The Collected Works of J. S. Fletcher: 17 Novels & 28 Short Stories (Illustrated Edition). J. S. Fletcher
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are you driving at?" he asked. "Some of your quibbles, no doubt."
"No quibbles, Mark, plain facts," answered Wroxdale. "They'll sign it to spite you and Mrs. Perris. Village folk never forget. They know that if Perris is hanged, his wife will be free—and the probability, nay the certainty, is, that if they know there's a chance of saving his life, they'll hurry to sign their names or make their marks. Do you follow that, Mark?"
"Let them sign for whatever reason they please," replied Taffendale quietly. "I'm only speaking the truth when I say that I want to see Perris's life saved. And I don't care what folk may say about me, they've said so much already that they can't say much more, nor hurt me much more."
What folk were saying Taffendale knew that very night. As he rode his horse out of Wroxdale's yard on his way home, one of a mob, that had somehow heard of his presence at the solicitor's and had gathered in the darkness to see him go, flung out a loud-voiced gibe—
"Well, ye'll be able to marry t' widder when t' man's hanged, Mr. Taffendale, so all 'll end well for all on yer!"
Then came another and more strident voice: "Aye, but Perris isn't hanged yet!"
Wroxdale heard those cries, and knew that he had been right in what he had said to Taffendale in the train. And he had further proof of the correctness of his conclusions when copies of the petition in favour of Perris were circulated around the country side. For the signatures came fast and thick, and Wroxdale was soon aware that amongst the people there was a fierce desire to prevent the capital sentence from being carried into effect. And from the immediate neighbourhood the movement in favour of Perris's reprieve spread over the county, and to places further afield, and Wroxdale recognised that one of those unaccountable national impulses had set in which begin in an obscure corner and quickly cover a kingdom.
"It will be one of the most numerously-signed petitions ever known," he said to Taffendale, when a fortnight had gone by and the time was drawing short, "and we could get thousands of signatures yet. But it must go up to-morrow. We've done all that can be done, now."
Perris, in his condemned cell, knew nothing of what was being done for him. Wroxdale, knowing his frame of mind on the matter, had thought it best to tell him nothing. For Perris appeared to be fully content and in a certain way happy. They said that he talked and read; he ate well and slept well, and was deeply and almost humbly grateful because he was allowed to smoke his pipe. And he expressed no desire to see anybody.
But when it came to the last day but one of his life, Perris, early in the morning, sent for Wroxdale, and the solicitor, when he arrived, saw something in the man's eyes which he had never seen there before.
"Mestur Wroxdale," he said, "ye know what's to happen day after to-morrow. Now, sir, to-morrow I want to see—my wife. An' I want to see—Mestur Taffendale. An' I want to see 'em together. Can it be done? I want it to be done—it mun be done if it can. I've—summat to say to t' two on 'em—together."
And Wroxdale promised that it should be done, and asked no questions, but hurried away to make arrangements, and as he left the cell he said to himself—
"At last he is going to tell the truth!"
Chapter XXIV
To the man and woman to whom Abel Perris wished to speak his last words, the preliminaries of their visit to him seemed like the stages of some hideous dream from which, struggle as he may, a dreamer has no power to awake. In after years neither had any clear conceptions of the events ofthat day. It was a jumble of confused recollections. There was the journey to the town in which Perris lay in prison; there was the sight of the prison itself; of its towers, from one of which the black flag would be displayed next morning about the time that the townsfolk would settle to their business for the day; there were locks, and bolts, and bars, and formalities, and rooms and places which were strangely unlike all other rooms and places; there were men with keys, and dismal corridors to be traversed; there was a curious odour, which they were never again to forget; there was a feeling that the busy life of the town through which they had just passed was so far off that Heaven or Hell seemed nearer. And there was the awful realisation of the fact that it was the eve of the day on which Perris was to die, and that no news had come of a reprieve, and that Wroxdale's hopes had fallen to the lowest degree, and that they were going to hear words from a living man, who in a few short hours would be dead and buried. And then there was the further and more horrible realisation that the man himself was there before them; caged, like some wild animal, behind bars before which his keepers sat; they caged too, as if they also were wild animals that must be kept from the other. There was to be no touching of hands, then, nothing but an exchange of sight and sound?—why, truly, then, this was to show indeed that between the man who was to die and the folk who were to live there was a gulf fixed which nothing could bridge.
The man and woman who were to live, who were presently to walk out of that awful place free to breathe the air, to see the sun, to hold converse with their fellow-creatures, stared at the man who was going into the darkness as if he were something that they had never seen before and could not comprehend. There was no word in them; they could only look-and marvel with a terrible fear. But the man beyond the bars spoke, and there was little of fear or trouble in his voice.
"Well, Rhoda, my lass, I tek' it kind of you that yer should come here, and you too, Mestur Taffendale," said Perris. "It seems a queer place to meet in, but theer's a deal o' queer things i' this world, and I expect we mun put up wi' 'em. Theer were summut I wanted to say to both on you before—well, before to-morrow—so I had to ask Mestur Wroxdale to get yer to come. Ye see, both on yer, I've thought and studied matters a deal since I were in this place, havin' naught else to do, and I come to t' conclusion 'at I owt not to—to go away, as it weer, wi'out tellin' yer summat 'at I think I owt to tell. I wouldn't tell nowt to Mestur Wroxdale, nor to t' judge, nor to t' clergyman, but I'll tell you two—I've a sort of feelin', a conviction like, 'at I mun tell yer! Ye see, I want yer to know why all that theer occurred, an'—"
Rhoda cried out and tried to speak, and could not, and Taffendale suddenly heard his own voice as if it had been somebody else's and wondered at the horror in it.
"Don't tell us anything, Perris, that'll hurt you! Never mind anything, Perris, but—"
"It'll none hurt me, Mestur Taffendale! T' hurt 'ud be if I didn't tell now I feel I owt to tell you two. I understand 'at what I say to you two here is for yourselves—theer's no lawyers here. Ye see, Rhoda, and you, Mestur Taffendale, I wanted to tell you why I made away with yon Pippany Webster. An' I'll tell you t' truth, as I've told it all along this matter. Listen well to what I say, and happen you'll understand."
The men sitting between the double sets of bars became conscious of two white, strained faces pressed close to one set staring at the other face, not so white, which confronted them from across the narrow space.
"Ye see, it were that Sunda' night, Rhoda, my lass, 'at ye were singing that grand solo piece down at t' chappil, and ye and t' preacher hed setten off, and ye'd left me at home, all by misen. An' then come yon Pippany Webster, sneaken' round t' place, and I see'd his head poppin' up first i' one place and then in another, and at last I went out and tackled him, and axed him his business on my premises. And then he tell'd me—and yell both excuse me for mentionin' t' matter—'at he'd been a deal o' late in that theer Badger's Hollow, and he'd seen you two keepin' company. An' then he went on to tell me 'at one night when I were away he'd spied on t' Cherry-trees, and he'd seen you, Mestur Taffendale, come theer late and stop a long time wi' Rhoda theer. An' all t' time he were talkin' and tellin' his spy tales I were thinkin' o' two things at once, in a manner o' speakin'. One were this—'at I'd been a fool, and 'at I niver owt to hey expected 'at a young woman like you, Rhoda, my lass, could ha' cared owt for a poor sort of a chap like me, an'—"
Again Rhoda cried out inarticulately, and Taffendale standing at her side, could feel her shaking in agony. But Perris went quietly on.
"—an' I owt to hev had t' sense to see 'at sooner