They quarrelled over that point, and had to separate without an arrangement. Janet Hanford came to me the same night, demanding that I should arrest the “bigamist,” as she declared him to be, and also hunt out her boy, wherever he was hidden, as the care of the child would legally fall to her, who had committed no offence against the moral law. A light task, certainly!
In the first place, I found that the accused persisted that he was not Richard Hanford, but John Ferguson. He had been at the Cape for nearly two years, so he had no one to whom he could refer in confirmation of his statement. He was very hazy as to his antecedents. He had prospered at the Cape, he admitted, but would not say that the money he now possessed had come to him by marriage; he would not admit that he was married at all to the lady who accompanied him, though it was proved that at the private hotel at which they resided they were known as Mr and Mrs Ferguson. The lady herself, being referred to, declined to say whether she was married or not; and when she took up that position, I need not say that our chance of bringing home to him a charge of bigamy became poor indeed. Then there remained the charge of desertion, but that could scarcely be brought forward, seeing that the wife had been in prison, serving a term of two years, while he had been away at the Cape and had but recently returned, and so might be supposed not to know that she was alive.
But the weaker Janet Hanford’s case grew, the more determined and desperate she seemed to become. John Ferguson’s wife had a maid-servant to attend her, and Janet Hanford appears to have taken to watching the girl. One forenoon, when the case was at its most critical point—that is, when there were evidences that John Ferguson and his wife would soon be out of the country—the broken wife saw this girl leave the hotel with two letters in her hand. The girl walked rapidly along Princes Street, with the intention of posting them at the General Post Office; but before she had gone two divisions, Janet Hanford became a highway robber, by snatching the letters from her hand and vanishing like magic. One of the letters was addressed to “Master Frederick Hanford,” at a boarding-school some miles from the city; and almost before the amazed girl got back to her master, Janet Hanford was in a railway carriage and speeding towards that school.
The letter she had stolen proved beyond a doubt that John Ferguson was Richard Hanford, and father of the boy, and also revealed the fact that it had been Hanford’s intention to remove the boy in a day or two, as he was “leaving the country.” Janet Hanford stopped all that by taking a policeman with her, and demanding that the boy—who readily recognised her as his mother—should be delivered up to her. The grief and consternation of the father were terrible to behold, and we had now the singular case of two persons charging each other with a crime, and each demanding the other’s arrest.
Hanford made the most strenuous attempts to get back the custody of his boy—who was lame and rather weakly—but failed completely, though he had money and lawyers to help him. An inquiry had been by that time despatched to the Cape, to ascertain whether the so-called John Ferguson had been legally married to Rosa Gladwin, the girl who in Scotland had passed as his wife. In anticipation of the answer to that question being against him, Hanford redoubled his exertions to quicken the slow processes of law which were to give him charge of his boy; but with almost the same result as if he had single-handed tried to push on some great Juggernaut. The ponderous thing moved none the faster, but all the heat and turmoil and excitement fell to Hanford. He was continually running between his temporary home and his lawyers, and in one of these races he caught a chill which he “had not time to attend to.”
When the pain became unbearable, he was forced to lie down and send for a doctor. By that time he was almost delirious and in a high fever. The doctor pronounced the trouble inflammation of the lungs, and the case critical.
The moment Janet Hanford heard of the illness she came to see her husband, bringing with her the boy, whom she had hitherto kept studiously out of sight. She was loud in her self-recriminations. She blamed herself for the calamity; in grovelling grief cried aloud to heaven to witness her vow, that if Hanford’s life were only spared she would restore his boy, suffer him to leave the country with his father, and nevermore seek to molest either, or wish for anything but their welfare and happiness. The cry was vain; the resolve came too late. Hanford scarcely knew her, and appeared to be living the misfortunes of his life over again; for when his eye did light on her face, he implored those present to take her from him, or at least to save the boy from her remorseless hands. In a day or two he died, to the very last turning from her with aversion, and speaking of his other attendant as his true and only wife, and denouncing Janet Hanford as a curse to herself and all mankind. Of course these delirious utterances could not be taken for his real feelings; indeed, his second wife afterwards assured Janet that the love he bore her was greater than that which he had conceived for herself—it was merely the outside shell of wretchedness and debauchery which he loathed and detested. There was no more concealment of the truth then. It was freely admitted that Hanford had married again out at the Cape, getting a rich settler’s daughter and a little fortune by the union, as well as the unselfish devotion of a woman who knew the whole of his past life, and yet did not hesitate to sacrifice her all for his sake. A strange result sprang from that death-bed scene. The second wife imbibed a strong affection for the lame boy, and could not think of parting with him; at the same time a feeling of pity grew up in her breast for the broken wife, who was so prostrated by her great loss that for weeks her life was despaired of. Rosa Gladwin nursed her through it all, and, I suppose, must have discovered in her some good qualities which were hidden from ordinary onlookers, for when Mrs Hanford fairly recovered they did not separate. At first Rosa offered to provide for her by settling on her an annuity quite sufficient for her wants, but the proposal was never carried out. They went out to the Cape together, and no sisters could have been more firmly bound together in affection. Neither of them ever married again, but their lives have been spent in watching the development of Hanford’s son, who is no longer a lame boy, but a strong man, bidding fair to leave a big mark in the world’s history. The most singular thing in the case, however, is the fact that Janet Hanford left her drunkenness and debasement in the grave which swallowed her husband. Truly there is hope for all, even for the White Savage.
THE BROKEN MISSIONARY.
The place was called a church, but it was really little more than a mission-house thrown out and partly supported by a religious body in Edinburgh wishing to extend its connection. The town is a few miles from Edinburgh, and the building used for the church had at one time been used as a school, then as a slaughter-house for pigs, and at last, with a little painting and fitting up, as a church or meeting-house.
It is not necessary to name the particular sect of which this small church was a part. All churches are formed of men and women, and with these there is always to be found some twist of character, which we, who are twisted in another direction, call an imperfection. Such men as the deacon in the following case may be found in almost any church—men of strong convictions and great pugnacity, who are such heroes for virtue that they never think it possible to fall on the other side.