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The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




'To be conquered.'

'To conquer me,' he said, in utter lassitude.

'Stay. Did they ever make you offend wilfully?'

'There was nothing I could offend in.'

'Your tasks of work, for instance.'

'I often had a savage frantic abhorrence of it, but I always brought
myself to do it, and it did me good; it would have done more if it
had been less mechanical. But it often was only the instinct of not
degrading myself like the lowest prisoners.'

'Well, there was your conduct to the officials.'

'Oh! one could not help being amenable to them, they were so kind.
Besides, these demons never came over me except when I was alone.'

'And one thing more, Leonard; did these demons, as you well call
them, invade your devotions?'

'Never,' he answered readily; then recalling himself--'not at the set
times I mean, though they often made me think the comfort I had there
mere hypocrisy and delusion, and be nearly ready to give over what
depended on myself. Chapel was always joy; it brought change and the
presence of others, if nothing else; and that would in itself have
been enough to banish the hauntings.'

'And they did not interfere with your own readings?' said the Doctor,
preferring this to the word that he meant.

'I could not let them,' said Leonard. 'There was always refreshment;
it was only before and after that all would seem mockery,
profanation, or worse still, delusion and superstition--as if my very
condition proved that there was none to hear.'

'The hobgoblin had all but struck the book out of Christian's hand,'
said Dr. May, pressing his grasp on Leonard's shuddering arm. 'You
are only telling me that you have been in the valley of the shadow of
death; you have not told me that you lost the rod and staff.'

'No, I must have been helped, or I should not have my senses now.'

And perhaps it was the repressed tremor of voice and frame rather
than the actual words that induced the Doctor to reply--'That is the
very point, Leonard. It is the temptation to us doctors to ascribe
too much to the physical and too little to the moral; and perhaps you
would be more convinced by Mr. Wilmot than by me; but I do verily
believe that all the anguish you describe could and would have been
insanity if grace had not been given you to conquer it. It was a
tottering of the mind upon its balance; and, humanly speaking, it was
the self-control that enabled you to force yourself to your duties,
and find relief in them, which saved you. I should just as soon call
David conquered because the "deep waters had come in over his soul."'

'You can never know how true those verses are,' said Leonard, with
another shiver.

'At least I know to what kind of verses they all lead,' said the
Doctor; 'and I am sure they led you, and that you had more and
brighter hours than you now remember.'

'Yes, it was not all darkness. I believe there were more spaces than
I can think of now, when I was very fairly happy, even at
Pentonville; and at Portland all did well with me, till last spring,
and then the news from Massissauga brought back all the sense of
blood-guiltiness, and it was worse than ever.'

'And that sense was just as morbid as your other horrible doubt,
about which you asked me when we were coming home.'

'I see it was now, but that was the worst time of all--the monotony
of school, and the sense of hypocrisy and delusion in teaching--the
craving to confess, if only for the sake of the excitement, and the
absolute inability to certify myself whether there was any crime to
confess--I can't talk about it. And even chapel was not the same
refreshment, when one was always teaching a class in it, as coming in
fresh only for the service. Even that was failing me, or I thought
it was! No, I do not know how I could have borne it much longer.'

'No, Leonard, you could not; Tom and I both saw that in your looks,
and quite expected to hear of your being ill; but, you see, we are
never tried above what we can bear!'

'No,' said Leonard, very low, as if he had been much struck; and then
he added, after an interval, 'It is over now, and there's no need to
recollect it except in the way of thanks. The question is what it
has left me fit for. You know, Dr. May,' and his voice trembled, 'my
first and best design in the happy time of Coombe, the very crown of
my life, was this very thing--to be a missionary. But for myself, I
might be in training now. If I had only conquered my temper, and
accepted that kind offer of Mr. Cheviot's, all this would never have
been, and I should have had my youth, my strength, and spirit, my
best, to devote. I turned aside because of my obstinacy, against
warning, and now how can I offer?--one who has stood at the bar,
lived among felons, thought such thoughts--the released convict with
a disgraced name! It would just be an insult to the ministry! No, I
know how prisoners feel. I can deal with them. Let me go back to
what I am trained for. My nerve and spirit have been crushed out; I
am fit for nothing else. The worst thing that has remained with me
is this nervousness--cowardice is its right name--starting at the
sound of a door, or at a fresh face--a pretty notion that I should
land among savages!'

Dr. May had begun an answer about the remains of the terrible ordeal
that might in itself have been part of Leonard's training, when they
reached the house door.

