the servants from the vicarage were not the first persons to hit upon the dead body of the vicar. joe harley, the poacher, was out reconnoitring that afternoon in the vicar's preserves; and five minutes after walter dene had passed down the far side of the hedge, joe harley skulked noiselessly from the orchard up to the cover of the gate by selbury copse. he crept through the open end by the post (for it was against joe's principles under any circumstances to climb over an obstacle of any sort, and so needlessly expose himself), and he was just going to slink off along the other hedge, having wires and traps in his pocket, when his boot struck violently against a soft object in the ditch underfoot. it struck so violently that it crushed in the object with the force of the impact; and when joe came to look at what the object might be, he found to his horror that it was the bruised and livid face of the old parson. joe had had a brush with keepers more than once, and had spent several months of seclusion in dorchester gaol; but, in spite of his familiarity with minor forms of lawlessness, he was moved enough in all conscience by this awful and unexpected discovery. he turned the body over clumsily with his hands, and saw that it had been stabbed in the back once only. in doing so he trod in a little blood, and got a drop or two on his sleeve and trousers; for the pool[pg 86] was bigger now, and joe was not so handy or dainty with his fingers as the idyllic curate.
it was an awful dilemma, indeed, for a confirmed and convicted poacher. should he give the alarm then and there, boldly, trusting to his innocence for vindication, and helping the police to discover the murderer? why, that would be sheer suicide, no doubt; "for who but would believe," he thought, "'twas me as done it?" or should he slink away quietly and say nothing, leaving others to find the body as best they might? that was dangerous enough in its way if anybody saw him, but not so dangerous as the other course. in an evil hour for his own chances joe harley chose that worse counsel, and slank off in his familiar crouching fashion towards the opposite corner of the copse.
on the way he heard john's voice holloaing for his master, and kept close to the hedge till he had quite turned the corner. but john had caught a glimpse of him too, and john did not forget it when, a few minutes later, he came upon the horrid sight beside the gate of selbury copse.
meanwhile walter had taken king charlie to the veterinary's, and had his leg bound and bandaged securely. he had also gone down to the church, got out his surplice, and begun to put it on in the vestry for evensong, when a messenger came at hot haste from the vicarage, with news that master walter must come up at once, for the vicar was murdered.
"murdered!" walter dene said to himself slowly half aloud; "murdered! how horrible! murdered!" it was an ugly word, and he turned it over with a genuine thrill of horror. that was what they would say of him if ever the thing came to be discovered! what an inappropriate classification!
he threw aside the surplice, and rushed up hurriedly to the vicarage.[pg 87] already the servants had brought in the body, and laid it out in the clothes it wore, on the vicar's own bed. walter dene went in, shuddering, to look at it. to his utter amazement, the face was battered in horribly and almost unrecognizably by a blow or kick! what could that hideous mutilation mean? he could not imagine. it was an awful mystery. great heavens! just fancy if any one were to take it into his head that he, walter dene, had done that—had kicked a defenceless old gentleman brutally about the face like a common london ruffian! the idea was too horrible to be borne for a moment. it unmanned him utterly, and he hid his face between his two hands and sobbed aloud like one broken-hearted. "this day's work has been too much for my nerves," he thought to himself between the sobs; "but perhaps it is just as well i should give way now completely."
that night was mainly taken up with the formalities of all such cases; and when at last walter dene went off, tired and nerve-worn, to bed, about midnight, he could not sleep much for thinking of the mystery. the murder itself didn't trouble him greatly; that was over and past now, and he felt sure his precautions had been amply sufficient to protect him even from the barest suspicion; but he couldn't fathom the mystery of that battered and mutilated face! somebody must have seen the corpse between the time of the murder and the discovery! who could that somebody have been? and what possible motive could he have had for such a horrible piece of purposeless brutality?
as for the servants, in solemn conclave in the hall, they had unanimously but one theory to account for all the facts: some poacher or other, for choice joe harley, had come across the vicar in the copse, with gun and traps in hand. the wretch had seen he was discovered, had felled the poor old vicar by a blow in the face with the butt-end of[pg 88] his rifle, and after he fell, fainting, had stabbed him for greater security in the back. that was such an obvious solution of the difficulty, that nobody in the servants' hall had a moment's hesitation in accepting it.
