John Randolph, of Roanoke, and other sketches
of character, including William Wirt together with tales of real life |
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| THE UNSUMMONED WITNESS. |
 | John Randolph, of Roanoke, and other sketches
of character, including William Wirt |  |
THE UNSUMMONED WITNESS.
1. PART FIRST.
Some years since, when I was in the practice of
the law, one morning, just after I had entered my
office—I was then an invalid on two crutches, and
not a very early riser, so what clients I had, were
often there before me—some few moments after I
had ensconced myself in my chair with my crutches
before me, like monitors of mortality, I heard a
timid rap at my door. Notwithstanding I called
out in a loud voice, “Come in,” the visitor, though
the rap was not repeated after I spoke, still hung
back. With feelings of impatience and pain, I
arose, adjusted my crutches under my arms, and
muttering, not inaudibly, my discontent, I hobbled
to the door and jerked it open.
The moment the visitor was presented to my
vision, I felt angry with myself for what I had
done; and the feeling was not relieved, when a
meek and grief-subdued voice said—
“I am very sorry to disturb you, sir.”
“No,” said I politely, for it was a young and
beautiful woman, or rather girl, of certainly not
more than sixteen, who stood before me, “I am
sorry that you should have waited so long. Come
in; I am lame as you see, Miss, and could not
sooner get to the door.”
Adjusting her shawl, which was pinned closely
up to her neck, as she passed the threshold, she
entered, and at my request, but not until I had
myself resumed my seat, took a chair. I observed
it was a fine morning, to which she made no reply,
for she was evidently abstracted, or rather embarrassed,
not knowing how to open the purpose of
her visit.
The few moments we sat in silence, I occupied
in observing her. She had, I thought, arrayed
herself in her best clothes, anxious by so doing to
make a respectable appearance before her lawyer,
and thereby convince him that if she could not at
present compass his fee, he could have no doubt of
it eventually; though it was also apparent to me
that, in the flurry of mind attendant upon her visit
and its consequence, she had not thought at all
of adding to her personal attractions by so doing.
That consideration, not often absent from a
woman's mind, had by some absorbing event been
banished from hers. She wore a black-silk gown,
the wearer's.
Her timid step had not prevented my seeing a
remarkably delicate foot, encased in a morocco
shoe much worn and patched, evidently by an unskilful
hand—I thought her own. And though
when she took a seat, she folded her arms closely
up under her shawl, which was a small one, of red
merino, and, as I have said, pinned closely to her
neck, it did not prevent my observing that her
hand, though small, was gloveless, and that a ring
—I thought an ominous-looking ring—we catch
fancies we know not why or wherefore—begirt one
of her fingers. In fact, when she first placed her
hands under the shawl, she turned the ring upon
her finger, maybe unconsciously.
On her head she wore a calash bonnet; and as I
again interrupted the silence by asking, “Is it the
law you seek so early, Miss?” she drew her hand
from beneath her shawl, and removing her bonnet
partly from her face so as to answer me, she revealed
as fair and as fascinating features as I ever
remember to have seen. Her hair was parted
carelessly back over a snowy forehead, beneath
which, lustrous eyes, black as death and almost as
melancholy, looked forth from the shadow of a
weeping willow-like lash. A faint attempt to smile
at my question discovered beautiful teeth, and I
thought, as she said the simple “yes, sir,” that
her lip.
Observe, I was an invalid, full, at this very moment,
of the selfishness of my own pains and
aches, which, though not of the heart, and it would
be difficult to convince a sick man that those of
the body are not greater, were notwithstanding
forgotten at once in my interest in my visitor.
“This is Mr. Trimble?” asked she, glancing at
my crutches, as if by those appendages she had
heard me described.
“That is my name,” I replied.
“You have heard of Brown, who is now in—in
jail, sir,” she continued.
“Brown, the counterfeiter, who has been arrested
for a theft,” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I have repeatedly heard of him, though I have
never seen him.”
“He told me to say, sir, wouldn't you go to
jail, and see him about his case?”
Brown's case, from what I had heard of it, was
a desperate one. Not knowing in what relation
the poor girl might stand to him, I shrank from
saying so, though I feared it would be useless for
me to appear for him: I therefore asked her—
“Are you his sister?”
