“Give her a seat,” said Sir Henry. “My poor woman, if you have any information to give about this terrible event—— ”
“Ay, I have information—plenty information. Nay, I want no seat. I’m standing as if I was at the judgment-seat of God; there’s where I’ve stood this many a year, and been judged, but aye held fast. What is man, a worm, to strive with his Maker?—but me, I’ve done that, that am but a woman. I humbly crave the Almighty’s pardon, and I’ve made up my mind to do justice now—at the last.”
The people about looked at each other, questioning one another what it was, all but two, who knew what she meant. Young Lord Stanton, who was close to the table, looked across at a tall stranger behind, by whom the village constable was standing, and who replied to Geoff’s look by a melancholy half-smile. The others looked at each other, and ’Lizabeth, though she saw no one, saw this wave of meaning, and felt it natural too.
“Ay,” she said, “you may wonder; and you’ll wonder more before all’s done. I am a woman that was the mother of three; bonny bairns—though I say it that ought not; ye might have ranged the country from Carlisle to London town, and not found their like. My Lily was the beauty of the whole water; up or down, there was not one that you would look at when my lass was by. What need I speak? You all know that as well as me.”
The swell of pride in her as she spoke filled the whole company with a thrill of admiration and wonder, like some great actress disclosing the greatness of impassioned nature in the simplest words. She was old, but she was beautiful too. She looked round upon them with the air of a dethroned empress, from whom the recollection of her imperial state could never depart. Rachel could not have done it, nor perhaps any other of her profession. There was the sweetness of remembered triumph in the midst of the most tragic depths; a gleam of pride and pleasure out of the background of shame and pain.
“Ah! that’s all gone and past,” she went on with a sigh. “My eldest lad was more than handsome, he was a genius as well. He was taken away from me when he was but a little lad—and never came home again till—till the devil got hold of him, and made him think shame of his poor mother, and the poor place he was born in. I would never have blamed him. I would have had him hold his head with the highest, as he had a right—for had he not gotten that place for himself?—but when he came back to the water-side a great gentleman and scholar, and would never have let on where he belonged to, one that is not here to bear the blame,” said ’Lizabeth, setting her teeth—“one that is gone to his account—and well I wot the Almighty has punished him for his ill deeds—betrayed my lad. Some of the gentry were good to him—as good as the angels in heaven—but some were as devils, that being their nature. And this is what I’ve got to say:” here she made a pause, raised herself to her full height, and threw off the red kerchief from her head in her agitation. “I’ve come here to accuse before God, and you, Sir Henry, my son, Abel Bampfylde, him I was most proud of and loved best, of the murder of young Lord Stanton, which took place on the morning of the 2nd of August, eighteen hundred and forty-five—fifteen years ago and more.”
The sensation that followed is indescribable. Sir Henry Stanton himself rose from his seat, excited by wonder, horror, and pity, beyond all ordinary rule. The bystanders had but a vague sense of the extraordinary revelation she made, so much were they moved by the more extraordinary passion in her, and the position in which she stood. “My good woman, my poor woman!” he cried, “this last dreadful tragedy has gone to your brain—and no wonder. You don’t know what you say.”
She smiled—mournfully enough, but still it was a smile—and shook her head. “If you had said it as often to yourself as I have done—night and day—night and day; open me when I’m dead, and you’ll find it here,” she cried—all unaware that this same language of passion had been used before—and pressing her hand upon her breast. “The second of August, eighteen hundred and forty-five—if you had said it over as often as me!”
There was a whisper all about, and the lawyer of the district, who acted as Sir Henry’s clerk on important occasions, stooped towards him and said something. “The date is right. Yes, yes, I know the date is right,” Sir Henry said, half-angrily. Then added, “There must be insanity in the family. What more like the effort of a diseased imagination than to link the old crime of fifteen years ago with what has happened to-day?”
“Is it me that you call insane?” said ’Lizabeth. “Eh, if it was but me! But well I know what I’m saying.” Then the wild looks of all around her suddenly impressed the old woman, too much occupied hitherto to think what their looks meant. She turned round upon them with slowly awakening anxiety. “You’re looking strange at me,” she cried, “you’re all looking strange at me! What is this you’re saying that has happened to-day? Oh, my lad is mad!—he’s roaming the hills, and Dick after him; he does na know that he’s doing; he’s out of his senses; it’s no ill meaning. Lads, some of you tell me, I’m going distracted. What has happened to-day?”