In the flush of his exultation, he did not attempt to conceal the purpose of his journey, and the greater part of the villagers turned out spontaneously to a.s.sist in the quest which he undertook without loss of time. Gabriel had described with great exact.i.tude the spot to be searched, for he remembered it very well. And indeed there were many people still living who could point out the place where the body was found. Near at hand, a long narrow rift ran into the face of the precipice, and at its extreme end, where the billows of every winter increased the depth of superinc.u.mbent sand, Wyley stated he had deposited the garments which would identify the wearer. The cleft was too narrow for more than one man to dig at a time, and the excitement of the crowd behind him increased with every stroke of his spade. The smuggler appeared to have told the truth. A quant.i.ty of half-destroyed garments were discovered, and among them a pocket-book containing a pencil-case and a ring. The clothes were worthless for any object; but of these last-mentioned articles Griffith took possession, and forwarded them to London, in order that they might be submitted to Mr. Ashton's friends for recognition.

"Hurrah for Trevethlan!" shouted Colan, in a conclave held at Dame Miniver's that night, "and a health to our squire and our bonny young mistress!"

Loud acclamations and deep draughts gave a welcome to the toast.

"'Tis a strange thing," said the general merchant, "that this matter should have been so long quiet. The times that I've walked by that rift in the cliff yonder, and never seen anything."

"Why?" asked the hostess; "and what would ye expect to see, neighbour Breage? Every winter as pa.s.sed only packed the sand higher and higher."

"But there might have been a sign, dame, there might have been a sign."

"It shows there was no murder done, at any rate," observed another of the company.

"Still," persisted Breage, "I wonder there was no dream came to point to the place; and especially seeing how hard it has gone with the squire."

"It's like to go hard enough with this Denis or Wyley," Colan remarked.

"The fire of Pendar'l was black enough against him, and this story won't tell any way for him."

"But it will for our Edward Owen," said Germoe. "It will turn to his good, and I am glad of it."

"Ay," exclaimed Dame Miniver, "and besides that, I hear talk how he fought for the lady of Pendar'l that night, and beat off some that would harm her."

"We shall have him among us again afore long," said farmer Colan. "And Gabriel will be like to confess all the rights of it before he dies."

"Well," said the pertinacious Breage, "if he confesses to murder, I shall never believe in any sign or token again."

The suspicion here indicated that the smuggler had told only half the truth, prevailed very generally in the hamlet, and many of the villagers thought that he had wilfully thrown the clergyman over the cliff. But we are willing to ascribe the popular feeling to the common love of the worst in criminal matters, and to believe that Wyley was sincere. He was probably prepared for robbery, but not for murder. The revelry at the Trevethlan Arms was protracted till a late hour.

CHAPTER XIV.

Decline all this, and see what now thou art.

For one being sued to, one that humbly sues; For queen, a very caitiff crowned with care; For one that scorned at me, now scorned of me; For one being feared of all, now fearing one; For one commanding all, obeyed of none.

Thus hath the course of justice wheeled about, And left thee but a very prey to time; Having no more but thought of what thou wert, To torture thee the more, being what thou art.

Shakspeare.

Meanwhile scandal and gossip were still busy with the stolen marriage and its consequences. Mysterious paragraphs had appeared in some of the public prints. If newspapers at that time had been ill.u.s.trated, there might have been portraits of the bride and bridegroom, or at least of Rhoda, and of the travelling carriage. But the kindred of Asmodeus, who in these days haunt town and country with the implements of Daguerre, and embellish our journals with their woodcuts, had not yet acquired those pictorial aids, and were obliged to content themselves with old-fashioned letterpress. What their descendants may arrive at, especially in alliance with the disciples of Mesmer, to whom distance is no object, and brick and mortar no impediment, it is hard to antic.i.p.ate.

The electric telegraph is likely to be regarded as a slow concern; everybody will know his neighbour's thoughts; the old fable of transparent bosoms will be realized; and the gift of speech will cease to be of any use.

This consummation seems, however, at present rather remote. If we were of a misanthropic turn, and familiar with any good-humoured demon, lame or otherwise, we should trouble him to take us to and fro between the home and haunts of some well-seeming family, and the gloomy chambers where Astraea holds her revels. We should be present one day at the dinner or the ball, and the next day we should go among crumbling papers and musty parchments. We should follow the unconscious prey to the levee or drawing-room, and then we should repair to the dark den, where the spoiler was quietly and a.s.siduously preparing the pit-fall. Often when we look up to the lofty buildings inhabited especially by the servants of Themis, we are led to think of the devices which may there be silently undermining the stability of some well-to-do house, now standing fair and seemly in the eyes of the world. Far away back, in some ancient record, the lynx-eyed pract.i.tioner has lighted upon the trail: step by step he advances, fortifying himself at every pause, until the prize is full in view, and the filing of a bill or the service of a writ informs the unsuspecting victim that his all is at stake; destroying in one moment the whole security of his life, and entangling him in a maze of litigation, to endure possibly for years, and too probably to leave him, even if successful, an impoverished and broken-hearted man. In these days of iron and steam, there is nothing romantic but the law.