These nerves, or whatever they were, did indeed seem disposed to have
no mercy on their owner; for no sooner had he sat down in the warm
drawing-room, than such severe pain attacked his face as surpassed
even his powers of concealment. Dr. May declared it was all
retribution for his unfriendliness in never seeking sympathy or
advice, which might have proved the evil to be neuralgia and saved
the teeth, instead of aggravating the evil by their extraction.

'I suspect he has been living on nothing,' said Dr. May, when, in a
lull of the pain, Leonard had gone to bed.

'Papa!' exclaimed Gertrude, 'don't you know what Richard's
housekeeping is? Don't you recollect his taking that widow for a
cook because she was such a good woman?'

'I don't think it was greatly Richard's fault,' said Ethel. 'I can
hardly get Leonard to make a sparrow's meal here, and most likely his
mouth has been too uncomfortable.'

'Ay, that never seeking sympathy is to me one of the saddest parts of
all. He has been so long shut within himself, that be can hardly
feel that any one cares for him.'

'He does so more than at first,' said Ethel.

'Much more. I have heard things from him to-night that are a
revelation to me. Well, he has come through, and I believe he is
recovering it; but the three threads of our being have all had a
terrible wrench, and if body and mind come out unscathed, it is the
soundness of the spirit that has brought them through.'

A sleepless night and morning of violent pain ensued; but, at least
thus much had been gained--that there was no refusal of sympathy, but
a grateful acceptance of kindness, so that it almost seemed a
recurrence to the Coombe days; and as the pain lessened, the
enjoyment of Ethel's attendance seemed to grow upon Leonard in the
gentle languor of relief; and when, as she was going out for the
afternoon, she came back to see if he was comfortable in his easy-
chair by the drawing-room fire, and put a screen before his face, he
looked up and thanked her with a smile--the first she had seen.

When she returned, the winter twilight had closed in, and he was
leaning back in the same attitude, but started up, so that she asked
if he had been asleep.

'I don't know--I have seen her again.'

'Seen whom?'

'Minna, my dear little Minna!'

'Dreamt of her?'

'I cannot tell,' he said; 'I only know she was there; and then rising
and standing beside Ethel, he continued--'Miss May, you remember the
night of her death?'

'Easter Eve?'

'Well,' continued he, 'that night I saw her.'

'I remember,' said Ethel, 'that Mr. Wilmot told us you knew at once
what he was come to tell you.'

'It was soon after I was in bed, the lights were out, and I do not
think I was asleep, when she was by me--not the plump rosy thing she
used to be, but tall and white, her hair short and waving back, her
eyes--oh! so sad and wistful, but glad too--and her hands held out--
and she said, "Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. O
Leonard, dear, it does not hurt."'

'It was the last thing she did say.'

'Yes, so Ave's letter said. And observe, one o'clock in Indiana is
half-past nine with us. Then her hair--I wrote to ask, for you know
it used to be in long curls, but it had been cut short, like what I
saw. Surely, surely, it was the dear loving spirit allowed to show
itself to me before going quite away to her home!'

'And you have seen her again?'

'Just now'--his voice was even lower than before--'since it grew
dark, as I sat there. I had left off reading, and had been thinking,
when there she was, all white but not wistful now; "Leonard, dear,"
she said, "it has not hurt;" and then, "He brought me forth, He
brought me forth even to a place of liberty, because He had a favour
unto me."'

'O, Leonard, it must have made you very happy.'

'I am very thankful for it,' he said. Then after a pause, 'You will
not speak of it--you will not tell me to think it the action of my
own mind upon itself.'

'I can only believe it a great blessing come to comfort you and cheer
you,' said Ethel: 'cheer you as with the robin-note, as papa called
it, that sung all through the worst of times! Leonard, I am afraid
you will think it unkind of me to have withheld it so long, but papa
told me you could not yet bear to hear of Minna. I have her last
present for you in charge--the slippers she was working for that
eighteenth birthday of yours. She would go on, and we never knew
whether she fully understood your danger; it was always "they could
not hurt you," and at last, when they were finished, and I had to
make her understand that you could not have them, she only looked up
to me and said, "Please keep them, and give them to him when he comes
home." She never doubted, first or last.'

Ethel, who had daily been watching for the moment, took out the
parcel from the drawer, with the address in the childish writing, the
date in her own.

Large tears came dropping from Leonard's eyes, as he undid the paper,
and looked at the work, then said, 'Last time I saw that pattern, my
mother was working it! Dear child! Yes, Miss May, I am glad you did
not give them to me before. I always felt as if my blow had glanced
aside and fallen on Minna; but somehow I feel more fully how happy
she is!'

