Austin Potter - "From Wealth to Poverty"

Robert Ames Bennet - "Out of the Primitive"

William H. Gilder - "Schwatka's Search"

John Payne - "Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1 3"

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The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




Henry was almost angry--Could not his sister trust him to take all
reasonable precaution? It was the old story of prejudice against
whatever he took up.

Poor Averil was disarmed directly. The combats of will and their
consequences rose up before her, and with them Leonard's charges to
devote herself to Henry. She could but avow herself willing to do
whatever he pleased. She only hoped he would be careful.

All thenceforth was pleasant anticipation and hope. Averil's
property had to be transferred to America, and invested in shares of
the land at Massissauga; but this was to cause no delay in arranging
for the removal, they were only to wait until the winter had broken
up, and the roads become passable after the melting of the snows; and
meantime Mr. Muller was to have their house prepared. Cora would
remain and accompany them, and in the intervening time promised to
assist Averil with her judgment in making the necessary purchases for
'stepping westward.'

When Averil wrote their plans to her English friends, she felt the
difficulty of pleading for them. She was sensible that at
Stoneborough the risking of her property would be regarded as folly
on her part, and something worse on that of her brother; and she
therefore wrote with every effort to make the whole appear her own
voluntary act--though the very effort made her doubly conscious that
the sole cause for her passive acquiescence was, that her past self-
will in trifles had left her no power to contend for her own opinion
in greater matters--the common retribution on an opinionative woman
of principle.

Moreover, it was always with an effort that she wrote to Mary May. A
rejected offer from a brother is a rock in a correspondence with a
sister, and Averil had begun to feel greatly ashamed of the manner of
her own response. Acceptance would have been impossible; but
irritating as had been Tom May's behaviour, insulting as had been his
explanation, and provoking, his pertinacity, she had begun to feel
that the impulse had been too generous and disinterested to deserve
such treatment, and that bitterness and ill-temper had made her lose
all softness and dignity, so that he must think that his pitying
affection had been bestowed on an ungrateful vixen, and be as much
disgusted with the interview as she was herself. She did not wish
him to love her; but she regretted the form of the antidote, above
all, since he was of the few who appreciated Leonard; and the more
she heard of Ella's narrations of his kindness, the more ashamed she
grew. Every letter to or from Mary renewed the uncomfortable sense,
and she would have dropped the correspondence had it not been her
sole medium of communication with her imprisoned brother, since Henry
would not permit letters to be posted with the Milbank address.




CHAPTER XX



A little hint to solace woe,
A hint, a whisper breathing low,
'I may not speak of what I know.'--TENNYSON


At the pace at which rapid people walk alone, when they wish to
devour both the way and their own sensations, Ethel May was mounting
the hill out of the town in the premature heat assumed by May in
compliment to Whitsun week, when a prolonged shout made her turn. At
first she thought it was her father, but her glass showed her that it
was the brother so like him in figure that the London-made coat, and
the hair partaking of the sand instead of the salt, were often said
to be the chief distinction. Moreover, the dainty steps over the
puddles were little like the strides of the Doctor, and left no doubt
that it was the one wedding guest who had been despaired of.

'O, Tom, I am glad you are come!'

'What a rate you were running away at! I thought you had done with
your hurricane pace.'

'Hurricane because of desperate hurry. I'm afraid I can't turn back
with you.'

'Where is all the world?'

'Blanche is helping Mary arrange the Hoxton--I mean her own drawing-
room. Hector has brought a dog-cart to drive papa about in; Daisy is
gone with Harry and Aubrey to the Grange for some camellias.'

'And Ethel rushing to Cocksmoor!'

'I can't help it, Tom,' she said, humbly; 'I wish I could.'

'What's this immense pannier you are carrying?'

'It is quite light. It is twelve of the hats for the children
tomorrow. Mary was bent on trimming them all as usual, and I was
deluded enough to believe she would, till last evening I found just
one and a half done! I did as many as I could at night, till papa
heard me rustling about and thumped. Those went early this morning;
and these are the rest, which I have just finished.'

'Was there no one to send?'

'My dear Tom, is your experience of weddings so slight as to suppose
there is an available being in the family the day before?'

'I'm sure I don't desire such experience. Why could not they be
content without ferreting me down?'

'I am very glad you have come. It would have been a great
mortification if you had stayed away. I never quite believed you
would.'

