John Caldigate eBook

heaven.’  So he had expressed himself, and so excused himself.  But now his eyes had been opened to the error of his ways, and he was free to acknowledge that he had committed perjury.  There had been no marriage;—­certainly none at all.  He made his deposition, and bound himself down, and submitted to live under the surveillance of the police till the affair should be settled.  Then he would be able to go where he listed, with two thousand pounds in his pocket.  He was a humble, silent, and generally obedient man, but in this affair he had managed to thrive better than any of the others.  Anna Young was afterwards allowed to fill the same position; but she failed in getting any of the money.  While the women were in London together, and as they were starting, Euphemia Smith had been too strong for her companion.  She had declared that she would not pay the money till they were afloat, and then that she would not pay it till they had left Plymouth.  When the police came on board the Julius Vogel, Anna Young had as yet received nothing.

Chapter LVI

The Boltons Are Very Firm

While all this was going on, as the general opinion in favour of Caldigate was becoming stronger every day, when even Judge Bramber had begun to doubt, the feeling which had always prevailed at Puritan Grange was growing in intensity and converting itself from a conviction into a passion.  That the wicked bigamist had falsely and fraudulently robbed her of her daughter was a religion to Mrs. Bolton;—­and, as the matter had proceeded, the old banker had become ever more and more submissive to his wife’s feelings.  All the Cambridge Boltons were in accord on this subject,—­who had never before been in accord on any subject.  Robert Bolton, who understood thoroughly each point as it was raised on behalf of Caldigate, was quite sure that the old squire was spending his money freely, his own money and his son’s, with the view of getting the verdict set aside.  What was so clear as that Dick Shand and Bagwax, and probably also Smithers from the Stamps and Taxes, were all in the pay of old Caldigate?  At this time the defection of Adamson was not known to him, but he did know that a strong case was being made with the Secretary of State.  ’If it costs me all I have in the world I will expose them,’ he said up in London to his brother William, the London barrister.

The barrister was not quite in accord with the other Boltons.  He also had been disposed to think that Dick Shand and Bagwax might have been bribed by the squire.  It was at any rate possible.  And the twenty thousand pounds paid to the accusing witnesses had always stuck in his throat when he had endeavoured to believe that Caldigate might be innocent.  It seemed to him still that the balance of evidence was against the man who had taken his sister away from her home.  But he was willing to leave that to the Secretary of State and to the judge.  He