" And on that functionary entering from an
adjoining room, "Here is a foolish lad fretting about yon girl. Can
we stretch a point? say we admit her to bear witness, and question her
favourably."
The town clerk was one of your "impossibility" men.
"Nay, sir, we cannot do that: she was not concerned in this business.
Had she been accessory, we might have offered her a pardon to bear
witness."
Gerard burst in, "But she did better. Instead of being accessory, she
stayed the crime; and she proffered herself as witness by running hither
with the tale."
"Tush, young man, 'tis a matter of law." The alderman and the clerk then
had a long discussion, the one maintaining, the other denying, that she
stood as fair in law as if she had been accessory to the attempt on
our travellers' lives. And this was lucky for Manon: for the alderman,
irritated by the clerk reiterating that he could not do this, and could
not that, and could not do t'other, said "he would show him he could do
anything he chose," And he had Manon out, and upon the landlord of "The
White Hart" being her bondsman, and Denys depositing five gold pieces
with him, and the girl promising, not without some coaxing from Denys,
to attend as a witness, he liberated her, but eased his conscience by
telling her in his own terms his reason for this leniency.
"The town had to buy a new rope for everybody hanged, and present it
to the bourreau, or compound with him in money: and she was not in his
opinion worth this municipal expense, whereas decided characters like
her late confederates, were.
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