However, he ordered his carriage to wait at the door of the Court, and half an hour afterwards the Bench reappeared.
The Chairman said that although there was very little evidence against the prisoner Jenkins, although his character had been proved excellent, and although his solicitor had most ably conducted the defence, yet the Bench felt that the crime was one too serious for them to think of dismissing a suspected person. The prisoner would be committed for trial at the Assizes, which fortunately for him came on that day fortnight.
A smile of triumph lit up Merton’s face as he gathered up his papers. The rival solicitor smiled too, and assured Aymer who was present to tell Violet what happened, that the grand jury would be certain to throw out the bill. There was not a tittle of evidence against the prisoner.
With this assurance Aymer mounted and rode back to Violet. At the same time Merton, telling his coachman not to distress the horses, drove leisurely towards the deathbed, where he had been so anxiously expected for hours.
The scene at that deathbed was extremely dreadful. The poor dying man gradually became more and more restless and excited; nor could all the efforts of Dr. Parker, the persuasions of the clergyman, nor the tears of his wife and children, keep him calm.
The thought of death—the idea of preparing for the hereafter never seemed to occur to him. His one wish was to see “Albert” and “Merton;” till feverish and his eye glittering with excitement, all that he could ejaculate was those two names.
He remained for four hours quite conscious, and able to converse; then suddenly there was a change, and he lost the power of answering questions, though still faintly repeating those names. The scene was very shocking.
“Why doesn’t Albert come?” said poor Mrs. Herring. “He might have been here two hours ago. If Merton would not, Albert, my son, might have come.”
What do you suppose Albert was doing at that moment? It is incredible, but it is true. He was in the field superintending the placing of two new steam ploughing engines and their tackle, watching the trial of the new engines, as they tore up the soil with the deep plough. They had arrived that morning, just purchased; and had it not been for their coming, he would have been in the hunting-field with his father when the accident happened.
He could not, or would not, leave his engines. He busied about with them—now riding himself upon the plough, now watching the drivers of the engines, now causing experiments to be made with the scarifier. He paid little attention to the first messenger. “Tell them I’ll be there,” he said. Another and another messenger, still Albert remained with his plough.
“He asks for me, does he?” he said. “I’ll be there directly.” Still he made no haste. After quitting the engines he went out of his path to visit a flock of fat sheep, and putting up a covey of partridges in the stubble, stayed to mark them down.
At the house he calmly refreshed himself with cheese and ale. As he mounted his horse another messenger came, this time with a note from Dr. Parker. Albert mounted with much bustle, and made off at a gallop. Two miles on the way he pulled up to a walk, met his shepherd, and had a talk with him about the ewes; then the farrier on his nag, and described to him the lameness of a carthorse. All this time his father lay dying. Strange and unaccountable indifference!
Merton reached Belthrop Farm first, and was too late. Joseph Herring was dead. He had died without even so much as listening to the words of the clergyman—yet he had to all appearance been a good, and even pious man while in health. Why was he so strangely warped upon his deathbed?
“Oh! Albert—Albert, my son, my son! Why did you linger?” cried poor Mrs. Herring as he entered.
“Father?” said Albert, questioningly.
She shook her head.
“Ah!” said the son; and it sounded like a sigh of relief.
Let the grief for the dead be never so great, there quickly follows the commonplace realities of money and affairs to be settled.
The dead man’s will was read by Merton. It was a fair and just will. Next came the investigation into his effects, and then came the revelation. Joseph Herring left no effects. This discovery fell upon his wife, three of the sons, and all the daughters, like a thunderbolt. They had always believed they should be left tolerably provided for. But when all the debts were paid there would not be a ten-pound note.
They began to murmur, and to question, as well they might. What had become of the three thousand pounds Herring had had of Waldron? They did not know that their father had borrowed so much as that; they knew there was a loan from Waldron, but never suspected the amount.
Merton, hard as it was, felt that he must draw that money in; and who was to pay it? Why, there were no effects whatever. To pay the other debts would take all the money that could be got, and part of the stock must be sold even then.
But this three thousand pounds. To make that good all the stock, the corn, the implements—everything would have to be sold; including Mrs. Herring’s little estate, and the small sums that had been advanced to the two sons who lived on one farm
