Stories of Tragedy

by Unknown

In figure the Squire was of medium height, with a deep chest and heavy limbs. He did not stand quite upright, but the stoop was in his shoulders and not in his loins, and arose from a slouching habit of carrying himself much more than from weakness. He walked with a cane, but his step, though rather short, was strong and rapid, and he could get over the ground at the rate of three miles an hour. At times he seemed a little deaf, but it was mainly from absorption of mind and inattention, and he could hear perfectly when he was interested. The great gray eyes under his bushy, pepper-and-salt eyebrows were still so sound that he only used spectacles in reading. As for voice, there was hardly such another in the neighborhood; it was a strong, rasping, dictatorial caw, like the utterance of a gigantic crow; it might have served the needs of a sea-captain in a tempest. A jocose neighbor related that he had in a dream descended into hell, and that in trying to find his way out he had lost his reckoning, until, hearing a tremendous volley of oaths on the surface of the earth over his head, he knew that he was under the hills of Barham, and that Squire Lauson was swearing at his oxen.

Squire Lauson was immense; you might travel over him for a week without discovering half his wonders; he was a continent, and he must remain for the most part an unknown continent. Bringing to a close our explorations into his character and past life, we will follow him up simply as one of the personages of this tragedy. He was at the present time very active, but also to a certain extent inexplicable. It was known that he had interviews with various officials of justice, that he furnished them with his plaster cast of the strange footprint which had been found in the garden, and that he earnestly impressed upon them the value of this object for the purpose of tracking out the murderer. But he had other lines of investigation in his steady old hands, as was discoverable later.

His manner towards his granddaughter and his wife changed noticeably. Instead of treating the first with neglect, and the second with persistent hostility or derision, he became assiduously attentive to them, addressed them frequently in conversation, and sought to win their confidence. With Bessie this task was easy, for she was one of those natural, unspoiled women, who long for sympathy, and she inclined toward her grandfather the moment she saw any kindness in his eyes. They had long talks about the murdered relative, about every event or suspicion which seemed to relate to her death, about the property which she had left to Bessie, and about the girl’s prospects in life.

Not so with Mrs. Lauson. Even the horror which had entered the family life could not open the hard crust which disease and disappointment had formed over her nature, and she met the old man’s attempts to make her communicative with her usual sulky or pettish reticence. There never was such an unreasonable creature as this wretched wife, who, while she remained unmarried, had striven so hard to be agreeable to the other sex. It was not with her husband alone that she fought, but with every one, whether man or woman, who came near her. Whoever entered the house, whether it were some gossiping neighbor or the clergyman or the doctor, she flew out of it on discovering their approach, and wandered alone about the fields until they departed. This absence she would perhaps employ in eating green fruit, hoping, as she said, to make herself sick and die, or, at least, to make herself sick enough to plague her husband. At meals she generally sat in glum silence, although once or twice she burst out in violent tirades, scoffing at the Squire’s management of the place, defying him to strike her, etc.

Her appearance at this time was miserable and little less than disgusting. Her skin was thick and yellow; her eyes were bloodshot and watery; her nose was reddened with frequent crying; her form was of an almost skeleton thinness; her manner was full of strange starts and gaspings. It was curious to note the contrast between her perfect wretchedness of aspect and the unfeeling coolness with which the Squire watched and studied her.

In this woful way was the Lauson family getting on when the country around was electrified by an event which almost threw the murder itself into the shade. Henry Foster, the accepted lover of Bessie Barron, a professor in the Scientific College of Hampstead, was suddenly arrested as the assassin of Miss Mercy Lauson.

“What does this mean!” was his perfectly natural exclamation, when seized by the officers of justice; but it was uttered with a sudden pallor which awakened in the bystanders a strong suspicion of his guilt. No definite answer was made to his question until he was closeted with the lawyer whom he immediately retained in his defence.

“I should like to get at the whole of your case, Mr. Foster,” said the legal gentleman. “I must beg you, for your own sake, to be entirely frank with me.”

“I assure you that I know nothing about the murder,” was the firm reply. “I don’t so much as understand why I should be suspected of the horrible business.”

The lawyer, Mr. Adams Patterson, after studying Foster in a furtive way, as if doubtful whether there had been perfect honesty in his assertion of innocence, went on to state what he supposed would be the case of the prosecution.