"Death or victory! Death or victory! Father, I accept your dying charge. I leave not your gun again till Zaragoza be saved! I claim it as my due!"
The next moment Agostina had sprung to her feet, for she was no longer alone with the dying and the dead. The Commander himself, Don José Palafox, a nobleman, who in this emergency had come forward and placed himself at the head of the troops of the garrison in the besieged city, was standing beside her, regarding her steadfastly; and, though perfectly fearless in the moment of danger, Agostina felt abashed before his fixed gaze, and dropped her eyes.
"Maiden," he asked gently, "whose hand was it fired that last shot, after the guns had long been silent?"
A wounded man half rose from the ground at their feet, and he pointed his finger at Agostina.
A wounded man half rose from the ground at their feet.Page270.
"It was she who did it, Señor; she is the daughter of one of those who lie dead beneath your feet. He had fallen. We had all fallen. Help did not come, but the foe was coming. We could hear the tramp of their approaching feet. Then Agostina was in our midst. Her father's last charge was given, 'fire the gun.' She obeyed. She checked the oncoming tide. She routed the advancing foe. Agostina did that."
But Agostina had not stayed to hear her praises sung; she was on her knees beside a mangled form. The tears were raining from her eyes. She was no longer the heroine of the gun. She was a daughter weeping for the loss of a loved and loving father.
"They loved each other so well—so well," murmured the wounded man, as his head sank back. "Poor Agostina!"
Don José would have said more to Agostina, but his kind heart told him that the moment was not yet come; and he merely ordered his men to lift up the body of the dead gunner, and to give it decent burial in any spot that Agostina should direct. It was some salve to her great grief that her father should lie in consecrated ground. So many heaps of slain had to be buried where they fell. The besieged had not time or strength to carry them away.
The following day Don José, making his roundsand instituting a more detailed survey of the wall which had been indeed terribly shaken and shattered by the firing of yesterday, was surprised to find Agostina hard at work cleaning the gun which had been her father's up till now, and to which, as yet, no fresh gunner had been appointed, for, indeed, the Commander was getting very short of men with skill enough to take charge of the guns. He stood for a few seconds watching her attentively; and when after loading the piece with the precision and skill which showed a thorough understanding of the task in hand, she raised her sad eyes, she coloured very slightly, and saluted exactly as a soldier would have done at sight of his commanding officer.
Don José returned the salute, and came up to the girl's side.
"I have been hearing of you, my brave child," he said. "What can I do for you in return for what you did yesterday for this city?"
"Señor," she replied, "I have but one boon to crave. Give me my father's place here at this gun. Let me serve it as he served it, so long as the siege lasts. He has taught me how. You shall not find me remiss. I think I am not unskilful. Yesterday, in the presence of the dead, I vowed a vow—I vowed not to leave my post here till the French should retreat from Zaragoza. Let me but keep that vow. Give me here the right to hold my father's place, theright to draw his pay, and that portion of food for the helpless babes at home that every soldier's family may claim. I ask nothing else!" She spoke very simply; there was no thought in her heart of playing the hero's part. She asked bread for the children, and the right to earn it for them. If deep down in her heart the fire of patriotism was burning fiercely, she never thought of posing as a heroine sacrificing herself for her country. No, hers was a simple nature. She loved her father with passionate devotion. She longed to accomplish the work which had been his. She yearned after the little helpless children, and felt she must earn for them the necessities of life. Provisions were beginning to run short. Rations were provided for the soldiers and their families; but the citizens were face to face with a scarcity that might become actual famine ere long. The little ones must not starve; such had been Agostina's leading thought. She would win for them their daily bread. She had been a mother to them for long; now she would be a father too.
Don José's face was gravely tender as he replied:
"My child, your petition is granted. No more noble or courageous custodian of that gun could I find within these walls. I appoint you its gunner, with double pay. When peace has been restored, and I can tell to the world the story of the Maid of Zaragoza, it will go hard if the nation do notprovide a pension too for so brave a daughter of her soil!"
Agostina's cheek glowed; she bent her knee for a moment, and ere Don José quite knew what she was about to do, she had pressed her lips upon his hand.
"Our Blessed Lady guard and keep you, Señor," she said. "You have granted me my heart's desire!"
It was a strange heart's desire, in truth! To stand upon that battered wall in the teeth of the enemy's guns; to be a target for the shot and shell of those terrible batteries; to serve that smoking gun, and send its fierce answers forth into the hostile camp of the invaders. Others fell about and around Agostina, but no shot touched her. They came to say that she bore a charmed life; and it, at least, was plain that the thought of fear could never find a lodging place within her breast.
Then came a desperate day when it seemed indeed as though all were lost. A new battery was being built over against a convent, whose walls were weak already, and almost ready to fall. Strengthen them as they might, the garrison was helpless to effect any real improvement in their condition. They fell almost at the first shock when the new battery opened fire, and the French, rushing in through the breaches made, took possession of one quarter of the city, and sent a haughty summons to Don José to surrender.
