The Vicar of Bullhampton II

THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON

It came at once. “My dear, I believe you have been indiscreet?” The words, perhaps, had been chosen with some idea of mercy, but certainly there was no mercy in the tone. The man’s voice was loud, and there was something in it almost of a jeer, —something which seemed to leave an impression on the hearer that there had been pleasure in the asking it. She struggled to make an answer, and the monosyllable, yes, was formed by her lips. The man who was acting as her mouthpiece stooped down his ears to her lips, and then shook his head. Assuredly no sound had come from them that could have reached his sense, had he been ever so close. The burly barrister waited in patience, looking now at her, and now round at the court. “I must have an answer. I say that I believe you have been indiscreet. You know, I dare say, what I mean. Yes or no will do; but I must have an answer.” She glanced round for an instant, trying to catch her father’s eye; but she could see nothing; everything seemed to swim before her except the broad face of that burly barrister. “Has she given any answer?” he asked of the mouthpiece; and the mouthpiece again shook his head. The heart of the mouthpiece was tender, and he was beginning to hate the burly barrister. “My dear,” said the burly barrister, “the jury must have the information from you.”

Then gradually there was heard through the court the gurgling sounds of irrepressible sobs, —and with them there came a moan from the old man, who was only divided from his daughter by the few steps, —which was understood by the whole crowd. The story of the poor girl, in reference to the trial, had been so noised about that it was known to all

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the listeners. That spark of sympathy, of which we have said that its course cannot be arrested when it once finds its way into a crowd, had been created, and there was hardly present then one, either man or woman, who would not have prayed that Carry Brattle might be spared if it were possible. There was a juryman there, a father with many daughters, who thought that it might not misbecome him to put forward such a prayer himself.

“Perhaps it mayn’t be necessary,” said the soft-hearted juryman.

But the burly barrister was not a man who liked to be taught his duty by any one in court, —not even by a juryman, —and his quick intellect immediately told him that he must seize the spark of sympathy in its flight. It could not be stopped, but it might be turned to his own purpose. It would not suffice for him now that he should simply defend the question he had asked. The court was showing its aptitude for pathos, and he also must be pathetic on his own side. He knew well enough that he could not arrest public opinion which was going against him, by shewing that his question was a proper question; but he might do so by proving at once how tender was his own heart.

“It is a pain and grief to me,” said he, “to bring sorrow upon any one. But look at those prisoners at the bar, whose lives are committed to my charge, and know that I, as their advocate, love them while they are my clients as well as any father can love his child. I will spend myself for them, even though it may be at the risk of the harsh judgment of those around me. It is my duty to prove to the jury on their behalf that the life of

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this young woman has been such as to invalidate her testimony against them; —and that duty I shall do, fearless of the remarks of any one. Now I ask you again, Caroline Brattle, whether you are not one of the unfortunates?”

This attempt of the burly barrister was to a certain extent successful. The juryman who had daughters of his own had been put down, and the barrister had given, at any rate, an answer to the attack that had been silently made on him by the feeling of the court. Let a man be ready with a reply, be it ever so bad a reply, and any attack is parried. But Carry had given no answer to the question, and those who looked at her thought it very improbable that she would be able to do so. She had clutched the arm of the man who stood by her, and in the midst of her sobs was looking round with snatched, quick, half-completed glances for protection to the spot on which her father and brother were standing. The old man had moaned once; but after that he uttered no sound. He stood leaning on his stick with his eyes fixed upon the ground, quite motionless. Sam was standing with his hands grasping the woodwork before him and his bold gaze fastened on the barrister’s face, as though he were about to fly at him. The burly barrister saw it all and perceived that more was to be gained by sparing than by persecuting his witness, and resolved to let her go.

“I believe that will do,” he said. “Your silence tells all that I wish the jury to know. You may go down.” Then the man who had acted as mouthpiece led Carry away, delivered her up to her father, and guided them both out of court.

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They went back to the room in which they had before been seated, and there they waited for Sam, who was called into the witness-box as they left the court.

“Oh, father,” said Carry, as soon as the old man was again placed upon the bench. And she stood over him, and put her hand upon his neck.

“We’ve won through it, girl, and let that be enough,” said the miller. Then she sat down close by his side, and not another word was spoken by them till Sam returned.

Sam’s evidence was, in fact, but of little use. He had had dealings with Acorn, who had introduced him to Burrows, and had known the two men at the old woman’s cottage on the Common. When he was asked, what these dealings had been, he said they were honest dealings.

“About your sister’s marriage?” suggested the crown lawyer.

“Well, —yes,” said Sam. And then he stated that the men had come over to Bullhampton and that he had accompanied them as they walked round Farmer Trumbull’s house. He had taken them into the Vicar’s garden; and then he gave an account of the meeting there with Mr. Fenwick. After that he had known and seen nothing of the men. When he testified so far he was handed over to the burly barrister.

The burly barrister tried all he knew, but he could make nothing of this witness. A question was asked him, the true answer to which would have implied that his sister’s life had been disreputable. When this was asked Sam declared that he would not say a word about his sister one way or the other. His sister had told them all she knew about the murder, and

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now he had told them all he knew. He protested that he was willing to answer any questions they might ask him about himself; but about his sister he would answer none. When told that the information desired might be got in a more injurious way from other sources, he became rather impudent.

“Then you may go to—other sources,” he said.

He was threatened with all manner of pains and penalties; but he made nothing of these threats, and was at last allowed to leave the box. When his evidence was completed the trial was adjourned for another day.

Though it was then late in the afternoon the three Brattles returned home that night. There was a train which took them to the Bullhampton Road station, and from thence they walked to the mill. It was a weary journey both for the poor girl and for the old man; but anything was better than delay for another night in Trotter’s Buildings. And then the miller was unwilling to be absent from his mill one hour longer than was necessary. When there came to be a question whether he could walk, he laughed the difficulty to scorn in his quiet way. “Why shouldn’t I walk it? Ain’t I got to ‘arn my bread every day?”

It was ten o’clock when they reached the mill, and Mrs. Brattle, not expecting them at that hour, was in bed. But Fanny was up, and did what she could to comfort them. But no one could ever comfort old Brattle. He was not susceptible to soft influences. It may almost be said that he condemned himself because he gave way to the daily luxury of a pipe. He believed in plenty of food, because food for the workman is as coals to the steam-engine, as oats to the horse, —the raw

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“She will not care a brass farthing for my forgiveness,” said Gilmore.

“You wrong her there. I am sure that nothing would give her so much comfort as such a message.”

Gilmore walked half the length of the platform before he replied. “What is the good of telling a lie about it?”—he said, at last.

“I certainly would not tell a lie.”

“Then I can’t say that I forgive her. How is a man to forgive such treatment? If I said that I did, you wouldn’t believe me. I will keep out of her way, and that will be better for her than forgiving her.”

“Some of your wrath, I fear, falls to my lot?” said the Vicar. “No, Frank. You and your wife have done the best for me

all through, —as far as you thought was best.” “We have meant to do so.”

“And if she has been false to me as no woman was ever false before, that is not your fault. As for the jewels, tell your wife to lock them up, —or to throw them away if she likes that better. My brother’s wife will have them some day, I suppose.” Now his brother was in India, and his brother’s wife he had never seen. Then there was a pledge given that Gilmore would inform his friend by letter of his future destination, and so they parted.

This was on the Tuesday, and Fenwick had desired that his gig might meet him at the Bullhampton Road station. He had learned by this time of the condemnation of one man for the murder, and the acquittal of the other, and was

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full of the subject when his groom was seated beside him. Had the Brattles come back to the mill? And what of Sam? And what did the people say about Acorn’s escape? These, and many other questions he asked, but he found that his servant was so burdened with a matter of separate and of infinitely greater interest, that he could not be got to give his mind to the late trial. He believed the Brattles were back; he had seen nothing of Sam; he didn’t know anything about Acorn; but the new chapel was going to be pulled down.

“What!” exclaimed the Vicar; —“not at once?”

“So they was saying, sir, when I come away. And the men was at it, —that is, standing all about. And there is to be no more preaching, sir. And missus was out in the front looking at ’em as I drove out of the yard.”

Fenwick asked twenty questions, but could obtain no other information than was given in the first announcement of these astounding news. And as he entered the vicarage he was still asking questions, and the man was still endeavouring to express his own conviction that that horrible, damnable, and most heart-breaking red brick building would be demolished, and carted clean away before the end of the week. For the servants and dependents of the vicarage were staunch to the interests of the church establishment, with a degree of fervour of which the Vicar himself knew nothing. They hated Puddleham and dissent. This groom would have liked nothing better than a commission to punch the head of Mr. Puddleham’s eldest son, a young man who had been employed in a banker’s office at Warminster, but had lately come home because

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he had been found to have a taste for late hours and publichouse parlours; and had made himself busy on the question of the chapel. The maid servants at the vicarage looked down as from a mighty great height on the young women of Bullhampton who attended the chapel, and the vicarage gardener, since he had found out that the chapel stood on glebe land, and ought therefore, to be placed under his hands, had hardly been able to keep himself off the ground. His proposed cure for the evil that had been done, —as an immediate remedy before erection and demolition could be carried out, was to form the vicarage manure pit close against the chapel door, —“and then let anybody touch our property who dares!” He had, however, been too cautious to carry out any such strategy as this, without direct authority from the Commander-in-Chief. “Master thinks a deal too much on ’em,” he had said to the groom, almost in disgust at the Vicar’s pusillanimity.

When Fenwick reached his own gate there was a crowd of men loitering around the chapel, and he got out from his gig and joined them. His eye first fell upon Mr. Puddleham, who was standing directly in front of the door, with his back to the building, wearing on his face an expression of infinite displeasure. The Vicar was desirous of assuring the minister that no steps need be taken, at any rate, for the present, towards removing the chapel from its present situation. But before he could speak to Mr. Puddleham he perceived the builder from Salisbury, who appeared to be very busy, —Grimes, the Bullhampton tradesman, so lately discomfited, but now triumphant, —Bolt, the elder, close at Mr. Puddleham’s elbow, —his

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