Part 3, Chapter VII.
After the Sentence.
There was nothing farther to detain Luke Ross, but he remained in his seat for some time, studying the next case people said, but only that he might dream on in peace, for in the midst of the business of the next trial he found repose. No one spoke to him, and he seemed by degrees to be able to condense his thoughts upon the past.
And there he sat, trying to examine himself searchingly, probing his every thought as he sought for condemnatory matter against himself.
He felt as if he had been acting all day under some strange influence, moved by a power that was not his own, and that, as the instrument in other hands, he had been employed to punish Cyril Mallow.
“They will all join in condemning me,” he thought, “and henceforth I shall go through life branded as one who hounded down his enemy almost to the death.”
At length he raised his eyes, and they rested upon the little, thin, wistful countenance of his father, and there was a feeling of bitter reproach for his neglect of one who had travelled all the previous day so as to be present at the trial.
He made a sign to him as he rose, and the old man joined him in the robing-room, where Mr Dick eyed him askance as he relieved his master of his wig and gown; and then they returned to the chambers, where Luke threw himself into a chair, and gazed helplessly at his father, till the old man laid a hand, almost apologetically, upon his son’s arm.
“You are tired out, my boy. Come with me, and let us go somewhere and dine.”
“After I have disgraced myself like this, father?” groaned Luke. “Are you not ashamed of such a son?”
“Ashamed? Disgraced? My boy, what do you mean? I never felt so proud of you before. It was grand!”
“Proud!” cried Luke, passionately, “when I seem to have stooped to the lowest form of cowardly retaliation. A rival who made himself my enemy is grovelling in the mire, and I, instead of going to him like an honourable, magnanimous man, to raise him up and let him begin a better life, have planted my heel upon his face, and crushed him lower into the slough.”
“It was your duty, my boy, and you did that duty,” cried the old man, quickly. “I will not hear you speak like that.”
“And Sage—his wife,” groaned Luke, not hearing, apparently, his father’s words. “Father, the memory of my old love for her has clung to me ever. I have been true to that memory, loving still the sweet, bright girl I knew before that man came between us like a black shadow and clouded the sunshine of my life.”
He stopped, and let his head rest upon his hand.
“My love for her has never failed, father, but is as fresh and bright now as it was upon the day when I came up here to town ready for the long struggle I felt that I should have before I could seek her for my wife. That love, I tell you, is as fresh and warm now as it was that day, but it has always been the love of one suddenly cut off from me—the love of one I looked upon as dead. For that evening, when I met them in the Kilby lane, Sage Portlock died to me, and the days I mourned were as for one who had passed away.”
“My boy, my boy, I know. He did come between you, and seemed to blight your life, but he is punished now.”
“Punished? No,” said Luke, excitedly; “it is not the man I have punished, but his wife. Father, that sorrowing, reproachful look she directed at me this morning will cling to me to my dying day. I cannot bear it. I feel as if the memory would drive me mad.”
He started up, and paced the room in an agony of mind that alarmed old Michael, who sought in vain to utter soothing words.
At last, as if recalled to himself by the feeling that he was neglecting the trembling old man before him, Luke made an effort to master the thoughts that troubled him, and they were about to go out together, when the boy announced two visitors, and Luke shrank back unnerved once more, on finding that they were the Reverend Eli Mallow and his old Churchwarden.
“I did not know his father was in town,” said Luke, in a low voice.
“Yes, my boy, he sat back, poor fellow. He looks very old and weak,” said Michael Ross, in a quiet patronising way. “He is a good deal broken, my boy. Speak kindly to him, pray.”
“What do they want?” said Luke. “Oh, father, what have I done that fate should serve me such an ugly turn?”
“Your duty, my boy, your duty,” whispered the old man; and the next minute the visitors were in the room, finding, as they entered, that old Michael was holding his son’s arm in a tender, proud way that seemed to fix the old Rector’s eyes.
He was, indeed, old-looking and broken; sadly changed from the fine, handsome, greyheaded man that Luke knew so well.
“I met Mr Mallow almost at your door,” said Portlock, in his bluff, firm way. “We did not come together, but we both wanted to call.”
Luke pointed to chairs, but the old Rector remained standing, gazing reproachfully at Luke.
“Yes, I wanted to see you,” he said; “I wanted to see and speak to the man I taught when he was a boy, and in whom I took a great deal of pride. I was proud to see you progress, Luke Ross. I used to read and show the reports to your father when I saw them, for I said Luke Ross is a credit to our town.”
“And you said so to me often, Mr Mallow,” cried old Michael.
“I did—I did,” said the Rector; “and to-day in court I asked myself what I had ever done to this man that he should strike me such a blow.”
“Be just, for heaven’s sake, Mr Mallow,” cried Luke. “I did not seek the task I have fulfilled to-day.”
“And I said to myself, as I saw my only son dragged away by his gaolers, ‘I will go and curse this man—this cold-blooded wretch who could thus triumph over us.’ I said I would show him what he has done—bruised my heart, driven a suffering woman nearly mad, and made two little innocent children worse than orphans.”
“Mr Mallow, is this justice?” groaned Luke.
“No,” said the old man, softly. “I said it in mine haste, and as I hurried here mine anger passed away; the scales dropped from mine eyes, and I knew that it was no work of thine. Truly, as Eli’s sons of old brought heaviness to their father’s heart, so have my poor sons to mine; and, Michael Ross,” he cried, holding out his trembling hands, “I was so proud of that boy—so proud. He was his mother’s idol, and, bad as he would be at times, he was always good to her. Can you wonder that she loved him? Oh, God help me! my boy—my boy!”
“It has been an agony to me ever since the brief was forced upon me, Mr Mallow,” said Luke, taking the old man’s hand. “Believe me, I could not help this duty I had to do.”
“God bless you, Luke Ross!” said the old man, feebly. “Like Balaam of old, I came to curse, and I stop to bless. If I have anything to forgive, I forgive you, as I hope to be forgiven. You have been a good son. Michael Ross, you have never known what it is to feel as I do now. But I must go back; I must go back to her at home. She waits to know the worst, and this last blow will kill her, gentlemen—my poor, suffering angel of a wife—it will be her death.”
“Will you not come and see Sage first?” said Portlock, with rough sympathy.
“No, no, I think not. The sight of my sad face would do her harm. I’ll get home. Keep her with you, Portlock. God bless her!—a true, sweet wife. We came like a blight to her, Portlock. Luke Ross, I ought not to have allowed it, but I thought it was for the best—that it would reform my boy. My life has been all mistakes, and I long now to lie down and sleep. Keep her with you, Portlock, and teach her and her little ones to forget us all.”
He tottered to the door to go, but Luke stepped forward.
“He is not fit to go alone,” he cried. “Mr Portlock, what is to be done?”
“I must take him home,” he replied, sadly. “I’d better take them all home, but I have a message for you.”
“For me?” cried Luke. “Not from Mrs Cyril?”
“Yes, from Sage. She wants to see you.”
“I could not bear it,” cried Luke. “Heavens, man! have I not been reproached enough?”
“It is not to reproach you, I think, Luke Ross,” said Portlock, softly. “She bade me say to thee, ‘Come to me, if you have any sympathy for my piteous case.’”