“None that I see. No one whatever had access to the letter but Hamish and I. He must have yielded to the temptation in a moment of delirium, knowing the money would clear him from some of his pressing debts—as it has done.”
“How could he brave the risk of detection?”
“I don’t know. My head aches, pondering over it. I suppose he concluded that suspicion would fall upon the post-office. It would have done so, but for that seal placed on the letter afterwards. What an unfortunate thing it was, that Roland Yorke mentioned there was money inside the letter in the hearing of Hamish!”
“Did he mention it?” exclaimed Constance.
He said there was a twenty-pound note in the letter, going to the cousin Galloway, and Hamish remarked that he wished it was going into his pocket instead. “I wish” Arthur uttered, in a sort of frenzy, “I had locked the letter up there and then.”
Constance clasped her hands in pain. “I fear he may have been going wrong for some time,” she breathed. “It has come to my knowledge, through Judith, that he sits up for hours night after night, doing something to the books. Arthur,” she shivered, glancing fearfully round, “I hope those accounts are right?”
The doubt thus given utterance to, blanched even the cheeks of Arthur. “Sits up at the books!” he exclaimed.
“He sits up, that is certain; and at the books, as I conclude. He takes them into his room at night. It may only be that he has not time, or does not make time, to go over them in the day. It may be so.”
“I trust it is; I pray it may be. Mind you, Constance, our duty is plain: we must screen him; screen him at any sacrifice to ourselves, for the father and mother’s sake.”
“Sacrifice to you, you ought to say. What were our other light troubles, compared with this? Arthur, will they publicly accuse you?”
“It may come to that; I have been steeling myself all the morning to meet it.”
He looked into her face as he said it. Constance could see how his brow and heart were aching. At that moment they were called to dinner, and Arthur turned to leave the room. Constance caught his hand, the tears raining from her eyes.
“Arthur,” she whispered, “in the very darkest trouble, God can comfort us. Be assured He will comfort you.”
Hamish did not make his appearance at dinner, and they sat down without him. This was not so very unusual as to cause surprise; he was occasionally detained at the office.
The meal was about half over, when Annabel, in her disregard of the bounds of discipline, suddenly started from her seat and flew to the window.
“Charley, there are two policemen coming here! Whatever can they want?”
“Perhaps to take you,” said Mrs. Channing, jestingly. “A short sojourn at the tread-mill might be of great service to you, Annabel.”
The announcement had struck upon the ear and memory of Tom. “Policemen!” he exclaimed, standing up in his place, and stretching his neck to obtain a view of them. “Why—it never can be that—old Butterby—Arthur, what ails you?”
A sensitive, refined nature, whether implanted in man or woman, is almost sure to betray its emotions on the countenance. Such a nature was Arthur Channing’s. Now that the dread had really come, every drop of blood forsook his cheeks and lips, leaving his face altogether of a deathly whiteness. He was utterly unable to control or help this, and it was this pallor which had given rise to Tom’s concluding exclamation.
Mr. Channing looked at Arthur, Mrs. Channing looked at him; they all looked at him, except Constance, and she bent her head lower over her plate, to hide, as she best might, her own white face and its shrinking terror. “Are you ill, Arthur?” inquired his father.
A low brief reply came; one struggling for calmness. “No, sir.”
Impetuous Tom, forgetting caution, forgetting all except the moment actually present, gave utterance to more than was prudent. “Arthur, you are never fearing what those wretched schoolboys said? The police are not come to arrest you. Butterby wouldn’t be such a fool!”
But the police were in the hall, and Judith had come to the dining-room door. “Master Arthur, you are wanted, please.”
“What is all this?” exclaimed Mr. Channing in astonishment, gazing from Tom to Arthur, from Arthur to the vision of the blue official dress, a glimpse of which he could catch beyond Judith. Tom took up the answer.
“It’s nothing, papa. It’s a trick they are playing for fun, I’ll lay. They can’t really suspect Arthur of stealing the bank-note, you know. They’ll never dare to take him up, as they take a felon.”
Charley stole round to Arthur with a wailing cry, and threw his arms round him—as if their weak protection could retain him in its shelter. Arthur gently unwound them, and bent down till his lips touched the yearning face held up to him in its anguish.
“Charley, boy, I am innocent,” he breathed in the boy’s ear. “You won’t doubt that, I know. Don’t keep me. They have come for me, and I must go with them.”
