, wilfully, "which you told us yesterday. Did you tell it to anybody at the time?"
"Only Tom Ivey."
"Why only to him?"
"He asked me to keep that to myself."
"And did you?"
"I did my best, sir, but that slipped out one day when I was talking to——"
"Never mind his or her name. You did your best to keep the matter to yourself, but it slipped out one day in conversation. Now when did you last tell that true story, not counting yesterday, as fully and particularly as you told it here in court?Think. I want the exact date of the very last occasion."
"That was last Friday, sir—to-day's the 22nd—that would be the 18th of August."
"Last Friday, the 18th of August; a fatal day to me!" said Robert Carlton. "Thank you. That is all I want from you."
The justices put no question. The clerk did not re-examine. The witness was ordered to stand down. Then followed a short but heavy silence, pregnant with speculation as to the drift of all these questions and the object of so much unexplained insistence upon a date. It meant something. What could it mean? Carlton stood upright in the dock, calm, confident, inscrutable; it seemed a great many moments before the silence was broken by the formal tones of the clerk.
"Do you call any witness for the defence?" he asked.
Carlton dropped his eyes into the well of the court, and they fell upon a pair that were fastened upon his face with the glitter of fixed bayonets.
"Yes," said he. "I wish you to call Sir Wilton Gleed."
Quietly though distinctly spoken, the name clapped like thunder on the court. Amazement fell on all alike, for the issue between these two had been the common theme for days. Popular sympathy had rightly sided with morality, and its champion had lost nothing by his tactful magnanimity in refraining from sitting upon the bench; that he should be put in the box instead, and by his shameless adversary,was an audacity as hard to credit as to understand. There was a moment's hush, then a minute's buzz, to which the justices themselves contributed. Wilders muttered that the man was mad; his colleague on the right confessed himself nonplussed; his colleague on the left dropped his shaven chin upon his gold horseshoe, and his shoulders shook with joy. Meanwhile Sir Wilton had forced a grin and found his voice.
"You want me in the box, do you?"
"I do."
"Very well; you shall have me."
And he was sworn, still grinning, with an odd mixture of malevolence and deprecation for those who ran to read. "I meant to keep out of this," the florid face said; "but now I'm in it—well, you'll see! It's the fellow's own fault; his blood" etc., etc. But this was not what Sir Wilton was saying in his heart.
Carlton began at the beginning.
"You are the patron of the living of Long Stow, are you not?"
"You know I am."
"I want the bench to have it from you; kindly answer my question."
"I am the patron of the living of Long Stow," said Sir Wilton, with mock resignation.
"In the year 1880 did you, of your own free will and accord, present that living to me?"
"Yes, and I've repented it ever since!"
There was a sympathetic murmur at the back of the court. It was immediately checked. Every face was thrust forward, every ear strained, every eyeabsorbed between the prisoner in the dock and the witness in the box. It was no longer the uphill fight of one against many; it was single combat between man and man, and the electricity of single combat charged the air.
"You have repented it more than ever of late?" asked Carlton in steady tones. The skin upon his forehead seemed stretched with pain; the veins showed blue and swollen; but the many judged him from his voice alone.
"Naturally," sneered Sir Wilton.
"So much so that you were resolved I should resign?"
"I hoped you would have the decency to do so."
"Did you come to the rectory on the fifth of this month, and tell me it was my first duty to resign the living?"
"I don't remember the date."
"Was it the Saturday before Bank Holiday?"
"I daresay. Yes, it must have been. I didn't expect to find you there. I went to see the wreck and ruin of your home and church, not you."
"But you did come, and you did see me, and you did tell me it was my first duty to resign my living?"
"Certainly I did."
"Do you remember your words?"
"Some of them."
Carlton looked at his pocket-book—at a note made overnight.
"Do you remember making use of the following expressions: 'Law or no law, I'll have you out ofthis! I'll hound you out of it! I'll have you torn in pieces if you stay'?"
"I may have said something of the kind," said the witness, with assumed indifference.
"Did you, or did you not?" cried Carlton, slapping his hand on the rail of the dock; the voice, the look, the gesture were familiar to many present who had heard him preach; and thrilled them for all their new knowledge of the preacher.
"Really I can't recall my exact words. I rather fancied they were stronger."
Some one laughed at this, and the witness managed to recapture his grin; but his demeanour was unconvincing.
"I am not talking about their strength," said Carlton. "Will you swear that you didnotsay, 'I'll have you out of this! I'll hound you out of it'?"
"No, I will not."
"I thank you," said Carlton; and his ringing voice fell at a word to the pitch of perfect courtesy. He ticked off the note in his pocket-book, and the court breathed again; but its worthy president did more: he had forgotten his position for several minutes, and he hastened to reassert it with the first observation that entered his head.
"I don't see the point of this examination," said Canon Wilders.
"You will presently."
"If I don't I shall put a stop to it!"
Carlton raised his eyes from his notes, but not to the bench; they were only for the witness now.
"Do you remember when and where we met again?"
"You had the insolence to call at my house."
"Was it on a Monday morning, the first after the Bank Holiday?"
"I suppose it was."
"I do not ask you to recall your exact words on that occasion. I simply ask you to inform the bench whether I did, or did not, offer to resign the living then and there—on a certain condition."
"Yes; you did," said Sir Wilton, doggedly. He was very red in the face.
Carlton could not resist a moment's enjoyment of his discomfiture: it heightened the pleasure of letting him off.
"And did you decline?" he said at length.
"Stop a moment," said the chairman. "What was this condition, Sir Wilton?"
"Am I obliged to give it?"
