Annie o' the Banks o' Dee

Chapter Twenty Seven.

A Sensational Murder Trial

The good people of Aberdeen – yclept the Granite City – are as fond of display and show as even the Londoners, and the coming of the lords, who are the judges that try the principal cases, is quite an event of the year, and looked forward to with longing, especially by the young people.

Ah! little they think of or care for the poor wretches that, in charge of warders or policemen, or both, are brought up from their cells, to stand pale and trembling before the judge.

The three weeks that intervened between the departure of poor, unhappy Annie from his cell and the coming of the lords were the longest that Reginald ever spent in life – or appeared to be, for every hour was like a day, every day seemed like a month.

The gaoler was still kind to him. He had children of his own, and in his heart he pitied the poor young fellow, around whose neck the halter would apparently soon be placed. He had even – although I believe this was against the rules – given Reginald some idea as to the day his trial would commence.

“God grant,” said Reginald, “they may not keep me long. Death itself is preferable to the anxiety and awful suspense of a trial.”

But the three weeks passed away at last, and some days to that, and still the lords came not. The prisoner’s barred window was so positioned that he could see down Union Street with some craning of the neck.

One morning, shortly after he had sent away his untouched breakfast, he was startled by hearing a great commotion in the street, and the hum of many voices. The pavements were lined with a sea of human beings. Shortly after this he heard martial music, and saw men on the march with nodding plumes and fixed bayonets. Among them, guarded on each side, walked lords in their wigs and gowns. Reginald was brave, but his heart sank to zero now with terror and dread. He felt that his hour had come. Shortly the gaoler entered.

“Your case is to be the first,” he said. “Prepare yourself. It will come off almost immediately.”

He went away, and the prisoner sank on his knees and prayed as surely he never prayed before. The perspiration stood in great drops on his forehead.

Another weary hour passed by, and this time the door was opened to his advocate. His last words were these:

“All you have got to do is to plead ‘Not guilty’; then keep silent. If a question is put to you, glance at me before you answer. I will nod if you must answer, and shake my head if you need not.”

“A thousand thanks for all your kindness, sir. I’m sure you will do your best.”

“I will.”

Once more the gaoler entered.

“The doctor sends you this,” he said. “And drink it you must, or you may faint in the dock, and the case be delayed.”

At last the move was made. Dazed and dizzy, Reginald hardly knew whither he was being led, until he found himself in the dock confronting the solemn and sorrowful-looking judge. He looked just once around the court, which was crowded to excess. He half-expected, I think, to see Annie there, and was relieved to find she was not in court. But yonder was Captain Dickson and the four sailors who had remained behind to prosecute the gold digging. Dickson smiled cheerfully and nodded. Then one of the policemen whispered attention, and the unhappy prisoner at once confronted the judge.

“Reginald Grahame,” said the latter after some legal formalities were gone through, “you are accused of the wilful murder of Craig Nicol, farmer on Deeside, by stabbing him to the heart with a dirk or skean dhu. Are you guilty or not guilty?”

“Not guilty, my lord.” This in a firm voice, without shake or tremolo.

“Call the witnesses.”

The first to be examined was Craig’s old housekeeper. She shed tears profusely, and in a faint tone testified to the departure of her master for Aberdeen with the avowed intention of drawing money to purchase stock withal. She was speedily allowed to stand down.

The little boys who had found the body beneath the dark spruce-fir in the lonely plantation were next interrogated, and answered plainly enough in their shrill treble.

Then came the police who had been called, and the detective, who all gave their evidence in succinct but straightforward sentences.

All this time there was not a sound in the court, only that sea of faces was bent eagerly forward, so that not a word might escape them. The excitement was intense.

Now came the chief witness against Reginald; and the bloodstained dirk was handed to Shufflin’ Sandie.

“Look at that, and say if you have seen it before?” said the judge.

“As plain as the nose on your lordship’s face!” said Sandie, smiling.

That particular nose was big, bulbous, and red. Sandie’s reply, therefore, caused a titter to run through the court. The judge frowned, and the prosecution proceeded.

