The Squire's Daughter

CHAPTER XV

SIR JOHN GETS ANGRY

It was remarked that Sir John never looked at the prisoner all the time he was giving evidence. He was, however, perfectly at home before his brother magistrates, and showed none of that nervousness and restraint which ordinary mortals feel in similar circumstances. The story he told was simple and straightforward. He had not an enemy in the parish, as far as he knew, except the prisoner, who had made no secret of his hatred and of his desire for revenge.

He admitted that fortune had been unkind to the elder Penlogan, but in the chances of life it was inevitable that some should come out at the bottom. As the ground landlord, he had acted with every consideration, and had given David Penlogan plenty of time to realise to the best advantage. Hence he felt quite sure that their worships would acquit him of any intention of being either harsh or unjust.

A general nodding of heads on the part of the magistrates satisfied him on that point.

He then went on to tell the story of the prisoner's visit to Hamblyn Manor, and how he had the effrontery to charge him with killing his father.

"Gentlemen, he had murder in his eyes when he came to see me; but, fortunately, he had no opportunity of doing me harm."

Sir John waved his right hand dramatically when he uttered these words, the effect of which – in the language of the local reporter – was "Sensation in Court."

He then went on to describe the events of the afternoon when the shot was fired.

He was not likely to be mistaken in the prisoner's face. He had no wish to take an oath that it was the prisoner, but he was morally certain that it was he.

Then followed a good deal of collateral evidence that the police had gathered up and spliced together. The prisoner had been seen by a number of people that afternoon with a gun under his arm. He wore a cloth cap, such as Sir John had described. He had been seen crossing Polskiddy Downs, which, as everyone knew, abutted on Treliskey Plantation. He had expressed himself very bitterly on several occasions respecting Sir John, and had talked vaguely about being quits with him some day. Footprints near the hedge behind which the shot was fired tallied with a pair of boots in the prisoner's house; also, the prisoner returned to his own house within an hour of the shot being fired.

The magistrates looked more and more grave as the chain of evidence lengthened out, though most of them had quite made up their minds before the proceedings began.

Ralph, in spite of all advice to the contrary, pleaded "not guilty," and being allowed to speak in his own defence, availed himself of the opportunity.

"Why should I want to kill the squire?" he said, in a tone of scorn. "God will punish him soon enough." (More sensation in court.) "That he has behaved badly to us," Ralph went on, "no unprejudiced person will deny, though you, being landowners yourselves, approve. I don't deny that he acted within his legal rights. So did Shylock. But had he the heart of a savage, to say nothing of a Christian, he could not have acted more oppressively. I told him that he killed my father – and I repeat it to-day!" (Renewed sensation.) "I did go out shooting on that day in question. My gun licence has not expired yet. Mr. Hooker told me I could shoot over Dingley Bottom any time I liked, and I was glad of the opportunity, for our larder was not overstocked, as you may imagine. I crossed Polskiddy Downs, I admit – it is the one bit of common land that you gentry have not filched from us – " (Profound sensation, during which the chairman protested that if prisoner did not keep himself strictly to his defence, the privilege of speaking further would be taken from him.) "As you will, gentlemen," Ralph said indifferently. "I do not expect justice or a fair hearing in a court of this kind."

"Order, order!" shouted the magistrates' clerk. The chairman intimated, after a few moments of silence, that the prisoner might proceed if he would promise not to insult the Bench.

"I have very little more to add," Ralph went on, quite calmly. "Unfortunately, no one saw me in Dingley Bottom, and yet I went straight there from home, and came straight back again. I did not go within half a mile of Treliskey Plantation. Moreover, if I wanted to meet Sir John, I should go to his house, as I have done more than once, and not wander through miles of wood on the off-chance of meeting him. Nor is that all. If I wanted to kill the gentleman, I should have killed him, and not sprinkled a few shots on his coat sleeve. I have two barrels to my gun, and I do not often miss what I aim at. If I had intended to murder him, do you think I should have been such a fool as to first show my face and then let him escape? I went out in broad daylight; I returned in broad daylight. Is it conceivable that if I intended to shoot the gentleman I should have been seen carrying a gun? or that, having done the deed, I should have returned in sight of all the village? It has been suggested that, having been caught trespassing in the plantation, I was seized with a sudden desire for revenge. If that had been the case, do you think I would have half completed the task? As all the parish can testify, I am no indifferent shot. If I was alone in the plantation with him, and wanted to kill him, I could have done it. But, gentlemen, I swear before God I was not in the plantation, nor even near it. I have never lifted a finger against this man, nor would I do it if I had the opportunity. That he has treated me and mine with cruel oppression is common knowledge. But vengeance is God's, and I have no desire, nor ever had any desire, to take the law into my own hands."