The situation was tragic enough. They werenow between two fires, and only a wide space like a boulevard separated the hostile camps. Don José had long been expecting succour from his brother, Don Francisco, who had sent word that he was marching to his relief with three thousand men and stores of food and ammunition. But there was no sign of his near approach as yet; and the city was in pitiful plight.
"Surrender! By capitulation alone can Zaragoza be saved."
Such was the haughty message from the French General Lefèbre, brought to Don José and his exhausted men after the fall of the quarter of the city called St. Engracia.
The Commander looked around upon the ring of gaunt men about him, and over at the shattered buildings of the town. What answer was it his duty to return? Was he justified in sacrificing all these brave lives? What did the people of Zaragoza think of it themselves? They had at least a right to be asked. It was they upon whom the brunt of these fearful days fell.
"What answer shall we return to General Lefèbre?" he asked, looking from one to the other; and the men themselves seemed scarce to know what answer to make.
Then a voice from the crowd shouted out the words:
"Let us ask the Maid of Zaragoza!"
Don José's face lighted at the suggestion. He turned in the direction of the speaker, and cried aloud:
"Go—ask the Maid of the Gun what answer we shall send back. By her word we will abide!"
A strange thrill of enthusiasm ran through the whole city as the messenger sped forth to the farther wall to ask of Agostina what the Commander should answer. Strange as was the choice of such an umpire, there was something fitting and dramatic about it that fired the Spaniards, and wrought a strange kind of exultation among them.
Soon a gathering murmur in the distance, which increased to a perfect roar as the crowd surged onwards, showed that the answer was being brought back, and that it had stirred to the depths the impulsive and excitable populace.
"War to the knife! War to the knife!" The words detached themselves at last from the general clangour, and the soldiers, flashing out their swords, took up the answer of the Maid of Zaragoza, and the welkin rang with the shout—"War to the knife!"
A few days after those four words had been sent by Don José to General Lefèbre, the longed-for help came; and the eyes of Agostina shone and glowed as she watched from her gun upon the wall the French soldiers in full retreat blocking the road to Pamplona. The siege of Zaragoza was at an end; and the Commander came himself and fastened a medal of honour upon the heroine's breast.
"Thou shalt never listen to the rogue again!"
"But, father——"
"Silence, girl! Have I not said it? Thou shalt never go to hear him preach again! He is a pestilent knave. He will bring all who hear him to trouble. Dost hear me, girl? Thou shalt not go!"
"Nay, but, sweet father!"
"Silence!" thundered the angry man. "I have spoken; let that be enough. Thou shalt have no more of this preaching dinned into thine ears, and neither will I. Thou shalt never hear Mr. Bunyan again. He has done harm enough already."
Agnes was absolutely aghast at this sudden outbreak, for which she was totally unprepared. She and her father had for some while been attending with great interest and profit the teachings and preachings of the notable Puritan, John Bunyan, whose wonderful personal experiences brought home to his hearers a sense of reality which was often lacking in other teachers.
Farmer Beaumont had, however, of late beenstrangely silent and morose, so that his daughter had been rather afraid to speak to him. She had noted that he had not mentioned the approaching preaching, which she was most anxious to attend; but she had no idea that any great change had come over him till he suddenly burst forth in this manner, as they were sitting together at supper, after his return from the neighbouring town, where he had spent the previous night.
Of course, Agnes was well aware that by many people this John Bunyan was regarded as a dangerous man, and that these inveighed against him as a preacher and teacher of strange new doctrines. Sometimes, she knew, it was dangerous to attend these meetings. She had heard it whispered before now that persons were often brought up before the authorities and fined or otherwise punished for offences of this sort, but it never occurred to her that her sturdy father would be frightened. She had no fear for herself. She believed she heard Heaven-sent gospel from this preacher, and she longed to hear him again.
It was plain to her that somebody had got hold of her father during his absence from home, and had worked upon the fears that were beginning to agitate him before. She knew that there was a lawyer there—a man she especially disliked and distrusted. Once he had been suitor for her hand; for FarmerBeaumont was reputed to be a warm man, and Agnes was likely to come into the bulk of his property and savings at his death. But the girl had repelled his advances with energy; having an intense dislike to the sly, fox-faced man of the quill, and he now repaid her dislike in kind, and she believed that on more than one occasion he had sought to poison her father's mind against her.
She suspected that this was the case now. It was plain that the old man was in a very angry mood.
After sitting awhile in glowering silence, he broke out again even more fiercely than before.
"I'll have a promise from thee, girl; thou shalt promise me here and now that thou wilt never go and hear one of his preachings more. Say the words and have done with it."
"Oh, father, do not ask me to make such a promise as that!"
"Ay, but I will. I'll have no disobedient daughter in my house. I've had a talk to Farry about it. Thou first will not have him for a husband at my bidding; now thou art taking up with this pestilent preacher Bunyan——"
"But, father, thou didst take me thyself to hear him, and said he was a godly man. It is Farry's evil tongue that hath wrought this change in thee. Prithee, pardon my boldness, but I dare not promise what is against my conscience!"
"It is against thy conscience to obey thy father, girl?" raved the angry farmer. "A pretty conscience in all sooth. I'll have that promise from thee to-night, or else I'll drive thee from my doors, and disown thee for my daughter!"
