The Squire's Daughter Part 25

CHAPTER XV

SIR JOHN GETS ANGRY

It was remarked that Sir John never looked at the prisoner all the time he was giving evidence. He was, however, perfectly at home before his brother magistrates, and showed none of that nervousness and restraint which ordinary mortals feel in similar circ.u.mstances. The story he told was simple and straightforward. He had not an enemy in the parish, as far as he knew, except the prisoner, who had made no secret of his hatred and of his desire for revenge.

He admitted that fortune had been unkind to the elder Penlogan, but in the chances of life it was inevitable that some should come out at the bottom. As the ground landlord, he had acted with every consideration, and had given David Penlogan plenty of time to realise to the best advantage. Hence he felt quite sure that their worships would acquit him of any intention of being either harsh or unjust.

A general nodding of heads on the part of the magistrates satisfied him on that point.

He then went on to tell the story of the prisoner's visit to Hamblyn Manor, and how he had the effrontery to charge him with killing his father.

"Gentlemen, he had murder in his eyes when he came to see me; but, fortunately, he had no opportunity of doing me harm."

Sir John waved his right hand dramatically when he uttered these words, the effect of which--in the language of the local reporter--was "Sensation in Court."

He then went on to describe the events of the afternoon when the shot was fired.

He was not likely to be mistaken in the prisoner's face. He had no wish to take an oath that it was the prisoner, but he was morally certain that it was he.

Then followed a good deal of collateral evidence that the police had gathered up and spliced together. The prisoner had been seen by a number of people that afternoon with a gun under his arm. He wore a cloth cap, such as Sir John had described. He had been seen crossing Polskiddy Downs, which, as everyone knew, ab.u.t.ted on Treliskey Plantation. He had expressed himself very bitterly on several occasions respecting Sir John, and had talked vaguely about being quits with him some day.

Footprints near the hedge behind which the shot was fired tallied with a pair of boots in the prisoner's house; also, the prisoner returned to his own house within an hour of the shot being fired.

The magistrates looked more and more grave as the chain of evidence lengthened out, though most of them had quite made up their minds before the proceedings began.

Ralph, in spite of all advice to the contrary, pleaded "not guilty," and being allowed to speak in his own defence, availed himself of the opportunity.

"Why should I want to kill the squire?" he said, in a tone of scorn.

"G.o.d will punish him soon enough." (More sensation in court.) "That he has behaved badly to us," Ralph went on, "no unprejudiced person will deny, though you, being landowners yourselves, approve. I don't deny that he acted within his legal rights. So did Shylock. But had he the heart of a savage, to say nothing of a Christian, he could not have acted more oppressively. I told him that he killed my father--and I repeat it to-day!" (Renewed sensation.) "I did go out shooting on that day in question. My gun licence has not expired yet. Mr. Hooker told me I could shoot over Dingley Bottom any time I liked, and I was glad of the opportunity, for our larder was not overstocked, as you may imagine.

I crossed Polskiddy Downs, I admit--it is the one bit of common land that you gentry have not filched from us----" (Profound sensation, during which the chairman protested that if prisoner did not keep himself strictly to his defence, the privilege of speaking further would be taken from him.) "As you will, gentlemen," Ralph said indifferently.

"I do not expect justice or a fair hearing in a court of this kind."

"Order, order!" shouted the magistrates' clerk. The chairman intimated, after a few moments of silence, that the prisoner might proceed if he would promise not to insult the Bench.

"I have very little more to add," Ralph went on, quite calmly.

"Unfortunately, no one saw me in Dingley Bottom, and yet I went straight there from home, and came straight back again. I did not go within half a mile of Treliskey Plantation. Moreover, if I wanted to meet Sir John, I should go to his house, as I have done more than once, and not wander through miles of wood on the off-chance of meeting him. Nor is that all.

If I wanted to kill the gentleman, I should have killed him, and not sprinkled a few shots on his coat sleeve. I have two barrels to my gun, and I do not often miss what I aim at. If I had intended to murder him, do you think I should have been such a fool as to first show my face and then let him escape? I went out in broad daylight; I returned in broad daylight. Is it conceivable that if I intended to shoot the gentleman I should have been seen carrying a gun? or that, having done the deed, I should have returned in sight of all the village? It has been suggested that, having been caught trespa.s.sing in the plantation, I was seized with a sudden desire for revenge. If that had been the case, do you think I would have half completed the task? As all the parish can testify, I am no indifferent shot. If I was alone in the plantation with him, and wanted to kill him, I could have done it. But, gentlemen, I swear before G.o.d I was not in the plantation, nor even near it. I have never lifted a finger against this man, nor would I do it if I had the opportunity. That he has treated me and mine with cruel oppression is common knowledge. But vengeance is G.o.d's, and I have no desire, nor ever had any desire, to take the law into my own hands."

Many opinions were expressed afterwards as to the effect produced by Ralph's speech, but the general impression was that he did no good for himself. The Bench was by no means impressed in his favour. They detected a socialistic flavour in some of the things he flung at them.