'I had much rather see the operation I shall miss to-morrow morning.
I shall go back by the two o'clock train.'

'To study their happiness all the way up to town?'

'Then by the mail--'

'I won't torment you to stay; but I think papa will want a talk with
you.'

'The very thing I don't want. Why can't he dispose of his property
like other people, and give Richard his rights?'

'You know Richard would only be encumbered.'

'No such thing; Richard is a reasonable being--he will marry some of
these days--get the living after Wilmot, and--'

'But you know how papa would be grieved to separate the practice from
the house.'

'Because he and his fathers were content to bury themselves in a
hole, he expects me to do the same. Why, what should I do? The
place is over-doctored already. Every third person is a pet patient
sending for him for a gnat-bite, gratis, taking the bread out of
Wright's mouth. No wonder Henry Ward kicked! If I came here, I must
practise on the lap-dogs! Here's my father, stronger than any of us,
with fifteen good years' work in him at the least! He would be
wretched at giving up to me a tenth part of his lambs, and that tenth
would keep us always in hot water. His old-world practice would not
go down with me, and he would think everything murder that was
fresher than the year 1830.'

'I thought he was remarkable for having gone on with the world,' said
Ethel, repressing some indignation.

'So he has in a way, but always against the grain. He has a tough
lot of prejudices; and you may depend upon it, they would be more
obstinate against me than any one else, and I should be looked on as
an undutiful dog for questioning them, besides getting the whole
credit of every case that went wrong.'

'I think you are unjust,' said Ethel, flushing with displeasure.

'I wish I were not, Ethel; but when there is one son in a family who
can do nothing that is not taken amiss, it is hard that he should be
the one picked out to be pinned down, and, maybe, goaded into doing
something to be really sorry for.'

There was truth enough in this to seal Ethel's lips from replying
that it was Tom's own fault, since his whole nature and constitution
were far more the cause than his conduct, and she answered, 'You
might get some appointment for the present, till he really wants
you.'

'To be ordered home just as I am making something of it, and see as
many cases in ten years as I could in a month in town. Things are
altered since his time, if he could only see it. What was the use of
giving me a first-rate education, if he meant to stick me down here?'

'At least I hope you will think long before you inflict the cruel
disappointment of knowing that not one of his five sons will succeed
to the old practice.'

'The throne, you mean, Ethel. Pish!'

The 'Pish' was as injurious to her hereditary love for 'the old
practice,' and for the old town, as to her reverence for her father.
One angry 'Tom!' burst from her lips, and only the experience that
scolding made him worse, restrained her from desiring him to turn
back if this was the best he had to say. Indeed she wondered to find
him still by her side, holding the gate of the plantation open for
her. He peered under her hat as she went through--

'How hot you look!' he said, laying hold of the handles of the
basket.

'Thank you; but it is more cumbrous than heavy,' she said, not
letting go; 'it is not _that_--'

An elision which answered better than words, to show that his speech,
rather than hill or load, had made her cheeks flame; but he only drew
the great basket more decisively from her hand, put his stick into
the handle, and threw it over his shoulder; and no doubt it was a
much greater act of good-nature from him than it would have been from
Richard or Harry.

'This path always reminds me of this very matter,' he said; 'I talked
it over with Meta here, on the way to lay the foundation-stone at
Cocksmoor, till Norman overtook us and monopolized her for good, poor
little thing. She was all in the high romantic strain, making a sort
of knight hospitaller of my father. I wonder what she is like by
this time, and how much of _that_ she has left.'

'Of the high romantic strain? I should think it was as much as ever
the salt of life to her. Her last letter described her contrivances
to make a knapsack for Norman on his visitation tour. Oh, fancy old
June a venerable archdeacon!'

'You don't think a colonial archdeacon is like one of your great
portly swells in a shovel hat.'

'It must be something remarkable that made Norman portly. But as for
the shovel hat, Mrs. Meta has insisted on having it sent out. I was
going to tell you that she says, "I do like such a good tough bit of
stitchery, to fit my knight out for the cause."'

'Marriage and distance have not frozen up her effusions.'

'No; when people carry souls in their pens, they are worth a great
deal more, if they are to go to a distance.'

Ah! by the bye, I suppose Cheviot has put a fresh lock on Mary's
writing-case.'

'I suspect some of Mary's correspondence will devolve on me. Harry
has asked me already.'

'I wished you had mentioned more about the letters of late. Leonard
wanted to know more than I could tell him.'