CHAPTER XXIII. – AN ESCORT TO THE GUILDHALL
The group would have formed a study for a Wilkie. The disturbed dinner-table; the consternation of those assembled at it; Mr. Channing (whose sofa, wheeled to the table, took up the end opposite his wife) gazing around with a puzzled, stern expression; Mrs. Channing glancing behind her with a sense of undefined dread; the pale, conscious countenances of Arthur and Constance; Tom standing up in haughty impetuosity, defiant of every one; the lively terror of Charley’s face, as he clung to Arthur; and the wide-opened eyes of Annabel expressive of nothing but surprise—for it took a great deal to alarm that careless young lady; while at the door, holding it open for Arthur, stood Judith in her mob-cap, full of curiosity; and in the background the two policemen. A scene indeed, that Wilkie, in the day of his power, would have rejoiced to paint.
Arthur, battling fiercely with his outraged pride, and breathing an inward prayer for strength to go through with his task, for patience to endure, put Charley from him, and went into the hall. He saw not what was immediately around him—the inquiring looks of his father and mother, the necessity of some explanation to them; he saw not Judith and her curious face. A scale was, as it were, before his eyes, blinding them to all outward influences, except one—the officers of justice standing there, and the purpose for which they had come. “What on earth has happened, Master Arthur?” whispered Judith, as he passed her, terrifying the old servant with his pale, agitated face. But he neither heard nor answered; he walked straight up to the men.
“I will go with you quietly,” he said to them, in an undertone. “Do not make a disturbance, to alarm my mother.”
We cannot always have our senses about us, as the saying runs. Some of us, I fear, enjoy that privilege rarely, and the very best lose them on occasion. But that Arthur Channing’s senses had deserted him, he would not have pursued a line of conduct, in that critical moment, which was liable to be construed into an admission, or, at least, a consciousness of guilt. In his anxiety to avert suspicion from Hamish, he lost sight of the precautions necessary to protect himself, so far as was practicable. And yet he had spent time that morning, thinking over what his manner, his bearing must be if it came to this! Had it come upon him unexpectedly he would have met it very differently; with far less outward calmness, but most probably with indignant denial. “I will go with you quietly,” he said to the men.
“All right, sir,” they answered with a nod, and a conviction that he was a cool hand and a guilty one. “It’s always best not to resist the law—it never does no good.”
He need not have resisted, but he ought to have waited until they asked him to go. A dim perception of this had already begun to steal over him. He was taking his hat from its place in the hall, when the voice of Mr. Channing came ringing on his ear.
“Arthur, what is this? Give me an explanation.”
Arthur turned back to the room, passing through the sea of faces to get there; for all; except his helpless father, had come from their seats to gather round and about that strange mystery in the hall, to try to fathom it. Mr. Channing gave one long, keen glance at Arthur’s face—which was very unlike Arthur’s usual face just then; for all its candour seemed to have gone out of it. He did not speak to him; he called in one of the men.
“Will you tell me your business here?” he asked courteously.
“Don’t you know it, sir?” was the reply.
“No, I do not,” replied Mr. Channing.
“Well, sir, it’s an unpleasant accusation that is brought against this young gentleman. But perhaps he’ll be able to make it clear. I hope he will. It don’t give us no pleasure when folks are convicted, especially young ones, and those we have always known to be respectable; we’d rather see ‘em let off.”
Tom interrupted—Tom, in his fiery indignation. “Is it of stealing that bank-note of Galloway’s that you presume to accuse my brother?” he asked, speaking indistinctly in his haste and anger.
“You have said it, sir,” replied the man. “That’s it.”
“Then I say whoever accuses him ought to be—”
“Silence, Thomas,” interrupted Mr. Channing. “Allow me to deal with this. Who brings this accusation against my son?”
“We had our orders from Mr. Butterby, sir. He is acting for Mr. Galloway. He was called in there early this morning.”
“Have you come for my son to go with you to Mr. Galloway’s?”
“Not there, sir. We have to take him straight to the Guildhall. The magistrates are waiting to hear the case.”
A dismayed pause. Even Mr. Channing’s heart, with all its implicit faith in the truth and honour of his children, beat as if it would burst its bounds. Tom’s beat too; but it was with a desire to “pitch into” the policemen, as he had pitched into Pierce senior in the cloisters.
Mr. Channing turned to Arthur. “You have an answer to this, my son?”
The question was not replied to. Mr. Channing spoke again, with the same calm emphasis. “Arthur, you can vouch for your innocence?”
