Kitabı oku: «A Reputed Changeling», sayfa 23
Truly there was peace on that morning, and strength to the brave man beyond the physical courage that had often before made him bright in the face of danger, and Anne, though weeping, had a sense of respite and repose, if not of hope.
Late in the afternoon, little Philip was lifted down from riding before old Ralph into the arms of the splendid officer, whose appearance transcended all his visions. He fumbled in his small pocket, and held out a handful of something green and limp.
“Here’s my salad, papa. I brought it all the way for you to eat.”
And Colonel Archfield ate every scrap of it for supper, though it was much fitter for a rabbit, and all the evening he held on his knee the tired child, and responded to his prattle about Nana and dogs and rabbits; nay, ministered to his delight and admiration of the sheriff’s coach, javelin men, and even the judge, with a strange mixture of wonder, delight, and with melancholy only in eyes and undertones.
CHAPTER XXX
Sentence
“I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.”
Measure for Measure.
Ralph was bidden to be ready to take his young master home early the next morning. At eight o’clock the boy, who had slept with his father, came down the stair, clinging to his father’s hand, and Miss Woodford coming closely with him.
“Yes,” said Charles, as he held the little fair fellow in his arms, ere seating him on the horse, “he knows all, Ralph. He knows that his father did an evil thing, and that what we do in our youth finds us out later, and must be paid for. He has promised me to be a comfort to the old people, and to look on this lady as a mother. Nay, no more, Ralph; ’tis not good-bye to any of you yet. There, Phil, don’t lug my head off, nor catch my hair in your buttons. Give my dutiful love to your grandmamma and to Aunt Nutley, and be a good boy to them.”
“And when I come to see you again I’ll bring another salad,” quoth Philip, as he rode out of the court; and his father, by way of excusing a contortion of features, smoothed the entangled lock of hair, and muttered something about, “This comes of not wearing a periwig.” Then he said—
“And to think that I have wasted the company of such a boy as that, all his life except for this mere glimpse!”
“Oh! you will come back to him,” was all that could be said.
For it was time for Charles Archfield to surrender himself to take his trial.
He had been instructed over and over again as to the line of his defence, and cautioned against candour for himself and delicacy towards others, till he had more than once to declare that he had no intention of throwing his life away; but the lawyers agreed in heartily deploring the rules that thus deprived the accused of the assistance of an advocate in examining witnesses and defending himself. All depended, as they knew and told Sir Edmund Nutley, on the judge and jury. Now Mr. Baron Hatsel had shown himself a well-meaning but weak and vacillating judge, whose summing up was apt rather to confuse than to elucidate the evidence; and as to the jury, Mr. Lee scanned their stolid countenances somewhat ruefully when they were marshalled before the prisoner, to be challenged if desirable. A few words passed, into which the judge inquired.
“I am reminded, my Lord,” said Colonel Archfield, bowing, “that I once incurred Mr. Holt’s displeasure as a mischievous boy by throwing a stone which injured one of his poultry; but I cannot believe such a trifle would bias an honest man in a question of life and death.”
Nevertheless the judge put aside Mr. Holt.
“I like his spirit,” whispered Mr. Harcourt.
“But,” returned Lee, “I doubt if he has done himself any good with those fellows by calling it a trifle to kill an old hen. I should like him to have challenged two or three more moody old Whiggish rascals; but he has been too long away from home to know how the land lies.”
“Too generous and high-spirited for this work,” sighed Sir Edmund, who sat with them.
The indictment was read, the first count being “That of malice aforethought, by the temptation of the Devil, Charles Archfield did wilfully kill and slay Peregrine Oakshott,” etc. The second indictment was that “By misadventure he had killed and slain the said Peregrine Oakshott.” To the first he pleaded ‘Not guilty;’ to the second ‘Guilty.’
