Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

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Another day clamied. Mr. Monitor was gone ; the judge
was gone ; the jury were all of them at their homo again, and
things alone his investments are respectable, and will last
your life. They will bring you in about a hundred and fifty
pounds a year.
But Mary heard listlessly. She thanked Mr, Bennet, and
said, " Don't be Lard on anybody, and never let rue touch ill-
gotten goods."
No more could be got out of Mary. But when she went to
her aunt, who was waiting for her in Mr. Bloomfield's house,
she
"
said, It will be fifty pounds a year for you, and Boper,
and for me.
money.
I can never marry now. I hope he'll take the
But we may say here that Boper never did take the money.
He came back to England, and was put on his trial; his
story was true, and his punishment not great.
He had been coming from Stonemoor, and had overtaken
James at the ttile. He had reproached James with bting the
selfish cause of his marriage with Mary being again postponed.
James had got violently angry, and had struck Roper, who in
self-defence had had to use Jam s Gardener roughly. After
Boper had got over the stile, James, from the top of the stile,
called to him when he turned his head he found a ;
sharp stone
flung at him, which, but for his dexterity in shielding his face
with his arm, must have done him serious injury. He ran
back toward th ) stile, but, remembering that he had not another
moment to spare, turned again immediately, on which
another stone was flung. On this he flung at Gardener the
clasp-knife he had bought and had yet in his pocket. Gardener
was still leaning over tho top bar of the istile. It had
seemed to Boper that he had dropped down to avoid being
A \D 81
Peter Sands must have passed the stile very quickly after
Gar leiicr'jj death; according to (1
have lived full half an hour aflcf bring struck, aiM I
from tlm stile, according to lioper's story.
He had hud time to recover so far from his fall as t .
himself off tho Iho footway to the place where Si mm Lyst, j-'s
piirmiing their employments; Dr. Beauclrrk had rone to London
lo see Miss Peuwarue and tho ; good old lady iu back was
Mrs. Bc'auchamp's guest.
With her, too, was Peter Sands.
Fu: her Dun- tan had gone back to his college, and he had
taken Fred Drake with him on a visit. Ho hud taken a fai.cy
to Fred, and Fred had yielded to Father Dunstan's influence.
Mr. Brewurd hoped for good fruit from this friendship, and
Mrs. Breward and the M s. Lances both hoped and prayed.
They looked back and saw how much Fred's folly had had
to w.th Peter's trial and Gardener's sin and perhaps death.
Mr. Bennet had already set to work to arrange for his friend
the payment of Drake's debts, and the settlement of the money
questions which had arisen between him and Mary Gardener ;
for her father had died without a will, and to all that he posses-
Bed his daughter would succeed. Mary had been told this,
and she had received the news with the most entire indifference.
" He has no freehold property," Mr. Bennet said to her;
" he has done much in the purchase of the last years of leases,
and has made a good thing of many of his dog had found him. Every
purchases. If you
will let me advise you, I should say that you had better let
one hoped that in that half hour
he might have hud the strength to recommend himself to the
mercy of God, and grace to make acts of contrition.
All thin came out after tho examination of Boper, and after
such a time had passed as tho circumstances made necessary.
In the meantime everyone had talked of Petir Sands; everybody
was full of good- will towards him; and many tried to
show it in some way or other, according to their ability.
But Peter was like a man suddenly recovered from a mortal
illness. He did not know how to bear his sense of safety, or
what to do just at that moment with his life. The weeks he
had been in prison had enfeebled his health. He felt as if tho
sight of the waves, and the freedom of the breeze that blew
about him, were more than he could bear.
He had been told in prison that Mr. Monitor did not b lieve
that the evidence was enough to hang him; but thab ther was
no evidence forthcoming by which he could be proved to be
innocent. He had known that he might go forth from prison
free to live; but he knew that he should be suspectv d forever
of being a murderer; and the v, eight of that humiliation, and
the perpetual sense of so great an injustice, would have beea
more than a high-spirited man, in the strength of his healthy
youth, could have borne without an overpowering gift cf
grace.
He would rather have died unjustly, if his innocence might
have been afterwards proved, than go about as a marked man
as one who had disgraced the memory of Colonel Penwaine,
thrown shame on Mrs. Penwarne's goodness, dr gged the
name of Catholic through the mire, cast aside God's grace, and
insulted the Church.
As such he would bs reviled, and as such he would be pointed
at a hypocrite, a sinner, a thing to be avoided, a being to be
banished from good company, a ( living example f Lie evil
depths to which a man might fall a man loaded with favor^;
a man apparently living a holy life. As such a being he would,
he believed, pass from those prison-walls into a world which
would fall away from him in horror.
What good would life be to him if his innocence could net
be proved ?
So, at last, the great final struggle came. He was to give
up his good name; ami it was dearer to him than life; ten
thousand times dearer as to such a man it was sure to be.
No one but Father Joseph had known of this great s: niggle
in all its bitterness. He prayed; he brought all his natural
struck.
Boper had now made as much haste as he could to the kouse
of a friend in Treddington, whom he had promised to see
before he sailed. He said nothing about James Gardener, and
he remained with his fi-iend about half an hour. He then
went to the vessel, walking fast, and meeting Peter Sands, as
has been said, just after Peter's leaving Dr. Beauclerk's
house.
As to the knives, Boper's story explained that m tter in this
way. He said that, on the afternoon spoken of, he had bought
two knives, one for himself, and one for a friend who had
commissioned him to make the purchase. He had not had
any intention of buying a knife for himself when he. first
entered the shop; but, having executed his friend's commission,
he was tempted by the remarkable superiority of the
knives to buy one for himself.
On his friend showing his knife, the vessel's cook sent his
nephew, a fine youth, to buy two for strength
him; and this young
man was buying these knivcswheu Peter Sands was in the
ahoy. ^
of brain and heart to help tiie supernatural work that
he asked of our Lord to accoinplish in him the willing renunciation
of his good name, if such a renunciation should be
expected of him.
Yet he was innocent, and God knew it.
And it was his duty not to be a scandal.
His cry to Mr. Monitor had been " Prove me innosent f "
His entreaty to Mr. Bennet had been in the same words. "Even
if i die if they kill me never cease your efforts till I am
proved to be innocent. Beajove from religion the great scandal
of the sin of which they b< lieve me guilty. "
Much as these meu had fel the misery that Peter was going
through, they yet had told him the truth that he would have
to live; and that his innocence could not be proved.
Such was the sentence that he was to bring himself to suffer.
It was to God alone th'it, up to this moment, he had owed
all things; and now he was to prove that God alone was sufficient
for him.
The world perhaps even his best and dearest friends
would look on him as dishonored, and for all life di?-gr..
God alone knew that he had not dishon -red his holy religion
nor disgraced his t aching.
At last ho had consented to this loss of all tilings.