And we are not thinking of the mere lovers of chicane, who occasionally disgrace the profession, but of what may happen in the career of the most honourable of its votaries. It was thus that the downfall of Trevethlan was prepared in one office, and that its restoration was now being achieved in another. Little had Randolph dreamed of the plot that was devising against him, and in which the lawyers were but unwitting agents: little did Esther imagine the counter-stroke which was now impending, and to which double weight was to be given by the conduct of her late protege.

Michael Sinson, baffled in his new attempt against Randolph, had returned sulkily to London. Among the first intelligence which met his eyes in the daily journals was the suicide of his miserable slave. He gnashed his teeth as he read it, and perceived that Rereworth had been in communication with the deceased. Had Everope been a double traitor?

Sinson could not free himself from the idea. The ground seemed to be shaking under his feet. After hours of irritating uncertainty, he sought an interview with Mr. Truby, in hope of discovering whether anything had transpired. But he met a very cold reception, and obtained no solution of his anxiety. The lawyer, however, demanded his address, and he, after giving it, went immediately and moved to other quarters.

He mused of coming forward himself as an informant to the other side, but if they were already in possession of the truth, to do so would be merely to place himself in their power. Then he made a futile attempt to gain admission to his former patroness; but being turned from the door with contumely, he thought of his supposed power over her, and fancied that it might yield him both security and profit. With this idea he made his way to Mr. Pendarrel at his office. Here he acquired the knowledge which he had vainly sought from Mr. Truby.

"Do you know, sir," Mr. Pendarrel asked him, "that it is rumoured the evidence at the trial is upset? That they have found relics of the clergyman who really performed that marriage, and that steps are already taken to reverse the judgment?"

Sinson, although he almost expected something of the kind, was staggered by the announcement.

"Now, if this be so," continued Mr. Pendarrel, "it will be strange if you, sir, were not a party to the fraud that will have been perpetrated.

Do you mark me?"

He spoke in the cold and deliberate manner which characterized his demeanour whenever he was independent of his wife. Sinson recovered from his first surprise, and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of confidence.

"Whatever I have done," he said, "I have done by the orders of Mrs.

Pendarrel. I am now come to receive my recompense."

"You have been well paid, sir," answered Mr. Pendarrel; "there is nothing due to you."

"Perhaps not, for what is past," Sinson said; "but there is for what is to come. You tell me there are rumours of fraud: and I say that Mrs.

Pendarrel has authorized whatever has been done. I have her letters.

They may be valuable."

"You are a cool scoundrel," said Mr. Pendarrel, "upon my word. But you do not gull me with so simple a device. What hinders me, sirrah, but that I should instantly give you into custody?"

"Nothing, perhaps," was the answer, "but the disagreeable consequences.

If you would only be so good as consult my lady, it might change your mind."

"Pooh, sir!" said Esther's husband, "you have overshot your mark. Go now about your business, and don't dare to come here again, or you know the result."

He rang his bell, and ordered the disconcerted intruder to be shown out.

Sinson went into the neighbouring park and read over the doc.u.ments on which he had so fondly relied. And, regarded in the light thrown upon them by Mr. Pendarrel's contempt, they presented him with no consolation in his fall. On the other hand, he had again unwittingly advanced the interests of his detested rival.

Mr. Truby, it may have been observed, frequently in matters of business communicated directly with the wife of his nominal client. When Mr.

Pendarrel went from home that day, he found Esther in a state of even unusual depression. She had received a letter from the lawyer, acquainting her there were strong grounds for believing that the main facts on which they had relied at the trial were fabricated for the occasion, and that, as his own character might be implicated by any concealment, he was resolved to probe the matter to the bottom.

"Oh, Gertrude!" said Esther to her constant attendant, "what will become of me? Among them, they are breaking my heart."

She was in this dejected condition when her husband came home.

Everything concurred to make him exceedingly desirous to bring about at least a formal reconciliation with the fugitive couple. He read Mr.

Truby's letter, and told his wife of the visit he had received that morning.

"And, my dear," said he, "this person would make us accomplices in whatever fraud has been perpetrated."

"Us, Mr. Pendarrel!" Esther e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "You are jesting, sir, and in a very sorry manner."

But she recollected Michael's threats, and could not help trembling.

"Not I, madam," her husband protested, adopting for a moment her own formal mode of address, "not I, upon my life. Sinson declares that he has letters authorizing all he did, which he pretty plainly admitted to have been more than was honest. And these letters he threatened to use, unless I would purchase them."

"You did not!" Mrs. Pendarrel exclaimed.