Agnes was in great distress, for she loved her father, and had always been an obedient daughter; but the stern tenets of the Puritan divines had penetrated deeply into her soul; and she was sorely afraid that by obeying her father she would be trifling with her soul's salvation. Most sincerely did she desire to do right; but it was so hard for her to know what was most right.
At last after much deliberation and some silent prayer Agnes brought herself to say, whilst her father had spent much of his energy in railing and threats:
"Dear father, I will promise you this, that so long as you live I will not go to one of these preachings without your consent; and I beg of you not to ask me more than that."
On hearing these words spoken whilst the tears ran down her cheeks, the father's rage suddenly abated. He kissed Agnes and told her that she was a good girl after all; and the storm in the house died down to a calm.
But poor Agnes was very unhappy. It seemed to her as though in obeying her father she had in some sort violated her conscience and betrayed her Lord.When she consulted her married sister and brother-in-law on the subject (all ardent admirers of Mr. Bunyan), she found that they also took this view of the matter, and her trouble became very great.
It was now her chief aim and object to gain her father's consent to her attending the approaching meeting, where John Bunyan was to preach and afterwards to administer the Sacrament. It seemed to her equally impossible to remain away or to break her word to her father; and her only hope of real peace of mind lay in winning his consent to her going there.
During the last two days he had been much kinder to her; but still she was in great fear lest he was in the same mind with regard to Bunyan and the preaching. She got her sister to come over to the farm the evening before, and by talking and a certain amount of coaxing and argument, they at last won the old man's permission that Agnes should accompany her relatives to the meeting at Gamlinhay, they promising to get her taken and returned, as the farmer had no mind to assist her by sparing one of his own horses to carry her, and the distance was too far for her to walk.
It was a great joy to Agnes to win this permission; and she was more sure than ever that it was Lawyer Farry's jeering words and overbearing arguments that had caused her father so to turn against her and thepreacher; for since he had been at home with her again, he had become quiet and reasonable.
But she thought it would be wise to be off and away early upon the morrow, lest he should in any wise change his mind; and so she rose with the sun, set about her morning tasks with great energy, and had taken her own breakfast and left everything in readiness for her father before she slipped into her riding dress, and made her way across the fields to her brother-in-law's house, without having caught a glimpse of the farmer. Indeed, she had left the house before he was astir.
Her sister received her kindly, and told her that they had arranged for her to ride behind Mr. Wilson, the minister of Hitchin, who would call on his way at the house. But time went on, and there was no sign of him, and poor Agnes's face grew pale with anxiety. Her brother had only one horse and would take his wife behind him. Agnes could not burden them; no horse could carry three riders. Strong as she was, she could not walk the whole distance in the time, since they had waited now so long. It seemed for a moment as though after all she must be left behind, when suddenly her sister, who had been gazing down the road, cried out eagerly:
"He is coming!—He is coming!—Surely, husband, that is Mr. Wilson on his nag?"
For a few minutes all thought this; but Agnes suddenly gave a little cry, and exclaimed:
Bunyan looked down at her with rather a grim smile upon his face.Page283.
"It is not Mr. Wilson—it is Mr. John Bunyan himself!"
"Then he shall carry you, Agnes!" cried her sister, "and you will have the pleasure of his godly conversation on the road."
The heart of Agnes was full of joy at the bare thought of such an honour; but when her brother ran out to the gate to make the request, they heard Mr. Bunyan's voice say quite roughly:
"No; I will not take her."
Sudden tears rushed to the eyes of Agnes; she hid behind her sister that he might not see her weep, and again she heard the tones of his voice—the voice she had come to love so well.
"If I do, her father will be grievously angry. I have heard how he has changed towards me. I will not set a man at variance with his children. Children are an heritage from the Lord."
At that Agnes ran forward, and told him what had happened, and how her father had consented that she should go to the preaching. Bunyan looked down at her with rather a grim smile upon his face.
"Ay, child; but did he say you might ride pillion behind the preacher?"
Agnes made no reply; but her sister pleaded for her, and in the end Bunyan consented to carry her, though he told her plainly:
"If I were you, maiden, I would go home to myold father, and seek to soften his heart by childlike obedience and submission, rather than urge him vehemently to gain mine own way."
They had not proceeded far on the road before they met a man on horseback riding in an opposite direction. To her dismay and annoyance Agnes saw that it was Lawyer Farry, and she felt certain he was on his way to her father's house. She knew well how he would stir up the old man against the preacher, and it could not be but that her father would be very angry to hear that she had been seen riding behind Mr. Bunyan to the preaching. Probably he would think this thing had been arranged beforehand, and no doubt Farry would do his best to encourage that idea.
Bunyan, however, not knowing the lawyer, paid no heed to the stranger, though he continued to give Agnes much good advice as to her relations with her father, advice that the girl promised faithfully to follow.
"For, indeed, I have always loved him dutifully; and till lately he has been a tender father to me. But he has been embittered against those things which I hold so needful for my soul's salvation, and I am torn in twain betwixt my duty to him and to God."
