George MacDonald - "St. George and St. Michael Vol. III"

Kate Douglas Wiggin - "A Village Stradivarius"

George Gissing - "The Whirlpool"

Unknown - "The World English Bible (WEB): John"

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The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




In ignorance as to the state of the traveller, and expecting to find
him in a condition requiring great care and watching, Dr. May had
laid his injunctions on the eager family not to rush up to the
station en masse to excite and overwhelm, but to leave the meeting
there entirely to himself and his brougham. He had, therefore, been
exceedingly annoyed that one of Henry Ward's pieces of self-assertion
had delayed him unnecessarily at a consultation; and when at last he
had escaped, he spent most of his journey with his body half out of
the window, hurrying Will Adams, and making noises of encouragement
to the horse; or else in a strange tumult of sensation between hope
and fear, pain and pleasure, suspense and thankfulness, the
predominant feeling being vexation at not having provided against
this contingency by sending Richard to the station.

After all the best efforts of the stout old chestnut, he and the
train were simultaneously at the station, and the passengers were
getting out on the opposite platform. The Doctor made a dash to
cross in the rear of the train, but was caught and held fast by a
porter with the angry exclamation, 'She's backing, sir;' and there he
stood in an agony, feeling all Harry's blank disappointment, and the
guilt of it besides, and straining his eyes through the narrow gaps
between the blocks of carriages.

The train rushed on, and he was across the line the same instant, but
the blank was his. Up and down the gas-lighted platform he looked in
vain among the crowd, only his eye suddenly lit on a black case close
to his feet, with the three letters MAY, and the next moment a huge
chest appeared out of the darkness, bearing the same letters, and
lifted on a truck by the joint strength of a green porter, and a pair
of broad blue shoulders. Too ill to come on--telegraph, mail train--
rushed through the poor Doctor's brain as he stepped forward as if to
interrogate the chest. The blue shoulders turned, a ruddy sun-burnt
face lighted up, and the inarticulate exclamation on either side was
of the most intense relief and satisfaction.

'Where are the rest?' said Harry, holding his father's hand in no
sick man's grasp.

'At home, I told them not to come up; I thought--'

'Well, we'll walk down together! I've got you all to myself. I
thought you had missed my telegram. Hollo, Will, how d'ye do? what,
this thing to drive down in?'

'I thought you were an invalid, Harry,' said Dr. May, with a laughing
yet tearful ring in his agitated tone, as he packed himself and his
son in.

'Ay! I wished I could have let you know sooner how well I had got
over it,' said Harry, in the deep full voice of strong healthy
manhood. 'I am afraid you have been very anxious.'

'We are used to it, my boy,' said the Doctor huskily, stroking the
great firm fingers that were lying lovingly on his knee, 'and if it
always ends in this way, it ought to do us more good than harm.'

'It has not done harm, I hope,' said Harry, catching him up quick.
'Not to old Mary?'

'No, Mary works things off, good girl. I flatter myself you will
find us all in high preservation.'

'All--all at home! That's right.'

'Yes, those infants from Maplewood and all. You are sure you are all
right, Harry?'

'As sure as my own feelings can make me, and the surgeon of the
Dexter to back them,' said Harry. 'I don't believe my lungs were
touched after all, but you shall all sit upon me when you like--Tom
and all. It was a greater escape than I looked for,' he added, in a
lower voice. 'I did not think to have had another Christmas here.'

The silence lasted for the few moments till the carriage drew up
behind the limes; the doors were thrown open, and the Doctor shouted
to the timid anxious figure that alone was allowed to appear in the
hall, 'Come and lift him out, Mary.'

