University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
A CRIME AND A BIT OF PROOF.

What is that? and Margery started up in her bed,
and looked wildly around. The wind? No. A window
shutter banging? Something worse! — and Margery
sprung out of bed.

“Who's there?” cried the old woman “Speak! who's
there?”

“Me, it's me! — it's Hannah, — Hannah Rawle. Open
the door, Margery! let me in!” was shrieked from without,
while the rattling of the latch and the creaking of
the door gave emphasis to the cry.

Margery's trembling hands fumbled at the bolt, but
the moment the wooden bar was withdrawn the door,
which opened inwards, yielded to some heavy pressure,
and a tall figure, all in white, apparently the very genius
of the storm, was precipitated full length upon the kitchen
floor.

The cry of “Margery! Margery!” now gave place
to that of “George! George!” whom the mother,
screaming at the foot of the stairs, thus summoned

to the scene. But there was no answer. Margery,
frightened and bewildered, nevertheless closed and
latched the outer door, bent an instant over the prostrate
figure on the hearth, and finding it still motionless,
commenced groping her way to her son's attic, calling
out his name at every step.

Day was just dawning in the eastern horizon, but the
house was still dark as night. “George! wake up, for
mercy's sake!” shouted the poor woman close to his
bed. Horrified at gotting no reply, she passed her
hands wildly over the counterpane, which was smooth
as woman's skill could make it, and over the pillow,
which no head had pressed that night.

“Good Lud! what does this mean? Good Lud!
good Lud!” ejaculated the trembling old woman, as she
tottered down the staircase.

A heavy groan was escaping from Hannah Rawle as
Margery reëntered the kitchen. A moment more, and
she had partially revived, had drawn up her limbs, and
assuming a sitting posture, was rocking herself to and
fro, making a wailing noise, but as yet uttering nothing
intelligible. The fact, however, that she had fled through
the storm in her night clothes, and was half dead with
cold and exhaustion, was intelligible enough and awful
enough to make further explanation for the moment
superfluous. Margery, scarcely less horrified and paralyzed,
had still sufficient strength to wrap a blanket
around Hannah, and then kneeling in the ashes to unrake
the fire. There was just life enough left in the coals

to diffuse a little glimmer of light. Margery, herself
shivering with cold and dread, and watching the pitiable
object beside whom she crouched, could see the working
of Hannah Rawle's face, but could not comprehend its
expression, nor the wild and vehement gestures which
she made with one hand while she held the other stiff
and clinched.

“O, speak! speak, Hannah! Can't you speak?” cried
Margery, imploringly, raising her voice to its utmost
pitch, and gesticulating in her turn, — for Hannah was
partially deaf.

Hannah almost rose to her feet in the effort she now
made to loosen her rigid lips; then failing in the attempt
to speak, she gave vent to a fearful shriek, and fell
heavily to the floor.

Margery now bethought herself of her cupboard, and
a little demijohn of West India rum which she kept
there, and she lost no time in pouring some of the spirit
into a glass, and putting it to Hannah's lips. The first
effort to swallow was abortive, but after a second and
third attempt, the moistened jaws relaxed; then the
scorching liquid found its way down her throat, and its
effects were soon discernible, for Hannah, as if delivered
from an iron spell, gasped out eagerly, “Where's
Geordie? O, my old man! where's Geordie? Call
him; call him quick!”

“George is away; George isn't at home,” said Margery,
placing her mouth close to Hannah's ear, and
speaking with effort.

“O, call him! call him! perhaps he is; send him to
my old man,” persisted Hannah.

Relieved, even in this first tumult of terror, to know
that her own recent ignorance of George's absence, and
her vain calls for his aid had been unheeded by Hannah, as
she lay stretched in unconsciousness, Margery assured
her that George was not sleeping at home that night,
and entreated to know what had happened to Baultie.
Was he sick, was he dying, or what was the matter on
the mountain?

“Dying? He's dead! fur 's I know,” shrieked Hannah,
her eyes glaring wildly, and her fist brandished in the
air. “They've killed him! they've killed him! they've
beaten his brains out!”

“Killed him! They? Who?” ejaculated Margery,
looking round the room in a vague horror, as if she heard
murder stalking about the house and saw death in
the air.

“The robbers! the murderers! the villains! Send
help — send help, Margery — send help to my old man!”