when walter heard next morning early that joe harley had been arrested overnight, on john's information, his horror and surprise at the news were wholly unaffected. here was another new difficulty, indeed. "when i did the thing," he said to himself, "i never thought of that possibility. i took it for granted it would be a mystery, a problem for the local police (who, of course, could no more solve it than they could solve the pons-asinorum), but it never struck me they would arrest an innocent person on the charge instead of me. this is horrible. it's so easy to make out a case against a poacher, and hang him for it, on suspicion. one's whole sense of justice revolts against the thing. after all, there's a great deal to be said in favour of the ordinary commonplace morality: it prevents complications. a man of delicate sensibilities oughtn't to kill anybody; he lets himself in for all kinds of unexpected contingencies, without knowing it."
at the coroner's inquest things looked very black indeed for joe harley. walter gave his evidence first, showing how he had found king charlie wounded in the lane; and then the others gave theirs, as to the search for and finding of the body. john in particular swore to having seen a man's back and head slinking away by the hedge while they were looking for the vicar; and that back and head he felt sure were joe harley's. to walter's infinite horror and disgust, the coroner's jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against the poor poacher. what other verdict could they possibly have given in accordance with such evidence?
the trial of joe harley for the wilful murder of the reverend arthur dene was fixed for the next dorchester assizes. in the interval, walter dene, for the first time in his placid life, knew what it was to undergo a mental struggle. whatever happened, he could not let joe harley be[pg 89] hanged for this murder. his whole soul rose up within him in loathing for such an act of hideous injustice. for though walter dene's code of morality was certainly not the conventional one, as he so often boasted to himself, he was not by any means without any code of morals of any sort. he could commit a murder where he thought it necessary, but he could not let an innocent man suffer in his stead. his ethical judgment on that point was just as clear and categorical as the judgment which told him he was in duty bound to murder his uncle. for walter did not argue with himself on moral questions: he perceived the right and necessary thing intuitively; he was a law to himself, and he obeyed his own law implicitly, for good or for evil. such men are capable of horrible and diabolically deliberate crimes; but they are capable of great and genuine self-sacrifices also.
walter made no secret in the village of his disinclination to believe in joe harley's guilt. joe was a rough fellow, he said, certainly, and he had no objection to taking a pheasant or two, and even to having a free fight with the keepers; but, after all, our game laws were an outrageous piece of class legislation, and he could easily understand how the poor, whose sense of justice they outraged, should be so set against them. he could not think joe harley was capable of a detestable crime. besides, he had seen him himself within a few minutes before and after the murder. everybody thought it such a proof of the young parson's generous and kindly disposition; he had certainly the charity which thinketh no evil. even though his own uncle had been brutally murdered on his own estate, he checked his natural feelings of resentment, and refused to believe that one of his own parishioners could have been guilty of the crime. nay, more, so anxious was he that substantial justice should be done the accused, and so confident was he of his innocence, that he promised to provide counsel for him at his own expense; and he provided[pg 90] two of the ablest barristers on the western circuit.
before the trial, walter dene had come, after a terrible internal struggle, to an awful resolution. he would do everything he could for joe harley; but if the verdict went against him, he was resolved, then and there, in open court, to confess, before judge and jury, the whole truth. it would be a horrible thing for christina; he knew that; but he could not love christina so much, "loved he not honour more;" and honour, after his own fashion, he certainly loved dearly. though he might be false to all that all the world thought right, it was ingrained in the very fibre of his soul to be true to his own inner nature at least. night after night he lay awake, tossing on his bed, and picturing to his mind's eye every detail of that terrible disclosure. the jury would bring in a verdict of guilty: then, before the judge put on his black cap, he, walter, would stand up, and tell them that he could not let another man hang for his crime; he would have the whole truth out before them; and then he would die, for he would have taken a little bottle of poison at the first sound of the verdict. as for christina—oh, christina!—walter dene could not dare to let himself think upon that. it was horrible; it was unendurable; it was torture a thousand times worse than dying: but still, he must and would face it. for in certain phases, walter dene, forger and murderer as he was, could be positively heroic.
the day of the trial came, and walter dene, pale and haggard with much vigil, walked in a dream and faintly from his hotel to the court-house. everybody present noticed what a deep effect the shock of his uncle's death had had upon him. he was thinner and more bloodless than usual, and his dulled eyes looked black and sunken in their sockets. indeed, he seemed to have suffered far more intensely than the prisoner himself,[pg 91] who walked in firmer and more erect, and took his seat doggedly in the familiar dock. he had been there more than once before, to say the truth, though never before on such an errand. yet mere habit, when he got there, made him at once assume the hang-dog look of the consciously guilty.