“No, sir.”
“His wife?”
“No, sir, we are cousins like, and I live with
his mother.”
“Ay, is your name Brown?”
“No, sir, my name is Mason—Sarah Mason.”
“Where's Mrs. Brown, Miss Sarah?” I asked.
“She's very sick, sir; I hurried away just as
she got to sleep, after morning; I have walked by
here very often, and I thought, sir, you might
have business out, and not be here to-day—do go
and see him, sir.”
“Why, Sarah, to speak plainly to you, I am
satisfied I can be of no service to him; he is a notorious
character, and there have been so many
outrageous offences lately committed, that if the
case is a strong one, there will be little hope for
the prisoner; and Brown's case, I understand, is
very strong. I am told, that after they had caught
him in the woods, as they were bringing him to
the city, he confessed it.”
“My! my! did he, sir;” exclaimed Sarah, starting
from her seat and resuming it as quickly.
“Yes, I think I overheard one of the constables
say so. There are no grounds whatever in the
case for me to defend him upon. I can do nothing
for him, and should get nothing for it if I did.”
I said this without meaning any hint to Sarah;
but she took it as such, and replied—
“I have some little money, sir, only a few dollars
now,” and she turned herself aside so as with
some more soon; I had some owing to me for some
fancy work, but, when I went for it yesterday, to
come and see you, they told me the storekeeper
had failed, and I've lost it.”
As she spoke, she held the money in her hand,
which she rested in her lap, in a manner that implied
she wished to offer it to me, but feared the
sum would be too small, and a blush—it was that
of shame at her bitter poverty—reddened her forehead.
I could not but be struck with her manner;
and as I looked at her without speaking or attempting
to take the money, she said, after a moment's
pause —
“It's all I have now, sir; but, indeed, I shall
have more soon.”
“No, no, keep it, I do not want it,” said I,
smiling. Instantly the thought seemed to occur to
her, that I would not accept the money from a
doubt of its genuineness, as Brown might have
given it to her, and she said—
“Indeed, sir, it is good money. Mr. Judah,
who keeps the clothing-store, gave it to me last
night. You may ask him, sir, if you don't believe
it.”
“Don't believe you! Surely I believe you.
Brown must be a greater scoundrel than even the
public take him for, if he could involve you in the
consequences of his guilt.”
“Sir, sir—indeed, he never gave me any bad
money to pass. I was accused of it; but, indeed,
I never passed a single cent that I thought was
bad.”
“Well, Sarah, keep the money; do not for your
own sake, on any consideration, pass any bad
money; go first and ask some one who knows
whether any money you have is good, and keep
that.”
“But, sir, will you see him?” asked she imploringly.
“Yes, I will, and because you wish it; I cannot
go this morning, I shall be engaged. This afternoon
I have some business at the court-house, and
I will, on leaving there, step over to the jail.”
“Please, sir, to tell him,” she said, hesitatingly,
“that they won't let me come in to see him often.
I was there yesterday, but they wouldn't let me
in. On Sunday they said they would—not till
Sunday. Please, sir, tell him that I will come
then.”
“I will, Sarah,” I replied; “and if you will be
at the jail at two o'clock this afternoon, I will contrive
to have you see Brown.”
She thanked me, repeated the words “at two
o'clock,” and again pressed the money on me,
which I refused, when she withdrew, closing the
door noiselessly after her.
She had not been gone more than half an hour,
some property, and who wished me, previously
to closing the bargain, to examine the title.
He wanted it done immediately, and in compliance
with his request I forthwith repaired to the recorder's
office, which stood beside the court-house.
I was then in the practice of the law in Cincinnati.
My office was two doors from the corner of
Main street, in Front, opposite the river, where I
combined the double duties of editor of a daily
paper and lawyer. From my office to the court-house
was, as the common people say, a “measured
mile;” and nothing but the certainty of the immediate
payment of my fee, in the then condition of
my arms and health versus pocket (the pocket carried
the day, and it is only in such cases that
empty pockets succeed), nothing but the consideration
in the premises induced me to take up my
crutches, and walk to the court-house. After I
had examined the title, I determined, as it would
save me a walk in the afternoon, to step over to
the jail, which was only a square or so off, and see
Brown. I did so, and at the gate of the jail found,
seated on a stone by the wayside, Sarah Mason,
who had instantly repaired thither from my office,
resolved to wait my coming, not knowing, as she
told me, but what I might be there before two.
