Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 83
It was Paul Ritson.
The police-sergeants hurried up with the re-enforcement of two porters to recover their man. But he was quiet enough now. He did not stir a muscle when they handcuffed him. He looked around with vague, vacant eyes, hardly seeming to realize where he was or what was being done with him. His frenzy was gone.
They led him down the platform. Hugh Ritson was standing on the spot where Greta had left him one minute before. When the company neared that spot the prisoner stopped. He looked across at Hugh Ritson in silence, and for an instant the dazed look died off his face. Then he turned his head aside, and allowed himself to be led quietly away.
CHAPTER XXI.
A morning paper, of November — , contained the following paragraph:
“It will be remembered that in the reports of the disastrous railway collision, which occurred at Hendon on Friday last, it was mentioned as a ghastly accessory to the story of horror that an injured passenger, who had been lifted from the debris of broken carriages, and put to lie out of harm’s way in a field close at hand, was brutally assaulted and (apparently) robbed by some unknown scoundrel, who, though detected in the act itself, tore himself from the grasp of Police-Sergeant Cox, of the Hendon division of the metropolitan police force, and escaped in the darkness. The authorities were determined that their vigilance should not be eluded, and a person named Paul Drayton is now in custody, and will be brought up at Bow Street this morning. It turns out that Drayton is an innkeeper at Hendon, where he has long borne a dubious character. He was arrested at midnight in St. Pancras Station, in a daring and mad attempt to escape by the north-bound train, and it is understood that the incident of his capture is such as reflects the highest credit on the resolution, energy, and intrepidity of the force.”
The same paper, of the day after, contained this further paragraph:
“The man Drayton, who was yesterday formally committed to take his trial at the Central Criminal Court, will be brought up at the Old Bailey to-morrow; and as the evidence is said to be of a simple and unconflicting character, it is not expected that the hearing will extend over a single day. It is stated that the accused, who observed a rigid silence during yesterday’s proceedings, will, on his trial, set up the extraordinary defense of mistaken identity.”
An evening paper of Friday, November — , contained the following remarks in the course of a leading note:
“It is a familiar legal maxim that a plea of alibi that breaks down is the worst of all accusations. The scoundrel that attempted to rob a dying man, who lay helpless and at his mercy amid the confusion of Friday night’s accident at Hendon, was audacious enough to put forth the defense that he was not the man he was taken for. Cases of mistaken identity are, of course, common enough in the annals of jurisprudence, but we imagine the instances are rare indeed of evidence of identity so exceptional and conclusive as that which convicted the Hendon innkeeper being susceptible of error. The very clothes he wore in the dock bore their own witness to his guilt, and the court saw the police-sergeant produce a scrap of cloth torn from the guilty man’s back, which exactly fitted a rent in the prisoner’s ulster. The whole case would be a case of criminality too gross and palpable to merit a syllable of comment but for the astounding assurance with which the accused adhered to his plea in the face of evidence that was so complete as to make denial little more than a farce. He denied that he was Paul Drayton, and said his name was Paul Ritson. He was identified as Drayton by several witnesses who have known him from infancy; among others by his old mother, Martha Drayton, whose evidence (given with reluctance, and with more tears than a son so unnatural deserved) was at once as damning and as painful as anything of the kind ever heard in a court of justice. The claim to be Paul Ritson was answered by the evidence of Mr. Hugh Ritson, mine-owner in Cumberland, and brother of the gentleman whom the prisoner wished to personate. Mr. H. Ritson admitted a resemblance, but had no hesitation in saying that the accused was not his brother. The prisoner thereupon applied to the court that the wife of Paul Ritson should be examined, but, as it was explained that both husband and wife were at present ill in Cumberland, the court wisely ruled against the application. As a final freak of defense, the prisoner asked for the examination of one Mercy Fisher, who, he said, would be able to say by what circumstances he came to wear the clothes of the guilty man. The court adjourned for an hour in order that this person might be produced, but on reassembling it was explained that the girl, who turned out to be a mistress whom Drayton had kept at his mother’s house, had disappeared. Thus, with a well-merited sentence of three years’ penal servitude, ended a trial of which the vulgarity of detail was only equalled by the audacity of defense.”
A week passed, and the public had almost forgotten the incidents of the trial, when the following paragraph appeared in a weekly journal:
“I have heard that the man who was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude for robbery at the scene of the Hendon accident was seized with an attack of brain fever immediately upon his arrival at Millbank. The facts that transpire within that place of retirement are whispered with as much reserve as guards the secrets of another kind of confessional, but I do hear that since the admission of the man who was known on his trial as Paul Drayton, and who is now indicated by a numerical cognomen, certain facts have come to light which favor the defense he set up of mistaken identity.”
CHAPTER XXII.
The chapter room of St. Margaret’s Convent was a chill, bare chamber containing an oak table and four or five plain oak chairs. On the painted walls, which were of dun gray, there was an etching by a Florentine master of the flight into Egypt, and a symbolic print of the Sacred Heart. Besides these pictures there was but a single text to relieve the blindness of the empty walls, and it ran: “Where the tree falls, there it must lie.”