Tall, well-made, manly, and soldierly he stood, with a quiet set face, while Mr. Cowper proceeded to open the prosecution, with a certain compliment to the prisoner and regret at having to push the case against one who had so generously come forward on behalf of a kinsman; but he must unwillingly state the circumstances that made it doubtful, nay, more than doubtful, whether the prisoner’s plea of mere misadventure could stand. The dislike to the unfortunate deceased existing among the young Tory country gentlemen of the county was, he should prove, intensified in the prisoner on account of not inexcusable jealousies, as well as of the youthful squabbles which sometimes lead to fatal results. On the evening of the 30th of June 1688 there had been angry words between the prisoner and the deceased on Portsdown Hill, respecting the prisoner’s late lady. At four or five o’clock on the ensuing morning, the 1st of July, the one fell by the sword of the other in the then unfrequented court of Portchester Castle. It was alleged that the stroke was fatal only through the violence of youthful impetuosity; but was it consistent with that supposition that the young gentleman’s time was unaccounted for afterwards, and that the body should have been disposed of in a manner that clearly proved the assistance of an accomplice, and with so much skill that no suspicion had arisen for seven years and a half, whilst the actual slayer was serving, not his own country, but a foreign prince, and had only returned at a most suspicious crisis?
The counsel then proceeded to construct a plausible theory. He reminded the jury that at that very time, the summer of 1688, messages and invitations were being despatched to his present Gracious Majesty to redress the wrongs of the Protestant Church, and protect the liberties of the English people. The father of the deceased was a member of a family of the country party, his uncle a distinguished diplomatist, to whose suite he had belonged. What was more obvious than that he should be employed in the correspondence, and that his movements should be dogged by parties connected with the Stewart family? Already there was too much experience of how far even the most estimable and conscientious might be blinded by the sentiment that they dignified by the title of loyalty. The deceased had already been engaged in a struggle with one of the Archfield family, who had been acquitted of his actual slaughter; but considering the strangeness of the hour at which the two cousins were avowedly at or near Portchester, the condition of the clothes, stripped of papers, but not of valuables, and the connection of the principal witness with the pretended Prince of Wales, he could not help thinking that though personal animosity might have added an edge to the weapon, yet that there were deeper reasons, to prompt the assault and the concealment, than had yet been brought to light.
“He will make nothing of that,” whispered Mr. Lee. “Poor Master Peregrine was no more a Whig than old Sir Philip there.”
“’Twill prejudice the jury,” whispered back Mr. Harcourt, “and discredit the lady’s testimony.”
Mr. Cowper concluded by observing that half truths had come to light in the former trial, but whole truths would give a different aspect to the affair, and show the unfortunate deceased to have given offence, not only as a man of gallantry, but as a patriot, and to have fallen a victim to the younger bravoes of the so-called Tory party. To his (the counsel’s) mind, it was plain that the prisoner, who had hoped that his crime was undiscovered and forgotten, had returned to take his share in the rising against Government so happily frustrated. He was certain that the traitor Charnock had been received at his father’s house, and that Mr. Sedley Archfield had used seditious language on several occasions, so that the cause of the prisoner’s return at this juncture was manifest, and only to the working of Providence could it be ascribed that the evidence of the aggravated murder should have at that very period been brought to light.
There was an evident sensation, and glances were cast at the upright, military figure, standing like a sentinel, as if the audience expected him to murder them all.
As before, the examination began with Robert Oakshott’s identification of the clothes and sword, but Mr. Cowper avoided the subject of the skeleton, and went on to inquire about the terms on which the two young men had lived.
“Well,” said Robert, “they quarrelled, but in a neighbourly sort of way.”
“What do you call a neighbourly way?”
“My poor brother used to be baited for being so queer. But then we were as bad to him as the rest,” said Robert candidly.
“That is, when you were boys?”
“Yes.”
“And after his return from his travels?”
“It was the same then. He was too fine a gentleman for any one’s taste.”
“You speak generally. Was there any especial animosity?”
“My brother bought a horse that Archfield was after.”
“Was there any dispute over it?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Can you give an instance of displeasure manifested by the prisoner at the deceased?”
“I have seen him look black when my brother held a gate open for his wife.”
“Then there were gallant attentions towards Mrs. Archfield?”
Charles’s face flushed, and he made a step forward, but Robert gruffly answered: “No more than civility; but he had got Frenchified manners, and liked to tease Archfield.”
“Did they ever come to high words before you?”
“No. They knew better.”
“Thank you, Mr. Oakshott,” said the prisoner, as it was intimated that Mr. Cowper had finished. “You bear witness that only the most innocent civility ever passed between your brother and my poor young wife?”
