Canon Wilders was supported by Mr. Preston, of Linkworth, and by a youthful justice whom Robert Carlton did not know by name, but who sat like the graven image of Rhadamanthus, encased in the atrocious trousers and the excruciating collar of the year 1882.

Considering the romantic interest of the case, this was by no means "a full bench"; there were, however, some conspicuous and deliberate absentees, including Sir Wilton Gleed and Dr. Marigold. Carlton was less surprised at his enemy's abstinence than at the position voluntarily occupied by James Preston, an indolent cleric but genial gentleman, who had been his friend. His surprise deepened when Preston nodded to him, hastily enough, and with a change of colour, but yet in a way that thrilled Carlton with a doubt as to whether he had altogether lost that friend. He was in no such suspense concerning the stately chairman, who very properly looked at the prisoner as though he had never seen him before, and never addressed him without tuning his voice to the proper pitch of distant disapproval. This was not a question of losing a friend, but of having made an enemy of the most potent personage in the court.

The latter was densely crowded when the stout inspector opened the case, but the familiar faces stood out in quick succession, and they were not a few. In a doorway apart stood a Long Stow trio – the saddler, the sexton, and Tom Ivey; all three were in their Sunday clothes, and more or less visibly ill at ease; but it was only Ivey who reddened and looked away when the prisoner caught his eye. As for Carlton, he became so lost in sudden and absorbing speculation that it was some minutes before he realised that the inspector had finished a bald brief statement of his case, and that a witness was already in the box and giving evidence. The witness, however, was only Frost, the village constable, and his evidence merely that of the arrest on the Saturday at Long Stow. Carlton nevertheless whipped out his pocket-book, and the witness waited before standing down.

"May I ask him two or three questions?" said the prisoner, addressing himself with courtesy to the bench.

"As many as you please," replied the chairman, "provided they are relevant."

Carlton bowed before turning to the witness.

"How far were you responsible for the warrant on which you arrested me?"

"Re-spon-si-ble!" exclaimed the chairman in separate syllables. "What do you mean?"

"I wish to ascertain exactly in what measure the witness has been concerned in trumping up this charge against me."

"That is not the language in which to inquire!"

"Your worships may discover that it is exceedingly mild language, before the case is over."

"I shall not allow you to cross-examine witnesses unless you do so with due respect to the bench."

The clerk to the justices, who had examined the witness, was the means of averting an immediate scene.

"I think, your worship, that he wishes to know whether the witness laid the information against him."

"I thank you," said Carlton, an incredible twinkle in his eye, as he again turned to the witness. "I do desire to ask you, with due respect to the bench, whether you 'laid this information' against me, or whether you did not?"

"I did," said Frost.

"Before whom did you 'lay' it?"

"The magistrate."

"What magistrate?"

"Sir Wilton Gleed."

"And when?"

"Last Friday."

"The date, please!"

"That would be the 18th."

"The 18th of August! And the church was burnt on the morning of the 25th of June! How is it that it took you eight weeks all but two days to 'lay your information' against me?"

The witness looked confused; but the chairman was quick to interpose; he had been waiting his opportunity.

"That may or may not transpire in the evidence," said he; "it is in either event an absolutely inadmissible question, and I should strongly recommend you to employ a solicitor. If you like I will adjourn the court for half-an-hour while you instruct one; but I will not have the time of the court wasted by irrelevant and inadmissible questions such as you seem inclined to put. If you have nothing better to ask the witness I shall order him to stand down."

"Let him stand down," returned the prisoner, indifferently. "I have done with him."

Robert Carlton had surprised himself. He had come into court with the most admirable intentions that it was possible to entertain: he was to have kept cool but humble, to have curbed his contempt of proceedings conducted (if not instituted) in the best of good faith, and never for an instant to have forgotten his guilt of sin in his innocence of crime. In this spirit he had risen from his knees that morning, and with this resolve he had left his cell and been ushered into court; but the very atmosphere of the place had made the blood sing in his veins; and it needed but the chairman's voice to make it boil. He had sinned, and chosen to suffer for his sin: so no crime was too dastardly to lay at his door. He was down, and deservedly down, so friends and acquaintances alike must gather and conspire to trample him. Carlton's point of view went round like a weathercock in the wind; flesh and blood flew to the front, in despite of spirit; and all the man in him rebelled at man's injustice, in despite of his prayers.

