THE FIRST DAY OF THE TRIAL.

The trial of Susan Crabtree and John Prior, younger, of Redcot, who were accused of robbing the safe of Crabtree’s Bank, Newton, took place in the late summer circuit, when the Assize was held at Crowminster. The family at Redcot were spared the ordeal of being called as witnesses. John Prior was dissuaded from his original intention of facing the worst at once, and making what atonement he could for his share in the wrong-doing by being present in the court.

‘I will go, and bring you back word every night,’ offered the woman who, even before Jack’s father and mother, had the heaviest stake in the verdict. ‘Nobody knows me save as the Redcot governess at Crowminster, nor for that matter at Newton. Nobody will take any notice of my being there. In fact, they will guess that I have come to use my eyes and ears and report for your benefit. Historical precedents are not wanting,’ she ended with a poor little attempt at pleasantry. ‘My duties will not last over two days, perhaps not over one, and Richard will put the mare on her best paces that we may be the first to announce an acquittal.’

In truth it was a relief for Bennet to be up and doing to the last. She was like a man in this respect, though so womanly in others; and she had a notion that it might be some small consolation to Jack to recognise her face with the veil of strangeness on it for the strange crowd around him. There was no exposure for her in the present. She could trust herself not to give way. There would be time enough for that in the future--the future which, at the best, might bring a certain amount of betrayal with it, when she was seen and known as Jack Prior’s wife. But what would be the extent of the revelation after all? That she had stood by her lover throughout his tribulation: that she had not deserted him in his evil day, and neither Jack nor she would feel ashamed of that peculiarity in their history.

Besides, the sight of Bennet at the decisive moment might overbalance the influence of Susie, and move Jack at last to convey to his lawyer a word on the question which chiefly implicated him. Bennet could hardly tell whether she would welcome or deprecate that burst of indignant candour on Jack’s part. It would save him, there was little doubt, but save him probably to be a prey to much the same scruples--morbid if one chose to call them so--which had wrecked his father’s peace. And the deliverance which he would thus have wrought for himself would be altogether unlike Jack.

Ultimately it was ruled that Bennet should not go to the trial alone, but under the guardianship of Mat Crabtree, and an aunt of the Crabtrees, whom he had rooted out with the general idea that she might be a boon to Susie under the devoutly-to-be-wished-for sequel of her release. There was an amount of inextinguishable credulity where he had to do with women in Mat Crabtree’s imagining for a second that any woman, especially any elderly woman, could afford a shade of solace to Susie, under whatever conceivable circumstances of acquittal or condemnation. If there had been--not any, but one woman to whom this creature at bay, just saved from punishment by the narrowest loophole, would have turned, it was certainly not Miss Hopkins any more than it was Bennet Gray.

But at least, Mat had not been so inconsiderate as to drag a venerable relative from her retirement and repose, under the hallucination that she might minister acceptably and successfully to a pretty, interesting young offender. Miss Hopkins, as sometimes happens, was little older than her nephews. She had a narrow income, and led a narrow life, and being stolid in her well-meaningness, was more disposed to relish the excitement of going to the trial at Crowminster, with her nephew Mat to take care of her--all her expenses paid, and a handsome present hovering in the near distance--than to shrink from the task imposed upon her. Certainly Miss Hopkins had sustained a shock when she read of the attempted robbery of Crabtree’s Bank, of the failure of the bank, and, finally, that her nephew Lambert’s wife was one of the persons accused of the robbery. But on the other hand, Mat had assured her that the Priors--Mrs. Lambert was a Prior--were highly respectable people, and that in all probability the charge, if it were not withdrawn, would break down, in which case Susie Crabtree would be a victim and heroine, instead of a criminal.

It was the early morning of a mellow day in August, which seemed to anticipate the weather that sportsmen love in September. Bennet could almost fancy she heard firing betimes in the turnip fields and among the coverts. She caught herself watching in vain for brown or grey coated figures attended by troops of exultant dogs. She could not help being reminded of what Jack’s natural occupation would have been, if his rashness and heedlessness had not shaped themselves into dire disaster, if fate or Providence had not willed it otherwise. She might have been walking out with Jane to see the sport. They might have been coaxing Mrs. Prior, if the gentlemen were not too far off, to venture along the pleasant field paths, and have a blithe luncheon with the sportsmen by this hedge or that brook. They might all have been laughing over poor Tommy’s abject dismay at the crack of a gun.