“Certainly,” responded Robert.
“Nothing that could cause serious resentment, if it excited passing annoyance.”
“Nothing.”
“What were your brother’s political opinions?”
“Well”—with some slow consideration—“he admired the Queen as was, and could not abide the Prince of Orange. My father was always at him for it.”
“Would you think him likely to be an emissary to Holland?”
“No one less likely.”
But Mr. Cowper started up. “Sir, I believe you are the younger brother?”
“Yes.”
“How old were you at the time?”
“Nigh upon nineteen.”
“Oh!” as if that accounted for his ignorance.
The prisoner continued, and asked whether search was made when the deceased was missed.
“Hardly any.”
“Why not?”
“He was never content at home, and we believed he had gone to my uncle in Muscovy.”
“What led you to examine the vault?”
“My wife was disquieted by stories of my brother’s ghost being seen.”
“Did you ever see this ghost?”
“No, never.”
That was all that was made of Robert Oakshott, and then again came Anne Woodford’s turn, and Mr. Cowper was more satirical and less considerate than the day before. Still it was a less dreadful ordeal than previously, though she had to tell the worst, for she knew her ground better, and then there was throughout wonderful support in Charles’s eyes, which told her, whenever she glanced towards him, that she was doing right and as he wished. As she had not heard the speech for the prosecution it was a shock, after identifying herself a niece to a ‘non-swearing’ clergyman, to be asked about the night of the bonfire, and to be forced to tell that Mrs. Archfield had insisted on getting out of the carriage and walking about with Mr. Oakshott.
“Was the prisoner present?”
“He came up after a time.”
“Did he show any displeasure?”
“He thought it bad for her health.”
“Did any words pass between him and the deceased?”
“Not that I remember.”
“And now, madam, will you be good enough to recur to the following morning, and continue the testimony in which you were interrupted the day before yesterday? What was the hour?”
“The church clock struck five just after.”
“May I ask what took a young gentlewoman out at such an untimely hour? Did you expect to meet any one?”
“No indeed, sir,” said Anne hotly. “I had been asked to gather some herbs to carry to a friend.”
“Ah! And why at that time in the morning?”
“Because I was to leave home at seven, when the tide served.”
“Where were you going?”
“To London, sir.”
“And for what reason?”
“I had been appointed to be a rocker in the Royal nursery.”
“I see. And your impending departure may explain certain strange coincidences. May I ask what was this same herb?” in a mocking tone.
“Mouse-ear, sir,” said Anne, who would fain have called it by some less absurd title, but knew no other. “A specific for the whooping-cough.”
“Oh! Not ‘Love in a mist.’ Are your sure?”
“My lord,” here Simon Harcourt ventured, “may I ask, is this regular?”
The judge intimated that his learned brother had better keep to the point, and Mr. Cowper, thus called to order, desired the witness to continue, and demanded whether she was interrupted in her quest.
“I saw Mr. Peregrine Oakshott enter the castle court, and I hurried into the tower, hoping he had not seen me.”
“You said before he had protected you. Why did you run from him?”
She had foreseen this, and quietly answered, “He had made me an offer of marriage which I had refused, and I did not wish to meet him.”
“Did you see any one else?”
“Not till I had reached the door opening on the battlements. Then I heard a clash, and saw Mr. Archfield and Mr. Oakshott fighting.”
“Mr. Archfield! The prisoner? Did he come to gather mouse-ear too?”
“No. His wife had sent him over with a pattern of sarcenet for me to match in London.”
“Early rising and prompt obedience.” And there ensued the inquiries that brought out the history of what she had seen of the encounter, of the throwing the body into the vault, full dressed, and of her promise of silence and its reason. Mr. Cowper did not molest her further except to make her say that she had been five months at the Court, and had accompanied the late Queen to France.
Then came the power of cross-examination on the part of the prisoner. He made no attempt to modify what had been said before, but asked in a gentle apologetic voice: “Was that the last time you ever saw, or thought you saw, Peregrine Oakshott?”
“No.” And here every one in court started and looked curious.
“When?”
“The 31st of October 1688, in the evening.”
“Where?”