'You don't mean that you have seen him? O, Tom, how kind of you!
Papa has been trying hard to get a day now that these first six
months are up; but there are two or three cases that wanted so much
watching that he has not been able to stir.'

'I know how he lets himself be made a prisoner, and that it was a
chance whether any one saw the poor fellow at all.'

'I am so glad'--and Ethel turned on him a face still flushed, but now
with gratitude. 'How was he looking?'

'The costume is not becoming, and he has lost colour and grown
hollow-eyed; but I saw no reason for being uneasy about him; he
looked clear and in health, and has not got to slouch yet. It is
shocking to see such a grand face and head behind a grating.'

'Could he talk'?

'Why, the presence of a warder is against conversation, and six
months of shoe-making in a cell does not give much range of ideas.
There was nothing to be done but to talk on right ahead and judge by
his eyes if he liked it.'

'I suppose you could find out nothing about himself?'

'He said he got on very well; but one does not know that means. I
asked if he got books; and he said there was a very good library, and
he could get what gave him something to think of; and he says they
give interesting lectures in school.'

'You could not gather what is thought of him?'

'No; I saw but a couple of officers of the place, and could only get
out of them "good health and good conduct." I do not expect even his
conduct makes much impression as to his innocence, for I saw it
stated the other day that the worst prisoners are those that are
always getting convicted for petty offences; those that have
committed one great crime are not so depraved, and are much more
amenable. However, he has only three months more at Pentonville, and
then be will go to Portland, Chatham, or Gibraltar.'

'Oh, I hope it will not be Gibraltar! But at least that terrible
solitude will be over.'

'At any rate, his spirit is not broken. I could see his eye light up
after I had talked a little while, and he fell into his natural tone
again. He would not try to put out his hand to me when he came down;
but when I went away, he put it through and we had a good hearty
shake. Somehow it made one feel quite small.'

Ethel could have pledged herself for the soundness of Tom's nature
after those words; but all she did was in an unwonted tone to utter
the unwonted exclamation--'Dear Tom.'

'If my father does not come up, I shall see him once more before he
leaves Pentonville,' added Tom; 'and so you must mind and let me know
all about his people in America. I found he had no notion of the row
that is beginning there, so I said not a word of it. But what is all
this about going to Indiana?'

'They are going at the end of April to settle in a place called
Massissauga, where Henry is to farm till practice comes to him. It
is towards the north of the State, in the county of Pulaski.'

'Ay, in one of the pestilential swamps that run up out of Lake
Michigan. All the fertile ground there breeds as many fevers and
agues as it does stalks of corn.'

'Indeed! how did you hear that?'

'I looked up the place after Leonard told me of it. It is as unlucky
a location as the ill luck of that fellow Henry could have pitched
on. Some friend Leonard spoke of--a Yankee, I suppose, meaning to
make a prey of them.'

'The father of their young lady friend at the boarding-house.'

'Oh! a Yankee edition of Mrs. Pugh!'

'And the worst of it is that this is to be done with poor Averil's
fortune. She has written to Mr. Bramshaw to sell out for her, and
send her the amount, and he is terribly vexed; but she is of age, and
there are no trustees nor any one to stop it.'

'All of a piece,' muttered Tom; then presently he swung the basket
round on the ground with a vehement exclamation--'If any man on this
earth deserved to be among the robbers and murderers, I know who it
is.' Then he shouldered his load again, and walked on in silence by
his sister's side to the school door.

Richard had been obliged to go to a benefit club entertainment; and
Ethel, knowing the limited literary resources of the parsonage, was
surprised to find Tom still waiting for her, when the distribution
and fitting of the blue-ribboned hats was over, and matters arranged
for the march of the children to see the wedding, and to dine
afterwards at the Grammar-school hall.

'O, Tom, I did not expect to find you here.'

'It is not fit for you to be walking about alone on a Whit Monday.'

'I am very glad to have you, but I am past that.'

'Don't talk nonsense; girls are girls till long past your age,' said
Tom.

'It is not so much age, as living past things,' said Ethel.

'It was not only that, added Tom; 'but I've more to say to you, while
one can be sure of a quiet moment. Have you heard anything about
that place?' and he pointed in the direction of the Vintry Mill.

'I heard something of an intention to part with it, and have been
watching for an advertisement; but I can see none in the Courant, or
on the walls.'

