'Benjamin,' cried Madam, 'be merciful! she is but a girl, and she loves my poor boy—be merciful! Oh! it is not yet too late.' She snatched me from his grasp and stood between us, her arms outstretched. 'It is not too late; they may die and we will go in sorrow, but not in shame. They may die. Go! murderer of thy kith and kin! Go, send thy grandfather to die upon the scaffold; but, at least, leave us in peace.'
'No, Madam,' I said. 'With your permission, if there be no other way, I will save their lives.'
'Well, then,' Benjamin said sulkily, 'there must be an end of this talk and no further delay; else, by the Lord! I know not what may happen. Will Tom Boilman delay to prepare his cauldron of hot pitch? If we wait much longer, Robin's arms and legs will be seething in that broth! Doth the Judge delay with his warrant? Already he signs it—already they are putting up the gibbet on which he will hang! Come, I say.'
Benjamin was sure of his prey, I suppose, because we found the clergyman waiting for us in the church, ready with surplice and book. The clerk was standing beside him, also with his book, open at the Service for Marriage. While they read the Service Madam threw herself prostrate on the Communion steps, her head in her hands, as one who suffers the last extremities of remorse and despair for sin too grievous to be ever forgiven. Let us hope that sometimes we may judge ourselves more harshly than Heaven itself doth judge us.
The clerk gave me away, and was the only witness of the marriage besides that poor distracted mother.
'Twas a strange wedding. There had been no banns put up; the bride was pale and trembling; the bridegroom was gloomy; the only other person present wept upon her knees while the parson read through his ordered prayer and psalm and exhortation; there was no sign of rejoicing.
'So,' said Benjamin, when all was over, 'now thou art my wife. They shall not be hanged therefor. Come, wife, we will this day ride to Exeter, where thou shalt thyself bear the joyful news of thy marriage and their safety to my cousins. They will own that I am a loving and a careful cousin.'
He led me, thus talking, out of church. Now, as we left the churchyard, there passed through the gates—oh, baleful omen!—four men carrying between them a bier. Upon it was the body of another poor prisoner, dead of jail fever. I think that even the hard heart of Benjamin—now my husband!—oh! merciful Heavens! he was my husband!—quailed, and was touched with fear at meeting this most sure and certain sign of coming woe, for he muttered something in his teeth, and cursed the bearers aloud for not choosing another time.
My husband, then—I must needs call him my husband—told me, brutally, that I must ride with him to Exeter, where I should myself bear the joyful news of their safety to his cousins. I did not take that journey, nor did I bear the news, nor did I ever after that moment set eyes upon him again, nor did I ever speak to him again. His wife I remained, I suppose, because I was joined to him in church. But I never saw him after that morning. And the reason why you shall now hear.