"I"d give half my remaining days on earth--I"d give them all, Mary (and but for the love I bear to my poor blind girl, they"d be no great gift), if I could save him. You"ve thought me hard, Mary, but I"m not hard at bottom, and I"ll help you if I can; that I will, right or wrong," he added; but in a low voice, and coughed the uncertain words away the moment afterwards.
"O Job! if you will help me," exclaimed Mary, brightening up (though it was but a wintry gleam after all), "tell me what to say, when they question me; I shall be so gloppened,* I shan"t know what to answer."
*Gloppened; terrified.
"Thou canst do nought better than tell the truth. Truth"s best at all times, they say; and for sure it is when folk have to do with lawyers; for they"re "cute and cunning enough to get it out sooner or later, and it makes folk look like Tom Noddies, when truth follows falsehood, against their will."
"But I don"t know the truth; I mean--I can"t say rightly what I mean; but I"m sure, if I were pent up, and stared at by hundreds of folk, and asked ever so simple a question, I should be for answering it wrong; if they asked me if I had seen you on a Sat.u.r.day, or a Tuesday, or any day, I should have clean forgotten all about it, and say the very thing I should not."
"Well, well, don"t go for to get such notions into your head; they"re what they call "narvous," and talking on "em does no good.
Here"s Margaret! bless the wench! Look, Mary, how well she guides hersel."
Job fell to watching his grand-daughter, as with balancing, measured steps, timed almost as if to music, she made her way across the street.
Mary shrank as if from a cold blast--shrank from Margaret! The blind girl, with her reserve, her silence, seemed to be a severe judge; she, listening, would be such a check to the trusting earnestness of confidence, which was beginning to unlock the sympathy of Job. Mary knew herself to blame; felt her errors in every fibre of her heart; but yet she would rather have had them spoken about, even in terms of severest censure, than have been treated in the icy manner in which Margaret had received her that morning.
"Here"s Mary," said Job, almost as if he wished to propitiate his grand-daughter, "come to take a bit of dinner with us, for I"ll warrant she"s never thought of cooking any for herself to-day; and she looks as wan and pale as a ghost."
It was calling out the feeling of hospitality, so strong and warm in most of those who have little to offer, but whose heart goes eagerly and kindly with that little. Margaret came towards Mary with a welcoming gesture, and a kinder manner by far than she had used in the morning.
"Nay, Mary, thou know"st thou"st getten naught at home," urged Job.
And Mary, faint and weary, and with a heart too aching-full of other matters to be pertinacious in this, withdrew her refusal.
They ate their dinner quietly; for to all it was an effort to speak: and after one or two attempts they had subsided into silence.
When the meal was ended Job began again on the subject they all had at heart.
"Yon poor lad at Kirkdale will want a lawyer to see they don"t put on him, but do him justice. Hast thought of that?"
Mary had not, and felt sure his mother had not.
Margaret confirmed this last supposition.
"I"ve but just been there, and poor Jane is like one dateless; so many griefs come on her at once. One time she seems to make sure he"ll be hung; and if I took her in that way, she flew out (poor body!) and said that in spite of what folks said, there were them as could, and would prove him guiltless. So I never knew where to have her. The only thing she was constant in, was declaring him innocent."
"Mother-like!" said Job.
"She meant Will, when she spoke of them that could prove him innocent. He was with Will on Thursday night, walking a part of the way with him to Liverpool; now the thing is to lay hold on Will and get him to prove this." So spoke Mary, calm, from the earnestness of her purpose.
"Don"t build too much on it, my dear," said Job.
"I do build on it," replied Mary, "because I know it"s the truth, and I mean to try and prove it, come what may. Nothing you can say will daunt me, Job, so don"t you go and try. You may help, but you cannot hinder me doing what I"m resolved on."
They respected her firmness of determination, and Job almost gave in to her belief, when he saw how steadfastly she was acting upon it.
Oh! surest way of conversion to our faith, whatever it may be-- regarding either small things, or great--when it is beheld as the actuating principle, from which we never swerve! When it is seen that, instead of overmuch profession, it is worked into the life, and moves every action!
Mary gained courage as she instinctively felt she had made way with one at least of her companions.
"Now I"m clear about this much," she continued, "he was with Will when the--shot was fired."--(she could not bring herself to say, when the murder was committed, when she remembered WHO it was that, she had every reason to believe, was the taker-away of life)--"Will can prove this: I must find Will. He wasn"t to sail till Tuesday.