The drawing-room was a goodly sight that evening; and the Doctor, as
he sat leaning back in weary happiness, might be well satisfied with
the bright garland that still clustered round his hearth, though the
age of almost all forbade their old title of Daisies. The only one
who still asserted her right to that name was perched on the sailor's
knee, insisting on establishing that there was as much room for her
there as there had been three years ago; though, as he had seated
himself on a low foot-stool, her feet were sometimes on the ground,
and moreover her throne was subject to sudden earthquakes, which made
her, nothing loth, cling to his neck, draw his arm closer round her,
and lean on his broad breast, proud that universal consent declared
her his likeness in the family; and the two presenting a pleasant
contrasting similarity--the open honest features, blue eyes, and
smile, expressive of hearty good-will and simple happiness, were so
entirely of the same mould in the plump, white-skinned, rosy-cheeked,
golden-haired girl, and in the large, powerful, bronzed, ruddy
sailor, with the thick mass of curls, at which Tom looked with
hostility as fixed, though less declared, than that of his Eton days.

Those were the idle members upon the hearth-rug. On the sofa, with a
small table to herself, and a tall embroidery frame before her,
nearly hiding her slight person, sat Mrs. Ernescliffe, her pretty
head occasionally looking out over the top of her work to smile an
answer, and her artistically arranged hair and the crispness of her
white dress and broad blue ribbons marking that there was a step in
life between her and her sisters; her husband sat beside her on the
sofa, with a red volume in his hand, with 'Orders,' the only word
visible above the fingers, one of which was keeping his place.
Hector looked very happy and spirited, though his visage was not
greatly ornamented by a moustache, sandier even than his hair, giving
effect to every freckle on his honest face. A little behind was
Mary, winding one of Blanche's silks over the back of a chair, and so
often looking up to revel in the contemplation of Harry's face, that
her skein was in a wild tangle, which she studiously concealed lest
the sight should compel Richard to come and unravel it with those
wonderful fingers of his.

Richard and Ethel were arranging the 'sick albums' which they had
constructed--one of cheap religious prints, with texts and hymns, to
be lent in cases of lingering illness; the other, commonly called the
'profane,' of such scraps as might please a sick child, pictures from
worn-out books or advertisements, which Ethel was colouring--Aubrey
volunteering aid that was received rather distrustfully, as his love
of effect caused him to array the model school-children in colours
gaudy enough, as Gertrude complained, 'to corrupt a saint.' Nor was
his dilettante help more appreciated at a small stand, well provided
with tiny drawers, and holding a shaded lamp, according to Gertrude,
'burning something horrible ending in gen, that would kill anybody
but Tom, who managed it,' but which threw a beautiful light upon the
various glass dishes, tubes, and slides, and the tall brass
microscope that Tom was said to love better than all his kith and
kin, and which afforded him occupation for his leisure moments.

'I say, Harry,' he asked, 'did you get my letter?'

'Your letter--of what date? I got none since Mary's of the second of
May, when every one was down in the fever. Poor old Ward, I never
was more shocked; what is become of the young ones?'

'Oh! you must ask Mary, Miss Ward is a bosom friend of hers.'

'What! the girl that sang like the lark? I must hear her again. But
she won't be in tune for singing now, poor thing! What are they
doing? Henry Ward taken to the practice? He used to be the dirtiest
little sneak going, but I hope he is mended now.'

'Ask my father,' said mischievous Tom; and Dr. May answered not, nor
revealed his day's annoyance with Henry.

'He is doing his best to make a home for his brother and sisters,'
said Richard.

'My letter,' said Tom, 'was written in Whitsun week; I wish you had
had it.'

'Ay, it would have been precious from its rarity,' said Harry. 'What
commission did it contain, may I ask?'

'You have not by good luck brought me home a Chinese flea?'

'He has all the fleas in creation,' said Daisy confidentially, 'cats'
and dogs', and hedgehogs', and human; and you would have been twice
as welcome if you had brought one.'

'I've brought no present to nobody. I'd got my eye on a splendid
ivory junk, for Blanche's wedding present, at Canton, but I couldn't
even speak to send any one after it. You have uncommon bad luck for
a sailor's relatives.'

'As long as you bring yourself home we don't care,' said Blanche,
treating the loss of the junk with far more resignation than did Tom
that of the flea.