So when the next witness was being sworn (it was his own sexton), and James Preston whispered to Canon Wilders, the man who had preached for both of them looked on grimly.

"As you seem bent upon conducting your own case," said Wilders, leaning back, "you may possibly prefer a chair at the table; if so, there is one at your disposal." And he pointed into the well of the court.

Carlton thanked him in the voice that all his will could not purge of all its scorn; he was perfectly comfortable where he was. Then he looked pointedly at Preston, and his face and tone softened together. "But I shall not forget the suggestion," he said; and again his friend changed colour.

The decrepit hero of the overweening hallucination had hobbled into the witness-box meanwhile. Carlton had not come in contact with him since the morning before the fire, and he little thought that his last conversation with the sexton was about to come up in evidence against him. Yet such was the case.

Old Busby had been responsible for the lighting of the church. He had kept the paraffin and filled the lamps. But in the month of June the lamps were rarely needed. They had not been lighted on the Sunday before the fire. There would have been even less occasion for them – by one minute – the following Sunday. And yet, on the Saturday morning, the prisoner had ordered the witness to see that the lamps were full!

So Busby deposed; and the point seemed of sinister significance. It took the prisoner plainly by surprise: the circumstance had escaped his memory. In a minute, however, he had recalled it in detail; and his cross-examination, though provocative of some mirth, and curtailed in consequence, was by no means ineffectual.

"You remember when the lamps went out, through your neglect, in the middle of even-song?"

"I'm like to remember it. That was when I swallowed the frog."

The court laughed, but not the prisoner, who was too much in earnest even to smile.

"I reminded you pretty often about the lamps after that?"

"Ay, you were for ever at me about 'em."

"Now, on the morning you mention, where was I when I told you to go and fill the lamps?"

The sexton thought.

"In your study, sir."

"And what were you doing there? Do you remember?"

"I do that! I was telling you about the frog."

This time the prisoner smiled himself.

"And did I listen to you?" he demanded, a sudden change upon his face, as though the act of smiling had put him in pain.

"No, that you didn't," the old man grumbled; "you fared as though you didn't hear."

"So I told you to go away and fill your lamps," said Carlton, sadly, "even though it was Midsummer Day! I have finished with the witness."

He was as one who had brilliantly parried a deadly thrust, and yet received a secret wound in the onset. He rested his head upon his hand to hide his pain, and only raised it at the sound of James Preston's voice putting the first question from the bench:

"As sexton, did you keep the key of the church?"

"In the old days I did, sir; but that's been open church ever since Mr. Carlton come."

"You mean that the church was open day and night?"

"To be sure it was."

"Thank you," said Preston hastily, as though glad to relapse into silence. Carlton did not add to his embarrassment by a glance, but his heart throbbed with gratitude for the goodwill he could no longer question.

"Did you fill the lamps?" asked the chairman as the witness was preparing to hobble from the box.

"Yes, sir, I did."

And, watching the chairman's face, Carlton was still more thankful to have one friend upon the bench; for it seemed to him that the young gentleman in the tall collar and the tight trousers was alone in preserving a Rhadamanthine impartiality.

What surprised him equally was the strength and the nature of the evidence produced. In his complete innocence of the crime imputed to him, he had been unable to conceive or to recall a single incriminating circumstance not susceptible of an easy and immediate explanation. Yet more than one arose during the afternoon, when first the saddler, and afterwards Tom Ivey, went into the box to bear witness against him; and more than once the explanation, so full and clear in his own mind, was incapable of confirmation or admission in the form of evidence. The more striking instances were afforded by Fuller, whose testimony, though convincing enough, and not the less so for its real or apparent reluctance, came as a complete surprise to the prisoner. It appeared that the saddler had returned to the rectory on the fatal night, more than an hour after his first visit and summary dismissal, in order to have his "say," and "not let the reverend have it all his own way." The midnight visitor had found a light in the study, but the door shut, and only the dog within. He had not entered, but had waited about the drive, till, seeing a light in the church, he had made up his mind that "the reverend" was there, and had decided not to interrupt him. So the saddler had gone home and to bed, and was fast asleep when the church-bells sounded the alarm.