Many opinions were expressed afterwards as to the effect produced by Ralph's speech, but the general impression was that he did no good for himself. The Bench was by no means impressed in his favour. They detected a socialistic flavour in some of the things he flung at them. He had not been respectful – indeed, in plain English, he had been insulting. They would not have tolerated him, only he was on his trial, and they were anxious to avoid any suspicion of unfairness. They flattered themselves afterwards that they displayed a spirit of great Christian forbearance, and as they had almost to a man made up their minds beforehand, they had no hesitation in committing him to take his trial at the next Assizes on the charge of shooting at Sir John Hamblyn with intent to do him grievous bodily harm.

The question of bail was not mentioned, and Ralph went back to his cell to meditate once more on the tender mercies of the rich and the justice of the strong.

Sir John returned to his home very well pleased with the result of the morning's proceedings. The decision of the magistrates seemed a compliment to himself. To make it an Assize case indicated a due appreciation of his position and importance.

Also he was pleased because he believed the decision would completely destroy any romantic attachment that Dorothy might cherish for the accused. It had come to his knowledge that at the very time Mr. Tregonning was at his bedside taking his depositions, she was at the cottage of the Penlogans interviewing the accused himself. This knowledge had made Sir John more angry than he had been for a very long time. It was not merely the indiscretion that angered him, it was what the indiscretion implied.

However, he believed that the decision of the magistrates would put an end to all this nonsense, and that in the revulsion of feeling Lord Probus would again have his opportunity.

Dorothy asked him the result of the trial on his return, and when he told her she made no reply whatever. Neither did he enlarge on the matter. He concluded that it would be the wiser policy to let the simple facts of the case make their own impression. Women, he knew, were proverbially stubborn, and not always reasonable, while the more they were opposed, the more doggedly determined they became.

Such fears and suspicions as he had he wisely kept to himself. Dorothy was only a foolish girl, who would grow wiser with time. The teaching of experience and the pressure of circumstances would in the end, he believed, compel her to go the way he wished her to take. In the meanwhile, his cue was to watch and wait, and not too obtrusively show his hand.

Dorothy was as reticent on the matter as her father. That she had become keenly interested in the fate of Ralph Penlogan she did not attempt to hide from herself. That a cruel wrong had been done to him she honestly believed. That her sympathies went out to him in his undeserved sufferings was a fact she had no wish to dispute, and that in some way he had influenced her in her decision not to marry Lord Probus was also, to her own mind, too patent to be contested.

But she saw no danger in any of these simple facts. The idea of being in love with a small working farmer's son did not enter her head. She belonged to a different world socially, and such a proposition would not occur to her. But social position could not prevent her admiring good looks, and physical strength, and manly ways, and a generous disposition, when they were brought under her notice.

On the day following the decision of the magistrates she read a full account of the proceedings in the local newspaper, and for the first time was made aware of the fact that it was not Lord St. Goram who had so unmercifully oppressed the Penlogans, but her own father.

For a few minutes she felt quite stunned.

It had never occurred to her that her father was the lord of the manor. In her mind he was not a lord at all. He was simply a baronet.

How short-sighted she had been! Slowly the full meaning and significance of the fact worked its way into her brain, and her face flushed with shame and indignation. Why had not her father the courage to tell her the truth? Why had he allowed her to wrong Lord St. Goram even in thought? Why was he so relentless in his pursuit of the people he had treated so harshly? Was it true that people never forgave those they had wronged? Then her thoughts turned unconsciously to the Penlogans. How they must hate her father, and yet how sensitive they had been not to hurt her feelings. Even Ralph had allowed her to think that Lord St. Goram was the oppressor.

