"Nay, my dear sir," interrupted the clergyman, sitting firm in his saddle, "my business lies with you today."
"The devil it does!" said Marston, with discontented surprise.
"Truly it does, sir," repeated he, with a look of gentle reproof, for the profanity of Marston"s e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, far more than the rudeness of his manner, offended him; "and I grieve that your surprise should have somewhat carried you away--"
"Well, then, Doctor Danvers," interrupted Marston, drily, and without heeding his concluding remark, "if you really have business with me, it is, at all events, of no very pressing kind, and may be as well told after supper as now. So, pray, go into the house and rest yourself: we can talk together in the evening."
"My horse is not tired," said the clergyman, patting his steed"s neck; "and if you do not object, I will ride by your side for a short time, and as we go, I can say out what I have to tell."
"Well, well, be it so," said Marston, with suppressed impatience, and without more ceremony, he rode slowly along the avenue, and turned off upon the soft sward in the direction of the wildest portion of his wooded demesne, the clergyman keeping close beside him. They proceeded some little way at a walk before Doctor Danvers spoke.
"I have been twice or thrice with that unhappy man," at length he said.
"What unhappy man? Unhappiness is no distinguishing singularity, is it?"
said Marston, sharply.
"No, truly, you have well said," replied Doctor Danvers. "True it is that man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. I speak, however, of your servant, Merton--a most unhappy wretch."
"Ha! you have been with him, you say?" replied Marston, with evident interest and anxiety.
"Yes, several times, and conversed with him long and gravely," continued the clergyman.
"Humph! I thought that had been the chaplain"s business, not yours, my good friend," observed Marston.
"He has been unwell," replied Dr. Danvers; "and thus, for a day or two, I took his duty, and this poor man, Merton, having known something of me, preferred seeing me rather than a stranger; and so, at the chaplain"s desire and his, I continued my visits."
"Well, and you have taught him to pray and sing psalms, I suppose; and what has come of it all?" demanded Marston, testily.
"He does pray, indeed, poor man! and I trust his prayers are heard with mercy at the throne of grace," said his companion, in his earnestness disregarding the sneering tone of his companion. "He is full of compunction, and admits his guilt."
"Ho! that is well--well for himself--well for his soul, at least; you are sure of it; he confesses; confesses his guilt?"
Marston put his question so rapidly and excitedly, that the clergyman looked with a slight expression of surprise; and recovering himself, he added, in an unconcerned tone--
"Well, well--it was just as well he did so; the evidence is too clear for doubt or mystification; he knew he had no chance, and has taken the seemliest course; and, doubtless, the best for his hopes hereafter."
"I did not question him upon the subject," said Doctor Danvers; "I even declined to hear him speak upon it at first; but he told me he was resolved to offer no defense, and that he saw the finger of G.o.d in the fate which had overtaken him."
"He will plead guilty, then, I suppose?" suggested Marston, watching the countenance of his companion with an anxious and somewhat sinister eye.
"His words seem to imply so much," answered he; "and having thus frankly owned his guilt, and avowed his resolution to let the law take its due course in his case, without obstruction or evasion, I urged him to complete the grand work he had begun, and to confess to you, or to some other magistrate fully, and in detail, every circ.u.mstance connected with the perpetration of the dreadful deed."
Marston knit his brows, and rode on for some minutes in silence. At length he said, abruptly--
"In this, it seems to me, sir, you a little exceeded your commission."
"How so, my dear sir?" asked the clergyman.
"Why, sir," answered Marston, "the man may possibly change his mind before the day of trial, and it is the hangman"s office, not yours, my good sir, to fasten the halter about his neck. You will pardon my freedom; but, were this deposition made as you suggest, it would undoubtedly hang him."
"G.o.d forbid, Mr. Marston," rejoined Danvers, "that I should induce the unhappy man to forfeit his last chances of escape, and to shut the door of human mercy against himself, but on this he seems already resolved; he says so; he has solemnly declared his resolution to me; and even against my warning, again and again reiterated the same declaration."
"That I should have thought quite enough, were I in your place, without inviting a detailed description of the whole process by which this detestable butchery was consummated. What more than the simple knowledge of the man"s guilt does any mortal desire; guilty, or not guilty, is the plain question which the law asks, and no more; take my advice, sir, as a poor Protestant layman, and leave the acts of the confessional and inquisition to Popish priests."
"Nay, Mr. Marston, you greatly misconceive me; as matters stand, there exists among the coroner"s jury, and thus among the public, some faint and unfounded suspicion of the possibility of Merton"s having had an accessory or accomplice in the perpetration of this foul murder."
"It is a lie, sir--a malignant, d----d lie--the jury believe no such thing, nor the public neither," said Marston, starting in his saddle, and speaking in a voice of thunder; "you have been crammed with lies, sir; malicious, unmeaning, vindictive lies; lies invented to asperse my family, and torture my feelings; suggested in my presence by that scoundrel Mervyn, and scouted by the common sense of the jury."
"I do a.s.sure you," replied Doctor Danvers, in a voice which seemed scarcely audible, after the stunning and pa.s.sionate explosion of Marston"s wrath, "I did not imagine that you could feel thus sorely upon the point; nay, I thought that you yourself were not without such painful doubts."
