A Tale of a Lonely Parish Part 34

The squire knelt down and tried to ascertain the extent of the man's injuries; as far as he could see there was a bad wound at his throat, and one hand was much mangled. But there seemed to have been no great flow of blood. He tore open the smock-frock and s.h.i.+rt and put his ear to the heart. Faintly, very faintly, he could hear it beat. Walter G.o.ddard was alive still--alive to live for years perhaps, the squire reflected; to live in a prison, it was true, but to live. To describe his feelings in that moment would be impossible. Had he found the convict dead, it would be useless to deny that he would have felt a very great satisfaction, tempered perhaps by some pity for the wretched man's miserable end, but still very great. It would have seemed such a just end, after all; to be killed in the attempt to kill, and to have died not by the squire's hand but by the sharp strong jaws of the hound who had once before saved the squire's life. But he was alive. It would not take much to kill him; a little pressure on his wounded throat would be enough. Even to leave him there, uncared for, till morning in the bleak wind, lying upon the cold ground, would be almost certain to put an end to his life. But to the honour of Charles James Juxon be it said that such thoughts never crossed his mind. He pulled off his heavy ulster greatcoat, wrapped it about the felon's insensible body, then, kneeling, raised up his head and shoulders, got his strong arms well round him and with some difficulty rose to his feet. Once upright, it was no hard matter to carry his burthen through the trees to the road, and up the avenue to his own door.

"Holmes," said Mr. Juxon to his butler, "this man is badly hurt, but he is alive. Help me to carry him upstairs."

There was that in the squire's voice which brooked neither question nor delay when he was in earnest. The solemn butler took Walter G.o.ddard by the feet and the squire took him by the shoulders; so they carried him up to a bedroom and laid him down, feeling for the bed in the dark as they moved. Holmes then lit a candle with great calmness.

"Shall I send for the medical man, sir?" he asked quietly.

"Yes. Send the gig as fast as possible. If he is not at home, or cannot be found, send on to the town. If anybody asks questions say the man is a tramp who attacked me in the park and Stamboul pulled him down. Send at once, and bring me some brandy and light the fire here."

"Yes, sir," said Holmes, and left the room.

Mr. Juxon lighted other candles and examined the injured man. There was now no doubt that he was alive. He breathed faintly but regularly; his pulse beat less rapidly and more firmly. His face was deadly pale and very thin, and his half-opened eyes stared unconsciously upwards, but they were not glazed nor death-like. He seemed to have lost little blood, comparatively speaking.

"Bah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the squire. "I believe he is only badly frightened, after all."

Holmes brought brandy and warm water and again left the room. Mr. Juxon bathed G.o.ddard's face and neck with a sponge, eying him suspiciously all the while. It would not have surprised him at any moment if he had leaped from the bed and attempted to escape. To guard against surprise, the squire locked the door and put the key in his pocket, watching the convict to see whether he noticed the act or was really unconscious. But G.o.ddard never moved nor turned his motionless eyeb.a.l.l.s. Mr. Juxon returned to his side, and with infinite care began to remove his clothes.

They were almost in rags. He examined each article, and was surprised to find money in the pockets, amounting to nearly sixty pounds; then he smiled to himself, remembering that the convict had visited his wife and had doubtless got the money from her to aid him in his escape. He put the notes and gold carefully together in a drawer after counting them, and returning to his occupation succeeded at last in putting G.o.ddard to bed, after staunching his wounds as well as he could with handkerchiefs.

He stood long by the bedside, watching the man's regular breathing, and examining his face attentively. Many strange thoughts pa.s.sed through his mind, as he stood there, looking at the man who had caused such misery to himself, such shame and sorrow to his fair wife, such disappointment to the honest man who was now trying to save him from the very grasp of death. So this was Mary G.o.ddard's husband, little Nellie's father--this grimy wretch, whose foul rags lay heaped there in the corner, whose miserable head pressed the spotless linen of the pillow, whose half-closed eyes stared up so senselessly at the squire's face. This was the man for whose sake Mary G.o.ddard started and turned pale, fainted and grew sick, languished and suffered so much pain. No wonder she concealed it from Nellie--no wonder she had feared lest after many years he should come back and claim her for his wife--no wonder either that a man with such a face should do bad deeds.

