Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Good. Then, if you are innocent, and if you can prove your innocence, it is your duty to your family to do it. A man's duties in this life are not owing to himself alone: above all, a son's. He owes allegiance to his father and mother; his consideration for them should be above his consideration for himself. If you can prove your innocence it will be an unpardonable sin not to do it; a sin inflicted on your family."

"I can't help it," replied Herbert in his obstinacy. "I have my reasons for not speaking, and I shall not speak."

"You will surely suffer the penalty," said Mr. Winthorne.

"Then I must suffer it," returned the prisoner.

But it is one thing to talk, and another to act. Many a brave spirit, ready and willing to undergo hanging in theory, would find his heart fail and his bravery altogether die out, were he really required to reduce it to practice.

Herbert Dare was only human. After July had come in and the time for the opening of the assizes might be counted by hours, then his courage began to flinch. He spent a night in tossing from side to side on his pallet (a wide difference between that and his comfortable bed at home), during which a certain ugly apparatus, to be erected for his especial use within the walls of the prison some fine Saturday morning, on which he might figure by no means gracefully, had mentally disturbed his rest.

He arose unrefreshed. The vision of that possible future was not a pleasant one. Herbert remembered once, when he had been a college boy, that the Saturday morning's occasional drama had been enacted for the warning and edification of the town, and of the country people flocking into it for market. The college boys had determined for once in their lives to see the sight—if they could accomplish it. The ceremony was invariably performed at eight o'clock; the exhibition closed at nine; and the boys' difficulty was, how to arrive at the scene in time, considering that it was only at the striking of the latter hour that they were let loose down the steps of the school. They had tried the time between the cloisters and the county prison; and found that by dint of taking the shorter way through the back streets, tearing along at the fleetest pace, and knocking over every obstruction—human, animal, or material—that might unfortunately be in their path, they could do the distance in four minutes. Arriving rather out of wind, it's true: but that was nothing.

Four minutes! they did not see their way. If the curtain descended at nine, sharp, as good be forty minutes after the hour, as four, in point of practical effect. But the Helstonleigh college boys—as you may sometimes have heard remarked before—were not wont to allow difficulties to overmaster them. If there was a possible way of overcoming obstacles, they were sure to find it. Consultations had been anxious. To request the head-master to allow them as a favour to depart five or ten minutes before the usual time, would be worse than useless. It was a question whether he ever would have accorded it; but there was no chance of it on that morning. Neither could the whole school be taken summarily with spasms, or croup, or any other excruciating malady necessitating compassion and an early dismissal.

They came to the resolve of applying to the official who had the cathedral clock under his charge: or, as they phrased it, "coming over the clock-man." By dint of coaxing, or bribery, or some other element of persuasion, they got this functionary to promise to put the clock on eight minutes on that particular morning. And it was done. And at eight minutes before nine by the sun, the cathedral clock rang out its nine strokes. But, instead of the master lifting his finger—the signal for the boys to tear forth—the master sat quiet at his desk, and never gave it. He sat until the eight minutes had gone by, when the other churches in the town gave out their hour; he sat four minutes after that: and then he nodded them their dismissal.

The twelve minutes had seemed to the boys like twelve hours. Where the hitch was, they never knew; they never have known to this day; as they would tell you themselves. Whether the master had received an inkling of what was in the wind; or whether, by one of those extraordinary coincidences that sometimes occur in life, he, for that one morning, allowed the hour to slip by unheeded—had not heard it strike—they could not tell. He gave out no explanation, then or afterwards. The clock-man protested that he had been true; had not breathed a hint to any one living of the purposed advancement; and the boys had no reason to disbelieve him.