“O, who shall I send?” exclaimed Margery, wringing
her hands. “George ought to be here,” she added, in
an outburst of agony, — “but he isn't. O dear! O
dear!”

“I must go myself,” said Hannah, with desperation;
and folding the blanket about her the resolute old woman
sprang to her feet, but they failed her, and she fell.
They were helpless, — they were frozen. She groaned
aloud in her despair, but she was a woman of a dauntless

spirit. She had not made her way thus far through
frost and snowdrifts for nothing. She had sunk at
Margery's threshold, in the belief that her night's work
was done; but with the fresh necessity for action her
energy revived.

“Dress yourself, Margery,” she said with authority.
“Let me alone,” — for Margery was crooning over the
frozen feet, and chafing them with her withered hands.
“Put on your clothes as quick as you can, and raise
the neighbors. You can get across the fields to Mr.
Cousin's; you'll have hard work, but you can do it.
At any rate, you must try. I can take care of myself,
— so, go! — go!”

And Margery went. How she got dressed, how she
waded through the snow, called up the family, gave
the alarm, and got back to the shelter of her own roof,
no one who knew her could comprehend. But there is a
surplus power in every body, waiting to be called out on
emergencies, and the feeble old woman, who, never in
winter time, was wont to crawl beyond her own wood-shed,
accomplished almost without conscious effort, the
labor from which, on such a night, a strong man would
have shrunk. She did not return alone to her cottage.
Angie accompanied her. They spoke only once on the
way, and then it was to ask each other, with intense
earnestness, the same question which had been the first
on Hannah Rawle's lips, — “Where is Geordie?” The
question was simultaneous. So was the reply. It consisted
merely of a piteous shake of the head, after which,

with jaws chattering and brains bewildered, the two
women fought their way in silence through the snow and
wind back to the kitchen, where the half-frozen fugitive
from midnight murder still sat crouching in her blanket,
muttering her lamentations, and gesticulating with her
upraised hand.

To kindle a fire, bathe, chafe, and as far as possible,
restore Hannah Rawle's frozen limbs, were the next
tasks to which Margery and Angie applied themselves.
Not until the fire sent forth its ruddy blaze, and a lamp
was lit, did the night wanderer's real condition reveal
itself. Her flesh was not only stiffened with frost, but
was scratched, bleeding, and torn. Her night clothes,
of homespun flannel, were tattered and blood-stained,
and her white hair was tangled about her face and head.
All this might have been the natural result of her night
journey down the mountain, where her path led through
swamp, and thicket, and where briers, and underwood,
half hidden by snow, had to be encountered at every step.
But this was not all. A more fearful spectacle was
revealed, and a more awful tragedy testified to, by the
wounds on her hands and wrists, the dislocation of one
of her finger joints, and a contusion on her face, proving
the fact which the courageous old woman herself averred,
that in the struggle which had taken place between her
and the assassin she had fought like a wild-cat.

“Was there more than one?” asked Angie, who,
kneeling on the floor beside Hannah, was fastening
a bandage round one of her bleeding ankles.

Hannah did not hear! “How many were there? how
many men?” reiterated Angie, putting her question in
a new form, and speaking louder, though in a much
less steady voice than at first, while Margery, who
was stirring the fire, held the tongs with a trembling
hand, and listened for Hannah's reply.

“How many? how should I know? 'Twas dark as
pitch. There might ha' been two or three, or like
enough half a dozen on 'em. 'Twas my old man's
screams an' the shakin' o' the room that fust 'woke
me. They had Baultie down by that time, and were
struggling to hold him. I sprang on one of 'em, and
tried to drag him off. I twisted him round and round,
and held on with the grip of an old watch-dog; I would
never ha' let go on him so long as the breath was in
me, but he was young and strong, and he shook me off.
'Twas then, I think, when they found they'd more 'n
one to deal with, that they give my poor old man a
death-stroke, for he'd screamed and called my name afore;
but I never caught a sound from the corner where
he lay arterwards.” She seemed to be sustained by
excitement while she dwelt on the particulars of her
own struggle with the housebreakers, but the few last
words, affirming her conviction of her husband's murder,
were uttered with a shrill, piteous accent which
ended in a loud wail.

Margery sank into a chair with an exclamation of
horror. Angie was silent; she still knelt beside Hannah,
but the poor girl's hands refused their office; she

almost shrank from the cold limb to which she had
been ministering; the whole person of the woman who
had so lately fought hand to hand with death, seemed
invested with something forbidding and awful. For a
moment Angie did not venture to touch her, or interrupt
her prolonged cry.