"Ay, ay, my child, thy path may be sometimes a difficult one; but remember that faith in Christ isenough for salvation, and thou wilt never imperil thy soul by abstaining from hearing some godly preaching, albeit such preaching may strengthen and sustain thee. God gave thee thy father and bade thee reverence and obey him. There is no doubt about that duty, so look to it in the future."
This gentle counsel set Agnes thinking deeply; and since it came from Mr. Bunyan himself, she could not but believe it good. Greatly as she delighted in the preaching and meeting which she had made so great a point of attending, she was possessed by a longing to be at home again, to ask her father's pardon if she had thought too little of his wishes, and to show him in the future a greater patience and affection than had been possible of late.
At the close of the meeting she was in some perplexity how to get home, since Mr. Bunyan was not going back that way; but at last she found a young woman who gave her a mount behind her on her horse, and in this way she reached her father's house, although it was now late, and her sister counselled her to come home with her for the night.
But Agnes thought her duty was to go home, as perhaps her father would be waiting for her. When she saw the house all dark and closed, her heart sank somewhat; but she would not be daunted. Going up she knocked at the door and then called aloud underthe window of her father's room, asking him to throw her down the key, which he always took up to bed with him.
Suddenly a fierce voice came thundering from the lattice:
"Thou shalt never enter my house again. Thou art no daughter of mine. Where thou hast been all day thou mayest go at night."
"But, father, father, you did give me leave to go," she pleaded.
"Did I give thee leave to ride behind Mr. Bunyan? Go to him, thou disobedient girl; thou art no child of mine."
And so saying he banged to the lattice very fiercely, and Agnes was left standing without in the cold and damp.
For a moment she thought she would go to her sister's house, but then the memory of Bunyan's words came over her, and she resolved not to be driven away by her father's harshness, but to pass her night in the barn praying for him, and to seek on the morrow to soften him by her prayers and to tell him of the advice Mr. Bunyan had given her. She longed to be reconciled to him, and lead him back to the old paths by her filial gentleness. And as she made her way to the barn, she said in her heart:
"That is the work of wicked Farry. He has been with father again, poisoning his mind; but I will prayfor him, and perchance on the morrow he will hear me, and let me come to him once more."
But upon the morrow the old man seemed more implacable than ever. He was rather startled at finding his daughter in the barn in her riding-dress; but he would not hear a word from her. He poured out his fury upon her in such ungoverned language that it was all the poor girl could do to keep from turning and fleeing from him. Yet, mindful of her resolve to bear all meekly, she continued to follow him about and plead to be taken in; till at last the old man in a fit of ungovernable fury ran at her with the pitch-fork that he had in his hand, and Agnes barely escaped receiving a serious injury.
"I will go to Prudence's house for a while, father," she said gently after this. "I trust by the morrow you will have forgiven me if I did wrong in riding with Mr. Bunyan. Indeed, he was loth to take me; but I was so anxious to go. Perhaps I was somewhat wrong to urge it so vehemently; but one day you will forgive, and let me be your daughter again."
Yet in spite of all the persuasions of the married daughter and son-in-law, and the dutiful gentleness of Agnes, it was not till the third day that the old man's fit of passionate fury spent itself, and he rather sullenly consented that Agnes should come home once more.
When first she began her accustomed duties about the house, he was very morose, and would scarcely speak to her; but gradually her gentleness and sweetness seemed to soften him, and upon the day following he appeared to have forgotten his ill-will, and they spent the evening peacefully together in cheerful conversation.
But the old man complained of being cold, which, indeed, was scarcely to be wondered at since the wind had changed and brought with it a fall of snow. Agnes gave him his supper somewhat earlier than usual, and he went to bed, she following his example only a little later.
Towards midnight she was awakened by the sound of dismal groaning from her father's room, and rushing to him discovered that he was in sore pain, and could scarcely draw his breath.
"I have been struck to the heart!" he gasped, "I am about to die. God be merciful to me, a sinner, and forgive me the sins I have committed towards you, my daughter!"
Agnes, in great alarm, flew about, kindling the fire, and making something hot for her father to drink, hoping thus to soothe his pain and restore him; but there was a grey, ashen look upon his face which frightened her terribly; and she was all alone with him in the house.
The terrible spasm lasted about half an hour,and then the old man fell back in a dying state. Agnes, so soon as she saw herself quite helpless to assist him, rushed forth to her sister's house, and make known her terrible plight. They all followed her back in great dismay; but only to witness the last struggle as the old man passed into eternity.
Agnes was crushed to the earth by this blow; but she was not suffered to mourn her dead in peace. The next day her brother-in-law came to her with a very disturbed face, and said that Lawyer Farry desired speech of her, and when Agnes would have refused to see him, she was told that it would not be wise to do so, as the matter on which he had come was of grave moment.
When she saw the lawyer's evil, shifty face, and the gleam of triumphant malevolence in his eyes she felt her heart sink for a moment; but then rallying her courage she met his gaze fearlessly, and asked him what his business was with her.
"I have come to offer you the only hope of escaping the punishment of your crime. There is one and only one way by which you can save yourself from the awful doom that awaits you."
"You are speaking in riddles to me, sir," said Agnes; "I pray you say plainly what you have come to say, and leave me."
