Mary Anerley - Richard Doddridge Blackmore (famous ebook reader .txt) 📗

back, but trouble to be shared. And none share it fairly but the husband and the wife, ma'am."

"You make it very hard for me to get my words," she said, without minding that her tears ran down, so long as she spoke clearly. "I am not of the lofty sort, and understand no laws of things; though my husband was remarkable for doing so. He took all the trouble of the taxes off, though my part was to pay for them. And in every other way he was a wonder, sir; not at all because now he is gone above. That would be my last motive."

"He was a wonder, a genuine wonder," Mordacks replied, without irony. "He did his duty, ma'am, with zeal and ardor; a shining example upon very little pay. I fear that it was his integrity and zeal, truly British character and striking sense of discipline, that have so sadly brought him to--to the condition of an example."

"Yes, Mr. Mordacks, it was all that. He never could put up with a lazy man, as anybody, to live, must have to do. He kept all his men, as I used to do our children, to word of command, and no answer. Honest men like it; but wicked men fly out. And all along we had a very wicked man here."

"So I have heard from other good authority--a deceiver of women, a skulk, a dog. I have met with many villains; and I am not hot. But my tendency is to take that fellow by the throat with both hands, and throttle him. Having thoroughly accomplished that, I should prepare to sift the evidence. Unscientific, illogical, brutal, are such desires, as you need not tell me. And yet, madam, they are manly. I hate slow justice; I like it quick--quick, or none at all, I say, so long as it is justice. Creeping justice is, to my mind, little better than slow revenge. My opinions are not orthodox, but I hope they do not frighten you."

"They do indeed, sir; or at least your face does; though I know how quick and just you are. He is a bad man--too well I know it--but, as my dear husband used to say, he has a large lot of children."

"Well, Mrs. Carroway, I admire you the more, for considering what he has not considered. Let us put aside that. The question is--guilty or not guilty? If he is guilty, shall he get off, and innocent men be hanged for him? Six men are in jail at this present moment for the deed which we believe he did. Have they no wives, no fathers and mothers, no children--not to speak of their own lives? The case is one in which the Constitution of the realm must be asserted. Six innocent men must die unless the crime is brought home to the guilty one. Even that is not all as regards yourself. You may not care for your own life, but you are bound to treasure it seven times over for the sake of your seven children. While John Cadman is at large, and nobody hanged instead of him, your life is in peril, ma'am. He knows that you know him, and have denounced him. He has tried to scare you into silence; and the fright caused your sad illness. I have reason to believe that he, by scattering crafty rumors, concealed from the neighbors your sad plight, and that of your dear children. If so, he is worse than the devil himself. Do you see your duty now, and your interest also?"

Mrs. Carroway nodded gently. Her strength of mind was not come back yet, after so much illness. The baby lay now on its father's breast, and the mother's had been wild for it.

"I am sorry to have used harsh words," resumed Mordacks; "but I always have to do so. They seem to put things clearer; and without that, where would business be? Now I will not tire you if I can help it, nor ask a needless question. What provocation had this man? What fanciful cause for spite, I mean?"

"Oh, none, Mr. Mordacks, none whatever. My husband rebuked him for being worthless, and a liar, and a traitor; and he threatened to get him removed from the force; and he gave him a little throw down from the cliff--but what little was done was done entirely for his good."

"Yes, I see. And, after that, was Cadman ever heard to threaten him?"

"Many times, in a most malicious way, when he thought that he was not heeded. The other men may fear to bear witness. But my Geraldine has heard him."

"There could be no better witness. A child, especially a pretty little girl, tells wonderfully with a jury. But we must have a great deal more than that. Thousands of men threaten, and do nothing, according to the proverb. A still more important point is--how did the muskets in the boat come home? They were all returned to the station, I presume. Were they all returned with their charges in them?"

"I am sure I can not say how that was. There was nobody to attend to that. But one of them had been lost altogether."

"One of the guns never came back at all!" Mordacks almost shouted. "Whose gun was it that did not come back?"

"How can we say? There was such confusion. My husband would never let them nick the guns, as they do at some of the stations, for every man to know his own. But in spite of that, each man had his own, I believe. Cadman declares that he brought home his; and nobody contradicted him. But if I saw the guns, I should know whether Cadman's is among them."

