Into the Highways and Hedges Part 62

And the "life" he had in his mind was the evil life of that hotbed of crime, and the "death" that most inglorious and miserable death on the gallows that awaited many of his hearers. While he listened, Dr. Merrill became convinced that Barnabas believed himself about to die. His keen eyes watched the preacher narrowly, and he noted the exhaustion that followed the sermon. Barnabas dropped wearily on to a bench when he had finished speaking, and rested his head on his hands. The doctor went up to him, and tapped him sharply on the shoulder.

"Have you made up your mind to be hanged? If so, you should be ashamed of yourself!" he said. "You've plenty of pluck when it's a case of risking your life. Why on earth do you throw up the sponge so confoundedly easily, when it is a case of saving it?"

"I've nought to say about it, an' what comes next is out o' my hands,"

said Barnabas. "Yesterday the chances seemed on th' side of my being acquitted; but som'ut's happened since then, an' I know the verdict 'ull be th' other way now. Ay, I've made up my mind. Jack died an hour ago, sir. I was glad on it."

"He had a piece of luck at the last," said the doctor. "But what has happened since yesterday that you should despair?"

"I doan't despair, nor for Jack, nor for myself," answered the preacher.

And Dr. Merrill grunted impatiently. Barnabas never had much inclination to confide in his own s.e.x.

"You were never in the same boat with Jack. He was guilty, and the gallows tree was his natural goal. You come of an honest stock, and, if you're convicted, it will be through your own stupidity," said the doctor. "Come, Thorpe, of course you have an inalienable right to be a fool, if you choose; but, does it never strike you that it will be hard on your friends if you are sentenced?"

"Do ye suppose I've not thought o' all that?" said Barnabas doggedly. "I doan't knaw that I want to talk to 'ee about it, sir."

"No; you are mighty impatient of other people's sermons, but you'll listen to me before I've done with you," said the doctor. "You made a precious bad defence! Can you swear to me that you know nothing beyond what you've said in court? Aha! I thought you couldn't!"

"Why should I swear aught to 'ee?" said Barnabas. "I'm not asking advice, nor needing it. All the same," he added, after a moment, "I ought to thank ye for believing in me."

"Believe in you! I believe on my soul that you've got some crack-brained, pernicious notion that will lead you to slip your neck into a noose that was made for some one else, and that you'll find a bit too tight; now, for the sake of that unfortunate wife of yours----Hallo, you are attending to me now!"

"What ha' ye had to do wi' her? Is she ill? For G.o.d's sake, go on an'

tell me about her, an' I'll listen to th' rest after," said the preacher. And the anxiety in his voice was so sharp that the doctor with a shrug of his shoulders complied.

"She had been knocked down by a cart, and she sent her brother-in-law to fetch me to bind up a scratch on her wrist. At least, that was the ostensible reason for my visit. As a matter of fact, she wanted to wheedle me into letting her see the inside of Newgate. No; she wasn't hurt; but it must be a nice state of things for her when her natural protector has to ask me whether she's ill or well! If I had a wife--which, thank Heaven, I have been preserved from--I should not sacrifice her to any skulking sneak. Poor woman! she nearly went on her knees to me, to persuade me to smuggle her in."

Barnabas winced. He hated to think that Margaret had pleaded to any man.

Margaret, who, for all her gentleness, was so proud! It touched him to the quick too; did she want to see him so much?

As for the doctor, he was somewhat of the opinion of Meg's old friend, Sir Thomas Browne, who "cast no true affection on a woman," but "loved his friend as he loved his virtue or his G.o.d". There were plenty of pretty women in the world; and his indignation on Mrs. Thorpe's behalf was perhaps not very deep; but he knew what he was about. This fanatic held his wife ridiculously dear, and her misery might break his stubbornness.

