The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

kicking and waving his torch, apparently in triumph, but really in convulsion, sense and wind being driven out together by the concussion.

      “What is to do now, in Heaven's name?” cried the alderman, starting up with considerable alarm. But Denys explained, and offered to accompany his worship. “So be it,” said the latter. His men picked themselves ruefully up, and the alderman put himself at their head and examined the premises above and below. As for the prisoners, their interrogatory was postponed till they could be confronted with the servant.

      Before dawn, the thieves, alive and dead, and all the relics and evidences of crime and retribution, were swept away into the law's net, and the inn was silent and almost deserted. There remained but one constable, and Denys and Gerard, the latter still sleeping heavily.

      CHAPTER XXXV

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      Gerard awoke, and found Denys watching him with some anxiety.

      “It is you for sleeping! Why, 'tis high noon.”

      “It was a blessed sleep,” said Gerard; “methinks Heaven sent it me. It hath put as it were a veil between me and that awful night. To think that you and I sit here alive and well. How terrible a dream I seem to have had!”

      “Ay, lad, that is the wise way to look at these things when once they are past, why, they are dreams, shadows. Break thy fast, and then thou wilt think no more on't. Moreover, I promised to bring thee on to the town by noon, and take thee to his worship.”

      Gerard then sopped some rye bread in red wine and ate it to break his fast: then went with Denys over the scene of combat, and came back shuddering, and finally took the road with his friend, and kept peering through the hedges, and expecting sudden attacks unreasonably, till they reached the little town. Denys took him to “The White Hart”.

      “No fear of cut-throats here,” said he. “I know the landlord this many a year. He is a burgess, and looks to be bailiff. 'Tis here I was making for yestreen. But we lost time, and night o'ertook us—and—

      “And you saw a woman at the door, and would be wiser than a Jeanneton; she told us they were nought.”

      “Why, what saved our lives if not a woman? Ay, and risked her own to do it.”

      “That is true, Denys; and though women are nothing to me, I long to thank this poor girl, and reward her, ay, though I share every doit in my purse with her. Do not you?”

      “Parbleu.”

      “Where shall we find her?”

      “Mayhap the alderman will tell us. We must go to him first.”

      The alderman received them with a most singular and inexplicable expression of countenance. However, after a moment's reflection, he wore a grim smile, and finally proceeded to put interrogatories to Gerard, and took down the answers. This done, he told them that they must stay in the town till the thieves were tried, and be at hand to give evidence, on peril of fine and imprisonment. They looked very blank at this.

      “However,” said he, “'twill not be long, the culprits having been taken red-handed.” He added, “And you know, in any case you could not leave the place this week.”

      Denys stared at this remark, and Gerard smiled at what he thought the simplicity of the old gentleman in dreaming that a provincial town of Burgundy had attraction to detain him from Rome and Margaret.

      He now went to that which was nearest both their hearts.

      “Your worship,” said he, “we cannot find our benefactress in the town.”

      “Nay, but who is your benefactress?”

      “Who? why the good girl that came to you by night and saved our lives at peril of her own. Oh sir, our hearts burn within us to thank and bless her; where is she?”

      CHAPTER XXXVI

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      “In prison, sir; good lack, for what misdeed?”

      “Well, she is a witness, and may be a necessary one.”

      “Why, Messire Bailiff,” put in Denys, “you lay not all your witnesses by the heels I trow.”

      The alderman, pleased at being called bailiff, became communicative. “In a case of blood we detain all testimony that is like to give us leg bail, and so defeat justice, and that is why we still keep the women folk. For a man at odd times hides a week in one mind, but a woman, if she do her duty to the realm o' Friday, she shall undo it afore Sunday, or try. Could you see yon wench now, you should find her a-blubbering at having betrayed five males to the gallows. Had they been females, we might have trusted to a subpoena. For they despise one another. And there they show some sense. But now I think on't, there were other reasons for laying this one by the heels. Hand me those depositions, young sir.” And he put on his glasses. “Ay! she was implicated; she was one of the band.”

      A loud disclaimer burst from Denys and Gerard at once.

      “No need to deave me,” said the alderman. “Here 'tis in black and white. 'Jean Hardy (that is one of the thieves), being questioned, confessed that—humph? Ay, here 'tis. 'And that the girl Manon was the decoy, and her sweetheart was Georges Vipont, one of the band; and hanged last month: and that she had been deject ever since, and had openly blamed the band for his death, saying if they had not been rank cowards, he had never been taken, and it is his opinion she did but betray them out of very spite, and—

      “His opinion,” cried Gerard indignantly; “what signifies the opinion of a cut-throat, burning to be revenged on her who has delivered him to justice? And an you go to that, what avails his testimony? Is a thief never a liar? Is he not aye a liar? and here a motive to lie? Revenge, why, 'tis the strongest of all the passions. And oh, sir, what madness to question a detected felon and listen to him lying away an honest life—as if he were a true man swearing in open day, with his true hand on the Gospel laid!”

      “Young man,” said the alderman, “restrain thy heat in presence of authority! I find by your tone you are a stranger. Know then that in this land we question all the world. We are not so weak as to hope to get at the truth by shutting either our left ear or our right.”

      “And so you would listen to Satan belying the saints!”

      “Ta! ta! The law meddles but with men and women, and these cannot utter a story all lies, let them try ever so. Wherefore we shut not the barn-door (as the saying is) against any man's grain. Only having taken it in, we do winnow and sift it. And who told you I had swallowed the thief's story whole like fair water? Not so. I did but credit so much on't as was borne out by better proof.”

      “Better proof?” and Gerard looked blank. “Why, who but the thieves would breathe a word against her?”

      “Marry, herself.”

      “Herself, sir? what, did you question her too?”

      “I tell you we question all the world. Here is her deposition; can you read?—Read it yourself, then.”

      Gerard looked at Denys and read him Manon's deposition.

      “I am a native of Epinal. I left my native place two years ago because I was unfortunate: I could not like the man they bade me. So my father beat me. I ran away from my father. I went to service. I left service because the mistress was jealous of me. The reason that she gave for turning me off was, because I was saucy. Last year I stood in the marketplace to be hired with other girls. The landlord of 'The Fair Star' hired me. I was eleven months with him. A young man courted me. I loved him. I found out that travellers came and never went away again. I told my lover. He bade me hold my peace. He threatened me. I found my lover was one of a band of thieves.