“You will do nothing, then, to save from perdition the sister of your own wife;—and will let your wife do nothing?”
“Now, Mr. Fenwick, don’t be hard on me;—pray don’t be hard on me. I have been respectable, and have always had respectable people about me. If my wife’s family are turning wrong, isn’t that bad enough on me without your coming to say such things as this to me? Really, Mr. Fenwick, if you’d think of it, you wouldn’t be so hard.”
“She may die in a ditch, then, for you?” said the Vicar, whose feeling against the ironmonger was much stronger than it had been against the farmer. He could say nothing further, so he turned upon his heel and marched down the length of the shop, while the obsequious tradesman followed him—again bowing and rubbing his hands, and attending him to his carriage. The Vicar didn’t speak another word, or make any parting salutation to Mr. Jay. “Their hearts are like the nether millstone,” he said to himself, as he drove away, flogging his horse. “Of what use are all the sermons? Nothing touches them. Do unto others as you think they would do unto you. That’s their doctrine.” As he went home he made up his mind that he would, as a last effort, carry out that scheme of taking Carry with him to the mill;—he would do so, that is, if he could induce Carry to accompany him. In the meantime, there was nothing left to him but to leave her with Mrs. Stiggs, and to pay ten shillings a week for her board and lodging. There was one point on which he could not quite make up his mind;—whether he would or would not first acquaint old Mrs. Brattle with his intention.
He had left home early, and when he returned his wife had received Mary Lowther’s reply to her letter.
“She will come?” asked Frank.
“She just says that and nothing more.”
“Then she’ll be Mrs. Gilmore.”
“I hope so, with all my heart,” said Mrs. Fenwick.
“I look upon it as tantamount to accepting him. She wouldn’t come unless she had made up her mind to take him. You mark my words. They’ll be married before the chapel is finished.”
“You say it as if you thought she oughtn’t to come.”
“No;—I don’t mean that. I was only thinking how quickly a woman may recover from such a hurt.”
“Frank, don’t be ill-natured. She will be doing what all her friends advise.”
“If I were to die, your friends would advise you not to grieve; but they would think you very unfeeling if you did not.”
“Are you going to turn against her?”
“No.”
“Then why do you say such things? Is it not better that she should make the effort than lie there helpless and motionless, throwing her whole life away? Will it not be much better for Harry Gilmore?”
“Very much better for him, because he’ll go crazy if she don’t.”
“And for her too. We can’t tell what is going on inside her breast. I believe that she is making a great effort because she thinks it is right. You will be kind to her when she comes?”
“Certainly I will—for Harry’s sake—and her own.”
But in truth the Vicar at this moment was not in a good humour. He was becoming almost tired of his efforts to set other people straight, so great were the difficulties that came in his way. As he had driven into his own gate he had met Mr. Puddleham, standing in the road just in front of the new chapel. He had made up his mind to accept the chapel, and now he said a pleasant word to the minister. Mr. Puddleham turned up his eyes and his nose, bowed very stiffly, and then twisted himself round, without answering a word. How was it possible for a man to live among such people in good humour and Christian charity?
In the evening he was sitting with his wife in the drawing-room discussing all these troubles, when the maid came in to say that Constable Toffy was at the door.
Constable Toffy was shown into his study, and then the Vicar followed him. He had not spoken to the constable now for some months—not since the time at which Sam had been liberated; but he had not a moment’s doubt when he was thus summoned, that something was to be said as to the murder of Mr. Trumbull. The constable put his hand up to his head, and sat down at the Vicar’s invitation, before he began to speak.
“What is it, Toffy?” said the Vicar.
“We’ve got ’em at last, I think,” said Mr. Toffy, in a very low, soft voice.
“Got whom;—the murderers?”
“Just so, Mr. Fenwick; all except Sam Brattle—whom we want.”
“And who are the men?”
“Them as we supposed all along—Jack Burrows, as they call the Grinder, and Lawrence Acorn as was along with him. He’s a Birmingham chap, is Acorn. He’s know’d very well at Birmingham. And then, Mr. Fenwick, there’s Sam. That’s all as seems to have been in it. We shall want Sam, Mr. Fenwick.”
“You don’t mean to tell me that he was one of the murderers?”
“We shall want him, Mr. Fenwick.”
“Where did you find the other men?”
“They did get as far as San Francisco—did the others. They haven’t had a bad game of it—have they, Mr. Fenwick? They’ve had more than seven months of a run. It was the 31st of August as Mr. Trumbull was murdered, and here’s the 15th of April, Mr. Fenwick. There ain’t a many runs as long as that. You’ll have Sam Brattle for us all right, no doubt, Mr. Fenwick?” The Vicar told the constable that he would see to it, and get Sam Brattle to come forward as soon as he could. “I told you all through, Mr. Fenwick, as Sam was one of them as was in it, but you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I don’t believe it now,” said the Vicar.
XLVII
Sam Brattle Is Wanted
The next week was one