Four days after Greta’s departure from the house wherein she had been received as a temporary boarder, the superior sat in the chapter room, and a sister knelt at her feet. The sister’s habit was gray and her linen cape was plain. She wore no scapular, and no hood above the close cap that hid her hair and crossed her forehead. She was, therefore, a lay sister; she was Sister Grace.
“Mother, hear my sin,” she said in a trembling whisper.
“Speak on, daughter.”
“We were both at Athlone in the year of the great famine. He was an officer in a regiment quartered there. I was a novice of the choir in the Order of Charity. We met in scenes sanctified by religion. Oh, mother, the famine was sore, and he was kind to the famished people! ‘The hunger is on us,’ they would cry, as if it had been a plague of locusts. It was thus, with their shrill voices and wan faces, that the ragged multitudes followed us. Yes, mother, he was very, very kind to the people.”
“Well?”
The penitent bowed her head yet lower. “My mother, I renounced the vows, and — we were married.”
The lips of the superior moved in silent prayer.
“What was his name, my daughter?”
“Robert Lowther. We came from Ireland to London. A child was born, and we called him Paul. Then my husband’s love grew chill and died. I grieved over him. Perhaps I was but a moody companion. At last he told me—”
The voice faltered; the whole body quivered.
“Well, my child?”
“Oh, mother, he told me I was not his wife; that I was a Catholic, but that he was a Protestant; that a Catholic priest had married us in Ireland without question or inquiry. That was not a valid marriage by English law.”
“Shame on the English law! But what do we know of the law at the foot of the Cross? Well?”
“He left me. Mother, I flung God’s good gift away. I tried to drown myself, and my little child with me; but they prevented me. I was placed in an asylum for the insane, and my baby — my Paul — was given into the care of a woman with whom I had lodged. Have I not sinned deeply?”
“Your sins are great, my daughter, but your sufferings have also been great. What happened then?”
“I escaped from the asylum and returned for my child. It was gone. The woman had removed to some other part of London, none knew where, and my Paul, my darling, was lost to me forever. My mother, it was then that I sinned deepest of all.”
Her head was bowed to her trembling knees, and her voice was all but suspended in an agony of shame.
“Mother, I flung away God’s better gift than life! Oh, how shall I tell you? Your foot trembles, reverend mother. You are a holy woman, and know nothing of the world’s temptations.”
“Hush, my daughter; I am as great a sinner as yourself.”
“I cannot tell you. Mother, mother, you see I cannot.”
“It is for your soul’s weal, my daughter.”
“I had tried to serve God, and He had seen my shame. What was left to me but the world, the world, the world! Perhaps the world itself would have more mercy. My kind mother, have I not told you yet?”
The superior made the sign of the cross.
“Ah, my daughter! the enemy of your soul was with you then. You should not have ceased to lift your hands to Heaven in supplication and prayer. You should have prostrated yourself three days and nights in the tribune before the Holy Sacrament.”
The penitent raised her pale face.
“In less time I was a lost and abandoned woman.”
The superior told a few beads with trembling fingers. Then she lifted the cross that hung from her girdle, and held it out to the sister.
“I thought of my child, and prayed that he might be dead. I thought of him who was not my husband, and my heart grew cold and hard. Mother, my redemption came. Yes, but with it came the meaning of the fearful words, too late. Amid the reeling madness of the life that is mocked with the name of gay, I met a good man. Yes, holy mother, a good man. Mother, he now sleeps there!”
Her pale face, serene and solemn, was lifted again, and the hand that held the crucifix was raised above her head.
“I loathed my life. He took me away from it — to the mountains — to Scotland, and a child was born. Mother, it was only then that I awoke as from a trance. It seemed as if a ring of sin begirt me. Tears — ah, me! what tears were shed. But rest and content came at last, and then we were married.”
“My daughter, my daughter, little did I think when I received your vows that the enemy of your soul had so mastered you.”
“Listen a little longer, holy mother. The child grew to be the image of my darling, my Paul — every feature, every glance the same. And partly to remind me of my lost one, and partly to make me forget him forever, I called the second child Paul. Mother, the years went by in peace. The past was gone from me. Only its memory lay like a waste in my silent heart. I had another son, and called him Hugh. After many years my husband died.” The penitent paused.
“Mother, another thing comes back to me; but I have confessed it already. Shall I repeat it?”
“No, my daughter, not if it touches the oath that lay heavy on your heart.”
“I thought my first child was dead. For thirty years I had not seen him. But the pathways of our lives crossed at last, and the woman who nursed him came to this house four days ago.”
“Here?”
“Mother, my son, the child of that first false union, my darling, for whom I wept scalding tears long, long years ago; my Paul, whose loss was all but the loss of his mother’s soul, my son is a thief and an outcast.”
The lips of the superior moved again in prayer.
“He is the man known to the world as Paul Drayton — to me as Paul Lowther.”
“My dear daughter, humble yourself in the midst of so awful a judgment. Do you say Drayton? — Drayton, who, as I hear, was to-day tried and sentenced?”