'If you only had a morsel of river mud sticking anywhere,' added Tom,
'you don't know the value the infusoria might be.'

'I had a good deal more than a morsel sticking to me once,' said
Harry; 'it was owing to my boat's crew that I am not ever so many
feet deep in it now, like many better men. They never lost sight of
me, and somehow hauled me out.'

Gertrude gave him a hug, and Mary's eyes got so misty, that her skein
fell into worse entanglements than ever.

'Were you conscious?' asked Ethel.

'I can't say. I'm clear of nothing but choking and gasping then, and
a good while after. It was a treacherous, unlucky affair, and I'm
afraid I shall miss the licking of rascally John Chinaman. If all I
heard at Plymouth is true, we may have work handy to home.'

'At home you may say,' said his father, 'Dulce et, &c. is our motto.
Didn't you know what a nest of heroes we have here to receive you?
Let me introduce you to Captain Ernescliffe, of the Dorset Volunteer
Rifle Corps; Private Thomas May, of the Cambridge University Corps;
and Mr. Aubrey Spencer May, for whom I have found a rifle, and am
expected to find a uniform as soon as the wise heads have settled
what colour will be most becoming.'

'Becoming! No, papa!' indignantly shouted Aubrey: 'it is the colour
that will be most invisible in skirmishing.'

'Gray, faced with scarlet,' said Hector, decidedly.

'Yes, that is the colour of the invincible Dorsets,' said Dr. May.
'There you see our great authority with his military instructions in
his hand.'

'No, sir,' replied Hector, 'it's not military instructions, it is
Crauford's General Orders.'

'And,' added the Doctor, 'there's his bride working the colours, and
Mary wanting to emulate her.'

'I don't think George will ever permit us to have colours,' said
Ethel; 'he says that Rifles have no business with them, for that they
are of no use to skirmishers.'

'The matter has been taken out of George's hands,' said Aubrey;
'there would not have been a volunteer in the country if he had his
way.'

'Yes,' explained Ethel, 'the real soldier can't believe in
volunteers, nor cavalry in infantry; but he is thoroughly in for it
now.'

'Owing to his Roman matron' quoth Tom. 'It was a wonderful opening
for public spirit when Lady Walkinghame insisted on Sir Henry
refusing the use of the park for practice, for fear we should make
targets of the children. So the Spartan mother at Abbotstoke,
gallantly setting Margaret aside, sent for the committee at once to
choose the very best place in the park.'

'Papa is chairman of the committee,' added Aubrey, 'he is mayor this
year, so we must encourage it.'

'And Aubrey hit four times at a hundred yards,' triumphantly declared
Gertrude, 'when Edward Anderson and Henry Ward only got a ball in by
accident.'

'Henry Ward ought to be shot at himself,' was Aubrey's sentiment,
'for not letting Leonard be in the corps.'

'The fellow that you brought to Maplewood?' asked Hector. 'I thought
he was at school.'

'Didn't you know that old Hoxton has given leave to any of the sixth
form to drill and practise? and that trumpery fellow, Henry, says he
can't afford the outfit, though his sister would have given the
uniform.'

'Let me tell you, young folks,' said the Doctor, 'that you are not to
suppose it always hails crack rifles on all sorts of improved
systems, as it does when Captain Hector is in the house.'

'They are only on trial, sir,' apologized Hector.

'Very odd then that they all have an eagle and H. E. on them,'
observed the Doctor dryly.

'Oh! they'll take them again, or I shall find a use for them,' said
Hector.

'Well, if Henry can't afford two,' said Aubrey, holding to his point,
'he ought to give up to his brother; he knows no more how to handle a
rifle--'

'That's the very reason,' muttered Tom.

'And Flora is going to give a great party,' proceeded Gertrude, 'as
soon as the uniform is settled, and they are enrolled. Blanche and
Hector are to stay for it, and you'll have to wear your lieutenant's
uniform, Harry.'

