A Reputed Changeling Part 46

"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 pa.s.s 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 t.i.tle, 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 superst.i.tious 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 pa.s.sed. He challenged my right to interfere, and in a pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sed over.

Of the pond apparition nothing was said. Anne had told Charles of it, but no one could have proved its ident.i.ty 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 s.e.xton; but only the s.e.xton 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.