She soon interrupted herself, however, with the abrupt
questions, “Have they started? Have they gone?
Have you sent help to my old man?” Angie repeated
an assurance already given, that her father and the
stable-boy were on the alert; that they were harnessing
a horse when she left the house; that before this time
all the neighborhood was roused, and every possible
effort being made in Baultie Rawle's behalf.

“It's no use,” said Hannah, relapsing into her
hopeless tone. “Let 'em go; but they'll find him
dead. Ah, well, — we can't die but once, and me an'
my old man 's seen length o' days already. But they
might ha' let us go in peace, and not drag folks out
o' their beds to murder 'em.”

This first utterance of human complaint brought
Hannah more into sympathy with the weakness of her
auditors, and gave them the nerve required to exercise
some authority, or at least persuasion, towards her.

“Perhaps they haven't quite killed him!” ventured
Angie “we'll trust not.”

“Any ways, Hannah,” suggested Margery, “you'll
catch your death there on the floor. Just get into my
bed now. You'll be comfortable there, and handy-like

when they come to fetch you news from up the
mountain.”

Hannah resisted at first, declaring she would stay
where she was until she knew the worst. Neither
would she die; she would live. Yes, live to see the
murderers brought to light, and justice done against
them; live to bear testimony to the crime, and have
the rascals brought to the gallows. “See here!” and
with a triumphant gesture she lifted her left hand,
hitherto tightly compressed, and as she raised it aloft
displayed a portion of some dark object, apparently a
rag of woollen cloth, over which her half-frozen fingers
were convulsively clasped. “He thought he'd got
clear o' me, the rascal!” she exclaimed, with revengeful
vehemence, “but I'll teach him yet to know the
meaning of an old woman's grip. He's slipped through
my fingers once, but he's left behind what 'll slip a rope
round his neck one o' these days, or my name's not Hannah
Rawle. I'll hold on to my proof till the law holds
on to him.”

Margery, awed by Hannah's stern expression of purpose,
gazed at her in a sort of stupor; Angie, on the
contrary, instinctively stretched out her hand, and almost
snatched at the boasted token of crime.

“Let go!” cried Hannah, in a fierce, forbidding tone.
“Don't touch!” and she covetously hid behind her the
hand and its prize.

Angie drew back a step — there was a moment of
silence — then Margery renewed her whining entreaties

and expostulations on the subject of her sister-in-law's
sufferings and exposure should she continue longer in her
present position on the floor, and this time successfully,
though it was evident that Hannah permitted herself to
be assisted to bed rather with a view to Margery's satisfaction
than her own.

Whether her senses were rendered more than ordinarily
acute, or her suspicions sharpened by her terrible experience,
the old woman still kept a jealous hold upon her memento
of a night of horrors, giving Margery a smart repulse
when she innocently suggested that the cold, damp thing
would chill the whole bed, and watching Angie with as
much distrust as if she had been a huge mothworm, whose
only purpose in life was the acquisition of a woollen rag.

It was the feverish notion of an excited brain. But
excited, intensified, maddened as the old woman's suspicions
might be, they fell short of the truth. For on the
possession of a rag — that rag — all the faculties of
Angie's mind and body were concentrated. She watched,
she waited, she listened, she hoped, she prayed; prayed
that the search on the mountain might be long delayed;
hoped that Hannah would fall asleep meanwhile; listened
to every breath she drew; watched and waited her opportunity.
And it came. Hannah continued long awake.
With staring eyes and menacing fist she lay muttering
her lamentations and threats; then she slept — by snatches
only — still she slept. In those days, and that district,
ardent spirit was the common, perhaps in a case like that
of Hannah Rawle, the best restorative; and the Jamaica

rum had been too freely applied to produce no other effect
than that of resuscitating the sufferer. It first helped to
excite, but afterwards to compose the patient.

