The Adventures of Tom Leigh (19 page)

“Will the boy say why he cut out the piece of lining?” said the judge.

“To prove that the pedlar had been there, my lord.”

“How chanced it that you had scissors with you?”

“They were a gift of Mr. Firth's little daughter, Gracie, and I always carried them in my coat pocket.”

Here I looked towards Mr. Firth, and saw to my surprise that Mrs. Firth and Gracie were sitting beside him. I learned afterwards that before I entered the witness-box Mrs. Firth had been excused from giving evidence about the pedlar's
message, as Mr. Firth's was deemed sufficient, so she was allowed to enter the court and Mr. Firth fetched her in.

“Why did you think to don your coat in the midst of your hurried action?” pursued the judge.

“I feared my shirt if uncovered would show very white in the moonlight.”

“Well, well. Well, well, well! And why did you cut such a jagged piece, eh?”

“It was because of my indentures, my lord,” said I.

It was at this point, after the long questioning and excitement of the showing of the lining, that I suddenly grew tired. I stumbled over my account of the fight with Jeremy and the breaking of my arm, and I muddled what I had heard Jeremy and the pedlar say to each other at the foot of the lane. Then I made a great effort and cried out loudly when I was repeating the pedlar's cry:

“Keep to the left!”

“This is the moment, my lord,” said Serjeant Braithwaite, “when the witness believed he recognised the pedlar's voice as the one he heard by the stream.”

“Keep to the left!” cried the pedlar suddenly in a high shrill almost girlish voice, and he giggled.

Everyone laughed, and the judge bade Anthony Dyce be silent without much anger in his tone.

“He did not cry out like that by the stream!” I cried angrily.

Serjeant Braithwaite shrugged, and the judge said:

“Well, we are not trying a murder case. Continue.”

The serjeant took me very quickly through my climbing into Harry's window, my evidence to Sir Henry, my journey to Skipton, my stopping of Mr. Hollas's horse. Then at last my ordeal was over; I was led out of the box by a court officer, and sank down thankfully by Mr. Firth's side. He squeezed my arm gently with his hand and gave me a kind look, and I felt relieved.

I must own that I did not hear very much of the evidence which followed; I was so exhausted as to be half asleep, and
—I am ashamed to say—started to wakefulness only when I heard my own name. Harry gave evidence of my climbing into his window with a broken arm and crying out that the tenters were being robbed; Sir Henry spoke of my accusation of Jeremy and the pedlar and the matter of the lining; Mr. Gledhill and Mr. Swain described their arrests of the men and of the sight of the empty tenters; Mr. Defoe's deposition was read, then Mr. Gledhill was recalled to tell of our journey to Skipton. I started awake here and found everyone looking at me and felt greatly confused. Then came Mr. John Hollas, very indignant, and then a man I did not know, the Skipton tailor, I learned later. Then Mr. Serjeant Braithwaite arose and made a long speech, telling the whole story all over again; I nodded off through this, and woke presently feeling much refreshed.

“All we pray is,” Mr. Braithwaite was concluding: “that the jury will give such a verdict as is agreeable to justice.”

He sat down, drawing his gown sweepingly around him, and looked expectantly at the judge. There was a slight pause, then the judge spoke.

“It is now for the accused to have their say. Anthony Dyce, what say you?”

The pedlar bounced across to the witness-box, bowed elaborately to the judge, and began at once in a shrill cheerful tone:

“Several things have been asserted against me which are false, my lord, with respect to my intention. I had no intention whatever of stealing cloth, I never gave a message to Mrs. Firth that her father was ill, I simply said I was told in some Almondbury inn or other—”

“Which inn, Dyce?”

“The White Lion or the Fleece or the Weavers' Arms—” I could see from Mr. Sykes's swollen look that these were not the right names, and the pedlar saw it too, for he added hurriedly: “I cannot remember and your lordship cannot imagine how stupidly alike all these Yorkshire inns are—I was
told
in some inn that Mr. Sykes was ill. Now I learn that
Mr. Sykes often believes himself to be ill and his make-believe ailments are much talked of—but is that my fault? I simply repeated what I heard. But poor Mrs. Firth being so excessively devoted to her father”—here the pedlar tittered, and all the spectators tittered with him—“went off at once into a flutter.”

