Charles A. Ellwood - "Sociology and Modern Social Problems"

William Shakespeare - "The Merry Wiues of Windsor"

Unknown - "The World English Bible (WEB): 2 Corinthians"

Caesar - "Caesar's Commentaries [in Latin]"

Warning: file_get_contents(http://www.publishersnewswire.com/RSS/news1.xml) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found in /home/farmy/public_html/topbookz.net/inc/rss.php on line 8

The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




Ethel did not feel sure whether to see these would give pain or
pleasure to her father. He would certainly be grieved to see how
much suffering he must have inflicted in the innocence of his heart,
and in the glory of his happiness; and Tom, with a sort of shudder,
advised her to keep them to herself, he was sure they would give
nothing but pain.

She had no choice just then, for it was a time of unusual occupation,
and the difference made by their loss told immediately--the more,
perhaps, because it was the beginning of November, and there was much
municipal business to be attended to.

However it might be for the future, during the ensuing week Dr. May
never came in for a meal with the rest of the family; was too much
fagged for anything but sleep when he came home at night; and on the
Sunday morning, when they all had reckoned on going to Cocksmoor
together, he was obliged to give it up, and only come into the
Minster at the end of the prayers. Every one knew that he was not a
good manager of his time, and this made things worse; and he declared
that he should make arrangements for being less taken up; but it was
sad to see him overburthened, and Tom, as only a casual visitor,
could do little to lessen his toil, though that little was done
readily and attentively. There were no rubs between the two, and
scarcely any conversation. Tom would not discuss his prospects; and
it was not clear whether he meant to avail himself of Sir Matthew's
patronage; he committed himself to nothing but his wish that it were
possible to stay in Paris; and he avoided even talking to his sister.

Not till a week after he had left home for London came a letter


'Dear Ethel,

'I have told Fleet that I am convinced of my only right course. I
could never get the book finished properly if I got into his line,
and I must have peaceable evenings for it at home. I suppose my
father would not like to let Dr. Spencer's house. If I might have
it, and keep my own hours and habits, I think it would conduce to our
working better together. I am afraid I kept you in needless distress
about him, but I wanted to judge for myself of the necessity, and to
think over the resignation of that quest. I must commit it to Brown.
I hope it is not too great a risk; but it can't be helped. It is a
matter of course that I should come home now the helper is gone; I
always knew it would come to that. Manage it as quietly as you can.
I must go to Paris for a fortnight, to bring home my things, and by
that time my father had better get me appointed to the hospital.

'Yours ever,
'TH. MAY.'


Ethel was not so much surprised as her father, who thought she must
have been working upon Tom's feelings; but this she disavowed, except
that it had been impossible not to growl at patients sending at
unreasonable hours. Then he hoped that Fleet had not been
disappointing the lad; but this notion was nullified by a
remonstrance from the knight, on the impolicy of burying such talents
for the sake of present help; and even proposing to send a promising
young man in Tom's stead. 'Not too good for poor Stoneborough,' said
Dr. May, smiling. 'No, no, I'm not so decrepit as that, whatever he
and Tom may have thought me; I fancy I could tire out both of them.
I can't have the poor boy giving up all his prospects for my sake,
Ethel. I never looked for it, and I shall write and tell him so!
Mind, Ethel, I shall write, not you! I know you would only stroke
him down, and bring him home to regret it. No, no, I won't always be
treated like Karl, in "Debit and Credit", who the old giant thought
could neither write nor be written to, because his finger was off.'

And Dr. May's letter was the first which this son had ever had from
him.


'My Dear Tom,

'I feel your kind intentions to the heart; it is like all the rest of
your dear mother's children; but the young ought not to be sacrificed
to the old, and I won't have it done. The whole tone of practice has
altered since my time, and I do not want to bind you down to the
routine. I had left off thinking of it since I knew of your
distaste. I have some years of work in me yet, that will see out
most of my old patients; and for the rest, Wright is a great advance
on poor Ward, and I will leave more to him as I grow older. I mean
to see you a great man yet, and I think you will be the greater and
happier for the sacrifice you have been willing to make. His
blessing on you.

'Your loving father,
'R. M.'


What was Tom's answer, but one of his cool 'good letters,' a
demonstration that he was actuated by the calmest motives of
convenience and self-interest, in preferring the certainties of
Stoneborough to the contingencies of London, and that he only wanted
time for study and the completion of Dr. Spencer's book, enforcing
his request for the house.

