Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/450

 8, 1864.]

South Wennock awoke on that eventful morning, dawning on the remand of Mr. Carlton, the chief thought that occupied people’s minds was, how they could best secure a place in the town-hall, by fighting, bribery, or stratagem, to hear the conclusion of that gentleman’s examination. Vague reports had floated about the town on the previous evening, of the witnesses likely to be examined; and the name of Mr. Carlton’s wife was mentioned for one, as touching the finding of the letter. Half the town scouted the idea; but at least it served to add to the ferment; and as a matter of course everybody rose with the lark, and got their breakfast over by candle-light. It was, you are aware, in the dead of winter, when the days are at the shortest.

Perhaps, of all South Wennock, the one to think most of the prisoner in pitying humanity, was Sir Stephen Grey. Few men were possessed of the milk of human kindness as was he. He dwelt not on the past dark story, its guilt and its strategy; he thought of the unhappy detected prisoner, alone in his solitary cell: and he longed to soothe, if possible, his disgrace and suffering by any means in his power. So the first thing Sir Stephen did, after snatching a hasty breakfast at his brother’s table, was to put on his hat and go down to the lock-up. This was just at that precise time when Mr. Policeman Bowler was marching home in all self-importance from his errand to Cedar Lodge.

As Stephen Grey gained the lock-up from one quarter, Lawyer Billiter was observed approaching it from another; and the policeman in charge, seeing these visitors, began to think he ought to have aroused his prisoner earlier. He sent one of his staff to do it now.”

“Let him get up at once; and you come back and take his breakfast in,” were the orders. “And tell him Lawyer Billiter’s coming down the street. Good morning, Sir Stephen.”

“Well, Jones?” cried Sir Stephen, in his free and affable manner—for the man had been one of the police staff in the old days, and Stephen Grey had known him well, “how are you? A cold morning! And how’s Mr. Carlton?”

“He’s all right, sir, thank you. I’ve just sent in to waken him.”

“What, is he not awake yet?” cried Sir Stephen, rather wondering.

“Not yet, sir. Unless he has woke since Bowler was in, and that’s about three-quarters of an hour ago. Good morning, Mr. Billiter!” added the policeman in a parenthesis, as the lawyer entered. “Mr. Carlton, he wrote a letter to his wife last night, and Bowler has stepped down with it. But what he’s stopping for I can’t make out, unless she’s writing a long an"

“Then you had no business to let Bowler step down with it,” interrupted the lawyer sharply. “You should have kept it till I came. Didn’t I tell you I should be here the first thing, Jones? You are no more to be trusted than a child!”

“Where’s the harm of sending it?” asked Jones, rather taken aback at this rebuff. “It mayn’t be quite strict practice to let letters go out unopened, but one stretches a point for Mr. Carlton.”

“The harm may be more than you think for,” returned the lawyer as hotly as he had spoken the previous day in the hall. “He will do things of his own head and try to conduct his case with his own hands. Look at the fight I had to keep him quiet yesterday!”

“He wrote the letter last night, and asked that it should be taken to her ladyship the first thing this morning,” returned the man in an injured tone.

“And if he did write it, and ask it, you needn’t have sent it. You might have brought the letter out here and kept it till I came. Who’s to know what dangerous admission he may have made in it? I can see what it is: between you all, I shan’t find a loop-hole of escape for him.”

“Do you think he will escape?” asked Sir Stephen, interrupting the angry lawyer.

“Well, no I don’t, to speak the truth,” was the candid admission. “But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t be let do my best for it. If he does escape"

Lawyer Billiter was interrupted. The man sent into Mr. Carlton’s cell made his appearance in a rather strange condition. He came bounding in, and stood with the door in his hand, mouth and eyes alike open, and struggling for breath and words. Mr. Jones saw there was something wrong, and rushed to the strong room.

Two minutes, and he was back again, his