“Looking from the window in the palace at Whitehall, I saw him, or his likeness, walking along in the light of the lantern over the great door.”
The appearance at Lambeth was then described, and that in the garden at Archfield House. This strange cross-examination was soon over, for Charles could not endure to subject her to the ordeal, while she equally longed to be able to say something that might not damage him, and dreaded every word she spoke. Moreover, Mr. Cowper looked exceedingly contemptuous, and made the mention of Whitehall and Lambeth a handle for impressing on the jury that the witness had been deep in the counsels of the late royal family, and that she was escorted from St. Germain by the prisoner just before he entered on foreign service.
One of the servants at Fareham was called upon to testify to the hour of his young master’s return on the fatal day. It was long past dinner-time, he said. It must have been about three o’clock.
Charles put in an inquiry as to the condition of his horse. “Hard ridden, sir, as I never knew your Honour bring home Black Bess in such a pickle before.”
After a couple of young men had been called who could speak to some outbreaks of dislike to poor Peregrine, in which all had shared, the case for the prosecution was completed. Cowper, in a speech that would be irregular now, but was permissible then, pointed out that the jealousy, dislike, and Jacobite proclivities of the Archfield family had been fully made out, that the coincidence of visits to the castle at that untimely hour had been insufficiently explained, that the condition of the remains in the vault was quite inconsistent with the evidence of the witness, Mistress Woodford, unless there were persons waiting below unknown to her, and that the prisoner had been absent from Fareham from four or five o’clock in the morning till nearly three in the afternoon. As to the strange story she had further told, he (Mr. Cowper) was neither superstitious nor philosophic, but the jury would decide whether conscience and the sense of an awful secret were not sufficient to conjure up such phantoms, if they were not indeed spiritual, occurring as they did in the very places and at the very times when the spirit of the unhappy young man, thus summarily dismissed from the world, his corpse left in an unblessed den, would be most likely to reappear, haunting those who felt themselves to be most accountable for his lamentable and untimely end.
The words evidently told, and it was at a disadvantage that the prisoner rose to speak in his own defence and to call his witnesses.
“My lord,” he said, “and gentlemen of the jury, let me first say that I am deeply grieved and hurt that the name of my poor young wife has been brought into this matter. In justice to her who is gone, I must begin by saying that though she was flattered and gratified by the polite manners that I was too clownish and awkward to emulate, and though I may have sometimes manifested ill-humour, yet I never for a moment took serious offence nor felt bound to defend her honour or my own. If I showed displeasure it was because she was fatiguing herself against warning. I can say with perfect truth, that when I left home on that unhappy morning, I bore no serious ill-will to any living creature. I had no political purpose, and never dreamt of taking the life of any one. I was a heedless youth of nineteen. I shall be able to prove the commission of my wife’s on which this learned gentleman has thought fit to cast a doubt. For the rest, Mistress Anne Woodford was my sister’s friend and playfellow from early childhood. When I entered the castle court I saw her hurrying into the keep, pursued by Oakshott, whom I knew her to dread and dislike. I naturally stepped between. Angry words passed. He challenged my right to interfere, and in a passion drew upon me. Though I was the taller and stronger, I knew him to be proud of his skill in fencing, and perhaps I may therefore have pressed him the harder, and the dislike I acknowledge made me drive home my sword. But I was free from all murderous intention up to that moment. In my inexperience I had no doubt but that he was dead, and in a terror and confusion which I regret heartily, I threw him into the vault, and for the sake of my wife and mother bound Miss Woodford to secrecy. I mounted my horse, and scarcely knowing what I did, rode till I found it ready to drop. I asked for rest for it in the first wayside public-house I came to. I lay down meanwhile among some bushes adjoining, and there waited till my horse could take me home again. I believe it was at the White Horse, near Bishops Waltham, but the place has changed hands since that time, so that I can only prove my words, as you have heard, by the state of my horse when I came home. For the condition of the remains in the vault I cannot account; I never touched the poor fellow after throwing him there. My wife died a few hours after my return home, where I remained for a week, nor did I suggest flight, though I gladly availed myself of my father’s suggestion of sending me abroad with a tutor. Let me add, to remove misconception, that I visited Paris because my tutor, the Reverend George Fellowes, one of the Fellows of Magdalen College expelled by the late King, and now Rector of Portchester, had been asked to provide for Miss Woodford’s return to her home, and he is here to testify that I never had any concern with politics. I did indeed accompany him to St. Germain, but merely to find the young gentlewoman, and in the absence of the late King and Queen, nor did I hold intercourse with any other person connected with their Court. After escorting her to Ostend, I went to Hungary to serve in the army of our ally, the Emperor, against the Turks, the enemies of all Christians. After a severe wound, I have come home, knowing nothing of conspiracies, and I was taken by surprise on arriving here at Winchester at finding that my cousin was on his trial for the unfortunate deed into which I was betrayed by haste and passion, but entirely without premeditation or intent to do more than to defend the young lady. So that I plead that my crime does not amount to murder from malicious intent; and likewise, that those who charge me with the actual death of Peregrine Oakshott should prove him to be dead.”
