第191章

"It could not. He was a quarter of a mile, nearly, away from it. I was much nearer the cottage than he."

"Go on."

"I could not imagine what that shot meant, or who could have fired it --not that I suspected mischief--and I knew that poachers did not congregate so near Hallijohn's cottage. I set off to reconnoiter, and as I turned the corner, which brought the house within my view, I saw Captain Thorn, as he was called, come leaping out of it. His face was white with terror, his breath was gone--in short, I never saw any living man betray so much agitation. I caught his arm as he would have passed me. 'What have you been about?' I asked. 'Was it you that fired?' He--"

"Stay. Why did you suspect him?"

"From his state of excitement--from the terror he was in--that some ill had happened, I felt sure; and so would you, had you seen him as I did. My arresting him increased his agitation; he tried to throw me off, but I am a strong man, and I suppose he thought it best to temporize. 'Keep dark upon it, Bethel,' he said, 'I will make it worth your while. The thing was not premeditated; it was done in the heat of passion. What business had the fellow to abuse me? I have done no harm to the girl.' As he thus spoke, he took out a pocket book with the hand that was at liberty; I held the other--"

"As the prisoner thus spoke, you mean?"

"The prisoner. He took a bank-note from his pocket book, and thrust it into my hands. It was a note for fifty pounds. 'What's done can't be undone, Bethel,' he said, 'and your saying that you saw me here can serve no good turn. Shall it be silence?' I took the note and answered that it should be silence. I had not the least idea that anybody was killed."

"What did you suppose had happened, then?"

"I could not suppose; I could not think; it all passed in the haste and confusion of a moment, and no definite idea occurred to me. Thorn flew on down the path, and I stood looking after him. The next was I heard footsteps, and I slipped within the trees. They were those of Richard Hare, who took the path to the cottage. Presently he returned, little less agitated than Thorn had been. I had gone into an open space, then, and he accosted me, asking if I had seen 'that hound' fly from the cottage? 'What hound?' I asked of him. 'That fine fellow, that Thorn, who comes after Afy,' he answered, but I stoutly denied that I had seen any one. Richard Hare continued his way, and I afterward found that Hallijohn was killed."

"And so you took a bribe to conceal one of the foulest crimes that man ever committed, Mr. Otway Bethel!"

"I took the money, and I am ashamed to confess it. But it was done without reflection. I swear that had I known what crime it was intended to hush up, I never would have touched it. I was hard up for funds, and the amount tempted me. When I discovered what had really happened, and that Richard Hare was accused, I was thunderstruck at my own deed; many a hundred times since have I cursed the money; and the fate of Richard has been as a heavy weight upon my conscience."

"You might have lifted the weight by confessing."

"To what end? It was too late. Thorn had disappeared. I never heard of him, or saw him, until he came to West Lynne this last spring, as Sir Francis Levison, to oppose Mr. Carlyle. Richard Hare had also disappeared--had never been seen or heard of, and most people supposed he was dead. To what end then should I confess? Perhaps only to be suspected myself. Besides, I had taken the money upon a certain understanding, and it was only fair that I should keep to it."

If Richard Hare was subjected to a severe cross-examination, a far more severe one was awaiting Otway Bethel. The judge spoke to him only once, his tone ringing with reproach.

"It appears then, witness, that you have retained within you, all these years, the proofs of Richard Hare's innocence?"

"I can only acknowledge it with contrition, my lord."

"What did you know of Thorn in those days?" asked the counsel.

"Nothing, save that he frequented the Abbey Wood, his object being Afy Hallijohn. I had never exchanged a word with him until that night; but I knew his name, Thorn--at least, the one he went by, and by his addressing me as Bethel, it appeared that he knew mine."

The case for the prosecution closed. An able and ingenious speech was made for the defence, the learned counsel who offered it contending that there was still no proof of Sir Francis having been the guilty man. Neither was there any proof that the catastrophe was not the result of pure accident. A loaded gun, standing against a wall in a small room, was not a safe weapon, and he called upon the jury not rashly to convict in the uncertainty, but to give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt. He should call no witnesses, he observed, not even to character. Character! for Sir Francis Levison! The court burst into a grin; the only sober face in it being that of the judge.

The judge summed up. Certainly not in the prisoner's favor; but, to use the expression of some amidst the audience, dead against him.

Otway Bethel came in for a side shaft or two from his lordship; Richard Hare for sympathy. The jury retired about four o'clock, and the judge quitted the bench.

A very short time they were absent. Scarcely a quarter of an hour. His lordship returned into court, and the prisoner was again placed in the dock. He was the hue of marble, and, in his nervous agitation, kept incessantly throwing back his hair from his forehead--the action already spoken of. Silence was proclaimed.

"How say you, gentlemen of the jury? Guilty, or not guilty?"

"GUILTY."

It was a silence to be felt; and the prisoner gasped once or twice convulsively.

"But," said the foreman, "we wish to recommend him to mercy."

"On what grounds?" inquired the judge.

"Because, my lord, we believe it was not a crime planned by the prisoner beforehand, but arose out of the bad passions of the moment, and was so committed."