'She was the messenger of comfort throughout to Ave and to Ella,'
said Ethel, 'and well she may be to you still.'

'I have dreaded to ask,' said Leonard; 'but there was a line in one
letter I was shown that made me believe that climate was not the
whole cause.'

'No,' said Ethel; 'at least the force to resist it had been lost, as
far as we can see. It was a grievous error of your brother's to
think her a child who could forget. She pined to hear of you, and
that one constant effort of faith and love was too much, and wasted
away the little tender body. But oh, Leonard, how truly she can say
that her captivity is over, and that it has not hurt!'

'It has not hurt,' musingly repeated Leonard. 'No, she is beyond the
reach of distracting temptations and sorrows; it has only made her
brighter to have suffered what it breaks one's heart to think of. It
has not hurt.'

'Nothing from without does hurt!' said Ethel, 'unless one lets it.'

'Hurt what?' he asked.

'The soul,' returned Ethel. 'Mind and body may be hurt, and it is
not possible to know one's mind from one's soul while one is alive,
but as long as the will and faith are right, to think the soul can be
hurt seems to me like doubting our Protector.'

'But if the will have been astray?'

'Then while we repent, we must not doubt our Redeemer.'

Dickie ran in at the moment, calling for Aunt Ethel. She had dropped
her muff. Leonard picked it up, and as she took it, he wrung her
hand with an earnestness that showed his gratitude.




CHAPTER XXVIII



Tender as woman; manliness and meekness
In him were so allied,
That those who judged him by his strength or weakness,
Knew but a single side.--J. WHITTLER


It promised to be a brilliant Christmas at Stoneborough, though
little Dickie regarded the feast coming in winter as a perverse
English innovation, and was grand on the superiority of supple jack
above holly. Decorations had been gradually making their way into
the Minster, and had advanced from being just tolerated to being
absolutely delighted in; but Dr. Spencer, with his knack of doing
everything, was sorely missed as a head, and Mr. Wilmot insisted that
the May forces should come down and work the Minster, on the 23rd,
leaving the Eve for the adornment of Cocksmoor, after the return of
its incumbent. Mary, always highly efficient in that line, joined
them; and Leonard's handiness and dexterity in the arts relating to
carpentry were as quietly useful as little Dickie's bright readiness
in always handing whatever was wanting.

The work was pretty well over, when Aubrey, who had just arrived with
leave for a week, came down, and made it desultory. Dickie, whose
imagination had been a good deal occupied by his soldier uncle,
wanted to study him, and Gertrude was never steady when Aubrey was
near. Presently it was discovered that the door to the tower stair
was open. The ascent of the tower was a feat performed two or three
times in a lifetime at Stoneborough. Harry had once beguiled Ethel
and Mary up, but Gertrude had never gone, and was crazy to go, as was
likewise Dickie. Moreover, Aubrey and Gertrude insisted that it was
only proper that Ethel should pay her respects to her prototype the
gurgoyle, they wanted to compare her with him, and ordered her up; in
fact their spirits were too high for them to be at ease within the
church, and Ethel, maugre her thirty years, partook of the
exhilaration enough to delight in an extraordinary enterprise, and as
nothing remained but a little sweeping up, they left this to the
superintendence of Mary and Mr. Wilmot, and embarked upon the narrow
crumbling steps of the spiral stair, that led up within an unnatural
thickening of one of the great piers that supported the tower, at the
intersection of nave and transepts. After a long period of dust and
darkness, and the monotony of always going with the same leg
foremost, came a narrow door, leading to the ringers' region, with
all their ropes hanging down. Ethel was thankful when she had got
her youngsters past without an essay on them; she doubted if she
should have succeeded, but for Leonard's being an element of
soberness. Other little doors ensued, leading out to the various
elevations of roof, which were at all sorts of different heights, the
chancel lower than the nave, and one transept than the other; besides
that the nave had both triforium and clerestory. It was a sort of
labyrinth, and they wondered whether any one, except perhaps the
plumber's foreman knew his way among all the doors. Then there was
one leading inwards to the eight bells--from whose fascinations Ethel
thought Dickie never would be taken away--and still more charming, to
the clock, which clanged a tremendous three, as they were in the act
of looking at it, causing Leonard to make a great start, and then
colour painfully. It was hard to believe, as Daisy said, that the
old tower, that looked so short and squat below, could be so very
high when you came to go up it; but the glimpses of the country,
through the little loop-hole windows, were most inviting. At last,
Aubrey, who was foremost, pushed up the trap-door, and emerged; but,
as Dickie followed him, exclaimed, 'Here we are; but you ladies in
crinolines will never follow! You'll stick fast for ever, and
Leonard can't pass, so there you'll all have to stay.'