"He ought not to have deceived me," she said to herself, and yet she liked him all the more for his chivalry.

Her thoughts went back to that first day of their meeting, when she mistook him for a country yokel. Considering the fact that she was a lady, and on horseback, he had undoubtedly been rude to her, and yet he was rude in a manly sort of way. She liked him even then, and liked him all the more because he did not cringe to her.

But since then his every word and act had evinced the very soul of chivalry. In many ways he was much more a gentleman than Lord Probus. Indeed, she was inclined to think that in every way he was more of a gentleman. Lord Probus had wealth – fabulous wealth, it was believed – and a thin veneer of polish. But, stripped of the outer shell, she felt quite certain that the farmer's son was much more the gentleman of the two.

It was inevitable, however, that the subject should sooner or later crop up between the father and daughter, and when it did crop up, Sir John was quite unable to hide the bias of his mind.

"In tracking down a crime," he said, with quite a magisterial air, "the first thing to discover, if possible, is a motive. Given a motive, the rest is often comparatively easy. Now in this case I kept the motive from you, as I had no wish to prejudice the young man in your eyes. But in the preliminary trial, as you will have observed, the motive came out. Why he shot me is clear enough. Why he did not complete the work is due probably to failure of nerve; or possibly he thought I was dead, for I fell to the ground like a log."

"Why, father, you said you took to your heels and ran like the wind, and so got out of his reach."

"That was after I recovered myself, Dorothy. I admit I ran then."

"And you still believe that it was he who fired the shot?"

"Why, of course I do."

"With intent to kill?"

"There is not the least doubt of it."

"You think he had good reason for hating you?"

"From his point of view he may think that I ought to have foregone my rights."

"He thinks you ought not to have pushed them to extremes, as you did. It was a cruel thing to do, father, and you know it."

"The Penlogans have never been desirable people. They have never known their place, or kept it. I wouldn't have leased the downs to them if I had known their opinions. No man did so much to turn the last election as David Penlogan."

"I suppose he had a perfect right to his opinions?"

"And I have the right to exercise any influence or power I possess in any way I please," he retorted angrily. "And if I chose to accept a more suitable tenant for one of my farms, that's my business and no one else's."

"I have no wish to argue the question, father," she answered quietly.

"But I suppose you will own that the fellow is guilty?"

"No, father. I am quite sure that he is no more guilty than I am."

"What folly!" he ejaculated angrily.

"I do not think it is folly at all. I know Ralph Penlogan better than you do, and I know he is incapable of such a thing. At the Assizes you will be made to look incredibly foolish."

"What? what?" he ejaculated.

"Here, all the magistrates belong to your set. They had made up their minds beforehand. No unprejudiced jury in the world would ever convict on such evidence."

"Child," he said angrily, "you don't know what you are talking about."

"And even if he were convicted," she went on, with flashing eyes, "I should know all the same that he is innocent."

He looked at her almost aghast. This was worse than his worst suspicions.

"Then you have made up your mind," he said, with a brave effort to control himself, "to believe that he is innocent, whatever judge or jury may say?"

"I know he is innocent," she answered quietly.

"You are a little simpleton," he said, clenching and unclenching his hands; "a foolish, headstrong girl. I am grieved at you, ashamed of you! I did expect ordinary common sense in my daughter."

"I am sorry you are angry with me," she said demurely. "But think again. Are you not biased and prejudiced? You are not sure it was his face you saw. In all probability the gun going off was pure accident. Have you not been hard enough on the Penlogans already, that you persist in having this on your conscience also?"

"Silence!" he almost screamed, and he advanced a step towards her with clenched hand. "Go to your room," he cried, "and don't show your face again to-day! To-morrow I will talk to you, and not only talk but act."

CHAPTER XVI

THE BIG HOUSE

It was when Mrs. Penlogan began to dispose of her furniture in order to provide food and fuel that the landlord became alarmed about his rent, and so promptly seized what remained in order to make himself secure.

It was three days after Christmas, and the weather was bitterly cold. Mrs. Penlogan and Ruth looked at each other for a moment in silence, and then burst into tears. What was to be done now she did not know. Ralph was still in prison awaiting his trial, and so was powerless to help them. Their money was all spent. Even their furniture was gone, and they had no friends to whom they could turn for help.