"And what made you so sure that it was Mr. Carlton in the church with the light?" inquired Mr. Preston.

"Because I couldn't find him in the rectory."

"But you did not go in?"

"I knocked and called, but I only made the dog bark."

The chairman leaned forward in his turn.

"Was the barking loud?" he asked. "Loud enough to be heard all over the house?"

Carlton sprang to his feet. He had been accommodated with a chair, of which he had quietly availed himself during the examination of this witness, and the suddenness of his movement brought all eyes to his face. It was quick with impatience and sarcastic disregard.

"If you are labouring to prove that I was not at my house, but in the church," he cried, "your worship may save himself the time and trouble. I was in the church. I lit one of the lamps."

This did not strike the prisoner as the sensational statement that it was; he was therefore amazed at its effect upon the bench, where even Rhadamanthus came to life, while James Preston opened eyes of horror, and Wilders whispered to the clerk.

"That," said the chairman, "is an extremely serious statement, and one that you are surely ill-advised in making. It is not evidence, but it is being taken down in writing, and may be given in evidence against you at your trial. I should certainly advise you to refrain from further statements of the kind."

"I thought you wanted to get at the truth?"

"So we do. But I have warned you. Have you any questions to ask the witness?"

"Not one; he is equally correct in his statements and his suppositions."

Thomas Ivey was then sworn, amid the hush of deepening interest, and gave his evidence in a manly, straightforward, level-headed fashion, that added its own weight to what he said for good or ill; and his testimony told both ways. He described the scene in the church on his arrival; the character of the fire, and the attitude of Mr. Carlton; both of which, he admitted (in answer to a question from the chairman), had struck him as suspicious at the first glance.

"But did you see him do anything that you thought suspicious?" asked the well-meaning Mr. Preston.

"I did, sir."

"What was that?" from the chairman.

"He threw something into the flames. But I couldn't see what that was."

"Did you afterwards find out?"

"No, sir."

Once more the prisoner attracted every eye. It was felt that he would make another of his reckless and voluntary declarations. But this time he was silent enough; and though the evidence now took a turn in his favour, that silence left its mark.

Everybody knew how the clergyman had risked his life, when it was too late, to save the church. But the story had not yet been told as Mr. Preston contrived to elicit it from the lips of Tom Ivey. The Rector of Linkworth had been from home when the fire took place. There was nothing unnatural in his desire for details, nor did he put an improper question. The chairman, however, betrayed more than a little impatience, while the junior justice, on the other hand, displayed excitement of another kind, and actually put in his word at last.

"Do you mean to say you let him throw the water single-handed," said he, "while the rest of you stayed outside?"

"There was no stopping him, sir," said Ivey. "He would have all the danger to himself."

"Then you could not see what use he made of the water?" suggested the chairman, dryly.

"No, sir," said Tom; "I could only see the steam." And his tone was still more dry.

Wilders looked at the clock as the examination concluded. The case had not been taken till the afternoon; it was now nearly five. Wilders beckoned and spoke to the inspector, subsequently addressing the prisoner in his coldest tone.

"I understand that this is the last witness to be called against you," said he. "Do you propose to cross-examine him?"

"I do."

"And may I ask if you have any witnesses to call for your defence?"

"I may have one."

"Then it becomes my duty to adjourn the case." He whispered again to the inspector, and at greater length with his colleagues, James Preston appearing tenacious of some point upon which the chairman ultimately gave way. "As the police have completed their case," continued Wilders, "a remand of one day will be sufficient, and we shall simply adjourn until to-morrow morning. But you may, if you like, apply for bail; though the question, having due regard to the evidence which we have heard, is one that would now require our grave consideration."

"You may spare yourselves the trouble," said Carlton shortly. "I don't want bail."

And he went back to prison to lament his temper, but not to go through the form of further prayer for patience and humility; for he felt that these were beyond him in that public court, packed with prejudice from door to door.

"I told you what he'd say," grumbled Wilders in the retiring-room.

"I don't blame him," said Mr. Preston. "My dear sir, he's innocent of this!"

"I shall form my opinion to-morrow," returned the canon, with dignity. "Meanwhile I confess to some curiosity as to whom he thinks of calling as his witness."