Mr. Juxon was a judge of faces; persons accustomed for many years to command men usually are. He noted Walter G.o.ddard's narrow jaw and pointed chin, his eyes set near together, his wicked lips, parted and revealing sharp jagged teeth, his ill-shaped ears and shallow temples, his flat low forehead, shown off by his cropped hair. And yet this man had once been called handsome, he had been admired and courted. But then his hair had hidden the shape of his head, his long golden moustache had covered his mouth and disguised all his lower features, he had been arrayed by tailors of artistic merit, and he had had much gold in his pockets. He was a very different object now--the escaped convict, close cropped, with a half-grown beard upon his ill-shaped face, and for all ornament a linen sheet drawn up under his chin.

The squire was surprised that he did not recover consciousness, seeing that he breathed regularly and was no longer so pale as at first. A faint flush seemed to rise to his sunken cheeks, and for a long time Mr. Juxon stood beside him, expecting every moment that he would speak. Once he thought his lips moved a little. Then Mr. Juxon took a little brandy in a spoon and raising his head poured it down his throat. The effect was immediate. G.o.ddard opened wide his eyes, the blood mounted to his cheeks with a deep flush, and he uttered an inarticulate sound.

"What did you say?" asked the squire, bending over him.

But there was no answer. The sick man's head fell back upon the pillow, though his eyes remained wide open and the flush did not leave his cheeks. His pulse was now very high, and his breathing grew heavy and stertorous.

"I hope I have not made him any worse," remarked Mr. Juxon aloud, as he contemplated his patient. "But if he is going to die, I wish he would die now."

The thought was charitable, on the whole. If Walter G.o.ddard died then and there, he would be buried in a nameless grave under the shadow of the old church; no one would ever know that he was the celebrated forger, the escaped convict, the husband of Mary G.o.ddard. If he lived--heaven alone knew what complications would follow if he lived.

There was a knock at the door. Mr. Juxon drew the key from his pocket and opened it. Holmes the butler stood outside.

"Mr. Short has come back, sir. He asked if you wished to see him."

"Ask him to come here," replied the squire, to whom the tension of keeping his solitary watch was becoming very irksome. In a few moments John entered the room, looking pale and nervous.

CHAPTER XX.

John Short was in absolute ignorance of what was occurring. He attributed Mrs. G.o.ddard's anxiety to her solicitude for Mr. Juxon, and if he had found time to give the matter serious consideration, he would have argued very naturally that she was fond of the squire. It had been less easy than the latter had supposed to take her home and persuade her to stay there, for she was in a state in which she hardly understood reason.

Nothing but John's repeated a.s.surances to the effect that Mr. Juxon was not in the least hurt, and that he would send her word of the condition of the wounded tramp, prevailed upon her to remain at the cottage; for she had come back to consciousness before the dog-cart was fairly out of the park and had almost refused to enter her own home.