His eyes looked more malevolent still as he came a step nearer.
"Girl," he said, in very low and terrible tones, "do you know that the doom of the parricide is death at the stake?"
Agnes recoiled in horror from the word parricide. The colour forsook her cheeks; she trembled as she stood. What awful thought had come into that man's evil mind?
"Yes, guilty woman, you may well tremble and quail, now that your guilty purpose is known. But listen yet. I am the only person who can bear testimony against you, and I will save you on one condition: Be my wife, and I will say nothing. The world will never know that Agnes Beaumont is a murderess—a parricide!"
Suddenly the girl's righteous wrath blazed up. She saw the man's motive in making this foul charge, this fearful threat. He knew that her father had left her a rich woman, that all he died possessed of was to be hers. To get her and her fortune into his power he was ready to perjure himself in the most frightful way; she saw the fell purpose in his eyes; but her spirit did not desert her. She stood for a moment in silent prayer, and then said:
"I will never marry you. God knows that I am innocent of the awful sin you lay at my door. I will trust to Him to save me from the malice of my persecutors."
It was in vain that the man by every argument andthreat in his power sought to shake the steady courage of the girl, and to bend her to his will. In vain he painted for her the horrors of the fiery death of the parricide; in vain he sought to show her how impossible it would be to prove her innocence. She stood looking fearlessly into his evil face, and when he would have put out a hand to draw her nearer, she slipped out of his reach, and with a quiet and lofty mien walked to the door, turning round at the last to say:
"May God forgive you for the cruel deed you are about to do. Into His hands I entrust my cause."
Later in the day her sister came to her in deep agitation.
"Agnes, Agnes, why wouldest thou not submit to his will? He is such a crafty, cruel man. He will obtain thine undoing! Oh, sister, sister, dost know what he is about to swear before the coroner to-morrow?"
"That I poisoned my father—he has said as much," answered Agnes quietly; "but he can prove nothing that he says."
"Nay, but it is more than that. He has got such a story. He says that Mr. Bunyan did give thee the poison, and that he saw you twain riding together, and heard you speaking together of our father as he passed. He says that when he got here poor father told him that he was sure you meant him ill, and thatyou would find a way of getting rid of him, since you only promised obedience to his wishes so long as he lived. Oh, the story he has made of it! And then he points out how loth father was to take you back, and that he turned you away and said you were no daughter of his, and might go back to those you had come from. He learned so many things from us, ere ever we knew the hideous thing in his mind. Now he says his case is complete and that only by marrying him can you escape that awful death. Oh, Agnes, Agnes, wilt thou not do his bidding to save thyself from that fate?"
"Take a false vow of love and obedience to a man like that? Oh, sister, how could I? And what would life be with him afterwards?"
"But they say it will be death at the stake!" wept Prudence.
"And has not the Lord promised 'When thou passest through the fire I will be with thee'?" asked Agnes calmly. "I dare not be false to Him; and I know He will not be false to me. Be not afraid; this trial may be sent for some good purpose. But it cuts me to the heart that he should bring in Mr. Bunyan's name. That is a needless piece of wickedness and falsehood."
"It is all false together; but he vows that Mr. Bunyan wished to get possession of father's money by wedding with you, and that therefore he gaveyou the poison and bid you use it upon the first opportunity."
To the two inexperienced women, clinging together in their hour of affliction, it seemed to them as though the doom of Agnes had already well nigh gone forth. They knew how clever and unscrupulous Lawyer Farry was, and how successful he generally proved in carrying through the schemes to which he gave his mind. Already the neighbourhood was ringing with the story that Agnes had poisoned her father, and although many refused to believe in so monstrous a charge, yet it was very well known how violent the old man's rage had been against his daughter, and that he had died also immediately after Agnes had been taken back to his house. This was not evidence, but it raised doubts and suspicions in many minds.
The coroner and the jury had assembled, having first viewed the corpse, and Mr. Hatfield, the surgeon, testified emphatically that he regarded death as due to natural causes. The old man had long been suffering from some cardiac derangement, and the excitement into which he had recently thrown himself would be quite enough to account for the fatal seizure. Agnes Beaumont, he added, had given him free leave to make a post-mortem examination, but in his opinion the thing was not necessary.
Farry was then bidden to state what he knewand what grounds he had for asserting that his friend had been poisoned. At first he was very bold and confident in his manner, but he soon found that it was a very different matter intimidating young and ignorant women and dealing with a shrewd man of business. Under cross-examination his tale became confused, contradictory, absurd; his malice flashed out so unmistakably as to put all the jury on their guard, and when Agnes's sister stepped forward and asked to be permitted to say that Mr. Farry had promised to be silent if Agnes would consent to be his wife, a deep murmur of indignation ran through the room, and the man knew himself defeated and disgraced.
When Agnes was called, and came forward with her simple and unvarnished tale, it only needed a look into her calm, sweet face to know that she spoke the truth. She freely told of the difference she had had with her father, and how Mr. Bunyan had warned her not to urge her own desire too much, but to be dutiful and obedient. And her sister corroborating this statement, and adding all she had seen of Agnes's gentle submissiveness on her return, and another person giving testimony that John Bunyan had a wife living, and that the idea of his wanting Agnes's hand was nonsense, the whole of Farry's ingenious and malicious tale fell to the ground, and he stood like one who would never lift up his head again.