"The chappie shows us sport," quoth Rhadamanthus, "guilty or not guilty; and I'm not giving odds either way."

XVI
END OF THE DUEL

Rhadamanthus reappeared without a visible garment that he had worn the day before. He came spurred and breeched from the saddle, with a horseshoe pin in his snowy tie, a more human collar, and a keener front for the proceedings withal. Carlton felt his eye upon him from the first, and returned the compliment by taking a new interest in the nameless youth; he had long read the minds of the other two; his fate was in this young fellow's keeping. He had no time, however, for idle speculation as to the result. Tom Ivey was back in the witness-box, and the accused was invited to cross-examine without delay.

Carlton soon showed that the interval had enabled him to profit by the experience of the previous day. His questions were cunningly prepared. He began with one not easy to put in an admissible form, yet he succeeded in so putting it.

"You have sworn," said he, "that your very first glimpse of me in the burning church was sufficient to create a certain suspicion in your mind. Did you mention this suspicion to anybody – that night?"

"Not that night."

"That month?"

"Nor yet that month, sir."

"And why?"

"I didn't suspect you any more, sir."

Carlton tried hard to suppress his satisfaction, as a sensation to which he was no longer entitled. He had come back to this in the night; but it was harder to abide by it during the day. He paused a little, in honest effort to rid his mind and tone of any taint of triumph; but his advantage had to be pursued.

"May I ask when this suspicion perished?"

"Before we had been five minutes together, trying to save the church!"

"You are getting upon dangerous ground," said the chairman. "What the witness thought, or when he ceased to think it, is not evidence."

"Another point, then," said Carlton: "do you remember the appearance of the lamps?"

"Yes."

"What was it?"

"They were crooked."

"Did you notice any paraffin spilt about?"

"Yes, when my attention was called to it."

"Where was this paraffin?"

"On the pews that were catching fire."

"And who called your attention to it?"

"You did yourself, sir."

"I did myself!" repeated Carlton, struggling with his tone. "That will do for that. I am going back for a moment to those suspicions of yours. Have you never mentioned them to a human being?"

"Yes, sir, I have."

"As things of the past?"

"As things of the past."

"When was it that you first spoke of them?"

"Last Friday – the eighteenth, sir."

"And did you then speak of your own accord, or were you questioned?"

"I was questioned."

"As the first man to reach the burning church?"

"Yes, sir."

"Take care!" cried Wilders. "That was a leading question."

"It is the last," replied Carlton. "I have finished with the witness. I would take this opportunity, however, of apologising to your worships for the various errors and excesses which I have committed, and may still commit, in my ignorance and inexperience of the law, and my indignation at the charge. In this respect, and this alone, I crave the indulgence of the bench, and beg leave to rectify one of my mistakes. I spoke in haste when I said, yesterday, that I had no questions to ask the witness Fuller. I desire, with your worships' permission, to have that witness recalled."

The chairman was rather sharp: subsequent evidence might make the recall of witnesses a necessity, but the lost opportunities of counsel, or of accused persons conducting their own defence, were an altogether insufficient reason. However, the man was in court, and the application would be allowed.

"I appreciate the privilege," said Carlton, "and promise that it shall not detain us many moments."

He was becoming as fluent and adroit as a past practitioner; in the pauses of the fight he felt ashamed of his facility, a haunting sense that it was indecent in him to defend himself at all. Yet he was one against many; and, in this matter, an innocent man. Fight he must, and that with all the skill and spirit in his power. His liberty, his self-respect; his one remaining chance, object, and desire in life; nay, his very life itself was at stake with these. It was no time for dwelling upon the past. The sin that he had committed was one thing; the crime that he had not committed was another. It was his duty to be just to himself. Yet this was how he treated himself, whenever he had time to think! He resolved to give himself fairer play than he seemed likely to receive at the hands of others; and his resolve declared itself in the ringing voice that shocked not a few who heard it, having found him guilty already in their hearts.

"About that very story of the empty rectory and the light in the church," he began, with Fuller – "about that perfectly true story," he added, wilfully, "which you told us yesterday. Did you tell it to anybody at the time?"

"Only Tom Ivey."

"Why only to him?"

