"Notwithstanding, give me the gold, Acton, and none shall know a word about the murder. We will keep all quiet, Roger Acton, all nice and quiet, you know;" and he added, coaxingly, "come, Roger, give me up this crock of gold."
"Never!" with a fierce anathema, answered our hero, now himself again: the horrid accusation had entranced him for a while, but this coaxing strain roused up all the man in him: "Never!" and another oath confirmed it.
"Acton, give it up, I say!" was shouted in rejoinder, and Jennings glared over him with his round and staring eyes as he lay faint upon his bed--"Give up the crock, or else--"
"Else what? you whitened villain."
The bailiff flung himself at Roger"s neck, and almost shrieked, "I"ll serve you as I--"
There was a tremendous struggle; attacked at unawares, for the moment he was nearly mastered; but Acton"s tall and wiry frame soon overpowered the excited Jennings, and long before you have read what I have written--he has leaped out of bed--seized--doubled up--and flung the battered bailiff headlong down the narrow stair-case to the bottom. This done, Roger, looking like Don Quixote de la Mancha in his penitential shirt, mounted into bed again, and quietly lay down; wondering, half-sober, at the strange and sudden squall.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CAPTURE.
HE had not long to wonder. Jennings got up instantly, despite of bruises, posted to the Hall, took a search-warrant from Sir John"s study, (they were always ready signed, and Jennings filled one up,) and returned with a brace of constables to search the cottage.
Then Roger, as he lay musing, fancied he heard men"s voices below, and his wife, who had just come in, talking to them; what could they want?
tramps, perhaps: or Ben? he shuddered at the possibility; with Tom too; and he felt ashamed to meet his son. So he turned his face to the wall, and lay musing on--he hadn"t been drinking too much over-night--Oh, no!
it was sickness, and rheumatics, and care about the crock; Tom should be told that he was very ill, poor father! Just as he had planned this, and resolved to keep his secret from that poaching ruffian Burke, some one came creeping up the stairs, slided in at the door, and said to him in a deep whisper from the further end of the room,
"Acton, give me the gold, and the men shall go away; it is not yet too late; tell me where to find the crock of gold."
An oath was the reply; and, at a sign from Jennings, up came the other two.
"We have searched every where, Mr. Simon Jennings, both cot and garden; ground disturbed in two or three places, but nothing under it; in-doors too, the floor is broken by the hearth and by the dresser, but no signs of any thing there: now, Master Acton, tell us where it is, man, and save us all the trouble."
Roger"s newly-learnt vocabulary of oaths was drawn upon again.
"Did you look in the ash-pit?" asked Jennings.
"No, sir."
"Well, while you two search this chamber, I will examine it myself."
Mr. Jennings apparently entertained a wholesome fear of Acton"s powers of wrestling.
Up came Simon in a hurry back again, with a lot of little empty leather bags he had raked out, and--the fragment of a shawl! the edges burnt, it was a corner bit, and marked B.Q.
"What do you call this, sir?" asked the exulting bailiff.
"Curse that Burke!"--thought Roger; but he said nothing.
And the two men up stairs had searched, and pried, and hunted every where in vain; the knotty mattress had been ripped up, the chimney scrutinized, the floor examined, the bed-clothes overhauled, and as for the thatch, if it hadn"t been for Roger Acton"s constant glance upwards at his treasure in the roof, I am sure they never would have found it.
But they did at last: there it was, the crock of gold, full proof of robbery and murder!
"Aha!" said Simon, in a complacent triumph, "Mrs. Quarles"s identical honey-pot, full of her clean bright gold, and many pieces still encased in those tidy leather bags;" and his round eyes glistened again; but all at once, with a hurried look over his left shoulder, he exclaimed, involuntarily, in a very different tone, "Ha! away, I say!--" Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed the crock up eagerly, and nursed it like a child.
"Come along with us, Master Acton, you"re wanted somewhere else; up, man, look alive, will you?"
And Roger dressed himself mechanically. It was no manner of use, not in the least worth while resisting, innocent though he was; his treasure had been found, and taken from him; he had nothing more to live for; his gold was gone--his G.o.d; where was the wisdom of fighting for any thing else; let them take him to prison if they would, to the jail, to the gallows, to any-whither, now his gold was gone. So he put on his clothes without a murmur, and went with them as quiet as a lamb.
Never was there a clearer case; the housekeeper"s h.o.a.rd had been found in his possession, with a fragment of her shawl; and Sir John Vincent was very well aware of the mystery attending the old woman"s death; besides, he was in a great hurry to be off; for Pointer, and Silliphant, and Lord George Pypp, were to have a hurdle race with him that day, for a heavy bet; so he really had not time to go deep into the matter; and the result of five minutes" talk before the magisterial chairs (Squire Ryle having been summoned to a.s.sist) was, that, on the accusation of Simon Jennings, Roger Acton was fully committed to the county jail, to be tried at next a.s.sizes, for Bridget Quarles"s murder.