"Again, I tell you, sir," said Marston, in a tone somewhat calmer, but no less stern, "such doubts as you describe have no existence; your unsuspecting ear has been alarmed by a vindictive wretch, an old scoundrel who has scarce a pa.s.sion left but spite towards me; few such there are, thank G.o.d; few such villains as would, from a man"s very calamities, distil poison to kill the peace and character of his family."
"I am sorry, Mr. Marston," said the clergyman, "you have formed so ill an opinion of a neighbor, and I am very sure that Mr. Mervyn meant you no ill in frankly expressing whatever doubts still rested on his mind, after the evidence was taken."
"He did--the scoundrel!" said Marston, furiously striking his hand, in which his whip was clutched, upon his thigh; "he did mean to wound and torture me; and with the same object he persists in circulating what he calls his doubts. Meant me no ill, forsooth! why, my great G.o.d, sir, could any man be so stupid as not to perceive that the suggestion of such suspicions--absurd, contradictory, incredible as they were--was precisely the thing to exasperate feelings sufficiently troubled already, and not content with raising the question, where it was scouted, as I said, as soon as named, the vindictive slanderer proceeds to propagate and publish his pretended surmises--d----n him."
"Mr. Marston, you will pardon me when I say that, as a Christian minister, I cannot suffer a spirit so ill as that you manifest, and language so unseemly as that you have just uttered, to pa.s.s unreproved,"
said Danvers, solemnly. "If you will cherish those bitter and unchristian feelings, at least for the brief s.p.a.ce that I am with you, command your fierce, unbecoming words."
Marston was about to make a sneering retort, but restrained himself, and turned his head away.
"The wretched man himself appears now very anxious to make some further disclosures," resumed Doctor Danvers, after a pause, "and I recommended him to make them to you, Mr. Marston, as the most natural depository of such a statement."
"Well, Mr. Danvers, to cut the matter short, as it appears that a confession of some sort is to be made, be it so. I will attend and receive it. The judges will not be here for eight or ten weeks to come, so there is no great hurry about it. I shall ride down to the town, and see him in the jail some time in the next week."
With this a.s.surance Marston parted from the old clergyman, and rode on alone through the furze and fern of his wild and somber park.
After supper that evening Marston found himself alone in the parlor with his wife. Mrs. Marston availed herself of the opportunity to redeem her pledge to Mademoiselle de Barras. She was not aware of the strange interview which had taken place between him and the lady for whom she pleaded. The result of her renewed entreaties perhaps the reader has antic.i.p.ated. Marston listened, doubted, listened, hesitated again, put questions, pondered the answers; debated the matter inwardly, and at last gruffly consented to give the young lady another trial, and permit her to remain some time longer. Poor Mrs. Marston, little suspecting the dreadful future, overwhelmed her husband with grat.i.tude for granting to her entreaties (as he had predetermined to do) this fatal boon. Not caring to protract this scene--either from a disinclination to listen to expressions of affection, which had long lost their charm for him, and had become even positively distasteful, or perhaps from some instinctive recoil from the warm expression of grat.i.tude from lips which, were the truth revealed, might justly have trembled with execration and reproach--he abruptly left the room, and Mrs. Marston, full of her good news, hastened, in the kindness of her heart, to communicate the fancied result of her advocacy to Mademoiselle de Barras.
It was about a week after this, that Marston was one evening surprised in his study by the receipt of the following letter from Dr. Danvers:--
"My Dear Sir,
"You will be shocked to hear that Merton is most dangerously ill, and at this moment in imminent peril. He is thoroughly conscious of his situation, and himself regards it as a merciful interposition of Providence to spare him the disgrace and terror of the dreadful fate, which he antic.i.p.ated. The unhappy man has twice repeated his anxious desire, this day, to state some facts connected with the murder of the late Sir Wynston Berkley, which, he says, it is of the utmost moment that you should hear. He says that he could not leave the world in peace without having made this disclosure, which he especially desires to make to yourself, and entreats that you will come to receive his communication as early as you can in the morning. This is indeed needful, as the physician says that he is fast sinking. I offer no apology for adding my earnest solicitations to those or the dying man; and am, dear sir, your very obedient servant,
"J. Danvers"
"He regards it as a merciful interposition of Providence," muttered Marston, as he closed the letter, with a sneer. "Well, some men have odd notions of mercy and providence, to be sure; but if it pleases him, certainly I shall not complain for one."
Marston was all this evening in better spirits than he had enjoyed for months, or even years. A mountain seemed to have been lifted from his heart. He joined in the conversation during and after supper, listened with apparent interest, talked with animation, and even laughed and jested. It is needless to say all this flowed not from the healthy cheer of a heart at ease, but from the excited and almost feverish sense of sudden relief.
Next morning, Marston rode into the old-fashioned town, at the further end of which the dingy and grated front of the jail looked warningly out upon the rustic pa.s.sengers. He pa.s.sed the sentries and made his inquiries of the official at the hatch. He was relieved from the necessity of pushing these into detail, however, by the appearance of the physician, who at that moment pa.s.sed from the interior of the prison.
"Dr. Danvers told me he expected to see you here this morning," said the medical man, after the customary salutation had been interchanged. "Your call, I believe, is connected with the prisoner, John Merton?"
"Yes, sir, so it is," said Marston. "Is he in a condition, pray, to make a statement of considerable length?"
"Far from it, Mr. Marston; he has but a few hours to live," answered the physician, "and is now insensible; but I believe he last night saw Dr.
Danvers, and told him whatever was weighing upon his mind."