"But if there be any doubt," said Agnes, looking at the coroner, "Mr. Hatfield is here; he will make the needful examination."
"That is a question for the jury to decide," answered the coroner, with a smile. "Let them retire, and give us their verdict."
A few minutes was all these honest men required before announcing that death was due to natural causes; and then the coroner turned upon Farry and with a most scathing reproof dismissed him, warning him that he had brought himself perilously near a charge of perjury, had Agnes been a vindictive foe.
Then when the man had slunk out like a beaten hound, he took Agnes's hands in his, and said:
"You have been a courageous girl, my dear, in withstanding the artifices of that wicked man. Hardly another maid so young and unprotected but would have been intimidated into accepting his condition. What made you so brave to withstand him?"
"I do not think I was brave," answered Agnes; "but I knew I should be helped."
The old man smiled and patted her head.
"Perhaps that is the best kind of courage after all."
The mother was stricken down with the load of her grief; it seemed to her more than she could bear. Her two sons—her only sons—young men of such promise, such beauty, such piety—lying in that foul prison of Newgate, of which many horrid tales were told; lying there waiting a trial, which all believed could only end in one way. It was well known how fierce was the wrath of the King against all who had taken any share in the late rebellion, and neither the youth of the offenders nor their virtuous lives would be likely to have any effect upon the sentence which they had brought upon themselves by their recent ill-advised act. The mother buried her face in her hands and groaned aloud.
Those were sad and anxious days in many homes, particularly in the West of England, where the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion had broken out, and had been quickly quenched in fire and bloodshed.
To Mrs. Hewling it seemed a terrible visitationof Providence that her two promising sons had been in any way mixed up in it.
"If I had only kept them with me here in England, they would have been safe!" she moaned.
It was not very long since Mrs. Hewling had been left a widow, in affluent circumstances indeed, but with a large family to bring up. She had two most promising sons, Benjamin and William, the first twenty-one and the second close upon nineteen years of age, and Benjamin's twin-sister Hannah was a beautiful girl of much promise, who, at this crisis of her mother's life, was acting as her chief support and helper. There were several little sisters, scarcely more than children; but the intermediate sons had died in infancy, and the chords of the mother's heart seemed to twine themselves about Benjamin and William in a fashion which made their present perilous situation a thing that could hardly be borne by her.
And the bitterest thought of all was that had she only kept the boys with her in London after their father's death, instead of letting them go to Holland, to see something of the world and complete their education, all this misery might have been spared.
Adverse as the citizens of London were to many of the methods and opinions of the King, still there was no desire at present to get rid of him by anyviolent revolution, or to place the crown upon another head. A few years later, and the whole nation rose in a bloodless revolt against the man who had broken his pledges and his coronation vow, and would have plunged England into a fierce struggle against the trammels of Popery. But at that time things were not ripe for such a drastic measure, nor was the Duke of Monmouth such a sovereign as the nation could accept. But here and there where the Protestant spirit burnt more fiercely than elsewhere, or over in Holland, where the claim of the Duke had been more freely allowed, and where he was eagerly recruiting forces to take with him to England, his cause seemed a righteous cause, and inspired enthusiasm and devotion. Mrs. Hewling could not altogether wonder that her two sons, reared in all the most ardent Puritan and Protestant tenets of the day, should have been fired with a desire to join the expedition, and to strive to strike a blow for their faith upon England's shores.
And now, that ill-starred revolt having come to its tragic end, her boys were amongst those who, having first sought flight, had since then surrendered themselves to justice. It had been told her by friends that they were lying in Newgate prison, and would almost immediately be sent back whence they had come, to stand their trial at the Western Assizes,over which the fierce and notoriously cruel Judge Jeffreys was to preside.
So paralysed by horror was the poor mother, whose health had long been very frail, that she had been unable herself to leave the house and seek permission to visit her sons. And Hannah had persuaded her not to attempt a task so much beyond her powers.
"I will go first, mother," she said. "I will go with my good grandfather, who will gain me admission, and we will take money with us. Money will do much within Newgate, they say, to ameliorate the condition of the prisoners. Another day thou shalt go; but let me be the first."
So Hannah had gone under the safe-keeping of her grandfather, Mr. Kiffin, a citizen well known and greatly respected in the town, and the mother was awaiting their return in a fever of anxiety.
She was turning over in her bewildered brain a thousand schemes for the preservation of her boys. But the more she pondered, the more helpless did she become. True, she had many friends, and several possessed of wealth and influence in the city; but these were for the most part, from their strong Protestant and dissenting or Puritan leanings, so obnoxious to the Court party that intervention by them would do rather harm than good.
Her own father, Mr. Kiffin, was one of theseHe would have no fear in presenting a petition; yet if such a movement on his part were fore-ordained to failure, it would be better it should not be made. Others more likely to obtain a hearing would probably be afraid to intermeddle in such a matter. Those were the days in which it was none too safe to show sympathy towards the King's enemies, or towards those who had distinguished themselves by opposition to the Established Church. The penalty for showing kindness to dissenters was often extraordinarily severe; and what would it be to take a friendly interest in youths who had been concerned in treasonable rebellion?