I entered the jailer's room, in which he received
constables, visitors, knaves, previous to locking
Sarah, desired him to bring Brown out in the jail
yard, that I might speak with him. While he was
unlocking the grated door of the room in which
Brown with many other criminals was confined,
several of them, who were also clients of mine,
called me by name, and made towards the door,
with the wish each of speaking to me about his own
case, perhaps for the fifteenth time. As soon as
Brown heard my name, he called out—
“Stop! it's to see me Mr. Trimble has come;
here, Jawbone Dick, fix that bit of a blanket round
them rusty leg-irons, and let me shuffle out.
Mr. Trimble came to see me.” Controlled by his
manner—for he was a master spirit among them, as
I afterwards learned—they shrank back, while
Jawbone Dick, a huge negro, fixed the leg-irons,
and Brown came forth.
He had a muscular iron form of fine proportions,
though of short stature. His face was intellectual,
with a high but retreating forehead, and a
quick, bold eye. His mouth was very large, displaying
fully, when he laughed, his jaw-teeth;
but it was not ill-shaped, and had the expression
of great firmness, when in repose, with that of
archness and insinuation, generally, when speaking.
He gazed on me steadily for an instant, after he
had passed the threshold of the door into the passage,
as if he would understand my character before
and led the way into the backyard of the jail,
which is surrounded by a large wall, to prevent the
escape of the prisoners, who, at stated periods, are
suffered to be out there for the sake of their
health, and while their rooms are undergoing the
operations of brooms and water. Kicking, as well
as his fetters would allow him, a keg that stood by
the outer door into the middle of the yard, Brown
observed—
“Squire, it will do you for a seat, for you and
I don't like to talk too near to the wall; the proverb
says, that `stone walls have ears,' and those
about us have heard so many rascally confessions
from the knaves they have inclosed, that I don't
like to intrust them with even an innocent man's
story; 'twould be the first time they've heard such
a one, and they'd misrepresent it into guilt.”
The jailer laughed as he turned to leave us, and
said—
“Brown, you ought to have thought of that
when the chaps nabbed you, for you told them the
story, and they not only have ears but tongues.”
“Hang them, they gave me liquor,” exclaimed
Brown, as a fierce expression darkened his face.
“I don't think a drunken man's confession should
be taken, extorted or not.”
As the jailer turned to lock up the yard, with
the remark to me of, “Squire, you can rap when
save some trouble to him if he would let the girl in
his room, who was a relation of Brown's, see him
now. After a slight hesitancy he called her, observing
it was not exactly according to rule.
“It's Sarah, I suppose,” said Brown, taking a
station by my side with folded arms, and giving a
slight nod of recognition to the girl, as in obedience
to the jailer's call she entered the yard. “You'd
better stand there, Sarah,” he said to her, “till
Mr. Trimble gets through with me. It's no use
for her to hear our talk; plague take all witnesses,
anyhow.”
Eyeing me again with a searching expression,
Brown, as if he had at last made his mind up to
the matter, said, “I believe I'll tell you all, Squire;
I did the thing.”
“Yes, Brown, I knew you did,” I replied; “the
misfortune is you told it to the officers.”
“Yes, that's a fact. But may be you can lead
the witnesses on the wrong scent if you know just
how things are, could'nt you?” I nodded, and he
continued. “I boasted when they got me, considerable;
but the fact is, that I got the money.
I was in the Exchange on the landing, where I
saw a countryman seated, who looked to me as if
he had money. I contrived to get into conversation
with him, and asked him to drink with me;
he did so, and I plied him pretty strong. The
drink with him; I consented, and when he came
to pay his bill he had no change, and had to dive
into a cunning side-pocket, in the lining of his
waistcoat, to get out a bill, though he turned his
back round and was pretty cautious. I saw he had
a good deal of money. I got him boozy, and when
he left I dogged him. He was in to market, and
had his wagon on the landing not far from the Exchange.