“Where did you last see it?”

“Stained with blood, sir; it was found beneath the dead man’s body.”

On being questioned, Sandie also repeated his evidence as given at the coroner’s inquest, and presently was allowed to stand down.

Then the prisoner was hissed by the people. The judge lost his temper. He had not quite got over Sandie’s allusion to his nose.

“If,” he cried, “there is the slightest approach to a repetition of that unseemly noise, I will instantly clear the court?”

The doctor who had examined the body was examined.

“Might not the farmer have committed suicide?” he was asked.

“Everything is against that theory,” the doctor replied, “for the knife belonged to Grahame; besides, the deed was done on the road, and from the appearance of the deceased’s coat, he had evidently been hauled through the gateway on his back, bleeding all the while, and so hidden under the darkling spruce pine.”

“So that felo de se is quite out of the question?”

“Utterly so, my lord.”

“Stand down, doctor.”

I am giving the evidence only in the briefest epitome, for it occupied hours. The advocate for the prosecution made a telling speech, to which the prisoner’s solicitor replied in one quite as good. He spoke almost ironically, and laughed as he did so, especially when he came to the evidence of the knife. His client at the time of the murder was lying sound asleep at a hedge-foot. What could hinder a tramp, one of the many who swarm on the Deeside road, to have stolen the knife, followed Craig Nicol, stabbed him, robbed and hidden the body, and left the knife there to turn suspicion on the sleeping man? “Is it likely,” he added, “that Reginald – had he indeed murdered his quondam friend – would have been so great a fool as to have left the knife there?” He ended by saying that there was not a jot of trustworthy evidence on which the jury could bring in a verdict of guilty.

But, alas! for Reginald. The judge in his summing up – and a long and eloquent speech it was – destroyed all the good effects of the solicitor’s speech. “He could not help,” he said, “pointing out to the jury that guilt or suspicion could rest on no one else save Grahame. As testified by a witness, he had quarrelled with Nicol, and had made use of the remarkable expression that ‘the quarrel would end in blood.’ The night of the murder Grahame was not sober, but lying where he was, in the shade of the hedge, Nicol must have passed him without seeing him, and then no doubt Grahame had followed and done that awful deed which in cool blood he might not even have thought about Again, Grahame was poor, and was engaged to be married. The gold and notes would be an incentive undoubtedly to the crime, and when he sailed away in the Wolverine he was undoubtedly a fugitive from justice, and in his opinion the jury had but one course. They might now retire.”

They were about to rise, and his lordship was about to withdraw, when a loud voice exclaimed:

“Hold! I desire to give evidence.”

A tall, bold-looking seafarer stepped up, and was sworn.

“I have but this moment returned from a cruise around Africa,” he said. “I am bo’s’n’s mate in H.M.S. Hurricane. We have been out for three years. But, my lord, I have some of the notes here that the Bank of Scotland can prove were paid to Craig Nicol, and on the very day after the murder must have taken place I received these notes, for value given, from the hands of Sandie yonder, usually called Shufflin’ Sandie. I knew nothing about the murder then, nor until the ship was paid off; but being hurried away, I had no time to cash the paper, and here are three of them now, my lord.” They were handed to the jury. “They were smeared with blood when I got them. Sandie laughed when I pointed this out to him. He said that he had cut his finger, but that the blood would bring me luck.” (Great sensation in court.)

Sandie was at once recalled to the witness-box. His knees trembled so that he had to be supported. His voice shook, and his face was pale to ghastliness.

“Where did you obtain those notes?” said the judge sternly.

For a moment emotion choked the wretch’s utterance. But he found words at last.

“Oh, my lord my lord, I alone am the murderer! I killed one man – Craig Nicol – I cannot let another die for my crime! I wanted money, my lord, to help to pay for my new house, and set me up in life, and I dodged Nicol for miles. I found Mr Grahame asleep under a hedge, and I stole the stocking knife and left it near the man I had murdered. When I returned to the sleeping man, I had with me – oh, awful! – some of the blood of my victim that I had caught in a tiny bottle as it flowed from his side,” – murmurs of horror – “and with this I smeared Grahame’s hands.”