His resolution was, as usual, too evident to be combated, and it was
also plain that he chose to keep on the mask of prudent selfishness,
which he wore so naturally that it was hard to give him credit for
any other features; but this time Dr. May was not deceived. He fully
estimated the sacrifice, and would have prevented it if he could; but
he never questioned the sincerity of the motive, as it was not upon
the surface; and the token of dutiful affection, as coming from the
least likely quarter of his family, touched and comforted him. He
dwelt on it with increasing satisfaction, and answered all hurries
and worries with, 'I shall have time when Tome is come;' re-opened
old schemes that had died away when he feared to have no successor,
and now and then showed a certain comical dread of being drilled into
conformity with Tom's orderly habits.

There was less danger of their clashing, as the son had outgrown the
presumptions of early youth, and a change had passed over his nature
which Ethel had felt, rather than seen, during his fleeting visits at
home, more marked by negatives than positives, and untraced by
confidences. The bitterness and self-assertion had ceased to tinge
his words, the uncomfortable doubt that they were underlaid by satire
had passed away, and methodical and self-possessed as he always was,
the atmosphere of 'number one' was no longer apparent round all his
doings. He could be out of spirits and reserved without being either
ill-tempered or ironical; and Ethel, with this as the upshot of her
week's observations, was reassured as to the hopes of the father and
son working together without collisions. As soon as the die was
cast, and there was no danger of undue persuasion in 'stroking him
down,' she indulged herself by a warmly-grateful letter, and after
she had sent it, was tormented by the fear that it would be a great
offence. The answer was much longer than she had dared to expect,
and alarmed her lest it should be one of his careful ways of making
the worst of himself; but there was a large 'Private,' scored in
almost menacing letters on the top of the first sheet, and so much
blotted in the folding, that it was plain that he had taken alarm at
the unreserve of his own letter.


'My Dear Ethel,

'I have been to Portland. Really my father ought to make a stir and
get Ward's health attended to; he looks very much altered, but will
not own to anything being amiss. They say he has been depressed ever
since he heard of Minna's death. I should say he ought to be doing
out-of-doors work--perhaps at Gibraltar, but then he would be out of
our reach. I could not get much from him, but that patient,
contented look is almost more than one can bear. It laid hold of me
when I saw him the first time, and has haunted me ever since. Verily
I believe it is what is bringing me home! You need not thank me, for
it is sober calculation that convinces me that no success on earth
would compensate for the perpetual sense that my father was wearing
himself out, and you pining over the sight. Except just at first, I
always meant to come and see how the land lay before pledging myself
to anything; and nothing can be clearer than that, in the state of
things my father has allowed to spring up, he must have help. I am
glad you have got me the old house, for I can be at peace there till
I have learnt to stand his unmethodical ways. Don't let him expect
too much of me, as I see he is going to do. It is not in me to be
like Norman or Harry, and he must not look for it, least of all now.
If you did not understand, and know when to hold your tongue, I do
not think I could come home at all; as it is, you are all the comfort
I look for. I cross to Paris to-morrow. That is a page I am very
sorry to close. I had a confidence that I should have hunted down
that fellow, and the sight of Portland and the accounts from
Massissauga alike make one long to have one's hands on his throat;
but that hope is ended now, and to loiter about Paris in search of
him, when it it a plain duty to come away, would be one of the
presumptuous acts that come to no good. Let them discuss what they
will, there's nothing so hard to believe in as Divine Justice! And
yet that uncomplaining face accepts it! You need say nothing about
this letter. I will talk about Leonard with my father when I get
home.

'Ever yours,
'Thomas May.'




CHAPTER XXV



But soon as once the genial plain
Has drunk the life-blood of the slain,
Indelible the spots remain;
And aye for vengeance call,
Till racking pangs of piercing pain
Upon the guilty fall.
AEschylus.
(Translated by Professor Anstice.)