'Mind he does not slip off unawares.'

'I don't know what to do now that old Hardy is cut off from us. I
tried to stir up Dr. Spencer to go and investigate, but I could not
tell him why, and he has not the same interest in going questing
about as he used to have. People never will do the one thing one
wants particularly!'

Tom's look and gesture made her ask if he knew of anything wrong with
their old friend; and in return, she was told that Dr. Spencer's
recent visit to London had been to consult Sir Matthew Fleet. The
foundations of mortal disease had been laid in India, and though it
might long remain in abeyance, there were from time to time symptoms
of activity; and tedious lingering infirmity was likely to commence
long before the end.

'And what do you think the strange old fellow charged me as we walked
away from dining at Fleet's?'

'Secrecy, of course,' returned the much-shocked Ethel.

'One does keep a secret by telling you. It was to have my eye on
some lodging with a decent landlady, where, when it is coming to
that, he can go up to be alone, out of the way of troubling Dick, and
of all of you.'

'Tom, how dreadful!'

'I fancy it is something of the animal instinct of creeping away
alone, and partly his law to himself not to trouble Dick.'

'An odd idea of what would trouble Dick!'

'So I told him; but he said, after seeing what it cost my father to
watch dear Margaret's long decay, he would never entail the like on
him. It is queer, and it is beautiful, the tender way he has about
my father, treating him like a pet to be shielded and guarded--a man
that has five times the force and vigour of body and mind that he has
now, whatever they may have been.'

'Very beautiful, and I cannot help telling you how beautiful,' said
Ethel, greatly moved; 'only remember, it is not to be mentioned.'

'Ha! did he ever make you an offer? I have sometimes suspected it.'

'No indeed! It was much--much more beautiful than that!'

'Our mother then? I had thought of that too, and it accounts for his
having always taken to you the most of us.'

'Why, I'm the least like her of us all!'

'So they say, I know, and I can't recollect enough to judge, except
that'--and Tom's voice was less clear for a moment--'there was
something in being with her that I've never found again, except now
and then with you, Ethel. Well, he never got over it, I suppose.'

And Ethel briefly told of the rash resolution, the unsettled life,
the neglect of the father's wishes, the grievous remorse, the broken
health, and restless aimless wanderings, ending at last in loving
tendance of the bereaved rival. It had been a life never wanting in
generosity or benevolence, yet falling far short of what it might
have been--a gallant voyage made by a wreck--and yet the injury had
been less from the disappointment than from the manner of bearing it.
Suddenly it struck her that Tom might suspect her of intending a
personal application of the history, and she faltered; but he kept
her to it by his warm interest and many questions.

'And oh, Tom, he must not be allowed to go away in this manner!
Nothing would so cut papa to the heart!'

'I don't believe he ever will, Ethel. He may go on for years as he
is; and he said in the midst that he meant to live to carry out the
drainage. Besides, if it comes gradually on him, he may feel
dependent and lose the energy to move.'

'Oh! what a sorrow for papa! But I know that not to watch over him
would make it all the worse.'

They walked on gravely till, on the top of the hill, Tom exclaimed,
'They've mounted the flag on the Minster steeple already.'

'It went up yesterday for Harvey Anderson and Mrs. Pugh. There was a
proposal to join forces, and have a double wedding--so interesting,
the two school-fellows and two young friends. The Cheviot girls much
regretted it was not to be.'

'Cheviot girls! Heavens and earth! At home?'

'Not sleeping; but we shall have them all day to-morrow, for they
cannot get home the same day by setting off after the wedding. There
will be no one else, for even our own people are going, for Harry is
to go to Maplewood with Blanche, and Aubrey has to be at Woolwich;
but we shall all be at home to-night.'

'Last time was in the volunteer days, two or three centuries ago.'

It was strange how, with this naturally least congenial of all the
family, Ethel had a certain understanding and fellow-feeling that
gave her a sense of rest and relief in his company, only impaired by
the dread of rubs between him and his father. None, however,
happened; Dr. May had been too much hurt to press the question of the
inheritance, and took little notice of Tom, being much occupied with
the final business about the wedding, and engrossed by Hector and
Harry, who always absorbed him in their short intervals of his
company. Tom went to see Dr. Spencer, and brought him in, so
cheerful and full of life, that what Ethel had been hearing seemed
like a dream, excepting when she recognized Tom's unobtrusive
gentleness and attention towards him.