There was an east window to the little bed-room, and
the pale morning light was sufficient for Angie's purpose.
Margery had crept up stairs, and her step could be heard
in George's attic overhead. Hannah lay motionless, and
her breath came at equal intervals. Angie carefully
turned down the bed-clothes and applied her fingers to
the object which the sleeping woman still hugged to her
side. Slow, Angie; steady. Ah! take care; she stirs!
The young girl is warned, and withdraws her hand. The
old women starts convulsively, mutters, and closes her
fingers tighter than ever over her prize. There is a
pause; then another opportunity; another attempt, which
this time promises success, but as before, ends in a sudden
failure. Angie retreats almost discouraged; her chest
heaves; there is a rising in her throat which seems to
stifle her. Still her eye is on the coveted rag; her ear is
strained; her attitude keen and watchful. There is a long
interval of silence and suspense. Margery's attention
continues engrossed above stairs, for she can be heard
groping about the attic. Hark now! what is Hannah
dreaming of? for she cries out in her sleep, and grasps
with both hands at an imaginary object in the air. It
eludes her grasp, and the hands drop empty. Quick, Angie!
now is your chance! She is unconscious of her loss — a
moment more, and she may wake and claim the thing you
have pounced upon.

But now Angie has it; she has pulled it into shape;
she has held it up to the light — and it is — O heavens!
it is the thing she feared. A mitten, — a home-knit mitten,
— Geordie's! His mother had shaped it to her boy's
hand; Angie herself had marked it with her lover's
name — a murderer's hand! a felon's name! Have pity,
— have pity, O God!

What is she doing? Why is she tearing at it so frantically?
She dare not destroy it. It will surely be
claimed at her hands, and her own act would bring suspicion
on the house. But she can destroy its identity.
With a crooked pin for her weapon, and horrid fear for
her spur, she is tearing out the red letters, — G. R., —
copied from her own sampler, wrought by her own fingers
less than a week ago, — George himself looking on.

How the damp worsted clings! Be careful, Angie; a
broken stitch may betray you and him. Quick, but
leave no tell-tale sign. With one eye on her task and
the other casting rapid glances at her sleeping tyrant,
she pulls, picks, tears at the threads; with a prudence,
born of dread, she crouches on the floor, and spreads
her apron on her lap, that not a shred of the fatal
color may escape her. Your time is up, Angie! The
sleeper moves. See! see! she is feeling for it!

And she has it again. One frantic effort and the last
red stitch is extracted, the mitten is flung within reach of
the groping fingers; they have closed over it, and the old
woman wakens with a grunt of satisfaction at the security
in which she still holds her prize, while Angie makes

haste to empty the contents of her apron into the fire
before Margery, whose step is already on the stairs, can
reënter the kitchen.

She has succeeded. And it gives her breathing time.
Fresh witnesses of guilt may arrive at any moment, but
she has disarmed one, and, tortured as she is with horror
and apprehension, there is a tinge of triumph in her
agony.

There are seasons in human experience so intense that
the whole of life seems to be concentrated in the passing
moment. The earth is falling from beneath our feet; we
catch at straws, and the very effort affords us an instant's
respite from despair.

The brief advantage gained, we pause, shudder, and
again cry out for help. “What next?” thought Angie,
as, sinking down, like one crushed by some heavy weight,
she listened to the ticking of the clock above her head,
and felt as if each stroke were the stroke of doom.

The answer came at length in the stamping of feet outside
the house, and a quick hand laid on the door-latch.

“Who's that?” exclaimed Hannah, sitting up straight
in bed. “Is that Geordie?”

“No,” answered Margery, who had also given a start,
“tain't him, tain't his step,” and as she spoke the door
opened abruptly, and Dick Van Hausen entered.

It was now broad daylight, and Van Hausen's eye
falling at once upon the object of his visit, who, as she
sat upright in bed, was directly opposite the entrance, he
needed to ask no questions concerning her.

As the strong-featured, grisly-haired man came in
with his heavy tramp, and crossed the kitchen to the bed-room
without apology and in silence, he seemed like some
avenging champion. Margery and Angie trembled and
shrank into corners, where they kept a sharp lookout,
however, like two spies, as they were. Hannah's features
were strained meanwhile with an intense expression of
eagerness and expectation, the sharp lines of which settled
into a fixed defiant despair as she heard his loud,
grave, “Wal, Hannah!” and saw in the solemn vibrating
of his head from side to side, a negation and rebuke to
hope. It is doubtful with what blunt word of conviction
he might have proceeded to fulfil his errand (for Van
Hausen was not a man of eloquence or circumlocution,
and always took the shortest way to the truth), but
Hannah saved him even that trouble. She had read the
verdict in his face.