If Tom May's arrival at home was eagerly anticipated there, it was
with a heavy heart that he prepared for what he had never ceased to
look on as a treadmill life. He had enjoyed Paris, both from the
society and the abstract study, since he still retained that taste
for theory rather than practice, which made him prefer diseases to
sick people, and all sick people to those of Stoneborough. The
student life, in the freedom of a foreign capital, was, even while
devoid of license and irregularity, much pleasanter than what he
foresaw at home, even though he had obtained a separate
establishment. His residence at Paris, with the vague hope it
afforded, cost him more in the resignation than his prospects in
London. It was the week when he would have been canvassing for the
appointment, and he was glad to linger abroad out of reach of Sir
Matthew's remonstrances, and his father's compunction, while he was
engaged in arranging for a French translation of Dr. Spencer's book,
and likewise in watching an interesting case, esteemed a great
medical curiosity, at the Hotel Dieu.

He was waiting in the lecture-room, when one of the house surgeons
came in, saying, 'Ah! I am glad to see you here. A compatriot of
yours has been brought in, mortally injured in a gambling fray. You
may perhaps assist in getting him identified.'

Tom followed him to the accident ward, and beheld a senseless figure,
with bloated and discoloured features, distorted by the effects of
the injury, a blow upon the temple, which had caused a fall backwards
on the sharp edge of a stove, occasioning fatal injury to the spine.
Albeit well accustomed to gaze critically upon the tokens of mortal
agony, Tom felt an unusual shudder of horror and repugnance as he
glanced on the countenance, so disfigured and contorted that there
was no chance of recognition, and turned his attention to the
clothes, which lay in a heap on the floor. The contents of the
pockets had been taken out, and consisted only of some pawnbroker's
duplicates, a cigar-case, and a memorandum-book, which last he took
in his hand, and began to unfasten, without looking at it, while he
took part in the conversation of the surgeons on the technical nature
of the injuries. Thus he stood for some seconds, before, on the
house surgeon asking if he had found any address, he cast his eyes on
the pages which lay open in his hand.

'Ha! What have you found?--He does not hear! Is it the portrait of
the beloved object? Is it a brother--an enemy--or a debt? But he is
truly transfixed! It is an effect of the Gorgon's head!'


'July 15th, 1860. Received £120.
'L. A. WARD.'


There stood Tom May, like one petrified, deaf to the words around,
his dazzled eyes fixed on the letters, his faculties concentrated in
the endeavour to ascertain whether they were sight or imagination.
Yes, there they were, the very words in the well-known writing, the
school-boy's forming into the clerk's, there was the blot in the top
of the L! Tom's heart gave one wild bound, then all sensation,
except the sight of the writing, ceased, the exclamations of those
around him came surging gradually on his ear, as if from a distance,
and he did not yet hear them distinctly when he replied alertly,
almost lightly, 'Here is a name that surprises me. Let me look at
the patient again.'

'No dear friend?' asked his chief intimate, in a tone ready to become
gaiety or sympathy.

'No, indeed,' said Tom, shuddering as he stood over the insensible
wretch, and perceived what it had been which had thrilled him with
such unwonted horror, for, fixed by the paralyzing convulsion of the
fatal blow, he saw the scowl and grin of deadly malevolence that had
been the terror of his childhood, and that had fascinated his eyes at
the moment of Leonard's sentence. Changed by debauchery, defaced by
violence, contorted by the injured brain, the features would scarcely
have been recalled to him but for the frightful expression stamped on
his memory by the miseries of his timid boyhood.

'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' The
awful thought, answering his own struggle for faith in Divine
Justice, crossed him, as he heard the injury on the head defined, in
almost the same scientific terms that had so often rung on his ears
as the causes of Francis Axworthy's death; but this was no society
where he could give vent to his feelings, and mastering himself with
difficulty he answered, 'I know Him. He is from my own town.'

'Has he friends or relations?'

'Relations, yes,' said Tom, hardly able to restrain a trembling of
the lip, half horror, half irony. 'None here, none near. They shall
know.'

'And means?'

'Once he had. Probably none now.'

To Tom's great relief, a new case drew off general attention. There
only remained the surgeon who had called him at first, and with whom
he was particularly intimate.

'Gaspard,' he said, 'shall you have charge of this case?'

'Brief charge it will be, apparently! I will volunteer to watch it,
if it is your desire! Is it friendship, or enmity, or simple
humanity?'

'All!' said Tom, hastily. 'It is the clearing up of a horrible
mystery--freedom for an innocent prisoner--I must tell you the rest
at leisure. There is much to be done now in case of his reviving.'