'Aunt Daisy will sail away like a balloon,' added Dickie, roguishly,
looking back at her, and holding on his cap.

But Gertrude vigorously compressed her hoop, and squeezed through,
followed by Ethel and Leonard. There was a considerable space,
square, leaded and protected by the battlemented parapet, with a deep
moulding round, and a gutter resulting in the pipe smoked by Ethel's
likeness, the gurgoyle. Of course the first thing Dickie and Aubrey
did was to look for the letters that commemorated the ascent of H.
M., E. M., M. M., in 1852; and it was equally needful that R. R. M.,
if nobody else, should likewise leave a record on the leads. There
was an R. M. of 1820, that made it impossible to gainsay him. The
view was not grand in itself, but there was a considerable charm in
looking down on the rooks in their leafless trees, cawing over their
old nests, and in seeing the roofs of the town; far away, too, the
gray Welsh hills, and between, the country lying like a map, with
rivers traced in light instead of black. Leonard stood still, his
face turned towards the greenest of the meadows, and the river where
it dashed over the wheel of a mill.

'Have you seen it again?' asked Ethel, as she stood by him, and
watched his eye.

'No. I am rather glad to see it first from so far off,' he answered,
'I mean to walk over some day.'

'Ethel,' called Gertrude, 'is this your gurgoyle? His profile, as
seen from above, isn't flattering.'

'O, Daisy, don't lean over so far.'

'Quite safe;' but at that instant a gust of wind caught her hat, she
grasped at it, but only saved it from whirling away, and made it fall
short. 'There, Ethel, your image has put on my hat; and henceforth
will appear to the wondering city in a black hat and feather!'

'I'll get it,' exclaimed the ever ready Dickie; and in another moment
he had mounted the parapet and was reaching for it. Whether it were
Gertrude's shriek, or the natural recoil away from the grasping hand,
or that his hold on the side of the adjoining pinnacle was insecure,
he lost his balance, and with a sudden cry, vanished from their eyes.

The frightful consternation of that moment none of those four could
ever bear to recall; the next, they remembered that he could only
fall as far as the roof, but it was Ethel and Leonard alone who durst
press to the parapet, and at the same moment a cry came up--

'Oh, come! I'm holding on, but it cuts! Oh, come!'

Ethel saw, some five-and-twenty feet below, the little boy upon the
transept roof, a smooth slope of lead, only broken by a skylight, a
bit of churchwarden's architecture still remaining. The child had
gone crashing against the window, and now lay back clinging to its
iron frame. Behind him was the entire height within to the church
floor, before him a rapid slope, ended by a course of stone, wide
enough indeed to walk on, but too narrow to check the impetus from
slipping down the inclination above. Ethel's brain swam; she just
perceived that both Aubrey and Leonard had disappeared, and then had
barely power to support Gertrude, who reeled against her, giddy with
horror. 'Oh look, look, Ethel,' she cried; 'I can't. Where is he?'

'There! Yes, hold on, Dickie, they are coming. Look up--not down--
hold on!'

A door opened, and out dashed Aubrey! Alas! it was on the nave
clerestory; he might as well have been a hundred, miles off. Another
door, and Leonard appeared, and on the right level, but with a giddy
unguarded ridge on which to pass round the angle of the tower. She
saw his head pass safely round, but, even then, the horror was not
over. Could he steady himself sufficiently to reach the child, or
might not Dickie lose hold too soon? It was too close below for
sight, the moulding and gurgoyle impeded her agonized view, but she
saw the child's look of joyful relief, she heard the steady voice,
'Wait, don't let go yet. There,' and after a few more sounds, came
up a shout, 'all right!' Infinitely relieved, she had to give her
whole attention to poor Gertrude, who, overset by the accident, giddy
with the attempt to look over, horrified by the danger, confused and
distressed by the hair that came wildly flapping about her head and
face, and by the puffs of wind at her hoop, had sunk down in the
centre of the little leaden square, clinging with all her might to
the staff of the weathercock, and feeling as if the whole tower were
rocking with her, absolutely seeing the battlements dance. How was
she ever to be safely got down the rickety ladder leading to the
crumbling stone stair? Ethel knelt by her, twisted up the fluttering
hair, bade her shut her eyes and compose her thoughts, and then
called over the battlements to Aubrey, who, confused by the shock,
continued to emerge at wrong doors and lose himself on the roofs, and
was like one in a bad dream, nearly as much dizzied as his sister, to
whose help he came the more readily, as the way up was the only one
plain before him.

