The Shadow of a Crime Part 64

"Your _true_ name, and your brother's."

Justice Hide looked steadily at the witness. He held an open book in his hand.

"Your _true_ name," he said, repeating Sim's inquiry.

"Mark Garth!" mumbled the witness. The judge appeared to expect that reply.

"And your brother's?"

"Wilson Garth."

"Remove the perjurer in charge."

Sim sank back exhausted, and looked about him as one who had been newly awakened from a dream.

The feeling among the spectators, as also among the jurors, wavered between sympathy for the accused and certainty of the truth of the accusation, when the sheriff was seen to step uneasily forward and hand a paper to counsel. Glancing hastily at the doc.u.ment, the lawyer rose with a smile of secure triumph and said that, circ.u.mstantial as the evidence on all essential points had hitherto been, he was now in a position to render it conclusive.

Then handing the paper to Ralph, he asked him to say if he had ever seen it before. Ralph was overcome; gasping as if for breath, he raised one hand involuntarily to his breast.

"Tell the court how you came by the instrument in your hand."

There was no reply. Ralph had turned to Sim, and was looking into his face with what appeared to be equal pity and contrition.

The paper was worn, and had clearly been much and long folded. It was charred at one corner as if at some moment it had narrowly escaped the flames.

"My lords," said counsel, "this is the very warrant which the deceased Wilson carried from Carlisle for the arrest of the prisoner who now holds it; this is the very warrant which has been missing since the night of the murder of Wilson; and where, think you, my lords, it was found? It was found--you have heard how foolish be the wise--look now how childishly a cunning man can sometimes act, how blundering are clever rogues!--it was found this morning on the defendant Ray's person while he slept, in an inner breast pocket, which was st.i.tched up, and seemed to have been rarely used."

"That is direct proof," said Justice Millet, with a glance at his brother on the bench. "After this there can be no doubt in any mind."

"Peradventure the prisoner can explain how he came by the doc.u.ment,"

said Justice Hide.

"Have you anything to say as to how you became possessed of it?"

"Nothing."

"Will you offer the court no explanation?"

"None."

"Would the answer criminate you?"

No reply.

For Ralph the anguish of years was concentrated in that moment. He might say where he was on the night of the murder, but then he had Sim only for witness. He thought of Robbie Anderson--why was he not here?

But no, Robbie was better away; he could only clear him of this guilt by involving his father. And what evidence would avail against the tangible witness of the warrant? He had preserved that doc.u.ment with some vague hope of serving Sim, but here it was the serpent in the breast of both.

"This old man," he said,--his altered tone startled the listeners,--"this old man," he said, pointing to Sim at his side, "is as innocent of the crime as the purest soul that stands before the White Throne."

"And what of yourself?"

"As for me, as for me," he added, struggling with the emotion that surged in his voice, "in the sight of Him that searcheth all hearts I have acquittal. I have sought it long and with tears of Him before whom we are all as chaff."

"Away with him, the blasphemer!" cried Justice Millet. "Know where you are, sir. This is an a.s.sembly of Christians. Dare you call G.o.d to acquit you of your barbarous crimes?"

The people in the court took up the judge's word and broke out into a tempest of irrepressible groans. They were the very people who had cheered a week ago.

Sim cowered in a corner of the box, with his lank fingers in his long hair.

Ralph looked calmly on. He was not to be shaken now. There was one way in which he could quell that clamor and turn it into a tumult of applause, but that way should not be taken. He could extricate himself by criminating his dead father, but that he should never do. And had he not come to die? Was not this the atonement he had meant to make?

It was right, it was right, and it was best. But what of Sim; must he be the cause of Sim's death also? "This poor old man," he repeated, when the popular clamor had subsided, "he is innocent."

Sim would have risen, but Ralph guessed his purpose and kept him to his seat. At the same moment w.i.l.l.y Ray among the people was seen struggling towards the witness-bar. Ralph guessed his purpose and checked him, too, with a look. w.i.l.l.y stood as one petrified. He saw only one of two men for the murderer--Ralph or his father.

"Let us go together," whispered Sim; and in another moment the judge (Justice Millet) was summing up. He was brief; the evidence of the woman Rushton and of the recovered warrant proved everything. The case was as clear as noonday. The jurors need not leave the box.

Without retiring, the jury found a verdict of guilty against both prisoners.

The crier made proclamation of silence, and the awful sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced.

It was remarked that Justice Hide muttered something about a "writ of error," and that when he rose from the bench he motioned the sheriff to follow him.

CHAPTER XLIII. LOVE KNOWN AT LAST.

Early next morning w.i.l.l.y Ray arrived at Shoulthwaite, splashed from head to foot, worn and torn. He had ridden hard from Carlisle, but not so fast but that two unwelcome visitors were less than half an hour's ride behind him.

"Home again," he said, in a dejected tone, throwing down his whip as he entered the kitchen, "yet _home_ no longer."

Rotha struggled to speak. "Ralph, where is he? Is he on the way?"

These questions were on her lips, but a great gulp was in her throat, and not a word would come.

"Ralph's a dead man," said w.i.l.l.y with affected deliberation, pushing off his long boots.

Rotha fell back apace. w.i.l.l.y glanced up at her.

"As good as dead," he added, perceiving that she had taken his words too literally. "Ah, well, it's over now, it's over; and if you had a hand in it, girl, may G.o.d forgive you!"

w.i.l.l.y said this with the air of a man who reconciles himself to an injury, and is persuading his conscience that he pardons it. "Could you not give me something to eat?" he asked, after a pause.

"Is that all you have to say to me?" said Rotha, in a voice as husky as the raven's.

Willie glanced at her again. He felt a pa.s.sing pang of remorse.

"I had forgotten, Rotha; your father, he is in the same case with Ralph."