The Last Chronicle of Barset. Anthony Trollope
her. “No. I will have no such message sent.” She started back, trembling. Not that she was accustomed to tremble at his ways, or to show that she feared him in his paroxysms, but that his voice had been louder than she had before known it. “I will hold no intercourse with them at Silverbridge in this matter. Do you hear me, Mary?”
“I hear you, Josiah; but I must keep my word to Mr. Walker. I promised that I would send to him.”
“Tell him, then, that I will not stir a foot out of this house on Thursday, of my own accord. On Thursday I shall be here; and here I will remain all day,—unless they take me hence by force.”
“But, Josiah—”
“Will you obey me, or I shall walk into Silverbridge myself and tell the man that I will not come to him.” Then he arose from his chair and stretched forth his hand to his hat as though he were going forth immediately, on his way to Silverbridge. The night was now pitch dark, and the rain was falling, and abroad he would encounter all the severity of the pitiless winter. Still it might have been better that he should have gone. The exercise and the fresh air, even the wet and the mud, would have served to bring back his mind to reason. But his wife thought of the misery of the journey, of his scanty clothing, of his worn boots, of the need there was to preserve the raiment which he wore; and she remembered that he was fasting,—that he had eaten nothing since the morning, and that he was not fit to be alone. She stopped him, therefore, before he could reach the door.
“Your bidding shall be done,” she said,—“of course.”
“Tell them, then, that they must seek me here if they want me.”
“But, Josiah, think of the parish,—of the people who respect you,—for their sakes let it not be said that you were taken away by policemen.”
“Was St. Paul not bound in prison? Did he think of what the people might see?”
“If it were necessary, I would encourage you to bear it without a murmur.”
“It is necessary, whether you murmur, or do not murmur. Murmur, indeed! Why does not your voice ascend to heaven with one loud wail against the cruelty of man?” Then he went forth from the room into an empty chamber on the other side of the passage; and his wife, when she followed him there after a few minutes, found him on his knees, with his forehead against the floor, and with his hands clutching at the scanty hairs of his head. Often before had she seen him so, on the same spot, half grovelling, half prostrate in prayer, reviling in his agony all things around him,—nay, nearly all things above him,—and yet striving to reconcile himself to his Creator by the humiliation of confession.
It might be better with him now, if only he could bring himself to some softness of heart. Softly she closed the door, and placing the candle on the mantel-shelf, softly she knelt beside him, and softly touched his hand with hers. He did not stir nor utter a word, but seemed to clutch at his thin locks more violently than before. Then she kneeling there, aloud, but with low voice, with her thin hands clasped, uttered a prayer in which she asked her God to remove from her husband the bitterness of that hour. He listened till she had finished, and then he rose slowly to his feet. “It is in vain,” said he. “It is all in vain. It is all in vain.” Then he returned back to the parlour, and seating himself again in the arm-chair, remained there without speaking till past midnight. At last, when she told him that she herself was very cold, and reminded him that for the last hour there had been no fire, still speechless, he went up with her to their bed.
Early on the following morning she contrived to let him know that she was about to send a neighbour’s son over with a note to Mr. Walker, fearing to urge him further to change his mind; but hoping that he might express his purpose of doing so when he heard that the letter was to be sent; but he took no notice whatever of her words. At this moment he was reading Greek with his daughter, or rather rebuking her because she could not be induced to read Greek.
“Oh, papa,” the poor girl said, “don’t scold me now. I am so unhappy because of all this.”
“And am not I unhappy?” he said, as he closed the book. “My God, what have I done against thee, that my lines should be cast in such terrible places?”
The letter was sent to Mr. Walker. “He knows himself to be innocent,” said the poor wife, writing what best excuse she knew how to make, “and thinks that he should take no step himself in such a matter. He will not employ a lawyer, and he says that he should prefer that he should be sent for, if the law requires his presence at Silverbridge on Thursday.” All this she wrote, as though she felt that she ought to employ a high tone in defending her husband’s purpose; but she broke down altogether in the few words of the postscript. “Indeed, indeed I have done what I could!” Mr. Walker understood it all, both the high tone and the subsequent fall.
On the Thursday morning, at about ten o’clock, a fly stopped at the gate of the Hogglestock Parsonage, and out of it there came two men. One was dressed in ordinary black clothes, and seemed from his bearing to be a respectable man of the middle class of life. He was, however, the superintendent of police for the Silverbridge district. The other man was a policeman, pure and simple, with the helmet-looking hat which has lately become common, and all the ordinary half-military and wholly disagreeable outward adjuncts of the profession. “Wilkins,” said the superintendent, “likely enough I shall want you, for they tell me the gent is uncommon strange. But if I don’t call you when I come out, just open the door like a servant, and mount up on the box when we’re in. And don’t speak nor say nothing.” Then the senior policeman entered the house.
He found Mrs. Crawley sitting in the parlour with her bonnet and shawl on, and Mr. Crawley in the arm-chair, leaning over the fire. “I suppose we had better go with you,” said Mrs. Crawley directly the door was opened; for of course she had seen the arrival of the fly from the window.
“The gentleman had better come with us if he’ll be so kind,” said Thompson. “I’ve brought a close carriage for him.”
“But I may go with him?” said the wife, with frightened voice. “I may accompany my husband. He is not well, sir, and wants assistance.”
Thompson thought about it for a moment before he spoke. There was room in the fly for only two, or if for three, still he knew his place better than to thrust himself inside together with his prisoner and his prisoner’s wife. He had been specially asked by Mr. Walker to be very civil. Only one could sit on the box with the driver, and if the request was conceded the poor policeman must walk back. The walk, however, would not kill the policeman. “All right, ma’am,” said Thompson;—“that is, if the gentleman will just pass his word not to get out till I ask him.”
“He will not! He will not!” said Mrs. Crawley.
“I will pass my word for nothing,” said Mr. Crawley.
Upon hearing this, Thompson assumed a very long face, and shook his head as he turned his eyes first towards the husband and then towards the wife, and shrugged his shoulders, and compressing his lips, blew out his breath, as though in this way he might blow off some of the mingled sorrow and indignation with which the gentleman’s words afflicted him.
Mrs. Crawley rose and came close to him. “You may take my word for it, he will not stir. You may indeed. He thinks it incumbent on him not to give any undertaking himself, because he feels himself to be so harshly used.”
“I don’t know about harshness,” said Thompson, brindling up. “A close carriage brought, and—”
“I will walk. If I am made to go, I will walk,” shouted Mr. Crawley.
“I did not allude to you,—or to Mr. Walker,” said the poor wife. “I know you have been most kind. I meant the harshness of the circumstances. Of course he is innocent, and you must feel for him.”
“Yes, I feel for him, and for you too, ma’am.”
“That is all I meant. He knows his own innocence, and therefore he is unwilling to give way in anything.”
“Of course he knows hisself, that’s certain. But he’d better