Thank G.o.d! poor Roger, it has come to this. What other way than this was there to save thee from thy sin--to raise thee from thy fall? Where else, but in a prison, could you get the silent, solitary hours leading you again to wholesome thought and deep repentance? Where else could you escape the companionship of all those loose and low a.s.sociates, sottish brawlers, ignorant and sensual unbelievers, vagabond radicals, and other lewd fellows of the baser sort, that had drank themselves drunk at your expense, and sworn to you as captain! The place, the time, the means for penitence are here. The crisis of thy destiny is come.
Honest Roger, Steady Acton, did I not see thy guardian angel--after all his many tears, aggrieved and broken spirit!--did I not see him lift his swollen eyes in grat.i.tude to Heaven, and benevolence to thee, and smile a smile of hopeful joy when that d.a.m.ned crock was found?
Gladly could he thank his Lord, to behold the temptation at an end.
Did I not see the devil slink away from thee abashed, issuing like an adder from thy heart, and then, with a sudden Protean change, driven from thy hovel as a thunder-cloud dispersing, when Simon Jennings seized the jar, hugged it as his household-G.o.d--and took it home with him--and counted out the gold--and locked the b.l.o.o.d.y treasure in his iron-chest?
Fitly did the murderer lock up curses with his spoil.
And when G.o.d smote thine idol, dashing Dagon to the ground, and thy heart was sore with disappointment, and tender as a peeled fig--when hope was dead for earth, and conscience dared not look beyond it--ah!
Roger, did I judge amiss when I saw, or thought I saw, those eyes full of humble shame, those lips quivering with remorseful sorrow?
We will leave thee in the cold stone cell--with thy well-named angel Grace to comfort thee, and pray with thee, and help thee back to G.o.d again, and so repay the debt that a daughter owes her father.
Happy prison! where the air is sweetened by the frankincense of piety, and the pavement gemmed with the flowers of hope, and the ceiling arched with Heaven"s bow of mercy, and the walls hung around with the dewy drapery of penitence!
Happy prison! where the talents that were lost are being found again, gathered in humility from this stone floor; where poor-making riches are banished from the postern, and rich-making poverty streameth in as light from the grated window; where care vexeth not now the labourer emptied of his gold, and calumny"s black tooth no longer gnaws the heart-strings of the innocent.
Hark! it is the turnkey, coming round to leave the pittance for the day: he is bringing in something in an earthern jar. Speak, Roger Acton, which will you choose, man--a prisoner"s mess of pottage--or a crock of gold?
CHAPTER XXII.
THE AUNT AND HER NEPHEW.
WHILE we leave Roger Acton in the jail, waiting for the very near a.s.sizes, and wearing every hour away in penitence and prayer, it will be needful to our story that we take a retrospective glance at certain events, of no slight importance.
I must now speak of things, of which there is no human witness; recording words, and deeds, whereof Heaven alone is cognizant, Heaven alone--and h.e.l.l! For there are secret matters, which the murdered cannot tell us, and the murderer dare not--let him confess as fully as he will.
Therefore, with some omnipresent sense, some invisible ubiquity, I must note down scenes as they occurred, whether mortal eye has witnessed them or not; I must lay bare secret thoughts, unlatch the hidden chambers of the heart, and duly set out, as they successively arose, the idea which tongue had not embodied, the feeling which no action had expressed.
Hitherto, we have pretty well preserved inviolate the three grand unities--time, place, circ.u.mstance; and even now we do not sin against the first and chiefest, however we may seem so to sin; for, had it suited my purpose to have begun with the beginning, and to have placed the present revelations foremost, the strictest stickler for the unities would have only had to praise my orthodox adherence to them. As it is, I have chosen, for interest sake, to shuffle my cards a little; and two knaves happen to have turned up together just at this time and place.
The time is just three weeks ago--a week before the baronet came of age, and a fortnight antecedent to the finding of the crock; which, as we know, after blessing Roger for a se"nnight, has at last left him in jail. The place is the cozy house-keepers room at Hurstley: and the brace of thorough knaves, to enact then and there as _dramatis personae_, includes Mistress Bridget Quarles, a fat, st.u.r.dy, bluffy, old woman, of a jolly laugh withal, and a noisy tongue--and our esteemed acquaintance Mister Simon Jennings. The aunt, house-keeper, had invited the nephew, butler, to take a dish of tea with her, and rum-punch had now succeeded the souchong.
"Well, Aunt Quarles, is it your meaning to undertake a new master?"
"Don"t know, nephy--can"t say yet what he"ll be like: if he"ll leave us as we are, won"t say wont."