This was remotely possible, but very doubtful; and Tom impressed on
both Gaspard and the nursing sister the most stringent entreaties to
summon him on the first symptom. He then gave the name of the
unhappy man, and, though unwilling to separate himself from that
invaluable pocket-book, perceived the necessity of leaving it as a
deposit with the authorities of the hospital, after he had fully
examined it, recognizing Leonard's description in each particular,
the cipher F. A. on the tarnished silver clasp, the shagreen cover,
and the receipt on a page a little past the middle. On the other
half of the leaf was the entry of some sums due to the house; and it
contained other papers which the guilty wretch had been evidently
eager to secure, yet afraid to employ, and that, no doubt, were the
cause that, like so many other murderers on record, he had preserved
that which was the most fatal proof against himself. Or could it be
with some notion of future relenting, that he had refrained from its
destruction?

With brain still seeming to reel at the discovery, and limbs actually
trembling with the shock, Tom managed to preserve sufficient coolness
and discretion to bring back to mind the measures he had so often
planned for any such contingency. Calling a cabriolet, he repaired
to the police-station nearest to the scene of the contest, and there
learnt that Axworthy had long been watched as a dangerous subject,
full of turbulence, and with no visible means of maintenance. The
officials had taken charge of the few personal effects in his
miserable lodgings, and were endeavouring to secure the person who
had struck the fatal blow.

His next measure was to go to the British Embassy, where, through his
sister Flora's introductions, and his own Eton connections, he was
already well known; and telling his story there, without any attempt
to conceal his breathless agitation, he had no difficulty in bringing
with him a companion who would authenticate the discovery of the
receipt, and certify to any confession that might be obtained.

A confession! That was the one matter of the most intense interest.
Tom considered whether to secure the presence of a clergyman, but
suspected that this would put Axworthy on his guard rather than
soften him, and therefore only wrote to the chaplain, begging him to
hold himself in readiness for a summons to the Hotel Dieu, whither he
drove rapidly back with his diplomatic friend, whom he wrought up
well-nigh to his own pitch of expectation. He had already decided on
his own first address--pitying, but manifesting that nothing, not
even vengeance, could be gained by concealment; and then, according
to the effect, would he try either softening or threatening to extort
the truth.

Gaspard was eagerly awaiting them. 'I had already sent for you,' he
said. 'The agony is commencing; he has spoken, but he has not his
full consciousness.'

Tom hurried on, drawing after him the young diplomate, who would have
hung back, questioning if there were any use in his witnessing the
dying struggles of a delirious man.

'Come, come,' peremptorily repeated Tom, 'there must be some last
words. Every moment is of importance.'

Yet his trust was shaken by the perception of the progress that death
had made in the miserable frame during his absence. The fixed
expression of malignity had been forced to yield to exhaustion and
anguish, the lips moved, but the murmurs between the moans were
scarcely articulate.

'He is almost past it,' said Tom, 'but there is the one chance that
he may be roused by my voice.'

And having placed his friend conveniently, both for listening and
making notes, he came close to the bed, and spoke in a tone of
compassion. 'Axworthy, I say, Axworthy, is there anything I can do
for you?'

There was a motion of the lid of the fast-glazing eye; but the
terrible face of hatred came back, with the audible words, 'I tell
you, you old fool, none of the Mays are to come prying about my
place.'

Appalled by the deadly malice of the imprecation and the look that
accompanied this partial recognition of his voice, Tom was nerving
himself to speak again, when the dying man, as if roused by the echo
of his own thought, burst out, 'Who? What is it? I say Dr. May
shall not be called in! He never attended the old man! Let him mind
his own business! I was all night at the Three Goblets. Yes, I was!
The new darling will catch it--going off with the money upon him--'
and the laugh made their blood run cold. 'I've got the receipt;' and
he made an attempt at thrusting his hand under the pillow, but
failing, swore, shouted, howled with his last strength, that he had
been robbed--the pocket-book--it would hang him! and with one of the
most fearful shrieks of despair that had perhaps ever rung through
that asylum of pain, woe, and death, the wretched spirit departed.

Tom May turned aside, made a few steps, and, to the infinite surprise
of every one, fell helplessly down in a swoon. A nature of deep and
real sensibility, though repressed by external reserve and prudence,
could not with entire impunity undergo such a scene. The sudden
discovery, the vehement excitement forced down, the intense strain of
expectation, and finally, the closing horror of such a death,
betraying the crime without repenting of it, passing to the other
world with imprecations on the lips, and hatred in the glare of the
eye, all the frightfulness enhanced by the familiarity of the
allusions, and the ghastly association of the tones that had tempted
and tyrannized over his childhood, altogether crushed and annihilated
his faculties, mental and bodily.