“Wal, Dick,” she immediately responded, “they've
done fur my old man!”

“That's a fact,” blurted Dick, “they have.”

“Have you been on the mountain?”

“Not yet I hain't, but I've seen them as has. Stein's
folks was among the fust roused. I met 'em jest the
other side o' here. I only looked in to make sure you
warn't murdered yerself, and to break the wust to yer.
I'm on my way up now.”

“The sooner the better,” said Hannah; “the only comfort
for me is to know that folks is on the track o' the
murderers. Don't let 'em leave a stone unturned, Dick.

Offer a reward, and get them fellers up from York as
knows how to ferret out things. It's most like 'twas
murder fust and stealin' arterwards, so I don't doubt
they've robbed my old man's strong box, but there's
money enough left to bring 'em to justice, I reckon,
and I'll spend every farthing on't but what I'll see 'em
swing.”

“I'll back yer up in that, Hannah,” said Dick, with
energy. “If any man thinks he can beat another's
brains out and not suffer for't, we 'll let him know to
the contrairy.”

“I've got a clew a'ready,” boasted Hannah, holding
up the mitten, and shaking it before the eyes of her
audience. “Find the hand that this 'ere 'll fit, Dick,
an' you'll find the hand that dealt a death-blow.”

“Dun know 'bout that!” said Dick, as he took the mitten
and handled it with interest. “Common 'nuf mitten
that, and wud fit most any body. If we could come
across the mate though, 't might be worth while. Hold
on to it anyhow! There's no knowin' how it may tell with
a jury one o' these days. Smaller things than that ha'
hung a man. My soul, gal!” continued he, suddenly
addressing Angie, who had gradually crept close to his
elbow, and whose agitation, for the first time, attracted
his notice, “how shaky you are on yer underpinnin',
an' yer face hain't got no more color than a white pine
board. Don't be afeared, child! We'll catch the fellers,
an' have 'em in the lock-up 'fore this world's many days
older. Anyhow, they won't ventur' into these parts agin

in a hurry arter the stroke o' business they did last
night. But here I am losin' time a'ready. I must be
off up the mountain. Geordie's got the start o' me, I'll
warrant, Mis' Rawle. I'm sorry for't. There's nothin'
like havin' good company on a bad arrant. Hollo!
What's the matter wi' the woman?”

Margery was clinging to one of the bedposts, and
shaking like an aspen leaf.

“Scar't to death, ain't she! Wal, Lord ha' mercy on
us! it's enough to scare strong folks, let alone the like
o' her.” “Take care on her. Take care o' both on 'em,
young ooman, an' you keep up yer pluck, Hannah. I'll
come back an' bring Geordie with me when we've got
through our sarch.”

He turned to go. With a strong effort at self-command,
Angie followed him. “George isn't about home,
Mr. Van Hausen,” she found voice to utter.

“George away! Don't say so,” muttered Van Hausen,
in evident regret, not to say vexation.

“Yes! We don't expect him back at present,” ventured
Angie; then added, in a hesitating tone, “he and I
have quarrelled.”

“You have, have yer?” exclaimed Van Hausen,
wrathfully; “hang these women,” he muttered, “they're
allers at the bottom of all the mischief! Then let me
tell yer,” he added to Angie, who looked wretched and
penitent enough just then to have been spared the rebuke,
“that you've done about the misfortinest thing
that ever you was up ter. If ever Geordie was wanted

in this world it's now, when you've sent him a flyin' off
the handle. Jest like yer, you little —”

Here Van Hausen, at a loss to find a sufficiently contemptuous
term, grasped the shoulder of the unresisting
girl by way of emphasis. He would not have hurt her
for the world, still, nervous and conscience-stricken, she
trembled beneath the touch of his great hand.

“Them Stein's 'll be forrard enough in this 'ere business,
I'll warrant,” continued Van Hausen, in a sort of
muttered growl; “and what's to hinder? Geordie 's the
only other chip o' the old stock, an' he's off for Virginny
by this time, like enough! The boy 's been kind o' sore
agin his uncle Baultie o' late; but he'll take a back
track when he larns what a cruel end the old man's
come ter.”

Van Hausen was soliloquizing, so he never heeded the
fact that there was no response to his words on Angie's
part; but while she stood stunned and torpid, like a
mouse just released from a lion's grip, he turned away
and went ploughing through the snow, continuing to
mutter to himself as he went.