Charles’s first witness was Mrs. Lang, his late wife’s ‘own woman,’ who spared him many questions by garrulously declaring ‘what a work’ poor little Madam had made about the rose-coloured sarcenet, causing the pattern to be searched out as soon as she came home from the bonfire, and how she had ‘gone on at’ her husband till he promised to give it to Mistress Anne, and how he had been astir at four o’clock in the morning, and had called to her (Mrs. Lang) to look to her mistress, who might perhaps get some sleep now that she had her will and hounded him out to go over to Portchester about that silk.
Nothing was asked of this witness by the prosecution except the time of Mr. Archfield’s return. The question of jealousy was passed over.
Of the pond apparition nothing was said. Anne had told Charles of it, but no one could have proved its identity but Sedley, and his share in it was too painful to be brought forward. Three other ghost seers were brought forward: Mrs. Fellowes’s maid, the sentry, and the sexton; but only the sexton had ever seen Master Perry alive, and he would not swear to more than that it was something in his likeness; the sentry was already bound to declare it something unsubstantial; and the maid was easily persuaded into declaring that she did not know what she had seen or whether she had seen anything.
There only remained Mr. Fellowes to bear witness of his pupil’s entire innocence of political intrigues, together with a voluntary testimony addressed to the court, that the youth had always appeared to him a well-disposed but hitherto boyish lad, suddenly sobered and rendered thoughtful by a shock that had changed the tenor of his mind.
Mr. Baron Hatsel summed up in his dreary vacillating way. He told the gentlemen of the jury that young men would be young men, especially where pretty wenches were concerned, and that all knew that there was bitterness where Whig and Tory were living nigh together. Then he went over the evidence, at first in a tone favourable to the encounter having been almost accidental, and the stroke an act of passion. But he then added, it was strange, and he did not know what to think of these young sparks and the young gentlewoman all meeting in a lonely place when honest folks were abed, and the hiding in the vault, and the state of the clothes were strange matters scarce agreeing with what either prisoner or witness said. It looked only too like part of a plot of which some one should make a clean breast. On the other hand, the prisoner was a fine young gentleman, an only son, and had been fighting the Turks, though it would have been better to have fought the French among his own countrymen. He had come ingenuously forward to deliver his cousin, and a deliberate murderer was not wont to be so generous, though may be he expected to get off easily on this same plea of misadventure. If it was misadventure, why did he not try to do something for the deceased, or wait to see whether he breathed before throwing him into this same pit? though, to be sure, a lad might be inexperienced. For the rest, as to these same sights of the deceased or his likeness, he (the judge) was no believer in ghosts, though he would not say there were no such things, and the gentlemen of the jury must decide whether it was more likely the poor youth was playing pranks in the body, or whether he were haunting in the spirit those who had most to do with his untimely end. This was the purport, or rather the no-purport, of the charge.
The jury were absent for a very short time, and as it leaked out afterwards, their intelligence did not rise above the idea that the young gentleman was thick with they Frenchies who wanted to bring in murder and popery, warming-pans and wooden shoes. He called stoning poultry a trifle, so of what was he not capable? Of course he spited the poor young chap, and how could the fact be denied when the poor ghost had come back to ask for his blood?
So the awful suspense ended with ‘Guilty, my Lord.’
“Of murder or manslaughter?”
“Of murder.”