The detention would have been more dreadful to Ethel had she known
all that was passing below, and that when the little boy, at
Leonard's sign, lowered himself towards the out-reaching arms of the
young man, who was steadying himself against the wall of the tower,
it was with a look of great pain, and leaving a trail of blood behind
him. When, at length, he stood at the angle, Leonard calmly said,
'Now go before me, round that corner, in at the door. Hold by the
wall, I'll hold your shoulder.' The boy implicitly obeyed, the
notion of giddiness never seemed to occur to him, and both safely
came to the little door, on the threshold of which Leonard sat down,
and lifting him on his knee, asked where he was hurt? 'My leg,' said
Dickie, 'the glass was running in all the time, and I could not move;
but it does not hurt so much now.'

Perhaps not; but a large piece of glass had broken into the slender
little calf, and Leonard steadied himself to withdraw it, as,
happily, the fragment was large enough to give a hold for his hand.
The sensible little fellow, without a word, held up the limb across
Leonard's knee, and threw an arm round his neck, to hold himself
still, just saying, 'Thank you,' when it was over.

'Did it hurt much, Dickie?'

'Not very much,' he answered; 'but how it bleeds! Where's Aunt
Ethel?'

'On the tower. She will come in a moment,' said Leonard, startled by
the exceeding flow of blood, and binding the gash round with his
handkerchief. 'Now, I'll carry you down.'

The boy did not speak all the weary winding way down the dark stairs;
but Leonard heard gasps of oppression, and felt the head lean on his
shoulder; moreover, a touch convinced him that the handkerchief was
soaking, nay dripping, and when he issued at length into the free air
of the church, the face was deadly white. No one was near, and
Leonard laid him on a bench. He was still conscious, and looked up
with languid eyes. 'Mayn't I go home?' he said, faintly; 'Aunt
Ethel!'

'Let me try to stop this bleeding first,' said Leonard. 'My dear
little man, if you will only be quiet, I think I can.'

Leonard took the handkerchief from his throat, and wound it to its
tightest just above the hurt, Dickie remonstrating for a moment with,
'That's not the place. It is too tight.'

'It will cut off the blood from coming,' said Leonard; and in the
same understanding way, the child submitted, feebly asking, 'Shall I
bleed to death? Mamma will be so sorry!'

'I trust--I hope not,' said Leonard; he durst utter no encouragement,
for the life-blood continued to pour forth unchecked, and the next
murmur was, 'I'm so sick. I can't say my prayers. Papa! Mamma!'
Already, however, Leonard had torn down a holly bough, and twisted
off (he would have given worlds for a knife) a short stout stick,
which he thrust into one of the folds of the ligature, and pulled it
much tighter, so that his answer was, 'Thank God, Dickie, that will
do! the bleeding has stopped. You must not mind if it hurts for a
little while.'

An ejaculation of 'Poor little dear,' here made him aware of the
presence of the sexton's wife; but in reply to her offer to carry him
in to Mrs. Cheviot's, Dickie faintly answered, 'Please let me go
home;' and Leonard, 'Yes, I will take him home. Tell Miss May it is
a cut from the glass, I am taking him to have it dressed, and will
bring him home. Now, my dear little patient fellow, can you put your
arms round my neck?'

Sensible, according to both meanings of the word, Dickie clasped his
friend's neck, and laid his head on his shoulder, not speaking again
till he found Leonard was not turning towards the High Street, when
he said, 'That is not the way home.'

'No, Dickie, but we must get your leg bound up directly, and the
hospital is the only place where we can be sure of finding any one to
do it. I will take you home directly afterwards.'

'Thank you,' said the courteous little gentleman; and in a few
minutes more Leonard had rung the bell, and begged the house surgeon
would come at once to Dr. May's grandson. A few drops of stimulant
much revived Dickie, and he showed perfect trust and composure, only
holding Leonard's hands, and now and then begging to know what they
were doing, while he was turned over on his face for the dressing of
the wound, bearing all without a sound, except an occasional sobbing
gasp, accompanied by a squeeze of Leonard's finger. Just as this
business had been completed, the surgeon exclaimed, 'There's Dr.
May's step,' and Dickie at once sat up, as his grandfather hurried
in, nearly as pale as the boy himself. 'O, grandpapa, never mind, it
is almost well now; and has Aunt Daisy got her hat?'

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