walter sat and watched and listened, still in a dream, but without once betraying in his face the real depth of his innermost feelings. in the body of the court he saw joe's wife, weeping profusely and ostentatiously, after the fashion considered to be correct by her class; and though he pitied her from the bottom of his heart, he could only think by contrast of christina. what were that good woman's fears and sorrows by the side of the grief and shame and unspeakable horror he might have to bring upon his christina? pray heaven the shock, if it came, might kill her outright; that would at least be better than that she should live long years to remember. more than judge, or jury, or prisoner, walter dene saw everywhere, behind the visible shadows that thronged the court, that one persistent prospective picture of heart-broken christina.
the evidence for the prosecution told with damning force against the prisoner. he was a notorious poacher; the vicar was a game-preserver. he had poached more than once on the ground of the vicarage. he was shown by numerous witnesses to have had an animus against the vicar. he had been seen, not in the face, to be sure, but still seen and recognized, slinking away, immediately after the fact, from the scene of the murder. and the prosecution had found stains of blood, believed by scientific experts to be human, on the clothing he had worn when he was arrested. walter dene listened now with terrible, unabated earnestness, for he knew that in reality it was he himself who was upon his trial. he himself, and christina's happiness; for if the poacher were found[pg 92] guilty, he was firmly resolved, beyond hope of respite, to tell all, and face the unspeakable.
the defence seemed indeed a weak and feeble theory. somebody unknown had committed the murder, and this somebody, seen from behind, had been mistaken by john for joe harley. the blood-stains need not be human, as the cross-examination went to show, but were only known by counter-experts to be mammalian—perhaps a rabbit's. every poacher—and it was admitted that joe was a poacher—was liable to get his clothes blood-stained. grant they were human, joe, it appeared, had himself once shot off his little finger. all these points came out from the examination of the earlier witnesses. at last, counsel put the curate himself into the box, and proceeded to examine him briefly as a witness for the defence.
walter dene stepped, pale and haggard still, into the witness-box. he had made up his mind to make one final effort "for christina's happiness." he fumbled nervously all the time at a small glass phial in his pocket, but he answered all questions without a moment's hesitation, and he kept down his emotions with a wonderful composure which excited the admiration of everybody present. there was a general hush to hear him. did he see the prisoner, joseph harley, on the day of the murder? yes, three times. when was the first occasion? from the library window, just before the vicar left the house. what was joseph harley then doing? walking in the opposite direction from the copse. did joseph harley recognize him? yes, he touched his hat to him. when was the second occasion? about ten minutes later, when he, walter, was leaving the vicarage for a stroll. did joseph harley then recognize him? yes, he touched his hat again, and the curate said, "good morning, joe; a fine day for walking." when was the third time? ten minutes later again, when he was returning from the lane, carrying wounded little king charlie. would it have been physically possible for the prisoner to go from the[pg 93] vicarage to the spot where the murder was committed, and back again, in the interval between the first two occasions? it would not. would it have been physically possible for the prisoner to do so in the interval between the second and third occasions? it would not.
"then in your opinion, mr. dene, it is physically impossible that joseph harley can have committed this murder?"
"in my opinion, it is physically impossible."
while walter dene solemnly swore amid dead silence to this treble lie, he did not dare to look joe harley once in the face; and while joe harley listened in amazement to this unexpected assistance to his case—for counsel, suspecting a mistaken identity, had not questioned him too closely on the subject—he had presence of mind enough not to let his astonishment show upon his stolid features. but when walter had finished his evidence in chief, he stole a glance at joe; and for a moment their eyes met. then walter's fell in utter self-humiliation; and he said to himself fiercely, "i would not so have debased and degraded myself before any man to save my own life—what is my life worth me, after all?—but to save christina, to save christina, to save christina! i have brought all this upon myself for christina's sake."
meanwhile, joe harley was asking himself curiously what could be the meaning of this new move on parson's part. it was deliberate perjury, joe felt sure, for parson could not have mistaken another person for him three times over; but what good end for himself could parson hope to gain by it? if it was he who had murdered the vicar (as joe strongly suspected), why did he not try to press the charge home against the first person who happened to be accused, instead of committing a distinct perjury on purpose to compass his acquittal? joe harley, with his simple everyday criminal mind, could not be expected to unravel the[pg 94] intricacies of so complex a personality as walter dene's. but even there, on trial for his life, he could not help wondering what on earth young parson could be driving at in this business.
