Part 28 (2/2)

It was a fearful moment for Hannah when she was pa.s.sed into that close and crowded Court upon the momentous day, and saw the red and bloated face of the Judge and his bloodshot eyes glaring at the prisoners, as a wolf glares at the victims he is about to spring upon and devour. What need to talk of that trial?--it was the veriest travesty of justice ever known. The prisoners were bidden if they desired mercy to plead guilty, and as soon as they had done so were sentenced to a traitor's doom in one solid ma.s.s. Respite would come later for some, that was partly understood; but whenever some special plea was put forward for an individual who had friend or counsel to speak for him, the fury of the Judge rose to a fearful pitch, and he roared down the voice of the defender, rolling his eyes and swearing with such hideous vehemence that soon none dared lift up a voice in his presence, and Hannah was supported half fainting from the Court, where she had heard both her brothers condemned to death.

But even then her courage did not desert her, and terrible as was the aspect of the Judge, and awful as were the things spoken of him, she resolved to place herself in his way as he came forth, and plead for the lives of her brothers, as the one last faint hope still remaining to her.

Alas! she might as well have sought mercy from the flinty rock, or the sea breaking in merciless fury. The bloated, evil face was turned upon her in savage fury. The Judge plucked his robe out of her detaining hand, and flung himself into his coach crying out:

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Judge plucked his robe out of her detaining hand.

_Page 310._]

”Madam, your brothers are a pair of pestilent rogues, who come from a pestilent nest of dissenters. I would I had the power to send you to the gallows with them! That is the only place for a cursed brood like yours!”

And as Hannah, fired by wrath and by her sisterly despair, would not even then be silenced, but continued her pet.i.tion with her hands upon the window frame of his coach, he leaned out upon the other side and roared to his charioteer to cut at that pestilent woman with his whip; and the lash drew blood from Hannah's white fingers as she sank half fainting into the arms of her friends.

And yet that very evening, to her immense astonishment, she received a courteous summons to the presence of the Judge, and on presenting herself at his lodging in the castle, with the friend in whose care she was at that time living, she found Jeffreys in an extraordinarily different mood. He had, in fact, just made the discovery that the woman he had treated so brutally was one of the family specially recommended to him by his relative, who had said that the ultimate benefits he might expect from him would largely depend on what efforts he made to save the two Hewling brothers. If the Judge had not been so drunk overnight when this missive reached him, he might possibly have acted differently in Court that day; but now he a.s.sured Hannah that he would do all in his power to obtain a respite of the capital sentence for her brothers, though he implied that this might be an affair of money, and practically demanded three hundred pounds for his services, which Hannah in her bewilderment and by the advice of her friend was ready to pay.

But the days dragged on and no message came from the King. The gentle William, who had been sentenced to die at Lyme Regis almost immediately after his trial, met his doom upon the scaffold with unflinching fort.i.tude, and all the grace his sister could obtain was that she might take possession of the unmutilated body, which was interred in consecrated ground, two hundred brave young maidens of the place incurring the possible displeasure of the King by walking in white robes at his funeral, and singing hymns over his grave.

But Hannah had no time for vain lamentations. The fire of despair was in her heart. Benjamin yet lived. He was not to die till the last day of the month. There was yet time to plead for him. She knew not whether Judge Jeffreys had been true to his promise or no; but at least she, his sister, would strain every nerve, would know no rest day or night till she had obtained his pardon, even though she should have to seek it from the King himself.

In vain her friends warned her of the uselessness and peril of her task; go she would, and as fast as horse could speed her. And with the last touching letter from her brother William in her pocket, and the scene of his death photographed upon her memory, she posted to London, to achieve what all men told her was impossible.

She scarcely paused to mingle her tears with her mother's. A fever was in her heart. Her grandfather had influence enough to obtain for her admission to the palace, and there she was met and kindly spoken to by a gentleman, whose name she knew not at the time, but who was no other than Lord Churchill, afterwards the great Duke of Marlborough.

Churchill regarded her with a look of exceeding compa.s.sion; Hannah presented indeed a touching picture in her girl's grief and sisterly devotion; and her unusual beauty had not been dimmed by all the troubles through which she had pa.s.sed. Something of her story was known even at Whitehall, and known also was the character of the merciless man before whom her brothers had been tried, and the merciless monarch who had sent him forth to this work.

”Madam,” said Lord Churchill, as the summons came for Hannah to be received by the King, and as he spoke he laid his hand upon the marble of the carved mantelpiece upon which he leaned, ”my wishes for success go with you, and my most hearty sorrow for your distress; yet I dare not speak any word of hope to buoy up your sinking spirits; for this marble is not harder nor more susceptible of compa.s.sion than is the heart of the King.”

Poor Hannah was destined to find it so. She was received with cold looks; her pet.i.tion, so carefully worded and drawn up, was scarcely looked at before the King flung it down, and threw a curt heartless refusal at her.

She was hurried away by the attendants, who, though commiserating her grief and innocence, felt that she only ran a needless risk of drawing down the royal wrath upon herself.

”You are a brave lady,” said Lord Churchill, himself bowing her out of the King's suite of apartments. ”My heartiest sympathy goes with you. A man with so brave a sister will surely go bravely to his death. And there will come a time when that is all that the best of us can ask to do.”

Churchill spoke the truth; the brave brother of a brave sister met his death with unshrinking fort.i.tude, cheered to the last by the presence of Hannah, and by her sisterly love and care.

No thought of personal fatigue or personal peril sufficed to prevent her returning instantly to Taunton, and the last days of Benjamin's short life were rendered almost happy to him by his reunion with his twin sister, and by their constant intercourse.

Money could purchase this boon, though it could not purchase the prisoner's life.

He suffered upon the scaffold with so many others as little guilty as he of doing wrong, albeit something rash and ill-advised, and when Hannah had obtained with trouble and much cost the right to take his body and bury it, as in the case of William, she had only to return home to tell her mother the terrible and mournful tale.

”But thy courage sweetened death for them both, my child,” said the mother. ”In days to come that will be a thought that will bring to thee the comfort thou canst not feel yet.”

”I never felt brave,” Hannah would answer simply, when her friends praised her. ”I only did what I had to do. I could not help myself.”

MONA DRUMMOND

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