The Strange Story Book Part 31

'Me rob you?' she cried. 'I hope you will not swear my life away, for I never saw you. Pray, madam, look at this face; if you have once seen it you must remember it, for G.o.d Almighty I think never made such another.'

'I know you very well,' answered Elizabeth; 'I know you too well, to my sorrow.'

'Pray, madam, when do you say I robbed you?'

'It was on the first day of this New Year,' replied Elizabeth.

'The first day of the New Year?' cried the gipsy. 'Lord bless me! I was an hundred and twenty miles away from this place then, at Abbotsbury in Dorsets.h.i.+re, and there are a hundred people I can bring to prove it.'

But no one at that time paid any attention to her words, or thought of allowing her to prove her innocence. Elizabeth, with two girls found in Mother Wells' house, were examined before Henry Fielding, the novelist, author of 'Tom Jones,' then a magistrate of London, who showed, according to his own account, gross unfairness in dealing with the matter, and by him the case was sent for trial at the Old Bailey.

Elizabeth repeated the story she had told from the first, with the result that the gipsy was condemned to be hanged, and Mother Wells to be branded on the hand and to go to prison for six months. Luckily, however, for them, the president of the court that tried them was the Lord Mayor Sir Crispe Gascoigne, a man who had more sense of justice and fair play than many of his fellows. He did not feel sure of the truth of Elizabeth's tale, and never rested till both the old women were set at liberty.

This made the mob very angry. They were entirely on Elizabeth's side, and more than once attacked the Lord Mayor's coach. Other people were just as strong on behalf of the gipsy, and things even went so far that often the members of the same family declined to speak to each other.

Then came Elizabeth's turn. In April 1754 she was arrested on a charge of perjury or false swearing, and sent to stand her trial at the Old Bailey. Now was Mary Squires' opportunity for calling the 'hundred people' to prove that she, with her son George and daughter Lucy, was down at Abbotsbury in Dorsets.h.i.+re, on January 1, 1753, at the moment that she was supposed to be cutting off the stays of Elizabeth Canning at Enfield Was.h.!.+ And if she did not quite fulfil her promise, she actually _did_ summon thirty-six witnesses who swore to her movements day by day from December 29, 1752, when all three Squires stopped at an inn at South Parret in Dorsets.h.i.+re, to January 23, 1753, when Mary begged for a lodging at Page Green. Now Page Green was within two or three miles of Enfield Wash, where the gipsy admitted she had stayed at Mother Wells' house for ten days before Elizabeth Canning had charged her with robbery. Her denial of the accusation was further borne out by a man and his wife, who appear in the reports as 'Fortune and Judith Natus' (he was quite plainly called 'Fortunatus' after the young man with the fairy purse), both of whom declared upon oath that they had occupied the room in which Elizabeth stated she had been confined, for ten or eleven weeks at that very time, and that it was used as a hayloft.

Mary Squires had called thirty-six witnesses to 'prove an _alibi_'--in other words, to prove that she had been present somewhere else; but Elizabeth's lawyers produced twenty-six, stating that they had seen her about Enfield during the month when Elizabeth was lost. This was enough to confuse anybody, and many of the witnesses on both sides were exceedingly stupid. To make matters worse and more puzzling, not long before a law had been pa.s.sed to alter the numbering of the days of the year. For instance, May 5 would suddenly be reckoned the 16th, a fact it was almost impossible to make uneducated people understand. Indeed, it is not easy always to remember it oneself, but it all helps to render the truth of Elizabeth's tale more difficult to get at, for you never could be sure whether, when the witnesses said they had seen the gipsy at Christmas or New Year's Day, they meant _Old_ Christmas or _New_ Christmas, _old_ New Year's Day or _new_ New Year's Day. Yet certain facts there are in the story which n.o.body attempts to contradict. It is undisputed that a young woman, weak and with very few clothes on, was met by four or five persons on the night of January 29, 1753, on the road near Enfield Wash, inquiring her way to London, or that on the very same night Elizabeth Canning arrived at home in Aldermanbury, in such a state that next morning an apothecary was sent for. Nor does anyone, as we have said, deny that she picked out the gipsy from a number of people, as the person who a.s.saulted her. All this is in favour of her tale. Yet we must ask ourselves what possible motive Mary Squires could have had in keeping a girl shut up in a loft for four weeks, apparently with a view of starving her to death? Elizabeth was a total stranger to her; she was very poor, so there was no hope of getting a large ransom for her; and if she had died and her kidnapping had been traced to Mary Squires, the gipsy would have speedily ended her days on the gallows.