Arthur Channing did the very worst thing that he could have done—he hesitated. Instead of replying readily and firmly “I can,” which he might have done without giving rise to harm, he stopped to ask himself how far, consistently with safety to Hamish, he might defend his own cause. His mind was not collected; he had not, as I have said, his senses about him; and the unbroken silence, waiting for his answer, the expectant faces turned upon him, helped to confuse him and to drive his reason further away. The signs, which certainly did look like signs of guilt, struck a knell on the heart of his father. “Arthur!” he wailed out, in a tone of intense agony, “you are innocent?”
“Y—es,” replied Arthur, gulping down his rising agitation; his rising words—impassioned words of exculpation, of innocence, of truth. They had bubbled up within him—were hovering on the verge of his burning lips. He beat them down again to repression; but he never afterwards knew how he did it.
Better that he had been still silent, than speak that dubious, indecisive “Y—es.” It told terribly against him. One, conscious of his own innocence, does not proclaim it in indistinct, half-uttered words. Tom’s mouth dropped with dismay, and his astonished eyes seemed as if they could not take themselves from Arthur’s uncertain face. Mrs. Channing staggered against the wall, with a faint cry.
The policeman spoke up: he meant to be kindly. In all Helstonleigh there was not a family more respected than were the Channings; and the man felt a passing sorrow for his task. “I wouldn’t ask no questions, sir, if I was you. Sometimes it’s best not; they tell against the accused.”
“Time’s up,” called out the one who was in the hall, to his fellow. “We can’t stop here all day.”
The hint was taken at once, both by Arthur and the man. Constance had kept herself still, throughout, by main force; but Mrs. Channing could not see him go away like this. She rose and threw her arms round him, in a burst of hysterical feeling, sobbing out, “My boy! my boy!”
“Don’t, mother! don’t unnerve me,” he whispered. “It is bad enough as it is.”
“But you cannot be guilty, Arthur.”
For answer he looked into her eyes for a single moment. His habitual expression had come back to them again—the earnest of truth, which she had ever known and trusted. It spoke calm to her heart now. “You are innocent,” she murmured. “Then go in peace.”
Annabel broke into a storm of sobs. “Oh, Judith! will they hang him? What has he done?”
“I’d hang them two policemen, if I did what I should like to do,” responded Judith. “Yes, you two, I mean,” she added, without ceremony, as the officials turned round at the words. “If I had my will, I’d hang you both up to two of those elm-trees yonder, right in front of one another. Coming to a gentleman’s house on this errand!”
“Do not take me publicly through the streets,” said Arthur to his keepers. “I give you my word to make no resistance: I will go to the Guildhall, or anywhere else that you please, as freely as if I were bound thither on my own pleasure. You need not betray that I am in custody.”
They saw that they might trust him. One of the policemen went to the opposite side of the way, as if pacing his beat; the other continued by the side of Arthur; not closely enough to give rise to suspicion in those they met. A few paces from the door Tom Channing came pelting up, and put his arm within Arthur’s.
“Guilty, or not guilty, it shall never be said that a Channing was deserted by his brothers!” quoth he, “I wish Hamish could have been here.”
“Tom, you are thinking me guilty?” Arthur said, in a quiet, tone, which did not reach the ears of his official escort.
“Well—I am in a fix,” avowed Tom. “If you are guilty, I shall never believe in anything again. I have always thought that building a cathedral: well and good; but if it turns out to be a myth, I shan’t be surprised, after this. Are you guilty?”
“No, lad.”
The denial was simple, and calmly expressed; but there was sufficient in its tone to make Tom Channing’s heart give a great leap within him.
“Thank God! What a fool I was! But, I say, Arthur, why did you not deny it, out-and-out? Your manner frightened us. I suppose the police scared you?”
Tom, all right now, walked along, his head up, escorting Arthur with as little shame to public examination, as he would have done to a public crowning. It was not the humiliation of undeserved suspicion that could daunt the Channings: the consciousness of guilt could alone effect that. Hitherto, neither guilt nor its shadow had fallen upon them.
“Tom,” asked Arthur, when they had reached the hall, and were about to enter: “will you do me a little service?”
“Won’t I, though! what is it?”
“Make the best of your way to Mr. Williams’s, and tell him I am prevented from taking the organ this afternoon.”
“I shan’t tell him the reason,” said Tom.
“Why not? In an hour’s time it will be known from one end of Helstonleigh to the other.”