She was surprised and touched through all the harass and hurry of
that evening and morning, to find the 'must be dones' that had of
late devolved on her alone, now lightened and aided by Tom, who
appeared to have come for the sole purpose of being always ready to
give a helping hand where she wanted it, with all Richard's manual
dexterity, and more resource and quickness. The refreshment of
spirits was the more valuable as this was a very unexciting wedding.
Even Gertrude, not yet fourteen, had been surfeited with weddings,
and replied to Harry's old wit of 'three times a bridesmaid and never
a bride,' that she hoped so, her experience of married life was
extremely flat; and a glance at Blanche's monotonous dignity, and
Flora's worn face, showed what that experience was.

Harry was the only one to whom there was the freshness of novelty,
and he was the great element of animation; but as the time came near,
honest Harry had been seized with a mortal dread of the tears he
imagined an indispensable adjunct of the ceremony, and went about
privately consulting every one how much weeping was inevitable.
Flora told him she saw no reason for any tears, and Ethel that when
people felt very much they couldn't cry; but on the other hand,
Blanche said she felt extremely nervous, and knew she should be
overcome; Gertrude assured him that on all former occasions Mary did
all the crying herself; and Aubrey told him that each bridesmaid
carried six handkerchiefs, half for herself and half for the bride.

The result was, that the last speech made by Harry to his favourite
sister in her maiden days was thus:--'Well, Mary, you do look
uncommonly nice and pretty; but now'--most persuasively--'you'll be a
good girl and not cry, will you?' and as Mary fluttered, tried to
smile, and looked out through very moist eyes, he continued, 'I feel
horribly soft-hearted to-day, and if you howl I must, you know; so
mind, if I see you beginning, I shall come out with my father's old
story of the spirit of the flood and the spirit of the fell, and that
will stop it, if anything can.'

The comicality of Harry's alarm was nearly enough to 'stop it,'
coupled with the great desire of Daisy that he should be betrayed
into tears; and Mary did behave extremely well, and looked all that a
bride should look. Admirable daughter and sister, she would be still
more in her place as wife; hers was the truly feminine nature that,
happily for mankind, is the most commonplace, and that she was a
thoroughly generic bride is perhaps a testimony to her perfection in
the part, as in all others where quiet unselfish womanhood was the
essential. Never had she been so sweet in every tone, word, and
caress; never had Ethel so fully felt how much she loved her, or how
entirely they had been one, from a time almost too far back for
memory. There had not been intellectual equality; but perhaps it was
better, fuller affection, than if there had been; for Mary had filled
up a part that had been in some measure wanting in Ethel. She had
been a sort of wife to her sister, and thus was the better prepared
for her new life, but was all the sorer loss at home.

The bridegroom! How many times had Ethel to remind herself of her
esteem, and security of Mary's happiness, besides frowning down
Gertrude's saucy comments, and trying to laugh away Tom's low growl
that good things always fell to the share of poor hearts and narrow
minds. Mr. Cheviot did in fact cut a worse figure than George Rivers
of old, having a great fund of natural bashfulness and self-
consciousness, which did not much damage his dignity, but made his
attempts at gaiety and ease extremely awkward, not to say sheepish.
Perhaps the most trying moment was the last, when hearing a few words
between Ethel and Mary about posting a mere scrap, if only an empty
envelope, from the first resting-place, he turned round, with his
laugh, to object to rash promises, and remind his dear sister Ethel
that post-offices were not always near at hand! After that, when
Mary in her bright tenderness hung round her sister, it was as if
that was the last fond grasp from the substance--as if only the
shadow would come back and live in Minster Street.

Perhaps it was because Ethel had tried to rule it otherwise, Mr.
Cheviot had insisted that the Cocksmoor children's share in the
festivity should be a dinner in the Whichcote hall, early in the day,
after which they had to be sent home, since no one chose to have the
responsibility of turning them loose to play in the Grammar-school
precincts, even in the absence of the boys. Richard was much afraid
of their getting into mischief, and was off immediately after church
to superintend the dinner, and marshal them home; and the rest of the
world lost the resource that entertaining them generally afforded the
survivors after a marriage, and which was specially needed with the
two Cheviot sisters to be disposed of. By the time the Riverses were
gone home, and the Ernescliffes and Harry off by the train, there
were still four mortal hours of daylight, and oh! for Mary's power of
making every one happy!

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