On the other hand, if Mary Squires did not know Elizabeth Canning, Elizabeth equally did not know Mary Squires, and we cannot imagine what reason Elizabeth could have had in accusing her falsely. Only one thing stands out clear from the report of the trial, and that is, that Elizabeth was absent during the whole of January 1753, and that she very nearly died of starvation.

'Guilty of perjury, but not wilful and corrupt,' was the verdict of the jury, which the judge told them was nonsense. They then declared her guilty, and Elizabeth was condemned to be transported to one of his Majesty's American colonies for seven years.

We soon hear of her as a servant in the house of the Princ.i.p.al of Yale University, a much better place than any she had at home. At the end of the seven years she came back to England, where she seems to have been received as something of a heroine, and took possession of 500 which had been left her by an old lady living in Newington Green. She then sailed for America once more, and married a well-to-do farmer called Treat, and pa.s.sed the rest of her life with her husband and children in the State of Connecticut.

Up to her death, which occurred in 1773, she always maintained the truth of her tale.

Was it true?

The lawyers who were against Elizabeth said, at her trial, that as soon as she was found guilty, the secret of where she had been would be revealed.

It never was revealed. Now several persons must have known where Elizabeth was; all the world heard her story, yet n.o.body told where she had been. If the persons who knew had not detained and ill-used the girl, there was nothing to prevent them from speaking.

Yet to the end we shall ask, why _did_ Mary Squires keep her at Enfield Wash--if she _did_ keep her?

_MRS. VEAL'S GHOST_

Now you are going to hear a ghost story published, but he says, not written, by Daniel Defoe the author of 'Robinson Crusoe.' If you read it carefully, you will find how very curious it is.

Miss Veal, or as she was then called according to custom, Mrs. Veal, was an unmarried lady of about thirty living with her only brother in Dover.

She was a delicate woman, and frequently had fits, during which she would often stop in the middle of a sentence, and begin to talk nonsense. These fits probably arose from not having had enough food or warm clothes in her childhood, for her father was not only a poor man but also a selfish one, and was too full of his own affairs to look after his children. One comfort, however, she had, in a little girl of her own age, named Lodowick, who often used to bring her neighbour half of her own dinner, and gave her a thick wadded tippet to wear over her bare shoulders.

Years pa.s.sed away and the girls grew to women, meeting as frequently as of old and reading together the pious books of the day, 'Drelincourt upon Death' being perhaps their favourite. Then gradually a change took place. Old Veal died; the son was given a place in the Customs, and his sister went to keep house for him. She was well-to-do now, and had no longer any need of a friend to provide her with food and clothes, and little by little she became busy with her new life, and forgot the many occasions on which she had exclaimed gratefully to her playfellow, 'You are not only the best, but the only friend I have in the world, and nothing shall ever loosen our friends.h.i.+p.' Now she visited in the houses of people who were richer and grander than herself and sought out her old companion more and more seldom, so that at length when this story begins, two years and a half had pa.s.sed by without their having seen each other.

Meanwhile, though Mrs. Veal, in spite of a few love affairs, had remained a spinster, her friend had married a Mr. Bargrave, and a very bad match he proved, for the way in which he ill-used his wife soon became known to everyone. They left Dover about a year after Mrs.

Bargrave's last visit to Mrs. Veal, and several months later they settled in Canterbury.