“No — yes — how shall I tell you? — the same and not the same. Mother, the crime was committed by my son Paul Lowther, the sentence was pronounced on my son Paul Ritson.”
“My dear daughter—”
“I was in the court and heard all; and I alone knew all — I alone, alone! Bear with me that I transgressed the law of this holy order. Think, oh! my kind mother, think that the nun was yet the woman, and, above all, the mother. Yes, I heard all. I heard the charge that convicted my son Paul Lowther. He was guilty before God and man. But the prisoner in the dock was my son Paul Ritson. I knew him, and believed him when he denied the name they gave him. Ah, me, my heart bled!”
“What did you do, my daughter?”
“Mother, I was weak, very weak. I could not see my duty clearly. An awful conflict was rife within me. I could not justify the one man without condemning the other. And both were the children of my bosom.”
“Fearful, fearful! But, my daughter, the one was guilty and the other innocent.”
“Yes, yes; a thousand times yes; but then there was myself. How could I punish the guilty without revealing the secret sin that had been thirty years hidden in my heart? And my poor, weak spirit shrunk within me, and I sat silent amid all.”
“My daughter, we must crucify our spiritual pride.”
“Yes, yes; but there was the love of my son, Paul Ritson — he thought me a good woman even yet. How could I confess to that sinful past and not loose the love of the only human soul that held me pure and true? Mother, it is very sweet to be loved.”
“Oh, my daughter, my daughter, a terrible situation, terrible, terrible!”
“Mother, I have told you everything. Tell me now what hope is left. Give me your direction.”
“My daughter, let us humble ourselves before God, and pray that He may reveal the path of duty. Come.”
The superior rose, took her crozier in her hand, and walked out of the room. The sister followed her. They passed through the sacristy into the empty church.
It was evening. The glow of a wintery sunset came through the windows to the west, and fell in warm gules on the altar. There was the hush of the world’s awe here as day swooned into night. Without these walls were turmoil and strife. Within was the balm of rest — the rest that lies in the heart of the cyclone.
And the good mother and the sister went down on their knees together, and prayed for light and guidance. The mother rose, but the sister knelt on; darkness fell, and she was still kneeling, and when the east was dabbled with the dawn, the gray light fell on her bowed head and uplifted hands.
BOOK IV. THE WATERS OF MARAH ARE BITTER.
CHAPTER I.
IN THE YEAR 1877.
The dale lay green in the morning sunlight; the river that ran through its lowest bed sparkled with purple and amber; the leaves prattled low in the light breeze that souched through the rushes and the long grass; the hills rose sheer and white to the smooth blue lake of the sky, where only one fleecy cloud floated languidly across from peak to peak. Out of unseen places came the bleating of sheep and the rumble of distant cataracts, and above the dull thud of tumbling waters far away was the thin caroling of birds overhead.
But the air was alive with yet sweeter sounds. On the breast of the fell that lies over against Cat Bells a procession of children walked, and sung, and chattered, and laughed. It was St. Peter’s Day, and they were rush-bearing: little ones of all ages, from the comely girl of fourteen, just ripening into maidenhood, who walked last, to the sweet boy of four in the pinafore braided with epaulets, who strode along gallantly in front. Most of the little hands carried rushes, but some were filled with ferns, and mosses, and flowers. They had assembled at the school-house, and now, on their way to the church, they were making the circuit of the dale.
They passed over the road that crosses the river at the head of Newlands, and turned down into the path that follows the bed of the valley. At that angle there stands a little group of cottages deliciously cool in their white-wash, nestling together under the heavy purple crag from which the waters of a ghyll fall into a deep basin that reaches to their walls. The last of the group is a cottage with its end to the road, and its open porch facing a garden shaped like a wedge. As the children passed this house an old man, gray and thin and much bent, stood by the gate, leaning on a staff. A colly, with the sheep-dog’s wooden bar suspended from its shaggy neck, lay at his feet. The hum of voices brought a young woman into the porch. She was bareheaded and wore a light print gown. Her face was pale and marked with lines. She walked cautiously, stretching one hand before her with an uncertain motion, and grasping a trailing tendril of honeysuckle that swept downward from the roof. Her eyes, which were partly inclined upward and partly turned toward the procession, had a vague light in their bleached pupils. She was blind. At her side, and tugging at her other hand, was a child of a year and a half — a chubby, sunny little fellow with ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, and fair curly hair.
Prattling, laughing, singing snatches, and waving their rushes and ferns above their happy, thoughtless heads, the children rattled past. When they were gone the air was empty, as it is when the lark stops in its song.
The church of Newlands stands in the heart of the valley, half hidden by a clump of trees. By the lych-gate Parson Christian stood that morning, aged a little, the snow a thought thicker on his bushy hair, the face mellower, the liquid eyes full of the sunlight behind which lies the shower. Greta stood beside him; quieter of manner than in the old days, a deeper thoughtfulness in her face, her blue eyes more grave and less restless, her fair hair no longer falling in waves behind her, but gathered up into a demure knot under her hat.
