CHAPTER XI.
"RING OUT YOUR BELLS! LET MOURNING SHOWS BE SPREAD!"
Three days after, a long and stately procession passed slowly through the great gates, under the lofty Norman archway, bearing to the Catheron vaults the body of Ethel, last lady Catheron.
A long and sad ceremonial! Why, it seemed only yesterday that that mournful, passing bell had rung out the welcoming peal; but yesterday since they had lit the bon-fires, and tossed their hats in the air, and cheered with all their hearts and souls, the gallant husband and lovely wife. For a "squire of high degree" to marry beneath him, is something that goes home, warm and true, to every humble heart. Sir Victor's tenantry had never been half so proud of him, as when he had brought among them his low-born wife. It seemed but yesterday that all the parish had seen her, walking up this very aisle, in pale, flowing silks, and with the sweetest face the sun ever shone on, leaning on her happy young husband's arm; and now they carried her dead—foully murdered—to the open Catheron vault, and laid her to sleep forever beside the high-born dames of the race who slept their last sleep there.
"All men are equal on the turf and under it," once said a famous sporting nobleman. Ethel Dobb, the London soap-boiler's daughter, took her place to-day, among the dead daughters of earls and marquises, their equal at last, by right divine of the great leveller, Death.
A great and solemn hush pervaded all ranks, sexes, and classes. Struck down in her sleep, without a moment's warning, in her own home—a deep murmur, that was like the murmur of an angry sea, ran through them as they collected together.
Who had done this deed?—the girl confined in Chesholm jail, or her scoundrel brother? They remembered him well—like Ishmael of old, his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him, the head and instigator of every poaching fray, or hen-roost robbery, every fight and evil deed done in Chesholm. Both brother and sister hated her—Inez Catheron that she had taken her lover from her—Juan Catheron that he had lost her himself. After Sir Victor he was heir-at-law. Failing the life of the infant son, he might one day write himself Sir Juan.
It was a lucky thing, croaked the Chesholm gossips, that Nurse Pool had removed the baby, else the dagger that stabbed the mother would have found its way to the heart of the child. Curse the black-hearted murderer of sleeping women and from the throng in the churchyard there rose up a groan to Heaven, and a hundred angry hearts pledged themselves to avenge it if the law would not.
"The coroner would have let the young lady escape," said one. "See how he snubbed Mrs. Pool, and how easily he let her betters off. If Justice Smiley hadn't got out his warrant, she'd have been off to the continent and clear away, long before this."
"Why don't they find Juan Catheron?" said another. "They say they're looking for him—why don't they find him then? Murderers don't escape so easily nowadays—the law finds 'em if it wants to find 'em. It's seven days since the murder was done, and no tale or tidings of him yet."