"May G.o.d forgive you for the cruel deed you are about to do. Into His hands I entrust my cause."
Later in the day her sister came to her in deep agitation.
"Agnes, Agnes, why wouldest thou not submit to his will? He is such a crafty, cruel man. He will obtain thine undoing! Oh, sister, sister, dost know what he is about to swear before the coroner to-morrow?"
"That I poisoned my father--he has said as much," answered Agnes quietly; "but he can prove nothing that he says."
"Nay, but it is more than that. He has got such a story. He says that Mr. Bunyan did give thee the poison, and that he saw you twain riding together, and heard you speaking together of our father as he pa.s.sed. He says that when he got here poor father told him that he was sure you meant him ill, and that you would find a way of getting rid of him, since you only promised obedience to his wishes so long as he lived. Oh, the story he has made of it! And then he points out how loth father was to take you back, and that he turned you away and said you were no daughter of his, and might go back to those you had come from. He learned so many things from us, ere ever we knew the hideous thing in his mind. Now he says his case is complete and that only by marrying him can you escape that awful death. Oh, Agnes, Agnes, wilt thou not do his bidding to save thyself from that fate?"
"Take a false vow of love and obedience to a man like that? Oh, sister, how could I? And what would life be with him afterwards?"
"But they say it will be death at the stake!" wept Prudence.
"And has not the Lord promised "When thou pa.s.sest through the fire I will be with thee"?" asked Agnes calmly. "I dare not be false to Him; and I know He will not be false to me. Be not afraid; this trial may be sent for some good purpose. But it cuts me to the heart that he should bring in Mr. Bunyan"s name. That is a needless piece of wickedness and falsehood."
"It is all false together; but he vows that Mr. Bunyan wished to get possession of father"s money by wedding with you, and that therefore he gave you the poison and bid you use it upon the first opportunity."
To the two inexperienced women, clinging together in their hour of affliction, it seemed to them as though the doom of Agnes had already well nigh gone forth. They knew how clever and unscrupulous Lawyer Farry was, and how successful he generally proved in carrying through the schemes to which he gave his mind. Already the neighbourhood was ringing with the story that Agnes had poisoned her father, and although many refused to believe in so monstrous a charge, yet it was very well known how violent the old man"s rage had been against his daughter, and that he had died also immediately after Agnes had been taken back to his house. This was not evidence, but it raised doubts and suspicions in many minds.
The coroner and the jury had a.s.sembled, having first viewed the corpse, and Mr. Hatfield, the surgeon, testified emphatically that he regarded death as due to natural causes. The old man had long been suffering from some cardiac derangement, and the excitement into which he had recently thrown himself would be quite enough to account for the fatal seizure.
Agnes Beaumont, he added, had given him free leave to make a post-mortem examination, but in his opinion the thing was not necessary.
Farry was then bidden to state what he knew and what grounds he had for a.s.serting that his friend had been poisoned. At first he was very bold and confident in his manner, but he soon found that it was a very different matter intimidating young and ignorant women and dealing with a shrewd man of business. Under cross-examination his tale became confused, contradictory, absurd; his malice flashed out so unmistakably as to put all the jury on their guard, and when Agnes"s sister stepped forward and asked to be permitted to say that Mr. Farry had promised to be silent if Agnes would consent to be his wife, a deep murmur of indignation ran through the room, and the man knew himself defeated and disgraced.
When Agnes was called, and came forward with her simple and unvarnished tale, it only needed a look into her calm, sweet face to know that she spoke the truth. She freely told of the difference she had had with her father, and how Mr. Bunyan had warned her not to urge her own desire too much, but to be dutiful and obedient. And her sister corroborating this statement, and adding all she had seen of Agnes"s gentle submissiveness on her return, and another person giving testimony that John Bunyan had a wife living, and that the idea of his wanting Agnes"s hand was nonsense, the whole of Farry"s ingenious and malicious tale fell to the ground, and he stood like one who would never lift up his head again.
"But if there be any doubt," said Agnes, looking at the coroner, "Mr.
Hatfield is here; he will make the needful examination."
"That is a question for the jury to decide," answered the coroner, with a smile. "Let them retire, and give us their verdict."
A few minutes was all these honest men required before announcing that death was due to natural causes; and then the coroner turned upon Farry and with a most scathing reproof dismissed him, warning him that he had brought himself perilously near a charge of perjury, had Agnes been a vindictive foe.
Then when the man had slunk out like a beaten hound, he took Agnes"s hands in his, and said:
"You have been a courageous girl, my dear, in withstanding the artifices of that wicked man. Hardly another maid so young and unprotected but would have been intimidated into accepting his condition. What made you so brave to withstand him?"
"I do not think I was brave," answered Agnes; "but I knew I should be helped."
The old man smiled and patted her head.
"Perhaps that is the best kind of courage after all."
HANNAH HEWLING
The mother was stricken down with the load of her grief; it seemed to her more than she could bear. Her two sons--her only sons--young men of such promise, such beauty, such piety--lying in that foul prison of Newgate, of which many horrid tales were told; lying there waiting a trial, which all believed could only end in one way. It was well known how fierce was the wrath of the King against all who had taken any share in the late rebellion, and neither the youth of the offenders nor their virtuous lives would be likely to have any effect upon the sentence which they had brought upon themselves by their recent ill-advised act.
The mother buried her face in her hands and groaned aloud.