The prisoner stood as no doubt he had faced Turkish batteries.
The judge asked the customary question whether he had any reason to plead why he should not be condemned to death.
“No, my lord. I am guilty of shedding Peregrine Oakshott’s blood, and though I declare before God and man that I had no such purpose, and it was done in the heat of an undesigned struggle, I hated him enough to render the sentence no unjust one. I trust that God will pardon me, if man does not.”
The gentlemen around drew the poor old father out of the court so as not to hear the final sentence, and Anne, half stunned, was taken away by her uncle, and put into the same carriage with him. The old man held her hands closely and could not speak, but she found voice, “Sir, sir, do not give up hope. God will save him. I know what I can do. I will go to Princess Anne. She is friendly with the King now. She will bring me to tell him all.”
Hurriedly she spoke, her object, as it seemed to be that of every one, to keep up such hope and encouragement as to drown the terrible sense of the actual upshot of the trial. The room at the George was full in a moment of friends declaring that all would go well in the end, and consulting what to do. Neither Sir Philip nor Dr. Woodford could be available, as their refusal to take the oaths to King William made them marked men. The former could only write to the Imperial Ambassador, beseeching him to claim the prisoner as an officer of the Empire, though it was doubtful whether this would be allowed in the case of an Englishman born. Mr. Fellowes undertook to be the bearer of the letter, and to do his best through Archbishop Tenison to let the King know the true bearings of the case. Almost in pity, to spare Anne the misery of helpless waiting, Dr. Woodford consented to let her go under his escort, starting very early the next morning, since the King might immediately set off for the army in Holland, and the space was brief between condemnation and execution.
Sir Edmund proposed to hurry to Carisbrooke Castle, being happily on good terms with that fiery personage, Lord Cutts, the governor of the Isle of Wight as well as a favoured general of the King, whose intercession might do more than Princess Anne’s. Moreover, a message came from old Mr. Cromwell, begging to see Sir Edmund. It was on behalf of Major Oakshott, who entreated that Sir Philip might be assured of his own great regret at the prosecution and the result, and his entire belief that the provocation came from his unhappy son. Both he and Richard Cromwell were having a petition for pardon drawn up, which Sir Henry Mildmay and almost all the leading gentlemen of Hampshire of both parties were sure to sign, while the sheriff would defer the execution as long as possible. Pardons, especially in cases of duelling, had been marketable articles in the last reigns, and there could not but be a sigh for such conveniences. Sir Philip wanted to go at once to the jail, which was very near the inn, but consented on strong persuasion to let his son-in-law precede him.
Anne longed for a few moments to herself, but durst not leave the poor old man, who sat holding her hand, and at each interval of silence saying how this would kill the boy’s mother, or something equally desponding, so that she had to talk almost at random of the various gleams of hope, and even to describe how the little Duke of Gloucester might be told of Philip and sent to the King, who was known to be very fond of him. It was a great comfort when Dr. Woodford came and offered to pray with them.
By and by Sir Edmund returned, having been making arrangements for Charles’s comfort. Ordinary prisoners were heaped together and miserably treated, but money could do something, and by application to the High Sheriff, permission had been secured for Charles to occupy a private room, on a heavy fee to the jailor, and for his friends to have access to him, besides other necessaries, purchased at more than their weight in gold. Sir Edmund brought word that Charles was in good heart; sent love and duty to his father, whom he would welcome with all his soul, but that as Miss Woodford was—in her love and bravery—going so soon to London, he prayed that she might be his first visitor that evening.
There was little more to do than to cross the street, and Sir Edmund hurried her through the flagged and dirty yard, and the dim, foul hall, filled with fumes of smoke and beer, where melancholy debtors held out their hands, idle scapegraces laughed, heavy degraded faces scowled, and evil sounds were heard, up the stairs to a nail-studded door, where Anne shuddered to hear the heavy key turned by the coarse, rude-looking warder, only withheld from insolence by the presence of a magistrate. Her escort tarried outside, and she saw Charles, his rush-light candle gleaming on his gold lace as he wrote a letter to the ambassador to be forwarded by his father.
He sprang up with outstretched arms and an eager smile. “My brave sweetheart! how nobly you have done. Truth and trust. It did my heart good to hear you.”