"He asked me to keep that to myself."

"And did you?"

"I did my best, sir, but that slipped out one day when I was talking to – "

"Never mind his or her name. You did your best to keep the matter to yourself, but it slipped out one day in conversation. Now when did you last tell that true story, not counting yesterday, as fully and particularly as you told it here in court? Think. I want the exact date of the very last occasion."

"That was last Friday, sir – to-day's the 22nd – that would be the 18th of August."

"Last Friday, the 18th of August; a fatal day to me!" said Robert Carlton. "Thank you. That is all I want from you."

The justices put no question. The clerk did not re-examine. The witness was ordered to stand down. Then followed a short but heavy silence, pregnant with speculation as to the drift of all these questions and the object of so much unexplained insistence upon a date. It meant something. What could it mean? Carlton stood upright in the dock, calm, confident, inscrutable; it seemed a great many moments before the silence was broken by the formal tones of the clerk.

"Do you call any witness for the defence?" he asked.

Carlton dropped his eyes into the well of the court, and they fell upon a pair that were fastened upon his face with the glitter of fixed bayonets.

"Yes," said he. "I wish you to call Sir Wilton Gleed."

Quietly though distinctly spoken, the name clapped like thunder on the court. Amazement fell on all alike, for the issue between these two had been the common theme for days. Popular sympathy had rightly sided with morality, and its champion had lost nothing by his tactful magnanimity in refraining from sitting upon the bench; that he should be put in the box instead, and by his shameless adversary, was an audacity as hard to credit as to understand. There was a moment's hush, then a minute's buzz, to which the justices themselves contributed. Wilders muttered that the man was mad; his colleague on the right confessed himself nonplussed; his colleague on the left dropped his shaven chin upon his gold horseshoe, and his shoulders shook with joy. Meanwhile Sir Wilton had forced a grin and found his voice.

"You want me in the box, do you?"

"I do."

"Very well; you shall have me."

And he was sworn, still grinning, with an odd mixture of malevolence and deprecation for those who ran to read. "I meant to keep out of this," the florid face said; "but now I'm in it – well, you'll see! It's the fellow's own fault; his blood" etc., etc. But this was not what Sir Wilton was saying in his heart.

Carlton began at the beginning.

"You are the patron of the living of Long Stow, are you not?"

"You know I am."

"I want the bench to have it from you; kindly answer my question."

"I am the patron of the living of Long Stow," said Sir Wilton, with mock resignation.

"In the year 1880 did you, of your own free will and accord, present that living to me?"

"Yes, and I've repented it ever since!"

There was a sympathetic murmur at the back of the court. It was immediately checked. Every face was thrust forward, every ear strained, every eye absorbed between the prisoner in the dock and the witness in the box. It was no longer the uphill fight of one against many; it was single combat between man and man, and the electricity of single combat charged the air.

"You have repented it more than ever of late?" asked Carlton in steady tones. The skin upon his forehead seemed stretched with pain; the veins showed blue and swollen; but the many judged him from his voice alone.

"Naturally," sneered Sir Wilton.

"So much so that you were resolved I should resign?"

"I hoped you would have the decency to do so."

"Did you come to the rectory on the fifth of this month, and tell me it was my first duty to resign the living?"

"I don't remember the date."

"Was it the Saturday before Bank Holiday?"

"I daresay. Yes, it must have been. I didn't expect to find you there. I went to see the wreck and ruin of your home and church, not you."

"But you did come, and you did see me, and you did tell me it was my first duty to resign my living?"

"Certainly I did."

"Do you remember your words?"

"Some of them."

Carlton looked at his pocket-book – at a note made overnight.

"Do you remember making use of the following expressions: 'Law or no law, I'll have you out of this! I'll hound you out of it! I'll have you torn in pieces if you stay'?"

"I may have said something of the kind," said the witness, with assumed indifference.

"Did you, or did you not?" cried Carlton, slapping his hand on the rail of the dock; the voice, the look, the gesture were familiar to many present who had heard him preach; and thrilled them for all their new knowledge of the preacher.

"Really I can't recall my exact words. I rather fancied they were stronger."

Some one laughed at this, and the witness managed to recapture his grin; but his demeanour was unconvincing.