Here Sandie collapsed in a dead faint, and was borne from the court.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” said the judge, “this evidence and confession puts an entirely new complexion on this terrible case. The man who has just fainted is undoubtedly the murderer.” The jury agreed. “The present prisoner is discharged, but must appear to-morrow, when the wretched dwarf shall take his place in the dock.”

And so it was. Even the bloodstained clothes that Sandie had worn on the night of the murder had been found. The jury returned a verdict of guilty against him without even leaving the box. The judge assumed the black cap, and amidst a silence that could be felt, condemned him to death.

Reginald Grahame was a free man, and once more happy. The court even apologised to him, and wished him all the future joys that life could give.

But the wretched culprit forestalled justice, and managed to strangle himself in his cell. And thus the awful tragedy ended.

“I knew it, I knew it!” cried Annie, as a morning or two after his exculpation Reginald presented himself at McLeod Cottage. And the welcome he received left nothing to be desired.

Chapter Twenty Eight.

The Last Cruise to the Island of Flowers

In quite a ship-shape form was poor Reginald’s release from prison, and from the very jaws of death. Met at the door by his friends and old shipmates. Dickson was there, with his four brave sailors, and many was the fellow-student who stretched out his hands to shake Reginald’s, as pale and weakly he came down the steps. Then the students formed themselves into procession – many who read these lines may remember it – and, headed by a brass band, marched with Dickson and the sailors, who bore Reginald aloft in an armchair, marched to the other end of Union Street, then back as far as a large hotel. Here, after many a ringing cheer, they dismissed themselves. But many returned at eventide and partook of a sumptuous banquet in honour of Reginald, and this feast was paid for by Dickson himself. The common sailors were there also, and not a few strange tales they had to tell, their memories being refreshed by generous wine.

And now our story takes a leap of many months, and we find the Highland Mary, a most beautiful yacht, somewhat of the Wolverine type, far, far at sea, considerable to nor’ard of the Line, however, but bounding on under a spread of whitest canvas, over just such a sea as the sailor loves. No big waves here, but wavelets of the darkest steel-blue, and each one wrinkled and dimpled with the warm, delightful breeze, kissed by the sunlight, and reflecting the glory in millions of broken rays, as if the sea were besprinkled with precious stones and diamonds of purest ray serene.

Let us take a look on deck. We cannot but be struck with the neatness and brightness of everything our eyes fall upon. The fires are out. There is no roaring steam, no clouds of dark, dense smoke, no grind and grind of machinery, and no fall of black and sooty hailstones from the funnel. Ill indeed would this have accorded with the ivory whiteness of the quarter-deck, with the snow-white table linen, which one can catch a glimpse of down through the open skylight. But worst of all would it accord with the dainty dresses of the ladies, or the snowy sailor garb of the officers. The ladies are but two in reality, Annie herself – now Mrs Reginald Grahame – and daft, pretty wee Matty. But there is Annie’s maid, Jeannie Lee, looking as modest and sweet as she ever did. Annie is seated in a cushioned chair, and, just as of old, Matty is on Reginald’s knee. If Annie is not jealous of her, she certainly is not jealous of Annie. In her simple, guileless young heart, she believes that she comes first in Reginald’s affections, and that Annie has merely second place.

I daresay it is the bracing breeze and the sunshine that makes Matty feel so happy and merry to-day. Well, sad indeed would be the heart that rejoiced not on such a day as this! Why, to breathe is joy itself; the air seems to fill one with exhilaration, like gladsome, sparkling wine.

Here is Captain Dickson. He never did look jollier, with his rosy, laughing face, his gilt-bound cap and his jacket of blue, than he does now. He is half-sitting, half-standing on the edge of the skylight, and keeping up an animated conversation with Annie. Poor Annie, her troubles and trials seem over now, and she looks quietly, serenely happy; her bonnie face – set off by that tiny flower-bedecked bride’s bonnet – is radiant with smiles.