Oh, when our very hearts burn for justice, how little do we know how
intolerable would be the sight of it! Tom's caution and readiness
returned as soon as--after a somewhat long interval--he began to
distinguish the voices round him, and perceive the amazement he had
created. Before he was able to sit up on the couch, where he had
been laid out of sight of the scene which had affected him so
strongly, he was urging his friend to set down all that had been
spoken, and on Gaspard's writing a separate deposition. The pocket-
book, and other effects, were readily ceded to the British authority,
and were carried away with them.

How Tom got through the remaining hours of the day and the night he
never recollected, though he knew it must have been in the bustle of
preparation, and that he had imparted the tidings to Leonard's friend
Brown, for when he and his friend had attended that which answered to
an inquest on the body, and had obtained a report of the proceedings,
he was ready to start by the night train, bearing with him the
attestations of the death-bed scene at the Hotel Dieu, and the long-
lost memorandum-book, and was assured that the next mail would carry
an official letter to the Home Office, detailing the circumstances of
Samuel Axworthy's decease. Brown came to bid him farewell, full of
gladness and warm congratulation, which he longed to send to his
friend, but which Tom only received with hasty, half-comprehending
assents.

Late in the afternoon he reached Stoneborough, found no one come in,
and sat down in the fire-light, where, for all his impatience,
fatigue had made him drop asleep, when he was roused by Gertrude's
voice, exclaiming, 'Here really is Tom come, as you said he would,
without writing. Here are all his goods in the hall.'

'Is it you, Tom!' cried Ethel. 'Notice or no notice, we are glad of
you. But what is the matter?'

'Where's my father?'

'Coming. Charles Cheviot took him down to look at one of the boys.
Is there anything the matter?' she added, after a pause.

'No, nothing.'

'You look very odd,' added Gertrude.

He gave a nervous laugh. 'You would look odd, if you had travelled
all night.'

They commented, and began to tell home news; but Ethel noted that he
neither spoke nor heard, only listened for his father. Gertrude grew
tired of inattentive answers, and said she should go and dress.
Ethel was turning to follow, when he caught hold of her cloak, and
drew her close to him. 'Ethel,' he said, in a husky, stifled voice,
'do you know this?'

On her knees, by the red fire-light, she saw the 'L. A. Ward,' and
looked up. 'Is it?' she said. He bowed his head.

And then Ethel put her arm round his neck, as he knelt down by her;
and he found that her tears, her rare tears, were streaming down,
silent but irrepressible. She had not spoken, had asked no question,
made no remark, when Dr. Mays entrance was heard, and she loosed her
hold on her brother, out without rising from the floor, looked up
from under the shade of her hat, and said, 'O, papa! it is found, and
he has done it! Look there!'

Her choked voice, and tokens of emotion, startled the Doctor; but
Tom, in a matter-of-fact tone, took up the word: 'How are you,
father?--Yes. I have only met with this little memorandum.'

Dr. May recognized it with a burst of incoherent inquiry and
exclamation, wringing Tom's hand, and giving no time for an answer;
and, indeed, his son attempted none--till, calming himself, the
Doctor subsided into his arm-chair, and with a deep sigh, exclaimed,
'Now then, Tom, let us hear. Where does this come from?'

'From the casualty ward at the Hotel Dieu.'

'And from--'

'He is dead,' said Tom, answering the unspoken question. 'You will
find it all here. Ethel, do I sleep here to-night? My old room?'
As he spoke, he bent to light a spill at the fire, and then the two
candles on the side-table; but his hand shook nervously, and though
he turned away his face, his father and sister saw the paleness of
his cheek, and knew that he must have received a great shock.
Neither spoke, while he put one candle conveniently for his father,
took up the other, and went away with it. With one inquisitive
glance at each other, they turned to the papers, and with eager eyes
devoured the written narratives of Tom himself and of the attache,
then, with no less avidity, the French reports accompanying them.
Hardly a word was spoken while Ethel leant against her father's knee,
and he almost singed his hair in the candle, as they helped one
another out in the difficulties of the crooked foreign writing.

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.