"How can you possibly pretend to know that, ma'am? English ladies can do almost anything. But surely you never served out the guns?"

"No, Mr. Mordacks. But I have cleaned them. Not the inside, of course; that I know nothing of; and nobody sees that, to be offended. But several times I have observed, at the station, a disgraceful quantity of dust upon the guns--dust and rust and miserable blotches, such as bad girls leave in the top of a fish-kettle; and I made Charley bring them down, and be sure to have them empty; because they were so unlike what I have seen on board of the ship where he won his glory, and took the bullet in his nineteenth rib."

"My dear madam, what a frame he must have had! But this is most instructive. No wonder Geraldine is brave. What a worthy wife for a naval hero! A lady who could handle guns!"

"I knew, sir, quite from early years, having lived near a very large arsenal, that nothing can make a gun go off unless there is something in it. And I could trust my husband to see to that; and before I touched one of them I made him put a brimstone match to the touch-hole. And I found it so pleasant to polish them, from having such wicked things quite at my mercy. The wood was what I noticed most, because of understanding chairs. One of them had a very curious tangle of veins on the left cheek behind the trigger; and I just had been doing for the children's tea what they call 'crinkly-crankly'--treacle trickled (like a maze) upon the bread; and Tommy said, 'Look here! it is the very same upon this gun.' And so it was; just the same pattern on the wood! And while I was doing it Cadman came up, in his low surly way, and said, 'I want my gun, missus; I never shoot with no other gun than that. Captain says I may shoot a sea-pye, for the little ones.' And so I always called it 'Cadman's gun.' I have not been able to think much yet. But if that gun is lost, I shall know who it was that lost a gun that dreadful night."

"All this is most strictly to the purpose," answered Mordacks, "and may prove most important. We could never hope to get those six men off, without throwing most grave suspicion elsewhere; and unless we can get those six men off, their captain will come and surrender himself, and be hanged, to a dead certainty. I doubted his carrying the sense of right so far, until I reflected upon his birth, dear madam. He belongs, as I may tell you now, to a very ancient family, a race that would run their heads into a noose out of pure obstinacy, rather than skulk off. I am of very ancient race myself, though I never take pride in the matter, because I have seen more harm than good of it. I always learned Latin at school so quickly through being a grammatical example of descent. According to our pedigree, Caius Calpurnius Mordax Naso was the Governor of Britain under Pertinax. My name means 'biting'; and bite I can, whether my dinner is before me, or my enemy. In the present case I shall not bite yet, but prepare myself for doing so. I watch the proceedings of the government, who are sure to be slow, as well as blundering. There has been no appointment to this command as yet, because of so many people wanting it. This patched-up peace, which may last about six months (even if it is ever signed), is producing confusion everywhere. You have an old fool put in charge of this station till a proper successor is appointed."

"He is not like Captain Carroway, sir. But that concerns me little now. But I do wish, for my children's sake, that they would send a little money."

"On no account think twice of that. That question is in my hands, and affords me one of the few pleasures I derive from business. You are under no sort of obligation about it. I am acting under authority. A man of exalted position and high office--but never mind that till the proper time comes; only keep your mind in perfect rest, and attend to your children and yourself. I am obliged to proceed very warily, but you shall not be annoyed by that scoundrel. I will provide for that before I leave; also I will see the guns still in store, without letting anybody guess my motive. I have picked up a very sharp fellow here, whose heart is in the business thoroughly; for one of the prisoners is his twin brother, and he lost his poor sweetheart through Cadman's villainy--a young lass who used to pick mussels, or something. He will see that the rogue does not give us the slip, and I have looked out for that in other ways as well. I am greatly afraid of tiring you, my dear madam; but have you any other thing to tell me of this Cadman?"

"No, Mr. Mordacks, except a whole quantity of little things that tell a great deal to me, but to anybody else would have no sense. For instance, of his looks, and turns, and habits, and tricks of seeming neither the one thing nor the other, and jumping all the morning, when the last man was hanged--"

"Did he do that, madam? Are you quite sure?"

"I had it on the authority of his own wife. He beats her, but still she can not understand him. You may remember that the man to be suspended was brought to the place where--where--"

"Where he earned his doom. It is quite right. Things of that sort should be done upon a far more liberal scale. Example is better than a thousand precepts. Let us be thankful that we live