Читать книгу A Life Sentence - Sergeant Adeline - Страница 3

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"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"

"We find the prisoner guilty, my lord."

A curious little thrill of emotion—half sigh, half sob—ran through the crowded court. Even the most callous, the most world-hardened, of human beings cannot hear unmoved the verdict which condemns a fellow-creature to a shameful death. The spectators of Andrew Westwood's trial for the murder of Sydney Vane had expected, had predicted, the result; yet it came with the force of a shock to their excited nerves. The trial had lasted for two whole days already, and the level rays of sunshine that streamed through the west windows of the court-house showed that the afternoon of a third day was drawing to a close. The attention of the patient sitters with whom the seats were closely packed had been strained to the uttermost; the faces of many were white and weary, or flushed with excitement and fatigue. The short absence of the jurymen had only strung their nerves to a higher pitch; and the slight murmur that passed through the heavy air when the verdict was made known showed the tension which had been reached.

The prisoner was well known in the locality, and so also had been his victim. This fact accounted for the crowding of the court by friends and acquaintances of the man murdered and his murderer, and for the breathless interest with which every step of the legal process had been followed. Apart from this, the case had excited much attention all over England; the papers had been filled with its details, and a good deal of discussion on the laws of circumstantial evidence had arisen during its course. Not that there could be any reasonable doubt as to the prisoner's guilt. True, nobody had seen him commit the crime. But he was a poacher of evil character and violent disposition; he had been sent to gaol for snaring rabbits by Mr. Vane, and had repeatedly vowed vengeance upon him; there was a presumption against him from the very first. Then one evening he had been seen lurking about a covert near which Mr. Vane passed shortly afterwards; shots were heard by passers-by and Mr. Vane was discovered lying amongst the springing bracken in the depths of a shadowy copse, shot through the heart. A scrap of rough tweed found in the dead man's hand was said to correspond with a torn corner of Westwood's coat, and the murder was supposed to have been committed by the poacher with a gun which was afterwards found in Westwood's cottage. Several persons testified that they had seen Andrew issuing from the copse or walking along the neighboring road, before or after the hour when Mr. Vane met his fate, that he had his gun in his hand, that his demeanor was strange, and that his clothes seemed to have been torn in a scuffle. Little by little the evidence accumulated against him until it proved irresistible. Facts which seemed small in themselves became large and black, and charged with damnatory significance in the lawyer's hands. The best legal talent of the country was used with crushing effect against poor Andrew Westwood. Sydney Vane had been a popular man; he belonged to a well-known county family, and had left a widow and child. His friends would have moved heaven and earth to bring his murderer to justice. After all—as was said later—the man Westwood never had a chance. What availed his steady sullen denial against the mass of circumstantial evidence accumulated against him? The rope was round his neck from the time when that morsel of cloth was found clasped close in the dead man's hand.

If there had been a moment when the hearts of his enemies were softened, when a throb of pity was felt even by Sydney Vane's elder brother, the implacable old General who had vowed that he would pursue Andrew Westwood to the death, it was when the prisoner's little daughter had been put into the witness-box to give evidence against her father. Every one felt that the moment was terrible, the situation almost unbearable. The child was eleven years old, a brown, thin, frightened-looking little creature, with unnaturally large dark eyes and masses of thick dark hair. Her appearance evidently agitated the prisoner. He looked at her with an expression of anguish, and wrung his gaunt nervous hands together with a groan that haunted for many a long year the memories of those who heard it. The child's dilated black eyes fixed themselves upon him, and her lips, drawn back a little from her teeth, turned ashy white. No one who saw her pathetic little face could feel anything but compassion for her, and a wish to spare her as much as possible.

The counsel certainly wished to spare her. Only one or two questions were to be asked, and these were not of great importance; but at the very outset a difficulty occurred. She was small for her age, and the judge chose to ask whether she was aware of the nature of an oath. He got no answer but a frightened stare. A few more questions plainly revealed a state of extraordinary ignorance on the child's part. Did she know who made her? No. Had she not heard of God? No. Did she attach any meaning to the words "heaven" or "hell?" Not in the very least. By her own showing, Andrew Westwood's little daughter was no better than a heathen.

The judge decided that her evidence need not be taken, and made a severe remark about the unwisdom of bringing so young and untaught a witness into court, especially when—as appeared to him—the child was of feeble intellect and weakly constitution.

It was murmured in reply that the girl had previously shown herself quick-witted and ready of tongue, and that it was only since the shock of her father's arrest that she had lapsed into her present state of apparent semi-imbecility. No further attempt was made however to bring her forward; and little Jenny Westwood, as she was usually called, on stepping down from the box, was bidden to go away, as the court in which her father was being tried for his life was no place for her. But she did not go. She shrank into a corner, and waited until the Court rose that day. In the morning she came again, resisting all efforts made by some kindly countrywomen to take her away to their homes. She did not speak, but struggled out of their hands with so wild a look in her great black eyes that they shrank back from her aghast, whispering to each other that she was purely "not right in the head," and perhaps they had better leave her alone. They made her sit beside them, and tried to persuade her to share the food that they had brought to eat in the middle of the day; but they did not succeed in their kindly efforts. The child seemed stupefied; she had a blind look, and did not respond when spoken to.

She heard the foreman declare the finding of the jury—"Guilty, my lord," but she hardly knew at that moment what was meant. Then came the usual question. Had the prisoner anything to say? Was there any defence which even now he desired to urge, any plea in mitigation of his crime?