'I can't be going to balls till I've been up to report myself fit for
service,' said Harry.

'It is not to be a ball,' said Blanche's soft, serious voice over her
green silk banner; 'it is to be a breakfast and concert, ending in a
dance, such as we had at Maplewood.'

'Hollo!' said Harry, starting, 'now I begin to believe in Mrs.
Ernescliffe, when I hear her drawing down herself as an example to
Flora.'

'Only a precedent,' said Blanche, blushing a little, but still grave.
'We have had some experience, you know. Our corps was one of the
earliest enrolled, and Hector managed it almost entirely. It was the
reason we have not been able to come here sooner, but we thought it
right to be foremost, as the enemy are sure to attempt our coast
first.'

'I believe the enemy are expected on every coast at first,' was
Ethel's aside, but it was not heard; for Harry was declaring,

'Your coast! they will never get the length of that. I was talking
to an old messmate of mine in the train, who was telling me how we
could burn their whole fleet before it could get out of Cherbourg.'

'If they should slip by,' began Hector.

'Slip by!' and Harry had well-nigh dislodged Daisy by his vehemence
in demonstrating that they were welcome to volunteer, but that the
Channel Fleet would prevent the rifles from being seriously put to
the proof--a declaration highly satisfactory to the ladies, and
heartily backed up by the Doctor, though Blanche looked rather
discomfited, and Hector argued loud for the probability of active
service.

'I say, Aubrey,' said Tom, rather tired of the land and sea debate,
'do just reach me a card, to take up some of this sand upon.'

Aubrey obeyed, and reading the black-edged card as he handed it,
said, 'Mrs. Pug. What? Pug ought to have been calling upon Mab.'

'Maybe she will, in good earnest,' observed Tom again in Ethel's ear;
while the whole room rang with the laughter that always befalls the
unlucky wight guilty of a blunder in a name.

'You don't mean that you don't know who she is, Aubrey!' was the cry.

'I--how should I?'

'What, not Mrs. Pugh?' exclaimed Daisy.

'Pew or Pug--I know nothing of either. Is this edge as mourning for
all the old pews that have been demolished in the church?'

'For shame, Aubrey,' said Mary seriously. 'You must know it is for
her husband.'

Aubrey set up his eyebrows in utter ignorance.

'How true it is that one half the world knows nothing of the other!'
exclaimed Ethel. 'Do you really mean you have never found out the
great Mrs. Pugh, Mrs. Ledwich's dear suffering Matilda?'

'I've seen a black lady sitting with Mrs. Ledwich in church.'

'Such is life,' said Ethel. 'How little she thought herself living
in such an unimpressible world!'

'She is a pretty woman enough,' observed Tom.

'And very desirous of being useful,' added Richard. 'She and Mrs.
Ledwich came over to Cocksmoor this morning, and offered any kind of
assistance.'

'At Cocksmoor!' cried Ethel, much as if it had been the French.

'Every district is filled up here, you know,' said Richard, 'and Mrs.
Ledwich begged me as a personal favour to give her some occupation
that would interest her and cheer her spirits, so I asked her to look
after those new cottages at Gould's End, quite out of your beat,
Ethel, and she seemed to be going about energetically.'

Tom looked unutterable things at Ethel, who replied with a glance
between diversion and dismay.

'Who is the lady?' said Blanche. 'She assaulted me in the street
with inquiries and congratulations about Harry, declaring she had
known me as a child, a thing I particularly dislike:' and Mrs.
Ernescliffe looked like a ruffled goldfinch.

'Forgetting her has not been easy to the payers of duty calls,' said
Ethel. 'She was the daughter of Mrs. Ledwich's brother, the Colonel
of Marines, and used in old times to be with her aunt; there used to
be urgent invitations to Flora and me to drink tea there because she
was of our age. She married quite young, something very prosperous
and rather aged, and the glories of dear Matilda's villa at Bristol
have been our staple subject, but Mr. Pugh died in the spring,
leaving his lady five hundred a year absolutely her own, and she is
come to stay with her aunt, and look for a house.'

