Sam’s evidence was, in fact, but of little use. He had had dealings with Acorn, who had introduced him to Burrows, and had known the two men at the old woman’s cottage on the Common. When he was asked, what these dealings had been, he said they were honest dealings.
“About your sister’s marriage?” suggested the crown lawyer.
“Well—yes,” said Sam. And then he stated that the men had come over to Bullhampton and that he had accompanied them as they walked round Farmer Trumbull’s house. He had taken them into the Vicar’s garden; and then he gave an account of the meeting there with Mr. Fenwick. After that he had known and seen nothing of the men. When he testified so far he was handed over to the burly barrister.
The burly barrister tried all he knew, but he could make nothing of this witness. A question was asked him, the true answer to which would have implied that his sister’s life had been disreputable. When this was asked Sam declared that he would not say a word about his sister one way or the other. His sister had told them all she knew about the murder, and now he had told them all he knew. He protested that he was willing to answer any questions they might ask him about himself; but about his sister he would answer none. When told that the information desired might be got in a more injurious way from other sources, he became rather impudent.
“Then you may go to—other sources,” he said.
He was threatened with all manner of pains and penalties; but he made nothing of these threats, and was at last allowed to leave the box. When his evidence was completed the trial was adjourned for another day.
Though it was then late in the afternoon the three Brattles returned home that night. There was a train which took them to the Bullhampton Road station, and from thence they walked to the mill. It was a weary journey both for the poor girl and for the old man; but anything was better than delay for another night in Trotter’s Buildings. And then the miller was unwilling to be absent from his mill one hour longer than was necessary. When there came to be a question whether he could walk, he laughed the difficulty to scorn in his quiet way. “Why shouldn’t I walk it? Ain’t I got to ’arn my bread every day?”
It was ten o’clock when they reached the mill, and Mrs. Brattle, not expecting them at that hour, was in bed. But Fanny was up, and did what she could to comfort them. But no one could ever comfort old Brattle. He was not susceptible to soft influences. It may almost be said that he condemned himself because he gave way to the daily luxury of a pipe. He believed in plenty of food, because food for the workman is as coals to the steam-engine, as oats to the horse—the raw material out of which the motive power of labour must be made. Beyond eating and working a man had little to do, but just to wait till he died. That was his theory of life in these his latter days; and yet he was a man with keen feelings and a loving heart.
But Carry was comforted when her sister’s arms were around her. “They asked me if I was bad,” she said, “and I thought I should a’ died, and I never answered them a word—and at last they let me go.” When Fanny inquired whether their father had been kind to her, she declared that he had been “main kind.” “But, oh, Fanny! if he’d only say a word, it would warm one’s heart; wouldn’t it?”
On the following evening news reached Bullhampton that the Grinder had been convicted and sentenced to death, but that Lawrence Acorn had been acquitted. The judge, in his summing up, had shown that certain evidence which applied to the Grinder had not applied to his comrade in the dock, and the jury had been willing to take any excuse for saving one man from the halter.
LXX
The Fate of the Puddlehamites
Fenwick and Gilmore breakfasted together on the morning that the former left London for Bullhampton; and by that time the Vicar had assured himself that it would be quite impossible to induce his friend to go back to his home. “I shall turn up after some years if I live,” said the Squire; “and I suppose I shan’t think so much about it then; but for the present I will not go to the place.”
He authorised Fenwick to do what he pleased about the house and the gardens, and promised to give instructions as to the sale of his horses. If the whole place were not let, the bailiff might, he suggested, carry on the farm himself. When he was urged as to his duty, he again answered by his illustration of the man without a leg. “It may be all very true,” he said, “that a man ought to walk, but if you cut off his leg he can’t walk.” Fenwick at last found that there was nothing more to be said, and he was constrained to take his leave.
“May I tell her that you forgive her?” the Vicar asked, as they were walking together up and down the station in the Waterloo Road.
“She will not care a brass farthing for my forgiveness,” said Gilmore.
“You wrong her there. I am sure that nothing would give her so much comfort as such a message.”
Gilmore walked half the length of the platform before he replied. “What is the good of telling a lie about it?”—he said, at last.
“I certainly would not tell a lie.”
“Then I can’t say that I forgive her. How is a man to forgive such treatment? If I said that I did, you wouldn’t believe me. I will keep out of her way,