Since Ralph's committal their old friends had fought shy of them. Ruth felt the disgrace more keenly than did her mother. The cold looks of people they had befriended in their better days cut her to the heart. Ruth had tried to get the post of sewing mistress at the day school, which had become vacant, but the fact that her brother was in prison awaiting his trial proved an insuperable barrier. It would never do to contaminate the tender hearts of the young by bringing them into contact with one whose brother had been accused of a terrible crime.

She never realised before how sensitive the public conscience was, nor how jealous all the St. Goramites were for the honour of the community. People whom she had always understood were no better than they ought to be, turned up their noses at her in haughty disdain. But that it was so tragic, she could have laughed at the virtuous airs assumed by people whose private life had long been the talk of the district.

It was a terrible blow to Ruth. The Penlogans, though looked upon as somewhat exclusive, had been widely respected. David Penlogan was a man in a thousand. Mistaken, some people thought, foolish in the investment of his money, and much too trusting where human nature was involved, but his sincerity and goodness no one doubted. The young people had been less admired, for they seemed a little above their station. They spoke the language of the gentry, and kept aloof from everything that savoured of vulgarity. "They were too well educated for their position."

Their sudden and painful fall proved an occasion for much moralising. "Pride goeth before a fall," was a passage of Scripture that found great acceptance. If the Penlogans had not been so exclusive in their better days, they would not have found themselves so destitute of friends now.

Two or three days practically without food or fire reduced Ruth and her mother to a state bordering on despair. If they had possessed any pride in the past it was all gone now. Hunger is a great leveller.

The relieving officer, when consulted, had little in the way of comfort to offer, though he gave much sage advice. He had little doubt that the parish would allow Mrs. Penlogan half a crown a week; that was the limit of outdoor relief. Her husband had paid scores of pounds in the shape of poor rate, but that counted for nothing. The justice of the strong manifests itself in many ways. When a man is no longer able to contribute to the maintenance of paupers in general, he becomes a pauper himself. Cease to pay your poor rate, because you are too old to work, and you cease to be a citizen, your vote is taken away, you are classed among the social rubbish of your generation.

"But what is to become of me?" Ruth asked pitifully.

The relieving officer stroked the side of his nose and considered the question for a moment before he answered.

"I'm afraid," he said, "the law makes no provision for such as you. You see you are a able-bodied young woman. You must earn your own living."

"That is what I have been trying my best to do," she answered tearfully. "But because poor Ralph has been wrongfully and wickedly accused, no one will look at me."

"That, of course, we cannot 'elp," the relieving officer answered.

Ruth and her mother lay awake all the night and talked the matter over. It was clearly beyond the bounds of possibility that two people could live and pay rent out of half a crown a week. What then was to be done? There was only one alternative, and Ruth had not the courage to face it. Her mother was in feeble health, her spirit was broken, and to send her alone into the workhouse would be to break her heart.

The maximum of cruelty with the minimum of charity appears to be the principle on which our poor-law system is based. The sensitive and self-respecting loathe the very thought of it, and no man with a heart in him can wonder.

Mrs. Penlogan, however, had reached the limit of mental suffering. There comes a point when the utmost is reached, when the lash can do no more, when the nerves refuse to carry any heavier burden of pain. To the sad and broken-hearted woman it seemed of little moment what became of her. All that she asked was a lonely corner somewhere in which she might hide herself and die.

She knew almost by instinct what was passing through Ruth's mind. She lay silent, but she was not asleep.

"You are thinking about the workhouse, Ruth?" she said at length.

"They'll not have me there, mother, for I am healthy and able-bodied."

"There'll be something left from the furniture when the rent is paid," Mrs. Penlogan said, after a long pause. "You'll have to take it and face the world. When I am in the workhouse you will be much more free."

"Mother!"

"It's got to come, Ruth. I would much rather go down to St. Ivel and throw myself into a shaft, but that would be self-murder, and a murderer cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. So I will endure as patiently as I can, and as long as God wills. When it is over, it will seem but a dream. I want to see father again when the night ends. Dear David, I am glad he went when he did."