"Doctor," said Barnabas hoa.r.s.ely, "can't ye do it? I'd give moast anything (but I've naught to give) to ha' my la.s.s once more wi' no bars between us. I've that to tell her which is hard to say wi'out I have her close to me! If ye'll do that for us----"

He stammered, and broke off his sentence, from very powerlessness to express the full strength of his desire. Dr. Merrill, looking critically at him, saw that the man's face was working with the earnestness of his pa.s.sion--he was not one who could entreat easily.

"I'll do it somehow," the doctor said slowly, "if--if you'll cease being such a mad idiot. Who is guilty?"

"Ye must e'en answer your own riddles; an' if _that's_ the 'if' I must do wi'out her," said Barnabas; and the doctor shrugged his shoulders again.

"I give up! Your obstinacy beats mine, preacher." He got up from the bench where he had seated himself beside Barnabas, but still lingered a moment.

"There's a poor creature in the condemned cell who wants to see you.

It's against rules, but I have got leave to take you there. Will you come?"

"Of course," said Barnabas.

They walked together through the long pa.s.sages. Barnabas shivered; it was cold, and Jack was still wrapped in his jersey.

The doctor eyed him inquiringly. "What on earth shall you find to say to some one in a condemned cell?" he asked.

"That G.o.d's mercy is greater than man's. That we can kill, but He can make alive," said Barnabas. The doctor slid something into the gaoler's hand as the key turned. "Now, good luck to the sermon; but it mustn't be long," said he.

But the preacher, with a cry, held out his arms.

A woman! no terrified criminal driven to a so-called "repentance" by the approach of death--a woman, with love, not fear, in her eyes, turned quickly to him!

"Margaret! Margaret!" he cried. Then he put his hand under her chin, and lifted her face that had been hidden against his arm. "Margaret!"

He had told her once that he, who had never taken her liking for love, would know when he saw the difference. He knew now. Here, in the condemned cell, in the ante-chamber of death, he saw _that_, at last, which he believed deathless; that for which his soul had hungered.

"Have I found ye?" he said. And she, putting her arms around him, lifted her lips to his, and kissed him,--a kiss solemn as a sacrament.

"Yes! You have found me!" she said.

The doctor shut the door gently from the outside.

"If it's to be done, _she'll_ do it."

CHAPTER X.

O lover of my life, O soldier saint, No work begun shall ever pause for death.

"I thought I'd ha' to die without this," said Barnabas. "Now--I am content."

He was sitting on the bench under the narrow barred window, which was high above their heads. The winter sun was setting through a lifting haze of fog; it threw a faint red gleam on the stone wall, and touched the heads of the man and woman who were making love in the condemned cell. Is there any place, short of the grave, where men have never made love?

"Hush!" said Meg. "_We_ have met life, not death, to-day."

The last occupant of this place had been hanged, the next poor wretch would be waiting execution. The thought struck coldly on her.

"Oh, Barnabas! I have never feared death before," she cried; "for I did not understand what life means." And the preacher, looking at her, knew she spoke truth. This vivifying pa.s.sion had sent a stronger tide through her veins. Happiness, new-born, was in her face, and the fresh wonder at that everlasting miracle which changes our water into wine.

"All the world seems new!" cried Margaret. "But other people have to die. And some of them never know what this means; and some, knowing, leave it all behind. Barnabas, to-morrow you will be free, and I shall be by your side, and all the happiness that is ours shall make us strong to help. I will help as I never did before!--Oh, I am so sorry for them."

"Ay, sweetheart; ye may well be that," he said.

The minutes were flying by. He must tell her. Her head was on his shoulder, her hands were in his,--hands so delicate that one of his held both. He remembered how their smallness had touched him, long ago.

"I ha' ta'en ye by rough ways, an' ye'll ha' a hard time; though I meant to shelter ye all I could." The pain in his voice made her cling closer to him.

"It is my turn to say to you, 'It is worth while,'" she whispered. "What does it matter now how rough the road is? we will tread it together."

"But, if we are not together? My little la.s.s, if we are not together?