There"s time enough. He was to come back from his uncle"s, in the Isle of Man, on Monday. I must meet him in Liverpool, on that day, and tell him what has happened, and how poor Jem is in trouble, and that he must prove an alibi, come Tuesday. All this I can and will do, though perhaps I don"t clearly know how, just at present. But surely G.o.d will help me. When I know I"m doing right, I will have no fear, but put my trust in Him; for I"m acting for the innocent and good, and not for my own self, who have done so wrong. I have no fear when I think of Jem, who is so good."
She stopped, oppressed with the fulness of her heart. Margaret began to love her again; to see in her the same sweet, faulty, impulsive, lovable creature she had known in the former Mary Barton, but with more of dignity, self-reliance, and purpose.
Mary spoke again.
"Now I know the name of Will"s vessel--the John Cropper; and I know that she is bound to America. That is something to know. But I forgot, if I ever heard, where he lodges in Liverpool. He spoke of his landlady, as a good, trustworthy woman; but if he named her name, it has slipped my memory. Can you help me, Margaret?"
She appealed to her friend calmly and openly, as if perfectly aware of, and recognising the unspoken tie which bound her and Will together; she asked her in the same manner in which she would have asked a wife where her husband dwelt. And Margaret replied in the like calm tone, two spots of crimson on her cheeks alone bearing witness to any internal agitation.
"He lodges at a Mrs. Jones", Milk-House Yard, out of Nicholas Street. He has lodged there ever since he began to go to sea; she is a very decent kind of woman, I believe."
"Well, Mary! I"ll give you my prayers" said Job. "It"s not often I pray regular, though I often speak a word to G.o.d, when I"m either very happy or very sorry; I"ve catched myself thanking Him at odd hours when I"ve found a rare insect, or had a fine day for an out; but I cannot help it, no more than I can talking to a friend. But this time I"ll pray regular for Jem, and for you. And so will Margaret, I"ll be bound. Still, wench! what think yo of a lawyer?
I know one, Mr. Cheshire, who"s rather given to th" insect line--and a good kind o" chap. He and I have swopped specimens many"s the time, when either of us had a duplicate. He"ll do me a kind turn I"m sure. I"ll just take my hat, and pay him a visit."
No sooner said, than done.
Margaret and Mary were left alone. And this seemed to bring back the feeling of awkwardness, not to say estrangement.
But Mary, excited to an unusual pitch of courage, was the first to break silence.
"O Margaret!" said she, "I see--I feel how wrong you think I have acted; you cannot think me worse than I think myself, now my eyes are opened." Here her sobs came choking up her voice.
"Nay," Margaret began, "I have no right to"--
"Yes, Margaret, you have a right to judge; you cannot help it; only in your judgment remember mercy, as the Bible says. You, who have been always good, cannot tell how easy it is at first to go a little wrong, and then how hard it is to go back. Oh! I little thought when I was first pleased with Mr. Carson"s speeches, how it would all end; perhaps in the death of him I love better than life."
She burst into a pa.s.sion of tears. The feelings pent up through the day would have vent. But checking herself with a strong effort, and looking up at Margaret as piteously as if those calm, stony eyes could see her imploring face, she added--
"I must not cry; I must not give way; there will be time enough for that hereafter, if--I only wanted you to speak kindly to me, Margaret, for I am very, very wretched; more wretched than any one can ever know; more wretched, I sometimes fancy, than I have deserved--but that"s wrong, isn"t it, Margaret? Oh! I have done wrong, and I am punished: you cannot tell how much."
Who could resist her voice, her tones of misery, of humility? Who would refuse the kindness for which she begged so penitently? Not Margaret. The old friendly manner came back. With it, maybe, more of tenderness.
"Oh! Margaret, do you think he can be saved; do you think they can find him guilty, if Will comes forward as a witness? Won"t that be a good alibi?"
Margaret did not answer for a moment.
"Oh, speak! Margaret," said Mary, with anxious impatience.
"I know nought about law, or alibis," replied Margaret meekly; "but, Mary, as grandfather says, aren"t you building too much on what Jane Wilson has told you about his going with Will? Poor soul, she"s gone dateless, I think, with care, and watching, and overmuch trouble; and who can wonder? Or Jem may have told her he was going, by way of a blind."
"You don"t know Jem," said Mary, starting from her seat in a hurried manner, "or you would not say so."
"I hope I may be wrong! but think, Mary, how much there is against him. The shot was fired with his gun; he it was as threatened Mr.
Carson not many days before; he was absent from home at that very time, as we know, and, as I"m much afeard, some one will be called on to prove; and there"s no one else to share suspicion with him."
Mary heaved a deep sigh.
"But, Margaret, he did not do it," Mary again a.s.serted.