The catastrophe had happened, after eight and forty hours of suspense, and her position was one of extreme fear and doubt. She had indeed seen the squire at the very moment when she fainted, but the impression was uncertain as that of a dream, and it required all John's a.s.severations to persuade her that Mr. Juxon had actually met her and insisted that she should return to the cottage. Once there, in her own house, she abandoned herself to the wildest excitement, shutting herself into the drawing-room and refusing to see anyone; she gave way to all her sorrow and fear, feeling that if she controlled herself any longer she must go mad. Indeed it was the best thing she could do, for her nerves were overstrained, and the hysterical weeping which now completely overpowered her for some time, was the natural relief to her overwrought system. She had not the slightest doubt that the tramp of whom John had spoken, and whom he had described as badly hurt, was her husband; and together with her joy at Mr. Juxon's escape, she felt an intolerable anxiety to know Walter's fate. If in ordinary circ.u.mstances she had been informed that he had died in prison, it would have been absurd to expect her to give way to any expressions of excessive grief; she would perhaps have shed a few womanly tears and for some time she would have been more sad than usual; but she no longer loved him and his death could only be regarded as a release from all manner of trouble and shame and evil foreboding. With his decease would have ended her fears for poor Nellie, her apprehensions for the future in case he should return and claim her, the whole weight of her humiliation, and if she was too kind to have rejoiced over such a termination of her woes, she was yet too sensible not to have fully understood and appreciated the fact of her liberation and of the freedom given to the child she loved, by the death of a father whose return could bring nothing but disgrace. But now she did not know whether Walter were alive or dead. If he was alive he was probably so much injured as to preclude all possibility of his escaping, and he must inevitably be given up to justice, no longer to imprisonment merely, but by his own confession to suffer the death of a murderer. If on the other hand he was already dead, he had died a death less shameful indeed, but of which the circ.u.mstances were too horrible for his wife to contemplate, for he must have been torn to pieces by Stamboul the bloodhound.

She unconsciously comprehended all these considerations, which entirely deprived her of the power to weigh them in her mind, for her mind was temporarily loosed from all control of the reasoning faculty. She had borne much during the last three days, but she could bear no more; intellect and sensibility were alike exhausted and gave way together.

There were indeed moments, intervals in the fits of hysteric tears and acute mental torture, when she lay quite still in her chair and vaguely asked herself what it all meant, but her disturbed consciousness gave no answer to the question, and presently her tears broke out afresh and she tossed wildly from side to side, or walked hurriedly up and down the room, wringing her hands in despair, sobbing aloud in her agony and again abandoning herself to the uncontrolled exaggerations of her grief and terror. One consolation alone presented itself at intervals to her confused intelligence; Mr. Juxon was safe. Whatever other fearful thing had happened, he was safe, saved perhaps by her warning--but what was that, if Walter had escaped death only to die at the hands of the hangman, or had found it in the jaws of that fearful bloodhound? What was the safety even of her best friend, if poor Nellie was to know that her father was alive, only to learn that he was to die again?

But human suffering cannot outlast human strength; as a marvellous adjustment of forces has ordered that even at the pole, in the regions of boundless and perpetual cold, the sea shall not freeze to the bottom, so there is also in human nature a point beyond which suffering cannot extend. The wildest emotions must expend themselves in time, the fiercest pa.s.sions must burn out. At the end of two hours Mary G.o.ddard was exhausted by the vehemence of her hysteric fear, and woke as from a dream to a dull sense of reality. She knew, now that some power of reflection was restored to her, that the squire would give her intelligence of what had happened, so soon as he was able, and she knew also that she must wait until the morning before any such message could reach her. She took the candle from the table and went upstairs. Nellie was asleep, but her mother felt a longing to look at her again that night, not knowing what misery for her child the morrow might bring forth.

Nellie lay asleep in her bed, her rich brown hair plaited together and thrown back across the pillow. The long dark fringes of her eyelashes cast a shade upon the transparent colour of her cheek, and the light breath came softly through her parted lips. But as Mary G.o.ddard looked she saw that there were still tears upon her lovely face and that the pillow was still wet. She had cried herself to sleep, for Martha had told her that her mother was very ill and would not see her that night; Nellie was accustomed to say her prayers at her mother's knee every evening before going to bed, she was used to having her mother smooth her pillow and kiss her and put out her light, leaving her with sweet words, to wake her with sweet words on the next morning, and to-night she had missed all this and had been told moreover that her mother was very ill and was acting very strangely. She had gone to bed and had cried herself to sleep, and the tears were still upon her cheeks. Shading the light carefully from the child's eyes, Mary G.o.ddard bent down and kissed her forehead once and then feeling that her sorrow was rising again she turned and pa.s.sed noiselessly from the room.

But Nellie was dreaming peacefully and knew nothing of her mother's visit; she slept on not knowing that scarcely a quarter of a mile away her own father, whom she had been taught to think of as dead, was lying at the Hall, wounded and unconscious while half the detectives in the kingdom were looking for him. Had Nellie known that, her sleep would have been little and her dreams few.