He slept in it. He not only buttoned
his vest tight up, but his overcoat tight over that,
and laid down on the side where he hid away his
rhino. Notwithstanding this,” continued Brown,
and he laughed at the remembrance of his own ingenuity,
“I contrived to make him turn over in
his sleep, and cut clean out through overcoat and
all, got his pocket, with its contents, three hundred
dollars. I had spent all my money at night with
him. In the morning my nerves wanted bracing,
and what must I do but spend some of his money
for grog and breakfast. The countryman immediately
went before a magistrate and described me
as a person whom he suspected. The officers knew
me from his description; and though I had left
Cincinnati and got as far as Cleves, fifteen or eighteen
miles, they followed so close on my track as
to nab me that very day. I had been keeping up
the steam pretty high along the road; they traced
me in that way, and full of folly and the devil,
I made my brags, and told all. I suppose my case
is desperate.”
I told him that I thought it was.
“When I think of my old mother!” exclaimed
he, passing his hand rapidly across his brow; he
then beckoned Sarah to him, and I walked to the
farther end of the yard so as not to be a listener.
Their colloquy was interrupted by the jailer coming
to the door. When I left him, Sarah followed me
out; and, after requesting me to call and see him
again, she took a direction different from mine, and
I went to my office.
The grand-jury, of course, had no difficulty in
finding a bill against Brown, and the day of his
trial soon came. The countryman was the first
witness on the stand. It was amusing, if not edifying,
to observe the smirk of professional pride on
the countenance of the prisoner when the countryman
recounted how he carefully buttoned up his
coat over his money and went to sleep on that side,
and awoke on that side, the right one, and found
his pocket cut out with as much ingenuity as a
tailor could have done it. I tried to exclude the
evidence of Brown's confession from the jury on
the ground that it was extorted from him; but that
fact not appearing to the court, they overruled my
objection; and the facts of the case, with many exaggerations,
were narrated to them by the officer
confession. I had scarcely any grounds of defence
at all. I tried to ridicule the idea of Brown's having
made a confession, and presented the countryman
in an attitude that made him the laughing-stock
of the jury and audience; but, though it was
evident to them that the countryman was a fool, it
was not less apparent, I feared, that Brown was a
knave. I had some idea of an alibi, but that would
have been carrying matters too far. I, however,
proved his good character by several witnesses.
Alas! the prosecuting attorney showed that he was
an old offender, who had been more than once a
guest of the State's between the walls of the penitentiary.
The prosecuting attorney, in fact, in his
opening address to the court and jury, attacked
Brown in the sternest language he could use. He
represented him as the violator of every sound tie;
and as hurrying his mother's gray hairs to the
grave. At this last charge the prisoner winced.
I saw the lightning of his ire against the prosecutor
flash through the tears of guilt and contrition.
When I arose to address the jury in reply, Brown
called me to him and said—
“Mr. Trimble, you know all about my case—
you know I am guilty; but you must get me off if
you can, for my old mother's sake. Plead for me
as if you were pleading for the apostles—for the
Saviour of mankind.”
This was a strong expression to convey to me
the idea that I must speak and act to the jury as
if I held him in my own heart guiltless, was it not?
Poor Sarah was a tearful witness of his trial.
She was spared, however, being present when the
verdict was rendered. The jury retired about dark,
with the agreement between myself and the prosecutor
that they might bring in a sealed verdict. I
told Sarah, for the sake of her feelings, before the
court adjourned, that they would not meet the
next morning before ten o'clock. They met at
nine, and before she got there, their verdict of
guilty was recorded against the prisoner.
As they were taking Brown to jail, he asked me
to step over and see him, saying that he had a fee
for me. I had been unable to get from him more
than a promise to pay before his trial. I, of course,
gave that up as fruitless, and appeared for him on
Sarah's account, not on his own, or with any hope
of acquitting him. I therefore was surprised at
his remark, and followed him to the jail. He was
placed in a cell by himself—the rule after conviction—and
I went in with him at his request, and
we were left alone.
“Squire,” said he, with more emotion than I
thought him capable of, “I don't care so much for
myself; I could stand it; I am almost guilt hardened—but
when I think of my mother—O God!
—and Sarah, she has been as true to me as if I
in court to-day?”