the judge summed up with the usual luminously obvious alternate platitudes. if the jury thought that john had really seen joe harley, and that the curate was mistaken in the person whom he thrice saw, or was mistaken once only out of the thrice, or had miscalculated the time between each occurrence, or the time necessary to cover the ground to the gate, then they would find the prisoner guilty of wilful murder. if, on the other hand, they believed john had judged hastily, and that the curate had really seen the prisoner three separate times, and that he had rightly calculated all the intervals, then they would find the prisoner not guilty. the prisoner's case rested entirely upon the alibi. supposing they thought there was a doubt in the matter, they should give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt. walter noticed that the judge said in every other case, "if you believe the witness so-and-so," but that in his case he made no such discourteous reservation. as a matter of fact, the one person whose conduct nobody for a moment dreamt of calling in question was the real murderer.
the jury retired for more than an hour. during all that time two men stood there in mortal suspense, intent and haggard, both upon their trial, but not both equally. the prisoner in the dock fixed his arms in a dogged and sullen attitude, the colour half gone from his brown cheek, and his eyes straining with excitement, but showing no outward sign of any emotion except the craven fear of death. walter dene stood almost fainting in the body of the court, his bloodless fingers still fumbling nervously at the little phial, and his face deadly pale with the awful pallor of a devouring horror. his heart scarcely beat at all, but at each long slow pulsation he could feel it throb distinctly within his[pg 95] bosom. he saw or heard nothing before him, but kept his aching eyes fixed steadily on the door by which the jury were to enter. junior counsel nudged one another to notice his agitation, and whispered that that poor young curate had evidently never seen a man tried for his life before.
at last the jury entered. joe and walter waited, each in his own manner, breathless for the verdict. "do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of wilful murder?" walter took the little phial from his pocket, and held it carefully between his finger and thumb. the awful moment had come; the next word would decide the fate of himself and christina. the foreman of the jury looked up solemnly, and answered with slow distinctness, "not guilty." the prisoner leaned back vacantly, and wiped his forehead; but there was an awful cry of relief from one mouth in the body of the court, and walter dene sank back into the arms of the bystanders, exhausted with suspense and overcome by the reaction. the crowd remarked among themselves that young parson dene was too tender-hearted a man to come into court at a criminal trial. he would break his heart to see even a dog hanged, let alone his fellow-christians. as for joe harley, it was universally admitted that he had had a narrow squeak of it, and that he had got off better than he deserved. the jury gave him the benefit of the doubt.
as soon as all the persons concerned had returned to churnside, walter sent at once for joe harley. the poacher came to see him in the vicarage library. he was elated and coarsely exultant with his victory, as a relief from the strain he had suffered, after the manner of all vulgar natures.
"joe," said the clergyman slowly, motioning him into a chair at the other side of the desk, "i know that after this trial churnside will not be a pleasant place to hold you. all your neighbours believe, in spite of the verdict, that you killed the vicar. i feel sure, however, that[pg 96] you did not commit this murder. therefore, as some compensation for the suffering of mind to which you have been put, i think it well to send you and your wife and family to australia or canada, whichever you like best. i propose also to make you a present of a hundred pounds, to set you up in your new home."
"make it five hundred, passon," joe said, looking at him significantly.
walter smiled quietly, and did not flinch in any way. "i said a hundred," he continued calmly, "and i will make it only a hundred. i should have had no objection to making it five, except for the manner in which you ask it. but you evidently mistake the motive of my gift. i give it out of pure compassion for you, and not out of any other feeling whatsoever."
"very well, passon," said joe sullenly, "i accept it."
"you mistake again," walter went on blandly, for he was himself again now. "you are not to accept it as terms; you are to thank me for it as a pure present. i see we two partially understand each other; but it is important you should understand me exactly as i mean it. joe harley, listen to me seriously. i have saved your life. if i had been a man of a coarse and vulgar nature, if i had been like you in a similar predicament, i would have pressed the case against you for obvious personal reasons, and you would have been hanged for it. but i did not press it, because i felt convinced of your innocence, and my sense of justice rose irresistibly against it. i did the best i could to save you; i risked my own reputation to save you; and i have no hesitation now in telling you that to the best of my belief, if the verdict had gone against you, the person who really killed the vicar, accidentally or intentionally, meant to have given himself up to the police, rather than let an innocent man suffer."
"passon," said joe harley, looking at him intently, "i believe as[pg 97] you're tellin' me the truth. i zeen as much in that person's face afore the verdict."
there was a solemn pause for a moment; and then walter dene said slowly, "now that you have withdrawn your claim as a claim, i will stretch a point and make it five hundred. it is little enough for what you have suffered. but i, too, have suffered terribly, terribly."