Instead, Bennet was driving with Mat Crabtree and Miss Hopkins. Mat was grimly silent and heavily oppressed whenever he was not under the necessity of keeping up the spirits of his companions. Miss Hopkins required that all the country houses and villages the travellers passed should be named to her, and that she should be furnished with biographical sketches of the inhabitants. She also exacted that proper attention should be paid to her own remarks on the advantages of the landscape for sketching purposes, with elaborate comparisons of it to other landscapes unknown to the listeners. Finally, she expected that proper attention should be paid to her sagacious and practical estimates--since Miss Hopkins believed she had a reputation to keep up for sagacity and practicality becoming her years--of the season’s prospects in the matter of crops, and the chances for the agricultural labourer in the coming winter.

It seemed straining Bennet’s powers of endurance to the utmost to drive quietly along the road--so like other country roads, in the morning sunshine of the genial August day with an exacting common-place companion for ever starting ordinary topics of conversation, and to shut one’s eyes for a moment and realise what lay behind and what lay before. Redcot, more desolate than if the blinds were drawn and the shutters closed before the presence of the dead--the packed Court House, with Jack and Susie brought up for trial.

But Bennet found it was a still more cruel experience to survive when Miss Hopkins discussed the topic of the day in a cut and dry manner, coolly speaking out contingencies which no one else had dared to breathe to themselves. ‘I should think that if poor Mrs. Lambert does not get off without more ado--I mean if there is any misadventure of justice, she cannot be subjected to worse than a short term of imprisonment. But, for the young man, her brother, he is in a bad plight. I should say he runs the risk of seven, even of fourteen years--not of Botany Bay, for, unfortunately, Botany Bay won’t take our convicts nowadays, but of Dartmoor or Portland. Dear me! he will never be able to show face again after that. What a pity that Botany Bay couldn’t have been kept for first-class misdemeanants--ain’t that the word? A youth like this John Prior might have pulled up there, after he had sown his wild oats, and his father might have sent him out money. Altogether, he would have been as well disposed of as he deserved and as circumstances would permit. Many younger sons don’t fare much better.’

‘You don’t understand. Aunt Lydia,’ Mat tried to shut her mouth. ‘If anyone is innocent in this wretched affair it is Jack Prior, and he is the only son, the squire’s heir and successor at Redcot.’

‘Dear, dear!’ exclaimed Miss Hopkins, taking the additional misfortune easily enough, for the very good reason that it was of no moment to her. ‘Our neighbours’ reverses are lessons to us--don’t you think so, Miss Gray? Everything in the world so unsteady, no saying what a day or an hour may bring forth. Mat, has there been sufficient attempt made to find the real criminals? That always seems to me the best mode of clearing the innocent. Has there been enough energy exerted in tracking the guilty?’

‘We may trust the police for that. I can vouch they have not been idle,’ said Mat, temporising, and suppressing a groan.

‘Well, then, have you thought of establishing an _alibi_? All my reading goes to show that an _alibi_ is an excellent resource in an unjust accusation.’

‘You will allow,’ said Mat, impatiently, ‘that it is a ticklish thing to establish an _alibi_ when the robbery was committed in the middle of the night, and when both the accused persons were confessedly in the Bank House at the time.’

‘But, of course, they were sleeping in their beds--and they can prove that!’ cried Miss Hopkins, triumphantly.

‘Aunt Lydia, if you can at any time get rid of strong suspicion by satisfying judges and jury--without extraneous aid, mind you--that you were sleeping in your bed at a given hour, your power of convincing your fellow-creatures does you credit.’

‘I, Mat! what have I to do with such a situation?’ protested Miss Hopkins, in outraged respectability. ‘I was never subjected to suspicion, nor am I likely to be, I am thankful to say. Do I look like a woman who could be supposed capable of committing such deeds? I can tell you before this young lady, though she is living in Mr. Prior’s family, it is painful enough for me to find that I am connected by marriage--not by blood, Miss Gray--with people who are liable to be suspected.’