“No,” said I; “I told her that court would not
sit until ten o'clock. I saw how deeply she was
interested, and I saved her the shock of hearing
your guilt pronounced in open court.”
“Blast that prosecuting attorney,” exclaimed
Brown, gnashing his teeth, “why need he go out
of the case to abuse me about my mother, before
Sarah. I'd like to catch him in the middle of the
Ohio, swimming, some dark night; if he didn't go
to the bottom and stay there, it would be because
I couldn't keep him down. But, Squire, about
that fee—you trusted me, and as you are the first
lawyer that ever did, I'll show you that I am for
once worthy of confidence. Over the Licking
River, a quarter of a mile up on the Covington side
—you know, Squire, the Licking is the river right
opposite to Cincinnati, in Kentucky—well, over
that river, a quarter of a mile up, you will see,
about fifteen feet from the bank, a large tree standing
by itself, with a large hole on the east side of
it. Run your hand up that hole, and you will take
hold of a black bottle, corked tight. Break it open;
in it you will find fifteen hundred dollars—five
hundred of it is counterfeit—the rest is good.
Squire, it is your fee. Your character and countenance
is good enough to pass the whole of it.”
I bowed to the compliment which Brown paid
of my morals, and said, “You are not hoaxing me,
I hope.”
“I am not in that mood, Squire,” replied the
convict, and asking me for my pencil, he drew on
the wall a rough map of the locality of the river
and tree, and repeated earnestly the assertion that
he himself, in the hollow of the tree, had hid the
bottle. I left him, rubbing the marks of his map
from the wall, determined at the first opportunity
to make a visit to the spot. The next day my
professional duties called me on a visit to another
prisoner in the jail, when Brown asked me, through
the little loophole of his door, if I had got that yet.
“No, Brown,” I replied, “I have not had time
to go there.”
“Then, Squire,” he exclaimed, “you are in as
bad a fix as I am, and the thing's out.”
“How so?” I asked; I began to suspect that
he thought I had been after the money, and that
he was forming some excuse for my not finding
what he knew was not there.
“You see me, Squire, without a coat; my hat's
gone too. Job Fowler, the scoundrel—he knows
about that bottle—he was taken out of the jail
yesterday to be tried, just as they brought me in.
I thought, though my respectable clothes hadn't
done me any good, they might be of service to him,
as his case wasn't strong, and every little helps out
thing's dark; so I lent them to him. He was
found not guilty, and he walked off with my wardrobe.
So the jury, hang them, aided and abetted
him in committing a felony in the very act of
acquitting him for one; and by this time he's got
that money. Never mind, we shall be the State's
guests together yet, in her palace at Columbus.”
What Brown told me in regard to the bottle and
Job Fowler, was indeed true.
Job was acquitted in Brown's clothes, and walked
off in them, and wended instantly to the tree beside
the Licking, where he found the bottle, which he
rifled of its contents without the trouble of uncorking
it. Mistaking the bad money for the good, he
returned instantly to Cincinnati, and attempted to
pass some of it. The man to whom he offered it
happened to be in the court-house, a spectator of
his trial. His suspicions were aroused. He had
Mr. Job arrested, and on him was found the fifteen
hundred dollars. A thousand dollars of it was
good, but I got none of it; for the gentleman from
whom Brown and Fowler together had stolen it
was found.
The very day that Brown was convicted, and Job
acquitted in the former's clothes, he was arrested
for passing counterfeit money. A bill was found
against him that morning. He was tried that
afternoon and convicted, and the day after, he and
penitentiary.
2. PART SECOND.
The interest which I took in Brown's mother
and Sarah, induced me to visit them after he was
sent to the penitentiary, to which he was sentenced
for ten years.
His afflicted mother, overcome by accumulated
sorrow for his many crimes and their consequences,
rapidly sank into the grave. I happened to call
at her humble dwelling the night she died. Sarah
supported her by her needle, and a hard task it
was; for the doctor's bill and the little luxuries
which her relative needed, more than consumed
her hard earnings.