"I am not talking about their strength," said Carlton. "Will you swear that you did not say, 'I'll have you out of this! I'll hound you out of it'?"

"No, I will not."

"I thank you," said Carlton; and his ringing voice fell at a word to the pitch of perfect courtesy. He ticked off the note in his pocket-book, and the court breathed again; but its worthy president did more: he had forgotten his position for several minutes, and he hastened to reassert it with the first observation that entered his head.

"I don't see the point of this examination," said Canon Wilders.

"You will presently."

"If I don't I shall put a stop to it!"

Carlton raised his eyes from his notes, but not to the bench; they were only for the witness now.

"Do you remember when and where we met again?"

"You had the insolence to call at my house."

"Was it on a Monday morning, the first after the Bank Holiday?"

"I suppose it was."

"I do not ask you to recall your exact words on that occasion. I simply ask you to inform the bench whether I did, or did not, offer to resign the living then and there – on a certain condition."

"Yes; you did," said Sir Wilton, doggedly. He was very red in the face.

Carlton could not resist a moment's enjoyment of his discomfiture: it heightened the pleasure of letting him off.

"And did you decline?" he said at length.

"Stop a moment," said the chairman. "What was this condition, Sir Wilton?"

"Am I obliged to give it?"

"Oh, if you think it inexpedient – "

"I think it unnecessary," said the witness, emphatically. "I think it has nothing whatever to do with the case."

"In that case, Sir Wilton, we shall be only too happy not to press the point."

Carlton had a great mind to press it himself. He had invited his enemy to build the church out of his own pocket. The invitation had been declined. Would it also be denied? Carlton was curious to see; but he overcame his curiosity. It would not strengthen his defence, and to mere revenge he must not stoop. So one temptation was resisted, and one advantage thrown away, even in the final phase of the long duel between these good fighters. But the other saw the struggle, and felt as he had done when Carlton had returned him his stick in the ruins of the church.

"And did you decline?" repeated Carlton, in identically the same voice as before.

"I did."

"Did I then point out to you that I was not only entitled, but might be compelled, to keep my chancel, at any rate, 'in good and substantial repair, restoring and rebuilding when necessary'? I quote the Act, your worships, as I quoted it then. Do you remember, Sir Wilton?"

"I do."

"I made the point as plain as I have made it now?"

"Yes."

"And what did you say to that?"

The sudden change in the style of the question was glossed over by the single artifice which Robert Carlton permitted himself during the conduct of his case: instead of ringing triumphant, his voice dropped as though he feared the answer. Sir Wilton fell into the trap.

"I said, 'If that's the law I'll see you keep it. Go and build your church! Where there's a law there will be a penalty; go build your church or I'll enforce it.'"

"Which did you expect to enforce – the penalty or the law?"

"I didn't mind which," declared the witness, after hesitation; and his indifference was less successfully assumed than before.

"Oh!" said Carlton; "so you didn't mind my building the church after all?"

Sir Wilton appealed wildly to the Bench.

"Am I to be browbeaten and insulted, by a convicted libertine and evil liver, without one word of protest or reproof?"

The chairman coloured with confusion and indecision.

"I am afraid that you must answer his question, Sir Wilton," said Mr. Preston, mildly.

"I share your opinion," said Rhadamanthus, in a tone that went further than the words.

The chairman threw up his chin with an air, and fixed the accused with his sternest glance.

"Pray what are you endeavouring to establish by this round-about and impertinent examination?"

"In plain language?" asked Robert Carlton.

"The plainer the better."

"Then I am endeavouring to establish – and I will establish, either here or at the assizes – the fact that that man there" – pointing to Sir Wilton Gleed – "has tried by fair means and by foul to rob me of a benefice which is still mine in more than name. And I will further establish, either here or at the higher court, if you like to send me there, the patent and the blatant fact that this very charge is the last and the foulest means by which that man has attempted to get rid of me!"

His clear voice thundered through the little court; his fine eye flashed with as fine a scorn. But it was neither look nor tone that made the silence when he ceased. It was the first unrestrained expression of a personality incomparably stronger than any other there present; it was the first just and unanimous – if unconscious – appreciation of that personality in that place. There was a round clock that ticked many times and noisily before the presiding magistrate broke the spell.