And Mat had some trouble in pacifying his offended relative.

Solitude would have been bliss even in the circumstances, compared to the torture of Miss Hopkins’s companionship. Bennet had already discovered that there might be disadvantages to balance the gains of her incognito. She had to learn the lesson to a still greater extent presently. When Crowminster was reached, just before the opening of the court, the streets, always full at Assize times, were more crowded than usual. Among the shoals of visitors whom so extraordinary a case as the Crabtree Bank robbery brought to the town for the day, Miss Gray detected a tolerable sprinkling of the Priors’ acquaintances. They scuttled out of Mat Crabtree’s way, as they had religiously abstained from visiting Redcot lately. It might be that not many of them--perhaps not one of the women would appear openly in the Court--still they were there, eager to see from behind a screen, to hear on the earliest opportunity the scandal of the trial.

Mat Crabtree relieved his mind by pointing out to Bennet Gray the thronged condition of a draper’s shop opposite the Court House.

‘Do you know why that man has so many county customers to day?’ Mat inquired, sharply.

Then he answered his own question with a curling lip--‘Because the upper windows of his ware-rooms command a view of the Court House. Ladies and gentlemen stationed where the draper’s bales are wont to be piled can get a bird’s-eye vision of much of the legal drama opposite--including judges, jury, and prisoners. In the meantime the curious gazers do not incur the odium of having come to gloat on the disgrace of their former friends.’

Some of these ardent students of humanity, notably a group of frisky young matrons, though they avoided Mat Crabtree, pounced upon Miss Gray, and detained her behind her party. She was only the governess at Redcot, of whom her assailants had not taken much notice formerly, seeing that she was not in their sphere; but she was somebody to-day. She was sure to have a great deal of interesting information to impart, while it was not to be supposed that she was so affected by the family trouble as to be beyond speaking of it. ‘Oh! Miss Gray, so glad to have met you. Do tell us how are poor dear Mr. and Mrs. Prior and Miss Prior? So sad for them. How are they bearing up under this frightful calamity? We could not bring ourselves to drive over, though we were so anxious to hear, lest the poor Priors should dream we were intruding or prying into their concerns, which we should never dream of doing--nothing could be farther from our intentions--so that it is quite a godsend for us to have come across you.’ ‘Is it true that Mrs. Crabtree is very ill, and will not be brought into court?’ another speaker broke in.

‘Is there any foundation for the report that Jack has forfeited his bail and gone off, so that the sentence of outlawry will be pronounced upon him? It is quite too incredible that the robbery was Susie’s act--a pretty, bright creature like that, so sweet and trustful; though, between you and me, Miss Gray, she was shockingly extravagant, and she may have been the dupe of a scamp of a husband. His poor brother is much to be felt for--he will shut himself up with his books more than ever now. But Lambert was a coarse man, though he was a Crabtree. We never liked him or could guess what Susie Prior saw in him to tempt her to marry him; very likely her father and mother thought it a good match, which explains it. But as for Jack Prior, though nobody dreamt of such a miserable end as this comes to, it was no secret that he has been a great grief to his father, who gave him up long ago.’

‘You are mistaken,’ said Bennet, stifling her anger and pain, but speaking stiffly and sternly, careless on her own account of the bad impression she produced on her audience. ‘If Mr. Prior’s son was a grief to him in the past, the fault was not necessarily all on one side. Mr. Prior says that himself to-day. He has perfect faith in the young man’s innocence. Forfeit his bail! Who said such a thing? Do you think a guiltless man who never knew either fear or falsehood would so defame himself? Why, even a timid woman like his sister would brave the worst before she sought such a cowardly refuge. Mr. Prior is ready to receive his son, and welcome him to his place at Redcot the moment he comes back.’

‘Oh! indeed; we are glad to hear it,’ replied the inquisitors, by the mouth of their chief spokeswoman, expressing themselves very dubiously, and with considerable reserve. ‘We may have been misinformed. We can only hope the judge and jury will be of your and Mr. Prior’s opinion.’