'Et cetera,' added Tom.

'What, in the buxom widow line?' asked Harry.

'No, no!' said Richard, rather indignantly.

'No, in the pathetic line,' said Ethel; 'but that requires some self-
denial.'

'Our tongues don't lose their venom, you see, Harry,' put in the
Doctor.

'No indeed, papa,' said Ethel, really anxious to guard her brothers.
'I was very sorry for her at first, and perhaps I pity her more now
than even then. I was taken with her pale face and dark eyes, and I
believe she was a good wife, and really concerned for her husband;
but I can't help seeing that she knows her grief is an attraction.'

'To simple parsons,' muttered Tom along the tube of his microscope.

'The sound of her voice showed her to be full of pretension,' said
Blanche. 'Besides, Mrs. Ledwich's trumpeting would fix my opinion in
a moment.'

'Just so,' observed the Doctor.

'No, papa,' said Ethel, 'I was really pleased and touched in spite of
Mrs. Ledwich's devotion to her, till I found out a certain
manoeuvring to put herself in the foreground, and not let her sorrow
hinder her from any enjoyment or display.'

'She can't bear any one to do what she does not.'

'What! Mary's mouth open against her too?' cried Dr. May.

'Well, papa,' insisted Mary, 'nobody wanted her to insist on taking
the harmonium at Bankside last Sunday, just because Averil had a cold
in her head; and she played so fast, that every one was put out, and
then said she would come to the practice that they might understand
one another. She is not even in the Bankside district, so it is no
business of hers.'

'There, Richard, her favours are equally distributed,' said Aubrey,
'but if she would take that harmonium altogether, one would not mind
--it makes Henry Ward as sulky as a bear to have his sister going out
all the evening, and he visits it on Leonard. I dare say if she
stayed at home he would not have been such a brute about the rifle.'

'I should not wonder,' said Dr. May. 'I sometimes doubt if home is
sweetened to my friend Henry.'

'O, papa!' cried Mary, bristling up, 'Ave is very hard worked, and
she gives up everything in the world but her church music, and that
is her great duty and delight.'

'Miss Ward's music must be a sore trial to the Pug,' said Tom, 'will
it be at this affair at Abbotstoke?'

'That's the question,' said Ethel. 'It never goes out, yet is to be
met everywhere, just over-persuaded at the last moment. Now Flora,
you will see, will think it absolutely improper to ask her; and she
will be greatly disappointed not to have the chance of refusing, and
then yielding at the last minute.'

'Flora must have her,' said Harry.

'I trust not,' said Blanche, shrinking.

'Flora will not ask her,' said Tom, 'but she will be there.'

'And will dance with me,' said Harry.

'No, with Richard,' said Tom.

'What!' said Richard, looking up at the sound of his name. All
laughed, but were ashamed to explain, and were relieved that their
father rang the bell.

'At that unhappy skein still, Mary?' said Mrs. Ernescliffe, as the
good nights were passing. 'What a horrid state it is in!'

'I shall do it in time,' said Mary, 'when there is nothing to
distract my attention. I only hope I shall not hurt it for you.'

'Chuck it into the fire at once; it is not worth the trouble,' said
Hector.

Each had a word of advice, but Mary held her purpose, and persevered
till all had left the room except Richard, who quietly took the
crimson tangle on his wrists, turned and twisted, opened passages for
the winder, and by the magic of his dexterous hands, had found the
clue to the maze, so that all was proceeding well, though slowly,
when the study door opened, and Harry's voice was heard in a last
good night to his father. Mary's eyes looked wistful, and one
misdirection of her winder tightened an obdurate loop once more.

'Run after Harry,' said Richard, taking possession of the ivory.
'Good night; I can always do these things best alone. I had rather--
yes, really--good night:' and his kiss had the elder brother's
authority of dismissal.

