The Trial [127]
and good behaviour, which, maybe, were somewhat increased by this caricature, but he ended by very hearty wishes that these were the times of Jeanie Deans; if the pardon depended on our own good Queen, he should not doubt of it a moment. Why, was not the boy just the age of her own son? And verily there was no one in the whole world whom poor Averil envied like Jeanie Deans. So member and mayor went to London together, and intense were the prayers that speeded them and followed them. The case was laid before the Home Secretary, the petitions presented, and Dr. May said all that man might say on ground where he felt as if over- partisanship might be perilous. The matter was to have due consideration: nothing more definite or hopeful could be obtained; but there could be no doubt that this meant a real and calm re- weighing of the evidence, with a consideration of all the circumstances. It was something for the Doctor that a second dispassionate study should be given to the case, but his heart sank as he thought of that cold, hard statement of evidence, without the counter testimony of the honest, tearless eyes and simple good faith of the voice and tone. And when he entered the railway carriage on his road home, the newspaper that George Rivers attentively pressed upon him bore the information that Wednesday, the 21st, would be the day, according to usage, for the execution of the condemned criminal, Leonard Axworthy Ward. If it had been for the execution of Richard May, the Doctor could hardly have given a deeper groan. He left the train at the county town. He had so arranged, that he might see the prisoner on his way home; but he had hardly the heart to go, except that he knew he was expected, and no disappointment that he could help must add to the pangs of these last days. Leonard was alone, but was not, as before, sitting unemployed; he carefully laid down his etching work ere he came forward to meet his fnend; and there was not the bowed and broken look about him, but a fixed calmness and resolution, as he claimed the fatherly embrace and blessing with which the Doctor now always met him. 'I bring you no certainty, Leonard. It is under consideration.' 'Thank you. You have done everything,' returned Leonard, quietly; 'and--' then pausing, he added, 'I know the day now--the day after my birthday.' 'Let us--let us hope,' said the Doctor, greatly agitated. 'Thank you,' again said Leonard; and there was a pause, during which Dr. May anxiously studied the face, which had become as pale and almost as thin as when the lad had been sent off to Coombe, and infinitely older in the calm steadfastness of every feature. 'You do not look well, Leonard.' 'No; I am not quite well; but it matters very little,' he said, with a smile. 'I am well enough to make it hard to believe how soon all sense and motion will be gone out of these fingers!' and he held up his hand, and studied the minutiae of its movements with a strange grave sort of curiosity. 'Don't--don't, Leonard!' exclaimed the Doctor. 'You may be able to bear it, but I cannot.' 'I thought you would not mind, you have so often watched death.' 'Yes; but--' and he covered his face with his hands. 'I wish it did not pain you all so much,' said Leonard, quietly. 'But for that, I can feel it to be better than if I had gone in the fever, when I had no sense to think or repent; or if I had--I hardly knew my own faults.' 'You seem much happier now, my boy.' 'Yes,' said Leonard. 'I am more used to the notion, and Mr. Wilmot has been so kind. Then I am to see Ave to-morrow, if she is well enough. Henry has promised to bring her, and leave her alone with me; and I do hope--that I shall be able to convince her that it is not so very bad for me--and then she may be able to take comfort. You know she would, if she were nursing me now in my bed at Bankside; so why should she not when she sees that I don't think this any worse, but rather better?' The Doctor was in no mood to think any comfort possible in thus losing one like Leonard, and he did not commit himself to an untruth. There