But Matty wriggles down from Reginald’s knee at last, and is off to have a game of romps with Sigmund, the splendid Dane. Sigmund is four-and-thirty inches high at the shoulder, shaped in body somewhat like a well-built pointer, but in head like a long-faced bull-terrier. His coat is short, and of a slatey-blue; his tail is as straight and strong as a capstan bar. At any time he has only to switch it across Matty’s waist, when down she rolls on the ivory-white decks. Then Sigmund bends down, and gives her cheek just one loving lick, to show there is no bad feeling; but so tickled is he at the situation, that with lips drawn back and pearly teeth showing in a broad smile, he must set out on a wild and reckless rush round and round the decks from winch to binnacle. If a sailor happens to get in his way, he is flung right into the air by the collision, and is still on his back when Sigmund returns. But the dog bounds over the fallen man, and continues his mad gallop until, fairly exhausted, he comes back to lie down beside Matty, with panting breath, and about a yard, more or less, of a red-ribbon of tongue depending from one side of his mouth.

Matty loves Sigmund, but she loves Oscar more, and wonders if she will ever see him once again; and she wonders, too, if Sigmund and Oscar will agree, or if they will fight, which would be truly terrible to think of.

Yonder is McGregor. He is elevated to the rank of bo’s’n, and the three other sailors that came home in the Vulcan are here too. With the pile in gold and pearls they made on the Isle of Flowers, they needn’t have been now serving before the mast. This would probably be their last voyage, for they meant to go into business on shore. But they loved the sea, and they loved Reginald and Dickson too. So here they were, and many more tars also; and when the main-brace was spliced of a Saturday night, it would have been good for anyone to have come forward to the bows and listened to the songs sung and the tales told by honest Jack.

But how came Matty on board? The story is soon told, and it is a sad one. A few weeks after his marriage, being in London, and dropping into the Savoy Hotel on the now beautiful Embankment, Reginald found Mr Hall standing languid and lonely by the bar with a little glass of green liquor in his hand.

“Delighted to see you! What a pleasant chance meeting to be sure!”

Then Matty ran up for her share of the pleasure, and was warmly greeted.

Ah! but Mr Hall had a sad story to tell. “I am now a lonely, childless man,” he said. “What!” cried Reginald – “is Ilda – ”

“She is dead and gone. Lived but a week in Italy – just one short week. Faded like a flower, and – ah, well, her grave is very green now, and all her troubles are over. But, I say, Grahame, we have all to die, and if there is a Heaven, you know, I daresay we shall be all very happy, and there won’t be any more partings nor sad farewells.”

Reginald had to turn away his head to hide the rising tears, and there was a ball in his throat that almost choked him, and quite forbade any attempt at speaking.

The two old friends stayed long together, and it was finally arranged that Mr Hall should pay a long visit to the old Laird McLeod, and that Reginald should have the loan of his little favourite Matty in a voyage to the South Sea Island.

The cruise of the Highland Mary was a long but most pleasant and propitious one. They steamed through the Straits of Magellan, and were delighted when the yacht, under, a favouring breeze, went stretching west and away out into the blue and beautiful Pacific Ocean.

Dickson had taken his bearings well, and at last they found themselves at anchor in the bay off the Isle of Flowers, opposite the snow-white coralline beach and the barracks and fort where they had not so long ago seen so much fighting and bloodshed.

Was there anyone happier, I wonder, at seeing her guests, her dear old friends, than Queen Bertha? Well, if there was, it was honest Oscar on meeting his long-lost master.

Indeed, the poor dog hardly knew what to do with joy. He whined, he cried, he kissed and caressed his master, and scolded him in turns. Then he stood a little way off and barked at him. “How could you have left your poor Oscar so long?” he seemed to say. Then advancing more quietly, he once more placed a paw on each of his master’s shoulders and licked his ear. “I love you still,” he said.

After this he welcomed Matty, but in a manner far more gentle, for he ever looked upon her as a baby – his own baby, as it were. And there she was, her arms around his massive neck, kissing his bonnie broad brow – just a baby still.