The old woman called me to her bedside, and
together with Sarah, made me promise that if I
saw her son again, I would tell him that with her
dying breath she prayed for him. The promise
was made; and while she was in the act of praying,
her voice grew inaudible; and, uttering with her
last feeble breath an ejaculation for mercy, not
for herself, but for her outcast child, her spirit
passed to the judgment-seat; and if memory and
affection hold sway in the disembodied soul, doubtless
was here.
After the death of the old woman, I saw Sarah
once or twice, and then suddenly lost all trace of
her. More than a year had now elapsed since
Brown's conviction, and in increasing ill health
and the presence of other scenes and circumstances,
as touching as those of the mother and cousin,
I had forgotten them. I was advised by my physician
to forsake all business, obtain a vehicle, and
by easy stages, travelling whither fancy led, try
to resuscitate my system. In fulfilment of this
advice, I was proceeding on my way to Columbus,
Ohio, with the double purpose of improving my
health, and, by making acquaintances in the State
where I had settled, facilitate and increase my
practice, should I ever be permitted to resume my
profession.
The sun was just setting in a summer's evening,
as, within a half a mile of Columbus, I passed a
finely formed female on the road, who was stepping
along with a bundle on her arm. There was something
of interest in the appearance of the girl
which caused me to look back at her after I had
passed. Instantly I drew up my horse. It was
Sarah Mason. Her meeting with me seemed to
give her great pleasure. I asked her if she would
not ride, and thanking me, she entered my vehicle
and took a seat by my side.
She had been very anxious to obtain a pardon
for Brown before his mother's death. I had told
her it would be fruitless, unless she could get the
jury who condemned him, together with the
judges, to sign the recommendation to the governor,
and I did not believe they would do it. I,
however, at her earnest solicitation, drew up the
petition, and when I last asked her about her success,
which was, in fact, the last time I saw her,
she told me she had not got one of the jury to
sign it, but that several had told her that they
would do so, if she would obtain previously the
signature of the presiding judge. By the law of
Ohio a judgeship is not held for life, but for a
term of years. The term of office of the presiding
judge on Brown's trial had expired, and a new
party prevailing in the Legislature, from that
which had appointed him, he had failed to obtain
the reappointment. He had removed to St. Louis
for the purpose of practising law there; and thither
Sarah had repaired with her unsigned petition.
After repeated solicitations and prayerful entreaties,
she at last prevailed on the ex-judge to
sign it. She then returned to Cincinnati, and
after considerable trouble succeeded in finding ten
of the jury, some of whom followed the judge's
example. The rest refused, stating, what was too
true, that the ease with which criminals obtained
pardon from gubernatorial clemency in this country,
of crime; for it removed the certainty of punishment
which should ever follow conviction; and
which has more effect upon the mind than severity
itself, when there is a hope of escaping it.
A new governor, in the rapid mutations of official
life in the United States, had become dispenser
of the pardoning power shortly after
Brown's conviction, and it was his ear that Sarah
personally sought, armed with the recommendation.
He was a good, easy man, where party influence
was not brought to bear adversely on him, and
after he had read the petition, Sarah's entreaty
soon prevailed, and Brown was pardoned.
The very day he was pardoned he called on me
at Russel's hotel, with his cousin; and after they
had mutually returned me their thanks for the interest
which I took in their behalf, he promised
me, voluntarily, to pay me a fee with the first
earnings he got, which he said solemnly should be
from the fruits of honest industry.
He took my address and departed. I thought no
more of it till, one day, most opportunely, I
received through the post-office a two hundred
dollar bill of the United States Bank, with a well-written
letter from him, stating that he had reformed
his course of life, and that it was through
the influence of his cousin, whom he had married,
another name in the place where he then dwelt,
which he would have no objection to communicate
to myself; but, as it was of no consequence to me,
and might be to him, should my letter fall into the
hands of another person, he had withheld it, together
with the name of the place where himself and
wife were located. The letter had been dropped
in the Cincinnati post-office, and there was no clue
whereby I could have traced him, had I entertained
such a wish, which I did not.
Some time after this, I was a sojourner in the
South, spellbound by the fascinations of a lady,
with whom I became acquainted the previous summer
in Philadelphia, where she was spending the
sultry season. She lived with her parents, on a
plantation near a certain city on the Mississippi,
which, for peculiar reasons, I may not name. Her
brother was practising law there, and he and I
became close cronies. Frequently, I rode to the
city with him; and, on one occasion, we were both
surprised, as we entered it, by an unusual commotion
among the inhabitants, who were concentrating
in crowds to the spot, collected by some strange
and boisterous attraction.
