perhaps can never be known with certainty, Adam,” Mr. Irwine answered gently. “In these cases we sometimes form our judgment on what seems to us strong evidence, and yet, for want of knowing some small fact, our judgment is wrong. But suppose the worst: you have no right to say that the guilt of her crime lies with him, and that he ought to bear the punishment. It is not for us men to apportion the shares of moral guilt and retribution. We find it impossible to avoid mistakes even in determining who has committed a single criminal act, and the problem how far a man is to be held responsible for the unforeseen consequences of his own deed is one that might well make us tremble to look into it. The evil consequences that may lie folded in a single act of selfish indulgence is a thought so awful that it ought surely to awaken some feeling less presumptuous than a rash desire to punish. You have a mind that can understand this fully, Adam, when you are calm. Don’t suppose I can’t enter into the anguish that drives you into this state of revengeful hatred. But think of this: if you were to obey your passion—for it is passion, and you deceive yourself in calling it justice—it might be with you precisely as it has been with Arthur; nay, worse; your passion might lead you yourself into a horrible crime.”
“No—not worse,” said Adam, bitterly; “I don’t believe it’s worse—I’d sooner do it—I’d sooner do a wickedness as I could suffer for by myself than ha’ brought her to do wickedness and then stand by and see ’em punish her while they let me alone; and all for a bit o’ pleasure, as, if he’d had a man’s heart in him, he’d ha’ cut his hand off sooner than he’d ha’ taken it. What if he didn’t foresee what’s happened? He foresaw enough; he’d no right to expect anything but harm and shame to her. And then he wanted to smooth it off wi’ lies. No—there’s plenty o’ things folks are hanged for not half so hateful as that. Let a man do what he will, if he knows he’s to bear the punishment himself, he isn’t half so bad as a mean selfish coward as makes things easy t’ himself and knows all the while the punishment ’ll fall on somebody else.”
“There again you partly deceive yourself, Adam. There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can’t isolate yourself and say that the evil which is in you shall not spread. Men’s lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe: evil spreads as necessarily as disease. I know, I feel the terrible extent of suffering this sin of Arthur’s has caused to others; but so does every sin cause suffering to others besides those who commit it. An act of vengeance on your part against Arthur would simply be another evil added to those we are suffering under: you could not bear the punishment alone; you would entail the worst sorrows on every one who loves you. You would have committed an act of blind fury that would leave all the present evils just as they were and add worse evils to them. You may tell me that you meditate no fatal act of vengeance, but the feeling in your mind is what gives birth to such actions, and as long as you indulge it, as long as you do not see that to fix your mind on Arthur’s punishment is revenge, and not justice, you are in danger of being led on to the commission of some great wrong. Remember what you told me about your feelings after you had given that blow to Arthur in the Grove.”
Adam was silent: the last words had called up a vivid image of the past, and Mr. Irwine left him to his thoughts, while he spoke to Bartle Massey about old Mr. Donnithorne’s funeral and other matters of an indifferent kind. But at length Adam turned round and said, in a more subdued tone, “I’ve not asked about ’em at th’ Hall Farm, sir. Is Mr. Poyser coming?”
“He is come; he is in Stoniton to-night. But I could not advise him to see you, Adam. His own mind is in a very perturbed state, and it is best he should not see you till you are calmer.”
“Is Dinah Morris come to ’em, sir? Seth said they’d sent for her.”
“No. Mr. Poyser tells me she was not come when he left. They’re afraid the letter has not reached her. It seems they had no exact address.”
Adam sat ruminating a little while, and then said, “I wonder if Dinah ’ud ha’ gone to see her. But perhaps the Poysers would ha’ been sorely against it, since they won’t come nigh her themselves. But I think she would, for the Methodists are great folks for going into the prisons; and Seth said he thought she would. She’d a very tender way with her, Dinah had; I wonder if she could ha’ done any good. You never saw her, sir, did you?”
“Yes, I did. I had a conversation with her—she pleased me a good deal. And now you mention it, I wish she would come, for it is possible that a gentle mild woman like her might move Hetty to open her heart. The jail chaplain is rather harsh in his manner.”
“But it’s o’ no use if she doesn’t come,” said Adam sadly.
“If I’d thought of it earlier, I would have taken some measures for finding her out,” said Mr. Irwine, “but it’s too late now, I fear … Well, Adam, I must go now. Try to get some rest to-night. God bless you. I’ll see you early to-morrow morning.”
Chapter VII.
The Morning of the Trial.
At one o’clock the next day, Adam was alone in his dull upper room; his watch lay before him on the table, as if he were counting the long minutes. He had no knowledge of what was likely to be said by the witnesses on the trial, for he had shrunk from all the particulars connected with Hetty’s arrest and accusation. This brave active man, who would have hastened towards any danger or toil to rescue Hetty from an apprehended wrong or misfortune, felt himself powerless to contemplate irremediable evil and suffering. The susceptibility which would have been an impelling force where there was any possibility of action became helpless anguish when he was obliged to be passive, or else sought an active outlet in the thought of inflicting justice on Arthur. Energetic natures, strong for all strenuous deeds, will often rush away from a hopeless sufferer, as if they were hard-hearted. It is the overmastering sense of pain that drives them. They shrink by an ungovernable instinct, as they would shrink from laceration. Adam had brought himself to think of seeing Hetty, if she would consent to see him, because he thought the meeting might possibly be a good to her—might help to melt away this terrible hardness they told him of. If she saw he bore her no ill will for what she had done to him, she might open her heart to him. But this resolution had been an immense effort—he trembled at the thought of seeing her changed face, as a timid woman trembles at the thought of the surgeon’s knife, and he chose now to bear the long hours of suspense rather than encounter what seemed to him the more intolerable agony of witnessing her trial.
Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state. The yearning memories, the bitter regret, the agonized sympathy, the struggling appeals to the Invisible Right—all the intense emotions which had filled the days and nights of the past week, and were compressing themselves again like an eager crowd into the hours of this single morning, made Adam look back on all the previous years as if they had been a dim sleepy existence, and he had only now awaked to full consciousness. It seemed to him as if he had always before thought it a light thing that men should suffer, as if all that he had himself endured and called sorrow before was only a moment’s stroke that had never left a bruise. Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.
“O God,” Adam groaned, as he leaned on the table and looked blankly at the face of the watch, “and men have suffered like this before … and poor helpless young things have suffered like her….Such a little while ago looking so happy and so pretty … kissing ’em all, her grandfather and all of ’em, and they wishing her luck….O my poor, poor Hetty … dost think on it now?”
Adam started and looked round towards the door. Vixen had begun to whimper, and there was a sound of a stick and a lame walk on the stairs. It was Bartle Massey come back. Could it be all over?
Bartle entered quietly, and, going up to Adam, grasped his hand and said, “I’m just come to look at you, my boy, for the folks are gone out of court for a bit.”