Andrew Westwood raised his head. He had a sullen, defiant countenance; his wild dark eyes, the shock of black hair tumbled across his lowering brows, his rugged features, had told against him in popular estimation and given him a ruffianly aspect in the eyes of the crowd; and yet, when he stood up, and with a sudden rough gesture tossed the hair back from his brows, and faced the judge with a look of unflinching resolution, it was felt that the man possessed a rude dignity which compelled something very like admiration. Courage always commands respect, and, whatever his faults, his vices, his crimes might be, Andrew Westwood was a courageous man. He gripped the rail of the dock before him with both hands, and gave a quick look round the court before he spoke. His face was a little paler than usual, but his strong, hard voice did not falter.

"I have only to say what I said before. I take God to witness that I am innocent of this murder, and I pray that He'll punish the man that did kill Mr. Vane and left me to bear the burden of his crime! That's all I have to say, my lord. You may hang me if you like—I swear that I never killed him; and I curse the hand that did!"

The hard, defiant tone of his speech effectually dissipated the momentary sympathy felt for him by his audience. The judge sternly cut him short, and said a few solemn words on the heinousness of his offence and the impenitence which he had evinced. Then came the tragic conclusion of the scene.

It had grown late; lights were brought in and placed before the judge, upon whose scarlet robes and pale, agitated face they flickered strangely in the draught from an open window at the back of the court-house. The greater part of the building was in shadow; here and there a chance ray of light rested on one or two in a row of raised faces, and threw some insignificant countenance into startling temporary distinctness. A breathless hush pervaded the whole room. Every eye was fixed on the central figures of the scene—on the criminal as he stood with hands still grasping the side of the dock, his head defiantly raised, his shoulders braced as if to support a blow; on the judge, whose pale features quivered with emotion as he donned the black cap and uttered the fatal words which condemned Andrew Westwood to meet death by the hangman's hand.

"And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"

The words were scarcely spoken before a loud scream rang through the hall. Westwood turned round sharply; his eyes roved anxiously over the throng of faces, and seemed to pierce the gloom that had gathered about the benches in the background. He saw a little group of persons gathered about the body of a child whom they were carrying into the fresh air. It was his own little daughter who had cried out and fainted at the sound of those fateful words.

The prisoner was instantly removed by two warders; but it was noted that before he left the dock he threw up his hands as if in a wild gesture of supplication to the heavens that would not hear. He made eager inquiries of the warders as to the welfare of his child; and it was perhaps owing to the compassion of one of them that the chaplain came to him an hour later in his cell with news of her. She was better, she was in the hands of kindly women who would take care of her, and she would come to see her father by-and-bye. A convulsive twitch passed over Andrew's face.

"No, no," he said; "I don't want to see her. What good would that do?"

The chaplain, a kindly man whose sensibilities were not yet blunted by the painful scenes through which he had constantly to pass, uttered a word of remonstrance.

"Surely," he said, "you would like to see her again? She seems to love you dearly."

"I'm not saying that I don't love her myself," said the man, turning away his face. Then, after a moment's pause, and in a stifled voice—"She's dearer to me than the apple of my eye. And that's where the sting is. I'm to go out of the world, it seems, with a blot on my name, and she'll never know who put it there."

"If you saw her yourself——"

"Nay," said Westwood resolutely—"I won't see her again. She'd remember me all her life then, and she'd better forget. You're a good man, sir, and a kind—couldn't you take her away somewhere out of hearing of all this commotion, to some place where they would not know her father's story, and where she'd never hear whether he was alive or dead?"

The chaplain shook his head.

"I'm afraid not, Westwood," he said compassionately. "I know of no place where she could be safe from gossip."

"She will hear my story wherever she goes, I suppose you mean," said Westwood wearily. "Ah, well, she will learn to bear it in time, poor soul."

The chaplain looked at him curiously. There was more sincerity of tone, less cant and affectation in this man than in any criminal he had ever known.

"I suppose, sir," said the prisoner, after a short silence, during which he sat with his eyes fixed on the floor—"I suppose there is no chance of a reprieve—of the sentence being commuted?"

"I'm afraid not, Westwood. And you must let me say that your own conduct during the trial makes it more improbable that any commutation of the sentence should be obtained. If, my man, you could have shown any penitence—if you had confessed your crime——"

"The crime that I never committed?" said Westwood, with a flash of his sullen dark eyes. "Ah, you all speak alike! It's the same story—'Confess—repent.' I may have plenty to confess and repent of, but not this, for I never murdered Sydney Vane."

The chaplain shook his head.

"I am sorry that you persist in your story," he said sadly. "I had hoped that you would come to a better mind."

"Do you want me to go into eternity with a lie on my lips?" asked Westwood, fiercely. "I tell you that I am speaking the truth now. My coat was torn on a briar; I fired my gun at a crow as I went over the fields to my cottage. I saw a man go into the copse after Mr. Vane just as I came out. Find him, if you want to know who killed Mr. Vane."

"You have told us the same story before," said the chaplain, in a discouraged tone. "For your own sake, Westwood, I wish I could believe you. Who was the man? What was he like? Where did he go? Unless those questions are answered, it is impossible that your story should be believed."

"I can't answer them," said Westwood, in a sullen tone. "I did not know the man, and I did not look at him. All I know is that he has murdered me as well as Mr. Vane, and blasted the life of my innocent child. And I shall pray God night and morning as long as the breath is in my body to punish him, and to bring shame and sorrow on himself and all that he loves, as he has brought shame and sorrow on me and mine."

Then he turned his face to the wall and would say no more.