He had not been respectful--indeed, in plain English, he had been insulting. They would not have tolerated him, only he was on his trial, and they were anxious to avoid any suspicion of unfairness. They flattered themselves afterwards that they displayed a spirit of great Christian forbearance, and as they had almost to a man made up their minds beforehand, they had no hesitation in committing him to take his trial at the next a.s.sizes on the charge of shooting at Sir John Hamblyn with intent to do him grievous bodily harm.

The question of bail was not mentioned, and Ralph went back to his cell to meditate once more on the tender mercies of the rich and the justice of the strong.

Sir John returned to his home very well pleased with the result of the morning's proceedings. The decision of the magistrates seemed a compliment to himself. To make it an a.s.size case indicated a due appreciation of his position and importance.

Also he was pleased because he believed the decision would completely destroy any romantic attachment that Dorothy might cherish for the accused. It had come to his knowledge that at the very time Mr.

Tregonning was at his bedside taking his depositions, she was at the cottage of the Penlogans interviewing the accused himself. This knowledge had made Sir John more angry than he had been for a very long time. It was not merely the indiscretion that angered him, it was what the indiscretion implied.

However, he believed that the decision of the magistrates would put an end to all this nonsense, and that in the revulsion of feeling Lord Probus would again have his opportunity.

Dorothy asked him the result of the trial on his return, and when he told her she made no reply whatever. Neither did he enlarge on the matter. He concluded that it would be the wiser policy to let the simple facts of the case make their own impression. Women, he knew, were proverbially stubborn, and not always reasonable, while the more they were opposed, the more doggedly determined they became.

Such fears and suspicions as he had he wisely kept to himself. Dorothy was only a foolish girl, who would grow wiser with time. The teaching of experience and the pressure of circ.u.mstances would in the end, he believed, compel her to go the way he wished her to take. In the meanwhile, his cue was to watch and wait, and not too obtrusively show his hand.

Dorothy was as reticent on the matter as her father. That she had become keenly interested in the fate of Ralph Penlogan she did not attempt to hide from herself. That a cruel wrong had been done to him she honestly believed. That her sympathies went out to him in his undeserved sufferings was a fact she had no wish to dispute, and that in some way he had influenced her in her decision not to marry Lord Probus was also, to her own mind, too patent to be contested.

But she saw no danger in any of these simple facts. The idea of being in love with a small working farmer's son did not enter her head. She belonged to a different world socially, and such a proposition would not occur to her. But social position could not prevent her admiring good looks, and physical strength, and manly ways, and a generous disposition, when they were brought under her notice.

On the day following the decision of the magistrates she read a full account of the proceedings in the local newspaper, and for the first time was made aware of the fact that it was not Lord St. Goram who had so unmercifully oppressed the Penlogans, but her own father.

For a few minutes she felt quite stunned.

It had never occurred to her that her father was the lord of the manor.

In her mind he was not a lord at all. He was simply a baronet.

How short-sighted she had been! Slowly the full meaning and significance of the fact worked its way into her brain, and her face flushed with shame and indignation. Why had not her father the courage to tell her the truth? Why had he allowed her to wrong Lord St. Goram even in thought? Why was he so relentless in his pursuit of the people he had treated so harshly? Was it true that people never forgave those they had wronged? Then her thoughts turned unconsciously to the Penlogans. How they must hate her father, and yet how sensitive they had been not to hurt her feelings. Even Ralph had allowed her to think that Lord St.

Goram was the oppressor.

"He ought not to have deceived me," she said to herself, and yet she liked him all the more for his chivalry.

Her thoughts went back to that first day of their meeting, when she mistook him for a country yokel. Considering the fact that she was a lady, and on horseback, he had undoubtedly been rude to her, and yet he was rude in a manly sort of way. She liked him even then, and liked him all the more because he did not cringe to her.

But since then his every word and act had evinced the very soul of chivalry. In many ways he was much more a gentleman than Lord Probus.

Indeed, she was inclined to think that in every way he was more of a gentleman. Lord Probus had wealth--fabulous wealth, it was believed--and a thin veneer of polish. But, stripped of the outer sh.e.l.l, she felt quite certain that the farmer's son was much more the gentleman of the two.

It was inevitable, however, that the subject should sooner or later crop up between the father and daughter, and when it did crop up, Sir John was quite unable to hide the bias of his mind.

"In tracking down a crime," he said, with quite a magisterial air, "the first thing to discover, if possible, is a motive. Given a motive, the rest is often comparatively easy. Now in this case I kept the motive from you, as I had no wish to prejudice the young man in your eyes. But in the preliminary trial, as you will have observed, the motive came out. Why he shot me is clear enough. Why he did not complete the work is due probably to failure of nerve; or possibly he thought I was dead, for I fell to the ground like a log."

"Why, father, you said you took to your heels and ran like the wind, and so got out of his reach."

"That was after I recovered myself, Dorothy. I admit I ran then."

"And you still believe that it was he who fired the shot?"

"Why, of course I do."

"With intent to kill?"

"There is not the least doubt of it."

"You think he had good reason for hating you?"

"From his point of view he may think that I ought to have foregone my rights."