CHAPTER XXIV. – THE EXAMINATION
The magistrates sat on the bench in the town-hall of Helstonleigh. But, before the case was called on—for the police had spoken too fast in saying they were waiting for it—Arthur became acquainted with one great fact: that it was not Mr. Galloway who had driven matters to this extremity. Neither was he aware that Arthur had been taken into custody. Mr. Butterby had assumed the responsibility, and acted upon it. Mr. Butterby, since his interview with Mr. Galloway in the morning, had gathered, as he believed, sufficiently corroborating facts to establish, or nearly so, the guilt of Arthur Channing. He supposed that this was all Mr. Galloway required to remove his objection to stern measures; and, in procuring the warrant for the capture, Mr. Butterby had acted as for Mr. Galloway.
When Arthur was placed in the spot where he had often seen criminals standing, his face again wore the livid hue which had overspread it in his home. In a few moments this had changed to crimson; brow and cheeks were glowing with it. It was a painful situation, and Arthur felt it to the very depths of his naturally proud spirit. I don’t think you or I should have liked it.
The circumstances were stated to the magistrates just as they have been stated to you. The placing of the bank-note and letter in the envelope by Mr. Galloway, his immediately fastening it down by means of the gum, the extraction of the note, between that time and the period when the seal was placed on it later in the day, and the fact that Arthur Channing alone had access to it. “Except Mr. Hamish Channing, for a few minutes,” Mr. Butterby added, “who kindly remained in the office while his brother proceeded as far as the cathedral and back again; the other clerks, Joseph Jenkins and Roland Yorke, being absent that afternoon.”
A deeper dye flushed Arthur’s face when Hamish’s name and share in the afternoon’s doings were mentioned, and he bent his eyes on the floor at his feet, and kept them there. Had Hamish not been implicated, he would have stood there with a clear eye and a serene brow. It was that, the all too vivid consciousness of the sin of Hamish, which took all spirit out of him, and drove him to stand there as one under the brand of guilt. He scarcely dared look up, lest it should be read in his countenance that he was innocent, and Hamish guilty; he scarcely dared to pronounce, in ever so faltering a tone, the avowal “I did it not.” Had it been to save his life from the scaffold, he could not have spoken out boldly and freely that day. There was the bitter shock of the crime, felt for Hamish’s own sake: Hamish whom they had all so loved, so looked up to: and there was the dread of the consequences to Mr. Channing in the event of discovery. Had the penalty been hanging, I believe that Arthur would have gone to it, rather than betray Hamish. But you must not suppose he did not feel it for himself; there were moments when he feared lest he should not carry it through.
Mr. Butterby was waiting for a witness—Mr. Galloway himself: and meanwhile, he entertained the bench with certain scraps, anecdotal and other, premising what would be proved before them. Jenkins would show that the prisoner had avowed in his presence, it would take a twenty-pound note to clear him from his debts, or hard upon it—
“No,” interrupted the hitherto silent prisoner, to the surprise of those present, “that is not true. It is correct that I did make use of words to that effect, but I spoke them in jest. I and Roland Yorke were one day speaking of debts, and I jokingly said a twenty-pound note would pay mine, and leave me something out of it. Jenkins was present, and he may have supposed I spoke in earnest. In point of fact I did not owe anything.”
It was an assertion more easily made than proved. Arthur Channing might have large liabilities upon him, for all that appeared in that court to the contrary. Mr. Butterby handed the seal to the bench, who examined it curiously.
“I could have understood this case better had any stranger or strangers approached the letter,” observed one of the magistrates, who knew the Channings personally, and greatly respected their high character. “You are sure you are not mistaken in supposing no one came in?” he added, looking kindly at Arthur.
“Certainly no one came in whilst I was alone in the office, sir,” was the unhesitating answer.
The magistrate spoke in an under-tone to those beside him. “That avowal is in his favour. Had he taken the note, one might suppose he would be anxious to make it appear that strangers did enter, and so throw suspicion off himself.”
“I have made very close inquiry, and cannot find that the office was entered at all that afternoon,” observed Mr. Butterby. Mr. Butterby had made close inquiry; and, to do him justice, he did not seek to throw one shade more of guilt upon Arthur than he thought the case deserved. “Mr. Hamish Channing also—”
Mr. Butterby stopped. There, standing within the door, was Hamish himself. In passing along the street he had seen an unusual commotion around the town-hall; and, upon inquiring its cause, was told that Arthur Channing was under examination, on suspicion of having stolen the bank-note, lost by Mr. Galloway.
