Meanwhile, as the Squire's object in introducing his son to Mrs. Lupton had been fulfilled, Colin took the earliest opportunity, in company with Roger Calvert, to return to London, and throw himself with passionate sorrow before his mistress. But before we follow him thither, and record his fortunes, the reader will, perhaps, be pleased to hear something respecting certain other of the characters who have figured in this book, to whose interest, be it hoped, he does not feel altogether indifferent.
CHAPTER X.
A corpse missing. The trial. The verdict. The effect of it. A fearful night scene at Nabbfield.
IN order that the charge brought against Doctor Rowel, of having been guilty of the murder of Lawyer Skinwell, might if possible be clearly substantiated, Mr. Lupton had not omitted any means at all likely to conduce towards that end; not the least important of which was the disinterment of the deceased's coffin from its grave, in the churchyard of Bramleigh, where it had been laid. This curious operation was undertaken with as much quietness as such an unusual piece of business can reasonably be supposed to have been performed; and a careful examination would, doubtless, have taken place in the porch of the church, had it not been soon discovered, to everybody's amazement, on opening the grave, that somebody had been there before, and the corpse was gone. This fact was no sooner ascertained than speculations innumerable, and of every variety, started into existence with the suddenness of a batch of summer flies; and strange stories were published, which had never so much as been dreamed of before, by the very parties who now gave instant birth to them, of dim lights having been seen, or supposed to have been seen, in the churchyard after dark; of something like the sound of a spade having been once heard there in the dead of night,—though, when heard, or what favoured mortal had heard it, could not precisely be made out:—as well as of suspicious looking strangers having, at one time, been observed staring over the yard wall, as though marking in the mind's eye some spot which was destined to become the scene of future dark and mysterious operations.
All these things however ended, as such things usually do, exactly where they began. The vulgar, that is, nine hundred and ninety-nine at least, out of every thousand, swallowed them with “intense interest;” while the place itself, in which Mr. Skinwell's remains had once been deposited, and from which they had also been thus unaccountably abstracted, became as a standing wonder throughout the parish, and was daily visited and marvelled at by bewildered and curious bipeds of both sexes. Certain parties who had had the misfortune to fall under Mr. Skinwell's hands during his lifetime, went so far as to insinuate that a lawyer's corpse was a very tempting bit to the old gentleman himself, and a likely thing—nothing more so—to have been carried off by him; but this insinuation was commonly thought at once so palpably libellous, that though many heard, few took the trouble to repeat it. Hence, like many other productions of a different description, but presumed by their authors to be equally able, it died a natural death very shortly after it was born. The mystery, however, attending this circumstance was certainly never positively cleared up; although on the examination of Doctor Rowel's establishment at Nabbfield, some time afterwards, a rather curious circumstance occurred, which gave strong ground for suspicion, that as that gentleman had been considerably cut up by the lawyer when alive, he had seized his opportunity to return the compliment, and cut him up, in another fashion, after his departure. But this incident will better appear in another place.
Every other description of evidence which Mr. Lupton could possibly procure was obtained and arranged for the Doctor's anticipated trial; although the failure of that which might have been added by the abovenamed investigation, could it have taken place, was regretted by all parties desirous of bringing the supposed culprit to justice, as unfortunate in the extreme.
While the Doctor soliloquized in a cell of the castle at York, whither he had been removed between the time of which we are now speaking and that at which we last parted with him, information was conveyed to him by his brother, of the rescue of James Woodruff, by Colin and his party, and the subsequent event of old Jerry Clink's death. His brother-in-law being thus free, Doctor Rowel gave up everything as lost; and during some time after the receipt of the news, he remained sunk in a state of hopelessness and stupor as deserved as it was deplorable. Regarding himself as now abandoned altogether by that fortune which during so many years had permitted his infamous practices and designs, he so far lost all spirit as to sink into one of the most abject creatures that ever breathed the breath of life. Painfully fearful of the end which seemed to be awaiting him, his sole anxiety was to contrive means for averting the threatened fate, and of prolonging that life which few, save himself, valued at more than a rope's end. Under these circumstances, and dreading the course which Mr. Woodruff himself might see fitting to adopt, the doctor caused a formal communication to be made to that injured individual, through the agency of Mr. Lupton, in which he bound himself not only to restore the estate of Charnwood, which had been so long withheld from him, but also to make every restitution in his power to grant, for the injuries he had sustained; injuries indeed for which in reality no compensation could atone, but which he yet trusted might possibly be regarded with some feeling of forgiveness and mercy, when his awful situation in other respects came to be considered.
“Unworthy,” remarked Mr. Woodruff, when this statement was made to him,—“undeserving and unworthy as that man is, whom I cannot ever again name as a relation, or scarcely consider even in the common light of an ordinary human being,—and hideous even to remember as are the tortures of mind and body I have undergone through conduct on his part which might well be considered as little less than infernal,—yet I do not feel disposed to gratify any feeling of revenge, by demanding the infliction of that extreme punishment which doubtless the laws would allow. I have suffered, but those sufferings are past; they cannot be alleviated in the least by the sufferings of another. If he even died upon a scaffold, what consolation would that bring to me? To know that he pined in prison as I have done, and wore away interminable days, nights, and years, in exquisite pain,—would not give me any satisfaction. I know too well what that sorrow is, ever to wish it endured by even the most worthless and criminal wretch alive. No; all I wish that man to do is, to be left to the reflection that all his stratagems have, at length, failed; that the evil labours of so many years have produced him only a harvest of wretchedness. I would leave his own past actions to be the rack on which—if he have any spark of humanity left within him—his spirit must eventually be broken. For the rest,—the great and fearful trial of the future,—that lies between Heaven and him;—and a frightful contemplation it must prove!”