It was noon, on September 8, 1705, and Mrs. Bargrave was sitting alone in an armchair in her parlour, thinking over all the misery her husband had caused her and trying hard to feel patient and forgiving towards him. 'I have been provided for hitherto,' she said to herself, 'and doubt not that I shall be so still, and I am well satisfied that my sorrows shall end when it is most fit for me.' She then took up her sewing, which had dropped on her lap, but had hardly put in three st.i.tches when a knocking at the door made her pause. The clock struck twelve as she rose to open it, and to her profound astonishment admitted Mrs. Veal, who had on a riding dress of silk.

'Madam,' exclaimed Mrs. Bargrave, 'I am surprised to see you, for you have been a stranger this long while, but right glad I am to welcome you here.' As she spoke, she leaned forward to kiss her, but Mrs. Veal drew back, and pa.s.sing her hand across her eyes, she answered:

'I am not very well;' adding after a moment, 'I have to take a long journey, and wished first to see you.'

'But,' answered Mrs. Bargrave, 'how do you come to be travelling alone?

I know that your brother looks after you well.'

'Oh, I gave my brother the slip,' replied Mrs. Veal, 'because I had so great a desire to see you before I set forth.'

'Well, let us go into the next room,' said Mrs. Bargrave, leading the way to a small room opening into the other. Mrs. Veal sat down in the very chair in which Mrs. Bargrave had been seated when she heard the knocking at the door. Then Mrs. Veal leaned forward and spoke:

'My dear friend, I am come to renew our old friends.h.i.+p, and to beg you to pardon me for my breach of it. If you can forgive me, you are one of the best of women.'

'Oh! don't mention such a thing,' cried Mrs. Bargrave. 'I never had an unkind thought about it, and can most easily forgive it.'

'What opinion can you have had of me?' continued Mrs. Veal.

'I supposed you were like the rest of the world,' answered Mrs.

Bargrave, 'and that prosperity had made you forget yourself and me.'

After that they had a long talk over the old days, and recalled the books they had read together, and what comfort they had received from Drelincourt's Book of Death, and from two Dutch books that had been translated, besides some by Dr. Sherlock on the same subject. At Mrs.

Veal's request, Mrs. Bargrave brought Drelincourt's discourses down from upstairs, and handed it to her friend, who spoke so earnestly of the consolations to be found in it that Mrs. Bargrave was deeply touched.

But when Mrs. Veal a.s.sured her that 'in a short time her afflictions would leave her,' Mrs. Bargrave broke down and wept bitterly.

'Are you going away and leaving your brother without anyone to look after him?' asked Mrs. Bargrave as soon as she could speak.

'Oh no! my sister and her husband had just come down from town to see me, so it will be all right,' answered Mrs. Veal.

'But why did you arrange to leave just as they arrived?' again inquired Mrs. Bargrave. 'Surely they will be vexed?'

'It could not be helped,' replied Mrs. Veal shortly, and said no more on the subject.

After this, the conversation, which continued for nearly two hours, was chiefly carried on by Mrs. Veal, whose language might have been envied by the most learned doctors of the day. But during the course of it Mrs.

Bargrave was startled to notice Mrs. Veal draw her hand several times across her eyes (as she had done on her entrance), and at length she put the question, 'Mrs. Bargrave, don't you think I look much the worse for my fits?'

'No,' answered Mrs. Bargrave, 'I think you look as well as ever I saw you.'

'I want you to write a letter for me to my brother,' then said Mrs.

Veal, 'and tell him to whom he is to give my rings, and that he is to take two gold pieces out of a purse that is in my cabinet, and send them to my cousin Watson.' Cousin Watson was the wife of a Captain Watson who lived in Canterbury. As there seemed no reason that Mrs. Veal should not write the letter herself, the request appeared rather odd to Mrs.

Bargrave, especially as then and afterwards it was the custom for people to leave rings to their friends in their wills. These rings contained little skulls in white enamel, and the initials in gold of the dead.

Mrs. Bargrave wondered if her friend was indeed about to suffer from one of her attacks. So she hastily placed herself in a chair close by her, that she might be ready to catch Mrs. Veal if she should fall, and, to divert her visitor's thoughts, took hold of her sleeve, and began to admire the pattern.

'The silk has been cleaned,' replied Mrs. Veal, 'and newly made up,' and then she dropped the subject and went back to her letter.