Those were sad and anxious days in many homes, particularly in the West of England, where the Duke of Monmouth"s rebellion had broken out, and had been quickly quenched in fire and bloodshed.
To Mrs. Hewling it seemed a terrible visitation of Providence that her two promising sons had been in any way mixed up in it.
"If I had only kept them with me here in England, they would have been safe!" she moaned.
It was not very long since Mrs. Hewling had been left a widow, in affluent circ.u.mstances indeed, but with a large family to bring up. She had two most promising sons, Benjamin and William, the first twenty-one and the second close upon nineteen years of age, and Benjamin"s twin-sister Hannah was a beautiful girl of much promise, who, at this crisis of her mother"s life, was acting as her chief support and helper.
There were several little sisters, scarcely more than children; but the intermediate sons had died in infancy, and the chords of the mother"s heart seemed to twine themselves about Benjamin and William in a fashion which made their present perilous situation a thing that could hardly be borne by her.
And the bitterest thought of all was that had she only kept the boys with her in London after their father"s death, instead of letting them go to Holland, to see something of the world and complete their education, all this misery might have been spared.
Adverse as the citizens of London were to many of the methods and opinions of the King, still there was no desire at present to get rid of him by any violent revolution, or to place the crown upon another head.
A few years later, and the whole nation rose in a bloodless revolt against the man who had broken his pledges and his coronation vow, and would have plunged England into a fierce struggle against the trammels of Popery. But at that time things were not ripe for such a drastic measure, nor was the Duke of Monmouth such a sovereign as the nation could accept. But here and there where the Protestant spirit burnt more fiercely than elsewhere, or over in Holland, where the claim of the Duke had been more freely allowed, and where he was eagerly recruiting forces to take with him to England, his cause seemed a righteous cause, and inspired enthusiasm and devotion. Mrs. Hewling could not altogether wonder that her two sons, reared in all the most ardent Puritan and Protestant tenets of the day, should have been fired with a desire to join the expedition, and to strive to strike a blow for their faith upon England"s sh.o.r.es.
And now, that ill-starred revolt having come to its tragic end, her boys were amongst those who, having first sought flight, had since then surrendered themselves to justice. It had been told her by friends that they were lying in Newgate prison, and would almost immediately be sent back whence they had come, to stand their trial at the Western a.s.sizes, over which the fierce and notoriously cruel Judge Jeffreys was to preside.
So paralysed by horror was the poor mother, whose health had long been very frail, that she had been unable herself to leave the house and seek permission to visit her sons. And Hannah had persuaded her not to attempt a task so much beyond her powers.
"I will go first, mother," she said. "I will go with my good grandfather, who will gain me admission, and we will take money with us.
Money will do much within Newgate, they say, to ameliorate the condition of the prisoners. Another day thou shalt go; but let me be the first."
So Hannah had gone under the safe-keeping of her grandfather, Mr.
Kiffin, a citizen well known and greatly respected in the town, and the mother was awaiting their return in a fever of anxiety.
She was turning over in her bewildered brain a thousand schemes for the preservation of her boys. But the more she pondered, the more helpless did she become. True, she had many friends, and several possessed of wealth and influence in the city; but these were for the most part, from their strong Protestant and dissenting or Puritan leanings, so obnoxious to the Court party that intervention by them would do rather harm than good.
Her own father, Mr. Kiffin, was one of these He would have no fear in presenting a pet.i.tion; yet if such a movement on his part were fore-ordained to failure, it would be better it should not be made.
Others more likely to obtain a hearing would probably be afraid to intermeddle in such a matter. Those were the days in which it was none too safe to show sympathy towards the King"s enemies, or towards those who had distinguished themselves by opposition to the Established Church. The penalty for showing kindness to dissenters was often extraordinarily severe; and what would it be to take a friendly interest in youths who had been concerned in treasonable rebellion?
With despair in her heart the mother sat waiting, pondering and weeping; longing unspeakably for the husband who was no more, and feeling the desolation of her widowhood as she had never felt it before.
Then the door opened quietly, and a tall figure glided in wrapped from head to foot in a long, dark cloak.
"Hannah!" cried the mother, "have you seen them?--have you seen my boys?
Oh, give me news of them! My heart is hungry!"
The girl threw back the hood which was drawn over her head, and her face showed pale in the twilight. It was a very beautiful face, lighted by the enthusiasm of a great love--a love that conquers fear, and sinks all thought of self in devotion to the object at heart. It was such a face as we see sometimes on painted window, or in chiselled marble--a face full of lofty self-abnegation and simple heroism. The eyes shone like stars, and the mother, looking at her daughter, held out her arms, and cried:
"Ah, Hannah, Hannah, if any can save them it will be thou."
Hannah knelt at her mother"s feet and spoke quietly and rapidly.
"I have seen them, mother. They were together, with many others. But my grandfather had them taken out and brought into a separate room, where we could talk. It was a dreadful place, that first,"--she shivered slightly as she spoke,--"but they will not go back to it. Grandfather is staying, and he will arrange all that. I saw them. Oh, mother, you need not fear for them! They have no fear for themselves. They are ready for the worst that may befall. Their only fear is lest they were wrong in taking up arms. When they did it, it seemed a right and holy thing. They have heard other things since coming to England, and are the less confident of that. But they have no other fear. If they have done amiss they are willing to die. They both say that. It is not death that can affright them. They have made their peace with G.o.d."
The mother"s tears ran over, although there was something of joy in hearing such an a.s.surance.
"But we must save them, daughter!--we must save them!"