To look at Hamish you would have believed him innocent and unconscious as the day. He strode into the justice-room, his eye flashing, his brow haughty, his colour high. Never had gay Hamish looked so scornfully indignant. He threw his glance round the crowded court in search of Arthur, and it found him.
Their eyes met. A strange gaze it was, going out from the one to the other; a gaze which the brothers had never in all their lives exchanged. Arthur’s spoke of shame all too palpably—he could not help it in that bitter moment—shame for his brother. And Hamish shrank under it. If ever one cowered visibly in this world, Hamish Channing did then. A low, suppressed cry went up from Arthur’s heart: whatever fond, faint doubt may have lingered in his mind, it died out from that moment.
Others noticed the significant look exchanged between them; but they, not in the secret, saw only, on the part of Hamish, what they took for vexation at his brother’s position. It was suggested that it would save time to take the evidence of Mr. Hamish Channing at once. Mr. Galloway’s might be received later.
“What evidence?” demanded Hamish, standing before the magistrates in a cold, uncompromising manner, and speaking in a cold, uncompromising tone. “I have none to give. I know nothing of the affair.”
“Not much, we are aware; but what little you do know must be spoken, Mr. Hamish Channing.”
They did not swear him. These were only informal, preliminary proceedings. Country courts of law are not always conducted according to orthodox rules, nor was that of Helstonleigh. There would be another and a more formal examination before the committal of the prisoner for trial—if committed he should be.
A few unimportant questions were put to Hamish, and then he was asked whether he saw the letter in question.
“I saw a letter which I suppose to have been the one,” he replied. “It was addressed to Mr. Robert Galloway, at Ventnor.”
“Did you observe your brother take it into Mr. Galloway’s private room?”
“Yes,” answered Hamish. “In putting the desks straight before departing for college, my brother carried the letter into Mr. Galloway’s room and left it there. I distinctly remember his doing so.”
“Did you see the letter after that?”
“No.”
“How long did you remain alone while your brother was away?”
“I did not look at my watch,” irritably returned Hamish, who had spoken resentfully throughout, as if some great wrong were being inflicted upon him in having to speak at all.
“But you can guess at the time?”
“No, I can’t,” shortly retorted Hamish. “And ‘guesses’ are not evidence.”
“Was it ten minutes?”
“It may have been. I know he seemed to be back almost as soon as he had gone.”
“Did any person—clerk, or stranger, or visitor, or otherwise—come into the office during his absence from it?”
“No.”
“No person whatever?”
“No person whatever. I think,” continued Hamish, volunteering an opinion upon the subject, although he knew it was out of all rule and precedent to do so, “that there is a great deal of unprofitable fuss being made about the matter. The money must have been lost in going through the post; it is impossible to suppose otherwi—”
Hamish was stopped by a commotion. Clattering along the outer hall, and bursting in at the court door, his black hair disordered, his usually pale cheeks scarlet, his nostrils working with excitement, came Roland Yorke. He was in a state of fierce emotion. Learning, as he had done by accident, that Arthur had been arrested upon the charge, he took up the cause hotly, gave vent to a burst of passionate indignation (in which he abused every one under the sun, except Arthur), and tore off to the town-hall. Elbowing the crowd right and left, in his impetuosity, pushing one policeman here and another there, who would have obstructed his path, he came up to Arthur and ranged himself by his side, linking his arm within his in an outburst of kindly generosity.
“Old fellow, who has done this?”
“Mr. Roland Yorke!” exclaimed the bench, indignantly. “What do you mean by this behaviour? Stand away, if you please, sir.”
“I’ll stand away when Arthur Channing stands away,” retorted Yorke, apparently ignoring whose presence he was in. “Who accuses him? Mr. Galloway does not. This is your doing, Butterby.”
“Take care that their worships don’t commit you for contempt of court,” retorted Mr. Butterby. “You are going on for it, Roland Yorke.”
“Let them commit me, if they will,” foamed Roland. “I am not going to see a friend falsely accused, and not stand up for him. Channing no more touched that money than any of you did. The post-office must have had it.”
“A moment, Mr. Roland Yorke: if you can calm yourself sufficiently to answer as a rational being,” interposed the magistrate who had addressed Arthur. “Have you any proof to urge in support of your assertion that the prisoner did not touch it?”