“This is not what Mr. Stephen Firth says, Dyce,” said the judge.

“A weaver—pardon, clothier—on a remote hillside who can hardly speak the King's English is not as quick in the uptake—pardon, as swift in comprehension—as a man of intelligence and learning like yourself, my lord,” said the pedlar with a bow.

“Dyce, you are a saucy fellow,” said the judge.

“As your lordship pleases,” said the pedlar with a grin.

The spectators tittered again, and my heart burned within me at the pedlar's cunning.

“What have you to say on your sale of the cloth to George Hollas?”

“I have a chapman's licence, I am a licensed pedlar,” said the pedlar on a note of grievance. “Oldfield handed me the cloth to sell, and I sold it honourably to George Hollas.”

“I never!” wailed Jeremy in astonishment.

“Silence! You will have your opportunity presently, Oldfield. Now, Dyce. What do you say of Mr. Daniel Defoe's statement that he saw you with the other two accused, the week before the theft?”

“He was mistaken, my lord; I was not in Halifax at that time. After all, Mr. Daniel Defoe is a man not unacquainted with the inside of prisons; he has even stood in the pillory for a political offence. Are we to take his word against that of a decent citizen like myself?”

“Mr. Defoe's political offences are long since over,” said the judge drily. “When did Jeremy Oldfield give you the piece of cloth to sell?”

“Later that night. I understood that Tom Leigh had
spoiled it for the usual market by tearing and cutting the cloth.”

“So you sold it to George Hollas?”

“Just so.”

“Have you anything more to say?”

“I beg your lordship to assign me counsel,” said the pedlar in an earnest pleading tone.

“Should any point of law arise, you shall have counsel, but as yet there is nothing but matter of fact. Have you anything more to say?”

“Nothing, my lord. I leave my case confidently in your lordship's hands,” said the pedlar, bowing.

“If you, Dyce, have done, then Jeremy Oldfield, what have you to say for yourself?” said the judge.

Jeremy looked utterly taken aback, as well he might after the pedlar's lies.

“You have pleaded Not Guilty,” said the judge impatiently. “You have heard the evidence against you. Have you anything to say in rebuttal? In your defence, I mean?”

“Aye—aye,” faltered Jeremy. “Aye, I have that.”

“Go into the witness-box,” commanded the judge. “Now, give us your account of the happenings on the night of the theft.”

“It were Tom that stole t'piece,” said Jeremy. “Me and pedlar were sitting talking, you see—”

“What were you talking about? What was the object of Anthony Dyce's visit?”

“Oh, that. He come to—to—” stammered Jeremy. It was clear that he had forgotten the story agreed upon, and he gazed imploringly across the court at the pedlar. I saw, and I think the judge saw, that the pedlar slightly tapped one hand. “It were t'mittens,” said Jeremy with relief. “Aye, it were t'mittens. We was sitting, you see, and we heard a noise, and we ran out, and there were Tom Leigh, pulling cloth off tenters. I yelled at him to stop, and sprang at him, and we rolled on ground.”

“Have you any explanation as to how he broke his arm?”

“Nay,” said Jeremy indignantly, “it weren't me as broke his arm. Nor it weren't me as talked his father down, neither—”

“Hold your tongue, you fool!” roared the pedlar.

There was an awful hush in court. For the pedlar had shouted as I had heard him shout, with his full man's tone. Everyone who heard him knew that, though there might not be enough evidence to convict him of being concerned in my father's death, he had incriminated himself. The judge gave a grim smile; the pedlar saw what he had done, and slowly his pasty face turned a dark crimson.

“Continue, Oldfield,” said the judge.

“He got away—Tom, I mean—and ran off.”

“Did he carry the piece of cloth with him then?”

“Nay, it weren't right off the tenters then,” said Jeremy. “Us coming out to tentercroft stopped him, d'you see.”

“When do you suppose he took it away, then?”

“Why—afterwards, of course.”

There was a pause. Then the judge said very quietly:

“In spite of his broken arm?”

“Well—I suppose,” agreed Jeremy.

“He handled the cloth as he did just now?” said the judge.