The moment Bennet was gone the verdict was pronounced, unanimously in this instance. The governess girl, who had been thoroughly spoiled by Jane Prior in her learned folly, was a perfect firebrand. It was exceedingly foolish in a young unmarried woman--in her position especially--to become the champion of a lad in Jack Prior’s distressing circumstances, a flighty young fellow at the best, sufficiently above her in rank to account for the dust which had been thrown in her eyes.

Bennet Gray might have entered the court herself a prisoner under a criminal charge, so far as the mist before her eyes, the hum in her ears, the whirl in her head, and the tumultuous beating of her heart went. But this only lasted for a time. She must control herself if she would be of any use to Mr. Prior, any comfort to Jack.

Mat Crabtree got seats for his companions before he occupied his place near the counsel for the defence. Bennet’s sole desire with regard to her seat had been that, while it was where she could see and hear, and be within view of Jack, it should be as inconspicuous as possible, and she might steal to it with the least observation. This was not easy where Miss Hopkins was concerned. She was a woman of imposing presence in every way, from her large nose with its high ridge to her habit of making audible observations on all that passed. She was certainly daunted for a second by the spectacle of the court and the consideration on whom it was to sit. ‘Good heavens! to think that Mrs. Lambert is to come in before all these men with their files of papers, and be nominally treated as though she were the offscourings of the earth,’ Miss Hopkins muttered, and subsided into meekness for a space. Unfortunately the impression was fleeting. Miss Hopkins was an independent, self-sufficing woman, and she soon began to congratulate herself that it was ‘a far cry’ to the country town in which she dwelt, so that, though her cronies might read the trial in the newspapers with what gusto she could guess, it was exceedingly unlikely that any of them would be personally present on the occasion. Apart from selfish considerations, Miss Hopkins had no objection to notoriety, even as the relative by marriage of county gentry, who had so grossly mismanaged their affairs that they were suspected of crime, and had come within the range of the law. She did not subdue her voice or modify the tone of her remarks in order to secure the obscurity which Bennet had been tempted to hug.

‘Friends of Mrs. Lambert Crabtree’s and Mr. John Prior’s,’ Bennet was not long in hearing whispered on all sides. She believed she and Miss Hopkins would be fortunate if they missed forming one of the groups in an illustrated paper, the clever artist of which had been sent down expressly from the metropolis to pick up grist for the publishers’ mill in scenes from the remarkable trial.

But these annoyances, though Bennet was still capable of feeling them, were pin pricks after all. Perhaps they served to rouse her from the stupor of sorrow and shame into which she was in danger of sinking, and diverted her mind a little from the strain of concentration on one point.

All was very much as Bennet had sought, with torturing ingenuity and liveliness of imagination, to picture it beforehand. The masses of people in the body of the court, the professional lawyers and reporters, with their cool, easy, accustomed-to-the-thing air, the judges, in their grandiose horse-hair, silk and ermine--one of them, an elderly man with a fresh complexion, bearing a ludicrous resemblance to a last-century dame, highly rouged and powdered--all were there as she had fancied them.

When Bennet dared to look round among the crowded audience, it was a relief to her not to see many faces she could recognise. The miners of Kershaw were, as a rule, notorious for remaining off work in spite of fines and every other discipline that could be invented to restrain the men, whenever any holiday that was to their liking presented itself. They pled the privations and hardships of underground life for claiming this and other privileges. Distance and fatigue were nothing to the colliers. They had been known to start in the middle of the night and tramp a score of miles for the pleasure of beholding the last hanging which took place outside the walls of a jail in the county. Hangings as a spectacle were exploded, except for jail officials; but an exciting trial was still an infinitely greater treat than the most popular play could have been to these thoroughly realistic critics. Yet, to the credit of collier honour, there was hardly a representative of the miners of Kershaw present in the Court House when their master’s son and daughter stood their trial. If any of Bennet’s or Jane’s scholars were there, they must have kept their faces hidden from observation. Only one set of hard-favoured features struck Bennet in a vague way as familiar to her. She had forgotten when and where it had become familiar, but she had really seen it, at unlikely hours, lurking about the gates at Redcot. The face belonged to Mr. Isaac Evans--pseudo-spy and informer, who attended the Assize with a keener relish because the leading case concerned the near relatives of two of his employers.