With despair in her heart the mother sat waiting, pondering and weeping; longing unspeakably for the husband who was no more, and feeling the desolation of her widowhood as she had never felt it before.
Then the door opened quietly, and a tall figure glided in wrapped from head to foot in a long, dark cloak.
"Hannah!" cried the mother, "have you seen them?—have you seen my boys? Oh, give me news of them! My heart is hungry!"
The girl threw back the hood which was drawn over her head, and her face showed pale in the twilight. It was a very beautiful face, lighted by the enthusiasm of a great love—a love that conquers fear, and sinks all thought of self in devotion tothe object at heart. It was such a face as we see sometimes on painted window, or in chiselled marble—a face full of lofty self-abnegation and simple heroism. The eyes shone like stars, and the mother, looking at her daughter, held out her arms, and cried:
"Ah, Hannah, Hannah, if any can save them it will be thou."
Hannah knelt at her mother's feet and spoke quietly and rapidly.
"I have seen them, mother. They were together, with many others. But my grandfather had them taken out and brought into a separate room, where we could talk. It was a dreadful place, that first,"—she shivered slightly as she spoke,—"but they will not go back to it. Grandfather is staying, and he will arrange all that. I saw them. Oh, mother, you need not fear for them! They have no fear for themselves. They are ready for the worst that may befall. Their only fear is lest they were wrong in taking up arms. When they did it, it seemed a right and holy thing. They have heard other things since coming to England, and are the less confident of that. But they have no other fear. If they have done amiss they are willing to die. They both say that. It is not death that can affright them. They have made their peace with God."
The mother's tears ran over, although there was something of joy in hearing such an assurance.
"But we must save them, daughter!—we must save them!"
"We will try," answered Hannah steadily, yet without the brightness of hope in her eyes. "We will leave no stone unturned. We will accomplish what can be accomplished. But——"
The last word was little more than a sigh. It was not meant to reach her mother's ears, yet it did: and Mrs. Hewling exclaimed:
"But what, daughter, but what? What hast thou heard more?"
"I have heard nought that we have not been told before; only, mother mine, when the grim walls of a prison are about one, and grim gaolers are talking with that cool certainty of things they have grown familiar with, the horrible reality seems to come over one like a flood; and the awful doom comes ever nearer and nearer. The boys have heard much—the implacable temper of the King; his bloodthirsty mood; his choice of the Judge who is to arraign them. In Newgate it is whispered that there will be such a slaughter in the West as has not been heard of in this land. I felt myself shaking all over at the things I heard there. Oh, I fear for my brothers, I fear, I fear!"
The mother clasped her in her arms, and they mingled their tears together. Hannah told in broken words of all that she had gleaned from her brothers,of what they had dared and done, how they looked, how they had stood the journey and the prison; and how they were soon to be sent down to the West Country, to be tried at those places where they had been seen in arms against the King.
"That is the worst of it!" cried the mother. "Had it been here in London town our friends and the influence of our party might have had weight. But over yonder—so far away! Ah, if I could but go there with them!"
"Mother, I will go!" said Hannah, speaking firmly and resolutely. "I have thought of it all the way home. I have plans of all sorts in my head. Grandfather will soon be here, and then he will tell you more, and we will talk it over together. But I must be there. I must go with them. I must—I must!"
"But, my child, my child, how can I spare thee? They say that the King is so incensed that even to show pity for the condemned—for the prisoners—is accounted as a crime. Suppose that hurt were to befall thee?"
"Mother," she answered gently, "God can protect me, and I think He will. But be that as it may, I cannot let my brothers go to what may be their death alone. I must be there to visit them in their prison, to lighten the rigours of captivity, to provide them with whatever may be permitted in the wayof defence; to cheer and strengthen them (if so it must be) upon the very scaffold itself. Benjamin is as my second self. I could not be other than at his side. Oh, my brother—my brother!"
A rush of tears choked her voice; she sobbed upon her mother's breast; but the outbreak relieved the overcharged heart, and when her grandfather appeared she was the same calm, resolute maiden she had shown herself in the public streets, and in the dim retreats of the dreadful gaol.
Mr. Kiffin had made arrangements for the better lodging and treatment of his grandsons during their brief detention in Newgate; but he had heard that almost immediately they were to be sent west to be ready to stand their trial with others at the coming Assizes; and at the very name of these the mother's cheek paled.
"Yes, it is a terrible thought—the power that will be placed in the hands of one man—and he one noted for ferocity of temper and gross injustice to those who are brought before him. It is known too that the King has selected him for these very qualities to fill the dreadful office which will be his. Yet for our poor lads there may be this one chance: his cruelty is only rivalled by his greed of money; and we may appeal to his cupidity where we should appeal in vain to his clemency."