He turned his gaze slowly to the blue piece, tumbled on the floor in front of the witness-box. And suddenly the spectators—and the jury too, I saw—took his point. A great roar of delight thundered from all parts of the court. Jeremy hung his head and said nothing, and I knew with an immense rush of relief that my name was cleared.

“Have you any witnesses on your behalf, Jeremy Oldfield, anyone to speak for you?” pursued the judge.

“No,” muttered Jeremy.

“Have you anything more to say?”

Jeremy shook his head despondently.

“Well, George Hollas, then. What say you, Hollas?”

“Anthony Dyce is a licensed pedlar, he sold me the cloth as any licensed chapman would.”

“At what hour of the night did this sale occur?” enquired the judge drily.

“It would be about midnight,” said Hollas, somewhat crestfallen.

“Yet you did not doubt the honesty of the sale?”

“I had bought other goods from Anthony Dyce, and no trouble had ensued. I sometimes brought goods from Skipton—mittens and such like—and we exchanged. I am confounded, my lord,” went on Hollas at a great rate, as if he had learned the words by heart, “to think that I should be thought concerned in such a heinous crime.”

“What other goods had you bought from Anthony Dyce which caused no trouble?” enquired the judge.

Hollas hesitated. He gazed across at the pedlar, who returned hi m a furious, forbiddin g look. (“This is my father's watch,” I thought.)

“Cloth,” muttered Hollas at last, hanging his head.

“Have you any explanation of why you ran away from Thomas Leigh in Skipton?”

“A young jackanapes like that comes charging down on me and frightens my horse out of his senses, and I am blamed for galloping off!” cried Hollas.

His tone of outraged virtue was nauseating.

There was a pause now for the candles to be lighted, then folding his fine hands before him, the judge gave his summing up. It was the most clear, easy-to-follow, correct—and damning—account imaginable of the whole affair; every incident was in its right order, yet the actions of each person concerned were shown in a way which revealed their meaning. The pedlar's tale, and Jeremy's, and George Hollas's, were presented as proper for the jury's consideration—but on the other hand, said the judge, and proceeded quietly to expose each lie. Why did the pedlar return late at night to Upper High Royd? How and when was the piece of lining cut from the pedlar's coat if the pedlar was innocent? Oldfield
stated that Thomas Leigh had stolen the cloth, but this conflicted with the evidence of the pedlar and George Hollas, as well as with that of Thomas Leigh and with the admitted incapacity of his arm. In which of these stories did every detail of events fit without forcing?

“I am bound to say,” observed the judge presently in his even, silvery tones, “that no point of Thomas Leigh's evidence seemed to me to be shaken, in spite of the attempts made to shake it by the accused, while the evidence of the other inhabitants of Barseland and of the piece of lining, gave it strong support. It is for you to decide, members of the jury,” he continued: “whether you believe this lad, cruelly orphaned and, you may think, brave, faithful and the victim of conspiracy, or prefer to confide in the contradictory and evasive testimony of the accused, two of whom seem determined to lay the blame upon the third, to his evident surprise. Honest men are not wont to make sales at midnight, and eighteen yards of heavy cloth cannot be raised to the shoulder by a boy with a broken arm. None of the accused has offered an alternative explanation of the lining cut, and proved to be cut, from the pedlar's coat, and it may seem to you that this is because there is no other tenable explanation.

“If, then, upon the whole, members of the jury,” he concluded, “you are satisfied from the evidence, that Jeremy Oldfield did on purpose, and of malice aforethought, unlawfully remove the cloth from Mr. Stephen Firth's tenters, and Anthony Dyce was present and assisted at this removal, and did after sell this cloth so stolen to George Hollas, and George Hollas then sold this cloth to his cousin, John Hollas of Skipton, who received it not knowing it to be stolen; if, I say, you are satisfied that this is true, then you will find Jeremy Oldfield, Anthony Dyce and George Hollas guilty. But if this has not been proved to your satisfaction, then you will find them not guilty. Members of the jury, consider your verdict.”

We all stood as he left the court. No sooner was he gone than a tremendous noise broke out, everybody chattering
and expounding their own views on the case. The heat and stench were by this time almost unbearable, and Mrs. Firth, looking pale, leaned her head against her husband's shoulder. He put his arm about her to support her.