There was little rest at the Hall that night. When Reynolds had driven John back to the great house he found his way to the kitchen and got his beer, and he became at once a centre of interest, being overwhelmed with questions concerning the events of the evening. But he was able to say very little except that while waiting before the cottage he had heard strange noises from the park, that Master John had run up the avenue, that Mrs. G.o.ddard had taken Miss Nellie into the house and had then insisted upon being driven towards the Hall, that they had met Master John and the squire and that Mrs. G.o.ddard had been "took wuss."

Meanwhile John entered the room where Mr. Juxon was watching over Walter G.o.ddard. John looked pale and nervous; he had not recovered from the unpleasant sensation of being left alone with what he believed to be a dead body, in the struggling moonlight and the howling wind. He was by no means timid by nature, but young nerves are not so tough as old ones and he had felt exceedingly uncomfortable. He stood a moment within the room, then glanced at the bed and started with surprise.

"Why--he is not dead after all!" he exclaimed, and going nearer he looked hard at G.o.ddard's flushed face.

"No," said Mr. Juxon, "he is not dead. He may be dying for all I know. I have sent for the doctor."

"Was he much hurt?" asked John, still looking at the sick man. "He looks to me as though he were in a fever."

"He does not seem so badly hurt. I cannot make it out at all. At first I thought he was badly frightened, but I cannot bring him to consciousness.

Perhaps he has a fever, as you say. This is a most unpleasant experience, Mr. Short--your first night at the Hall, too. Of course I am bound to look after the man, as Stamboul did the damage--it would have served him right if he had been killed. It was a villainous blow he gave me--I can feel it still. The moral of it is that one should always wear a thick ulster when one walks alone at night."

"I did not know he struck you," said John in some surprise.

"Jumped out of the copse at the turning and struck at me with a bludgeon," said Mr. Juxon. "Knocked my hat off, into the bargain, and then ran away with Stamboul after him. If I had not come up in time there would have been nothing left of him."

"I should say the dog saved your life," remarked John, much impressed by the squire's unadorned tale. "What object can the fellow have had in attacking you? Strange--his eyes are open, but he does not seem to understand us."

Mr. Juxon walked to the bedside and contemplated the sick man's features with undisguised disgust.

"You villain!" he said roughly. "Why don't you answer for yourself?" The man did not move, and the squire began to pace the room. John was struck by Mr. Juxon's tone: it was not like him, he thought, to speak in that way to a helpless creature. He could not understand it. There was a long silence, broken only by the heavy breathing of G.o.ddard.

"Really, Mr. Short," said the squire at last, "I have no intention of keeping you up all night. The village doctor must have been out. It may be more than an hour before my man finds another."

"Never mind," said John quietly. "I will wait till he comes at all events. You may need me before it is over."

"Do you think he looks as if he were going to die?" asked the squire doubtfully, as he again approached the bedside.

"I don't know," answered John, standing on the other side. "I never saw any one die. He looks very ill."

"Very ill. I have seen many people die--but somehow I have a strong impression that this fellow will live."

"Let us hope so," said John.

"Well--" The squire checked himself. Probably the hope he would have expressed would not have coincided with that to which John had given utterance. "Well," he repeated, "I daresay he will. Mr. Short, are you at all nervous? Since you are so good as to say you will wait until the doctor comes, would you mind very much being left alone here for five minutes?"

"No," answered John, stoutly, "not in the least." To be left in a well-lighted room by the bedside of Walter G.o.ddard, ill indeed, but alive and breathing vigorously, was very different from being requested to watch his apparently dead body out in the park under the moonlight.

With a word of thanks, the squire left the room, and hastened to his study, where he proceeded to write a note, as follows:--

"MY DEAR MR. AMBROSE--The man we were speaking of yesterday morning actually attacked me this evening. Stamboul worried him badly, but he is not dead. He is lying here, well cared for, and I have sent for the doctor. If convenient to you, would you come in the morning? I need not recommend discretion.--Sincerely yours,