“Proof, sir!” returned Roland, subsiding, however, into a tone of more respect: “does it want proof to establish the innocence of Arthur Channing? Every action of his past life is proof. He is honest as the day.”
“This warm feeling does you credit, in one sense—”
“It does me no credit at all,” fiercely interrupted Roland. “I don’t defend him because he is my friend; I don’t defend him because we are in the same office, and sit side by side at the same desk; I do it, because I know him to be innocent.”
“How do you know it?”
“He could not be guilty. He is incapable of it. Better accuse me, or Jenkins, than accuse him!”
“You and Jenkins were not at the office during the suspected time.”
“Well, I know we were not,” acknowledged Roland, lowering his voice to a more reasonable tone. “And, just because it happened, by some cross-grained luck, that Channing was, Butterby pitches upon him, and accuses him of the theft. He never did it! and I’ll say it with my last breath.”
With some trouble: threatenings on the part of the court; and more explosions from himself: Mr. Roland Yorke was persuaded to retire. He went as far as the back of the room, and there indulged in under-currents of wrath, touching injustice and Mr. Butterby, to a select circle who gathered round him. Warm-hearted and generous, by fits and starts, was Roland Yorke; he had inherited it with his Irish blood from Lady Augusta.
But meanwhile, where was Mr. Galloway? He did not make his appearance, and it was said he could not be found. Messenger after messenger was despatched to his office, to his house; and at length Mr. Butterby went himself. All in vain; his servants knew nothing about him. Jenkins, who had the office to himself, thought he must be “somewhere in the town,” as he had not said he was going out of it. Mr. Butterby went back crest-fallen, and confessed that, not to take up longer the time of their worships unnecessarily, the case must be remanded to the morrow.
“We will take bail,” said the magistrates, before the application was made. “One surety will be sufficient; fifty pounds.”
At that, Mr. Roland, who by this time was standing in a sullen manner against a pillar of the court, his violence gone, and biting his nails moodily, made a rush to the front again, heeding little who he knocked down in the process. “I’ll be bail,” he cried eagerly. “That is, Lady Augusta will—as I am not a householder. I’ll hunt her up and bring her here.”
He was turning in impetuous haste to “hunt up” Lady Augusta, when Hamish Channing imperatively waved to him to be still, and spoke to the bench.
“My father’s security will be sufficient, I presume?”
“Quite so.”
Since Mr. Channing’s incapacity, power to sign and to act for him had been vested in Hamish; and the matter was concluded at once. The court poured out its crowd. Hamish was on the point of taking Arthur’s arm, but was pushed aside by Roland Yorke, who seized upon it as if he could never make enough of him.
“The miserable idiots! to bring such a charge against you, Arthur! I have been half mad ever since I heard of it.”
“Thank you, Yorke. You are very kind—”
“‘Kind!’ Don’t talk that school-girl rubbish!” passionately interrupted Roland. “If I were taken up upon a false charge, wouldn’t you stand by me?”
“That I would; were it false or true.”
“I’ll pay that Butterby out, if it’s ten years hence! And you, knowing your own innocence, could stand before them there, meek-faced as a tame cat, letting Butterby and the bench have it their own way! A calm temper, such as yours, Arthur, may be very—what do they call it?—Christian; but I’m blest if it’s useful! I should have made their ears tingle, had they put me there, as they have not tingled for many a day.”
“Who do you suppose took the note?” inquired Hamish of Roland Yorke, speaking for the first time.
“Bother the note!” was the rejoinder of Mr. Roland. “It’s nothing to us who took it. Arthur didn’t. Go and ask the post-office.”
“But the seal?” Hamish was beginning in a friendly tone of argument. Roland bore him down.
“Who cares for the seal? I don’t. If Galloway had stuck himself upon the letter, instead of his seal, and never got off till it reached the cousin Galloway’s hand, I wouldn’t care. It tells nothing. Do you want to find your brother guilty?” he continued, in a tone of scorn. “You did not half stand up for him, Hamish Channing, as I’d expect a brother to stand up for me. Now then, you people! Are you thinking we are live kangaroos escaped from a menagerie? Be off about your own business! Don’t come after us.”
The last was addressed to a crowd, who had followed upon their heels from the court, staring, with that innate delicacy for which the English are remarkable. They had seen Arthur Channing a thousand times before, every one of them, but, as he had been arrested, they must look at him again. Yorke’s scornful reproach and fierce face somewhat scattered them.