"Oh, if you think it inexpedient——"
"I think it unnecessary," said the witness, emphatically. "I think it has nothing whatever to do with the case."
"In that case, Sir Wilton, we shall be only too happy not to press the point."
Carlton had a great mind to press it himself. He had invited his enemy to build the church out of his own pocket. The invitation had been declined. Would it also be denied? Carlton was curious to see; but he overcame his curiosity. It would not strengthen his defence, and to mere revenge he must not stoop. So one temptation was resisted, and oneadvantage thrown away, even in the final phase of the long duel between these good fighters. But the other saw the struggle, and felt as he had done when Carlton had returned him his stick in the ruins of the church.
"And did you decline?" repeated Carlton, in identically the same voice as before.
"I did."
"Did I then point out to you that I was not only entitled, but might be compelled, to keep my chancel, at any rate, 'in good and substantial repair, restoring and rebuilding when necessary'? I quote the Act, your worships, as I quoted it then. Do you remember, Sir Wilton?"
"I do."
"I made the point as plain as I have made it now?"
"Yes."
"And what did you say to that?"
The sudden change in the style of the question was glossed over by the single artifice which Robert Carlton permitted himself during the conduct of his case: instead of ringing triumphant, his voice dropped as though he feared the answer. Sir Wilton fell into the trap.
"I said, 'If that's the law I'll see you keep it. Go and build your church! Where there's a law there will be a penalty; go build your church or I'll enforce it.'"
"Which did you expect to enforce—the penalty or the law?"
"I didn't mind which," declared the witness, afterhesitation; and his indifference was less successfully assumed than before.
"Oh!" said Carlton; "so you didn't mind my building the church after all?"
Sir Wilton appealed wildly to the Bench.
"Am I to be browbeaten and insulted, by a convicted libertine and evil liver, without one word of protest or reproof?"
The chairman coloured with confusion and indecision.
"I am afraid that you must answer his question, Sir Wilton," said Mr. Preston, mildly.
"I share your opinion," said Rhadamanthus, in a tone that went further than the words.
The chairman threw up his chin with an air, and fixed the accused with his sternest glance.
"Pray what are you endeavouring to establish by this round-about and impertinent examination?"
"In plain language?" asked Robert Carlton.
"The plainer the better."
"Then I am endeavouring to establish—and Iwillestablish, either here or at the assizes—the fact that that man there"—pointing to Sir Wilton Gleed—"has tried by fair means and by foul to rob me of a benefice which is still mine in more than name. And I will further establish, either here or at the higher court, if you like to send me there, the patent and the blatant fact that this very charge is the last and the foulest means by which that man has attempted to get rid of me!"
His clear voice thundered through the little court;his fine eye flashed with as fine a scorn. But it was neither look nor tone that made the silence when he ceased. It was the first unrestrained expression of a personality incomparably stronger than any other there present; it was the first just and unanimous—if unconscious—appreciation of that personality in that place. There was a round clock that ticked many times and noisily before the presiding magistrate broke the spell.
"A-bom-in-able language!" cried he in the separate syllables of his most important moments. "You deserve to answer for your words alone in the other court of which you speak!"
"I intend to prove them in this one," retorted Carlton, "if you give me fair play."
"Oh, by all means let him have fair play!" exclaimed the witness, in high tones that trembled. "I can take care of myself; don't studyme. Let him say what he likes, and let those who know his character and mine judge between him and me."
Carlton looked at the quivering lip between the cropped whiskers, and his jaws snapped on a smile as he returned to his pocket-book. But the whole of his examination of Sir Wilton Gleed does not call for elaborate report: its weakness and its strength will be recognised with equal readiness. With a stronger spirit on the bench, or a weaker spirit in the dock, or even a capable solicitor to prosecute for the police, much of it had never been; as the play was cast it was the accused clergyman who presided over that country court for the longest hour in his enemy's life; nor, when he had won his ascendancy, did he use hispower as unsparingly as in the winning of it. The witness was allowed to come out of the corner into which he had been driven before his appeal to the bench; he had contradicted himself, and the contradiction was left to tell its own tale without being pressed home. On the other hand, some startling admissions were obtained in regard to the responsibility with which the witness had finally sought to saddle the accused; he had bade him build the church because he believed Carlton would find it an impossible task; he recklessly admitted it, with a pale bravado that imposed upon few people in court, and on but one upon the bench.
"You were still determined to get rid of me," said Carlton, "one way or another?"
"I was."
"And this struck you as another way?"
"It did—at the moment."
"Ah," murmured the chairman, "we are all subject to the impulse of the moment!"
Carlton put this point aside.
"And why did you think that I should find it an impossible task to rebuild the church?"
"I thought you would find a difficulty in getting local men to work for you."
"Your grounds for thinking that?"
"I considered your reputation in the district."
"Any other reason?"
"One or two builders and masons had spoken to me on the subject."
Carlton found a new place in his pocket-book, and read out a list of nine names.
"Were any of these local men among the number?"
"Yes."
"All of them?"
"Ye—es."
"What! You admit having discussed me, during the present month, and since I first spoke to you about rebuilding the church, with these nine local builders or stonemasons?"
"I don't deny it," said Sir Wilton, stoutly.
"And do you know of any builder or stonemason in the neighbourhood with whom you havenotdiscussed me?"
"Can't say I do."
"That's quite enough," said Carlton. "I shall not ask you what you said. I do not purpose calling these men, at this court; time enough for that at the assizes." And without further comment he took the witness through one or two details of their last interview in the ruins; by no means all; indeed, the date was the point most insisted upon.