"thank you, passon," joe answered. "i zeen as you were turble anxious."
there was again a moment's pause. then walter dene asked quietly, "how did the vicar's face come to be so bruised and battered?"
"i stumbled up agin 'im accidental like, and didn't know i'd kicked 'un till i'd done it. must 'a been just a few minutes after you'd 'a left 'un."
"joe," said the curate in his calmest tone, "you had better go; the money will be sent to you shortly. but if you ever see my face again, or speak or write a word of this to me, you shall not have a penny of it, but shall be prosecuted for intimidation. a hundred before you leave, four hundred in australia. now go."
"very well, passon," joe answered; and he went.
"pah!" said the curate with a face of disgust, shutting the door after him, and lighting a perfumed pastille in his little chinese porcelain incense-burner, as if to fumigate the room from the poacher's offensive presence. "pah! to think that these affairs should compel one to humiliate and abase one's self before a vulgar clod like that! to think that all his life long that fellow will virtually know—and misinterpret—my secret. he is incapable of understanding that i did it as a duty to christina. well, he will never dare to tell it, that's certain, for nobody would believe him if he did; and he may congratulate himself heartily that he's got well out of this difficulty. it will be the luckiest thing in the end that ever happened to him. and now i hope this little episode is finally over."
when the churnside public learned that walter dene meant to carry his[pg 98] belief in joe harley's innocence so far as to send him and his family at his own expense out to australia, they held that the young parson's charity and guilelessness was really, as the doctor said, almost quixotic. and when, in his anxiety to detect and punish the real murderer, he offered a reward of five hundred pounds from his own pocket for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the criminal, the churnside people laughed quietly at his extraordinary childlike simplicity of heart. the real murderer had been caught and tried at dorchester assizes, they said, and had only got off by the skin of his teeth because walter himself had come forward and sworn to a quite improbable and inconclusive alibi. there was plenty of time for joe to have got to the gate by the short cut, and that he did so everybody at churnside felt morally certain. indeed, a few years later a blood-stained bowie-knife was found in the hedge not far from the scene of the murder, and the gamekeeper "could almost 'a took his bible oath he'd zeen just such a knife along o' joe harley."
that was not the end of walter dene's quixotisms, however. when the will was read, it turned out that almost everything was left to the young parson; and who could deserve it better, or spend it more charitably? but walter, though he would not for the world seem to cast any slight or disrespect upon his dear uncle's memory, did not approve of customs of primogeniture, and felt bound to share the estate equally with his brother arthur. "strange," said the head of the firm of watson and blenkiron to himself, when he read the little paragraph about this generous conduct in the paper; "i thought the instructions were to leave it to his nephew arthur, not to his nephew walter; but there, one forgets and confuses names of people that one does not know so easily." "gracious goodness!" thought the engrossing clerk; "surely it was the[pg 99] other way on. i wonder if i can have gone and copied the wrong names in the wrong places?" but in a big london business, nobody notes these things as they would have been noted in churnside; the vicar was always a changeable, pernickety, huffy old fellow, and very likely he had had a reverse will drawn up afterwards by his country lawyer. all the world only thought that walter dene's generosity was really almost ridiculous, even in a parson. when he was married to christina, six months afterwards, everybody said so charming a girl was well mated with so excellent and admirable a husband.
and he really did make a very tender and loving husband and father. christina believed in him always, for he did his best to foster and keep alive her faith. he would have given up active clerical duty if he could, never having liked it (for he was above hypocrisy), but christina was against the project, and his bishop would not hear of it. the church could ill afford to lose such a man as mr. dene, the bishop said, in these troubled times; and he begged him as a personal favour to accept the living of churnside, which was in his gift. but walter did not like the place, and asked for another living instead, which, being of less value—"so like mr. dene to think nothing of the temporalities,"—the bishop even more graciously granted. he has since published a small volume of dainty little poems on uncut paper, considered by some critics as rather pagan in tone for a clergyman, but universally allowed to be extremely graceful, the perfection of poetical form with much delicate mastery of poetical matter. and everybody knows that the author is almost certain to be offered the first vacant canonry in his own cathedral. as for the little episode, he himself has almost forgotten all about it; for those who think a murderer must feel remorse his whole life long, are trying to read their own emotional nature into the wholly dispassionate character of walter dene.