"Must we then offer him a bribe?" asked Mrs.Hewling, with a faint distaste in her tone, as though even with her sons' lives at stake, the thought of buying justice or mercy with gold had in it something repulsive to her better nature. Hannah's beautiful eyes were likewise turned upon her grandfather questioningly. It was an age when all sorts of things were bought and sold for hard cash, that never should have been so trafficked for; but in the stern Puritan tenets in which this family had been reared any sort of illicit bartering was strongly condemned.
"I did not mean exactly that; but yet we may perhaps move him through his love of money. You have both heard me speak of my old friend and fellow-citizen, with whom in past days I lived a long while, working with him as a brother might," and he named a name that was familiar to both mother and daughter.
"Well, strange as it may seem, the young barrister, now made a judge, this violent, bloodthirsty Jeffreys, is my old friend's kinsman, and, in fact, his next-of-kin. I had forgotten the fact, if indeed I ever knew it, till I had a letter from him a few days since reminding me of it, and asking if there was anything that he could do to aid us in our trouble. I have seen him, and he has promised to use every means in his power to gain the leniency of the Judge for our two dear lads. It is unluckily true thatthey have taken up arms against the King. It cannot but be proved against them, nor will they seek to deny it. By the law of the land they have merited death, and may even be condemned to suffer the full penalty. But as my friend informs me, out of the hundreds who will undergo sentence, not a few will escape the dread final penalty. Even the King in all his ferocity will not dare to slay by thousands, though he may by hundreds. Many will be condemned to death, who will afterwards be respited and undergo lighter sentences, or be let off with a heavy fine. In this matter the voice of the Judge will have weight; and my friend will use every argument to induce him to commute the death penalty (if passed upon Benjamin or William) into one that a heavy fine will cover."
Mother and daughter seemed to breathe more freely; and Hannah unfolded her plan of going herself to Lyme Regis and Taunton, the places to which her brothers were to be taken—she knew not exactly whither they were to be sent—that she might minister to them in every possible way, cheer and strengthen them in their hour of trial, and be there to forward any suit that might be made on their behalf.
"There will be peril in such a mission, granddaughter," said the old man. "Many a gentle-hearted woman has suffered grievously for doing less than thou dost propose to do."
"I shall suffer more by staying away," said Hannah simply. "I must go. Something within me bids me. I cannot hold back. Thou wilt be here to care for mother and the little ones. I must be with my brothers."
They did not try to hold her back. Her heart was set upon the sorrowful journey, and the mother, in her yearning over her boys, was ready to speed her upon her way. She had money, as much as she could use for every possible purpose, and letters to friends of their friends in the West Country, who would show her kindness and help her in her difficult task. Mr. Kiffin would have accompanied her, but that his daughter seemed to require him more, and he was something too infirm easily to endure the long, rough journey. But he sent two of his experienced servants with Hannah; and the journey was made easy to her in every possible way, albeit in her present mood she would almost have welcomed hardship and privation. What might not her brothers be suffering of both?
She found that they had been conveyed to Taunton, and lodged in the castle there. The building was densely crowded at this time; for the dread Judge was on his way, and the friends of the prisoners were in a terrible state of agitation and fear. Stories were flying from mouth to mouth of what the inhuman Judge had done and said atWinchester, and how he had condemned the aged and virtuous Lady Lisle to be burnt to death for no greater sin than that of harbouring some unhappy wretch, who had fallen beneath the King's ban. What hope was there for any here?
But through the influence of those who cared for her, Hannah obtained the grace of an interview with her brothers on the eve of their trial, and found them calm and resigned. It was keen joy to them to embrace their sister again, to give their last messages (as they thought they might be) to all the loved ones at home, and to know how much they were thought of and prayed for by many far and near. But they had no hope of mercy. They had heard of the implacable nature of the Judge, and were aware that their very wealth and importance, in one sense of the word, would be against them. Obscure persons might be respited, and those perhaps of noble blood; but not those whose fame came from their resolute adherence to precepts civil and religious that were abhorred of King James and his Court.
It was a fearful moment for Hannah when she was passed into that close and crowded Court upon the momentous day, and saw the red and bloated face of the Judge and his bloodshot eyes glaring at the prisoners, as a wolf glares at the victims he is about to spring upon and devour. Whatneed to talk of that trial?—it was the veriest travesty of justice ever known. The prisoners were bidden if they desired mercy to plead guilty, and as soon as they had done so were sentenced to a traitor's doom in one solid mass. Respite would come later for some, that was partly understood; but whenever some special plea was put forward for an individual who had friend or counsel to speak for him, the fury of the Judge rose to a fearful pitch, and he roared down the voice of the defender, rolling his eyes and swearing with such hideous vehemence that soon none dared lift up a voice in his presence, and Hannah was supported half fainting from the Court, where she had heard both her brothers condemned to death.
But even then her courage did not desert her, and terrible as was the aspect of the Judge, and awful as were the things spoken of him, she resolved to place herself in his way as he came forth, and plead for the lives of her brothers, as the one last faint hope still remaining to her.
Alas! she might as well have sought mercy from the flinty rock, or the sea breaking in merciless fury. The bloated, evil face was turned upon her in savage fury. The Judge plucked his robe out of her detaining hand, and flung himself into his coach crying out: