Miscellanea. Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
of the man Crosby and of Mistress Dorothy, did his best to atone for the cruel law which keeps the prisoner's counsel at such disadvantage. The counsel for the prosecution had pressed hard on my dear lady, especially in reference to those farewell words overheard by her, which seem to give the only (though that, I say, an incredible) clue to what remains the standing mystery of the event—the missing hand. Then Mr. A—— rose to cross-examine. He said—
"'During that part of the quarrel when you were present, did the prisoner use any threats or suggestions of personal violence?'
"'No.'
"'In the fragment of conversation that you overheard at the last, did you at the time understand the prisoner to be conveying taunts or threats?'
"'No.'
"'How did you interpret the unaccountable anxiety on the prisoner's part to shake hands with a man by whom he believed himself to be injured, and with whom he was quarrelling!'
"'Mr. Manners' tone was such as one uses to a spoilt child. I believed that he was determined to avoid a quarrel at any price, in deference to my brother's infirmity and his own promise to me. He was very angry before Edmund came in; but I believe that afterwards he was shocked and sobered at the obviously irresponsible condition of my poor brother when enraged. He had never seen him so before.'
"'Is it true that Mr. Manners' pocket-knife was in your possession at the time of the murder?'
"'It is.'
"'Does your window look upon the "Honeysuckle Walk," where the prisoner says that he spent the time between leaving your house and the finding of the body?'
"'Yes.'
"'Was the prisoner likely to have any attractive associations connected with it, in reference to yourself?'
"'We had often been there together before we were engaged, It was a favourite walk of mine.'
"'Do you suppose that any one in this walk could hear cries proceeding from the low gate?'
"'Certainly not.'
"The cross-examination of Crosby was as follows:—
"Mr. A.——'Were the prisoner's clothes much disordered, as if he had been struggling?'
"'No; he looked much as usual; but he was covered with blood.'
"'So we have heard you say. Do you think that a man, in perfectly clean clothes, could have lifted the body out of the ditch without being covered with blood?'
"'No: perhaps not.'
"'Was there any means by which so much blood could have been accumulated in the ditch, unless the body had been thrown there?'
"'I think not. The pool were too big.'
"'I have two more questions to ask, and I beg the special attention of the jury to the answers. Is the ditch, or is it not, very thickly overgrown with brambles and brushwood?'
"'Yes; there be a many brambles.'
"'Do you think that any single man could drag a heavy body from the bottom of the ditch on to the bank, without severely scratching his hands?'
"'No; I don't suppose he could.'
"'That is all I wish to ask.'
"Not being permitted to address the jury, it was all that he could do. Then the Recorder summed up. God forgive him the fatal accuracy with which he placed every link in a chain of evidence so condemning that I confess poor George seemed almost to have been taken in flagrante delicto. The jury withdrew; and my sweet Mistress Dorothy, who had remained in court against my wish, suddenly dropped like an apple-blossom, and I carried her out in my arms. When I had placed her in safety, I came back, and pressed through the crowd to hear the verdict.
"As I got in, the Recorder's voice fell on my ear, every word like a funeral knell—'May the Lord have mercy on your soul!'
"I think for a few minutes I lost my senses. I have a confused remembrance of swaying hither and thither in a crowd; of execration, and pity, and gaping curiosity; and then I got out, and some one passed me, whose arm I grasped. It was Mr. A——.
"'Tell me,' I said, 'is there no hope? No recommendation to mercy? Nothing?'
"He dragged me into a room, and, seizing me by the button, exclaimed—
"'We don't want mercy; we want justice! I say, sir, curse the present condition of the law! It must be altered, and I shall live to see it. If I might have addressed the jury—there were a dozen points—we should have carried him through. Besides,' he added, in a tone that seemed to apologize for such a secondary consideration, 'I may say to you that I fully believe that he is innocent, and am as sorry on his account as on my own that we have lost the case.'
"And so the day is ended. Fiat voluntas Domini!"
Yes, Eleanor! Dr. Penn was right. The day did end—and the next—and the next; and drop by drop the cup of sorrow was drained. And when the draught is done, should we be the better, Nelly, if it had been nectar?
I had neither died nor gone mad when the day came—the last complete day that George was to see on earth. It was Sunday; and, after a sleepless night, I saw the red sun break through the grey morning. I always sleep with my window open; and, as I lay and watched the sunrise, I thought—
"He will see this sunrise, and to-morrow's sunrise; but no other! No, no!—never more!"
But then a stronger thought seemed to rise involuntarily against that one—
"Peace, fool! If this be the sorrow, it is one that must come to all men."
And then, Nelly (it is strange, but it was so), there broke out in the stone pine by my window a chorus of little birds whom the sunbeams had awakened; and they sang so sweet and so loud (like the white bird that sang to the monk Felix), that earthly cares seemed to fade away, and I fell asleep, and slept the first sound, dreamless sleep that had blessed me since our great trouble came.
CHAPTER V.
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS.
Dr. Penn was with George this day, and was to be with him to the last. His duty was taken by a curate.
I will not attempt to describe my feelings at this terrible time, but merely narrate circumstantially the wonderful events (or illusions, call them which you will) of the evening.
We sat up-stairs in the blue room, and Harriet fell asleep on the sofa.
It was about half-past ten o'clock when she awoke with a scream, and in such terror that I had much difficulty in soothing her. She seemed very unwilling to tell me the cause of her distress; but at last confessed that on the two preceding nights she had had a vivid and alarming dream, on each night the same. Poor Edmund's hand (she recognized it by the sapphire ring) seemed to float in the air before her; and even after she awoke, she still seemed to see it floating towards the door, and then coming back again, till it vanished altogether. She had seen it again now in her sleep. I sat silent, struggling with a feeling of indignation. Why had she not spoken of it before? I do not know how long it might have been before I should have broken the silence, but that my eyes turned to the partially-open window and the dark night that lay beyond. Then I shrieked, louder than she had done—
"Harriet! There it is!"
There it was—to my eyes—the detached hand, round which played a pale light—the splendid sapphire gleaming unearthlily, like the flame of a candle that is burning blue. But Harriet could