His Maimouna was too glad and grateful for more than a summary 'Thank
you,' and flew up-stairs in time to find Harry turning, baffled, from
her empty room. 'What, only just done that interminable yarn?' he
said.

'Richard is doing it. I could not help letting him, this first
evening of you.'

'Good old Richard! he is not a bit altered since I first went to sea,
when I was so proud of that,' said Harry, taking up his midshipman's
dirk, which formed a trophy on Mary's mantelshelf.

'Are we altered since you went last?' said Mary.

'The younger ones, of course. I was in hopes that Aubrey would have
been more like old June, but he'll never be so much of a fellow.'

'He is a very dear good boy,' said Mary, warmly.

'Of course he is,' said Harry, 'but, somehow, he will always have a
woman-bred way about him. Can't be helped, of course; but what a
pair of swells Tom and Blanche are come out!' and he laughed good-
naturedly.

'Is not Blanche a beautiful dear darling?' cried Mary, eagerly. 'It
is so nice to have her. They could not come at first because of the
infection, and then because of the rifle corps, and now it is
delicious to have all at home.'

'Well, Molly, I'm glad it wasn't you that have married. Mind, you
mustn't marry till I do.'

And Harry was really glad that Mary's laugh was perfectly 'fancy
free,' as she answered, 'I'm sure I hope not, but I won't promise,
because that might be unreasonable, you know.'

'Oh, you prudent, provident Polly! But,' added Harry, recalled to a
sense of time by a clock striking eleven, 'I came to bring you
something, Mary. You shall have it, if you will give me another.'

Mary recognized, with some difficulty, a Prayer-Book with limp covers
that Margaret had given him after his first voyage. Not only was it
worn by seven years' use, but it was soiled and stained with dark
brownish red, and a straight round hole perforated it from cover to
cover.

'Is it too bad to keep?' said Harry. 'Let me just cut out my name in
Margaret's hand, and the verse of the 107th Psalm; luckily the ball
missed that.'

'The ball?' said Mary, beginning to understand.

'Yes. Every one of those circles that you see cut out there, was in
here,' said Harry, laying his hand over his chest, 'before the ball,
which I have given to my father.'

'O, Harry!' was all Mary could say, pointing to her own name in a
pencil scrawl on the fly-leaf.

'Yes, I set that down because I could not speak to tell what was to
be done with it, when we didn't know that that book had really been
the saving of my life. That hair's-breadth deviation of the bullet
made all the difference.'

Mary was kissing the blood-stained book, and sobbing.

'Why, Mary, what is there to cry for? It is all over now, I tell
you. I am as well as man would wish, and there's no more about it
but to thank God, and try to deserve His goodness.'

'Yes, yes, I know, Harry; but to think how little we knew, or
thought, or felt--going on in our own way when you were in such
danger and suffering!'

'Wasn't I very glad you were going on in your own way!' said Harry.
'Why, Mary, it was that which did it--it has been always that thought
of you at the Minster every day, that kept me to reading the Psalms,
and so having the book about me. And did not it do one good to lie
and think of the snug room, and my father's spectacles, and all as
usual? When they used to lay me on the deck of the Dexter at night,
because I could not breathe below, I used to watch old Orion, who was
my great friend in the Loyalty Isles, and wish the heathen name had
not stuck to the old fellow, he always seemed so like the Christian
warrior, climbing up with his shield before him and his. A home like
this is a shield to a man in more ways than one, Mary. Hollo, was
that the street door?'

'Yes; Ritchie going home. Fancy his being at the silk all this time!
I am so sorry!'

Maugre her sorrow, there were few happier maidens in England than
Mary May, even though her service was distracted by the claims of
three slave-owners at once, bound as she was, to Ethel, by habitual
fidelity, to Harry, by eager adoration, to Blanche, by willing
submission. Luckily, their requisitions (for the most part
unconscious) seldom clashed, or, if they did, the two elders gave
way, and the bride asserted her supremacy in the plenitude of her
youthful importance and prosperity.

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