The Isle of Flowers was very lovely now, and the valley —

“Oh?” cried Annie, in raptures, as she gazed down the verdant strath. “Surely this is fairyland itself!”

The ladies, and Jeannie as well, were the guests of the Queen during the long, happy month they stayed on the island.

There was no more gold-seeking or pearl-fishing to any great extent. Only one day they all went up the valley and had a delightful picnic by the winding river and under the shade of the magnolia trees. Reginald and Dickson both waded into the river, and were lucky enough, when they came out with their bags full of oysters, to find some rare and beautiful pearls. They were as pure as any Scotch ever taken from the Tay, and had a pretty pinkish hue.

But now Jeannie Lee herself must bare her shapely legs and feet and try her luck. She wanted one big pearl for her dear mistress, she said, and three wee ones for a ring for somebody. Yes, and she was most successful, and Annie is wearing that large pearl now as I write. And the three smaller? Well, I may as well tell it here and be done with it. McGregor, the handsome, bold sailor, had asked Jeannie to be his wife, and she had consented. The ring was for Mac.

On Lone Tree Mountain, assisted by the men, Dickson and Reginald soon set to digging, and found all their gold and pearls safe and sound.

And now parting time came, and farewells were said, the Queen saying she should live in hopes of seeing them back again.

“God bless you all, my children.”

“And God bless you, Queen Bertha.”

With ringing British cheers, the little band playing “Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye,” the Highland Mary sailed slowly, and, it appeared, reluctantly, away from the Isle of Flowers. At sunset it was seen but as a little blue cloud low down on the western horizon.

To Matty’s surprise the two great dogs made friends with each other at once, and every day during that long voyage homewards they romped and played together, with merry Matty as their constant companion, and never quarrelled even once.

British shores and the snow-white steeples and spires of bonnie Aberdeen at last! The first thing that Reginald did was to hire a carriage, and, accompanied by Annie and the honest dog Oscar, drive straight to McLeod’s cottage.

To their surprise and alarm they found the house empty and the windows boarded up.

“Oh, Annie!” cried Reginald. “I fear the worst. Your poor uncle has gone.”

Annie had already placed her handkerchief to her eyes.

“Beg pardon,” said the jarvey, “but is it Laird McLeod you’re a-talking about? Oh, yes; he’s gone this six months! Man! I knew the old man well. Used to drive him most every day of his life. But haven’t you heard, sir?”

“No, my good fellow; we have not been on shore two hours. Tell us.”

“There isn’t much to tell, sir, though it was sad enough. For the young Laird o’ Bilberry Hall shot himself one morning by accident while out after birds. Well, of course, that dear soul, the old Laird, is gone back to his estate, and such rejoicings as there was you never did see.”

“And he is not dead, then?”

“Dead! He is just as lively as a five-year-old!”

This was indeed good news. They were driven back to the ship, and that same afternoon, accompanied by Matty, after telegraphing for the carriage to meet them, they started by train up Deeside.

Yes, the carriage was there, and not only the Laird, but Mr Hall as well.

I leave anyone who reads these lines to imagine what that happy reunion was like, and how pleasantly spent was that first evening, with so much to say, so much to tell.

But a house was built for Mr Hall on the estate, and beautiful gardens surrounded it, and here he meant to settle down.

Jeannie was married in due course, but she and McGregor took a small farm near to Bilberry Hall, and on the estate, while Reginald and his wife lived in the mansion itself.

Many years have passed away since the events I have related in this “ower-true” tale. Matty is a tall girl now, and her uncle’s constant companion. Reginald and Annie are lovers still – “happy, though married.” The heather still blooms bonnie on the hills; dark wave the pine trees in the forests around; the purring of the dove is heard mournfully sounding from the thickets of spruce, and the wildflowers grow on every bank and brae; but – the auld Laird has worn away. His home is under the long green grass and the daisies; yet even when the snow-clads that grave in a white cocoon, Annie never forgets to visit it, and rich and rare are the flowers that lie at its head.

And so my story ends, so drops the curtain down.