My friend rode into the mêlée, and presently
returned to my side, with the crowd about him,
from whom he was evidently protecting a man, who
walked with his hand on the neck of my friend's
protected, but would die game if he were attacked.
“Sheriff,” called out my friend to a tall person
who was expostulating with the crowd, “it is your
duty to protect Bassford; he has lived here with
us some time, has a wife and family, a good name,
and he must and shall have a fair trial.”
“Colonel Cameron's empty pocketbook was
found near Bassford's house,” exclaimed one of
the crowd, “and Bassford's dagger by the dead
body.”
“And Bassford and the Colonel were overheard
quarrelling a few hours before he was killed,”
shouted another.
“Let Bassford answer, then, according to law,”
said my friend. “I will kill the first man who
lays violent hands upon him.”
“And I will justify and assist you,” said the
sheriff. “Mr. Leo, Mr. Gale, and you, sir,” continued
the officer, turning to me, “I summon you
to assist me in lodging this man safely in jail, there
to abide the laws of his country.”
Awed by the resolution which the sheriff and his
posse exhibited, the crowd slunk back, but with
deep mutterings of wrath, while we gathered around
Bassford, and hastened with him to the jail, which
was not far off, in which we soon safely lodged him.
It occurred to me, when I first looked on Bassford,
that I had seen him before, but I could not
side in the jail, satisfied me that he was no other
than my old client, Brown. Feeling that my
recognition of him would not advance his interests,
if I should be questioned about him, I maintained
silence, and stood by a spectator. Brown stated
to the sheriff that he wished my friend, whom I
will call De Berry, to be his counsel, and requested
that he might be placed alone with him, where he
might have some private conversation with him.
The sheriff said, “certainly;” and we all retired,
De Berry asking me to wait for him without. I
did so; and, in a few minutes, he came to me, and
said that the prisoner wished to see me. “I presume,
sheriff, you will have no objection?”
“Not the least,” replied the sheriff. “Take Mr.
Trimble in with you.”
I accordingly entered; and, the moment the door
was closed, Brown asked me if I remembered him.
“Perfectly,” I replied.
“Mr. Trimble,” he continued, “I saw you with
Mr. De Berry, and knew that you recognized me.
I supposed that you might tell him what you knew
of me, to my prejudice. Here I have maintained
a good character, and I therefore resolved to see
you with him, and tell you the circumstances. I
am as guiltless now as I was guilty then.
“Mr. De Berry says that the court, upon application,
will admit you, if it is necessary, to defend
tell you this affair. I know it looks black against
me, but hear me first. After my cousin obtained
my pardon in Ohio, I married her, swore an oath
to lead a better life, and, before God, have done
so. Sarah was and is everything to me. Not for
the wealth of worlds would I involve myself in
guilt which might fall upon her and her children.
Knowing, Mr. Trimble, that in Ohio I could not
obtain employment, or reinstate myself in character,
I came here, with a changed name and
nature, to commence, as it were, the world again.
Since I have been here, my character, as Mr. De
Berry will tell you, has been without reproach.
But, old associations and companions dog us,
though we fly from them. I have been located
here on a little farm belonging to Mr. De Berry,
which, with the aid of two negroes hired from him,
I cultivate, raising vegetables and such things for
the market. I had hoped the past was with the
past, but last week there came along one of my
old associates, who urged me to join with him and
others in a certain depredation. I told him of my
altered life, and positively refused. He insisted,
and taunted me with hypocrisy, and so forth, till
he nearly stung me to madness. I bore it all,
until, on my telling him that my wife had reformed
me, and that on her account I meant to be honest,
he threw slurs on her of the blackest dye. I could
have slain him, had not some of his companions
came up and rescued him. It was on the banks of
the river, in a lonely spot that we met, and their
coming up might have been accident or not. He
vowed vengeance against me and mine, and left.
Colonel Cameron, as you know, Mr. De Berry,
bore the character of an overbearing and tyrannical
man. We had some dealings together. He
was in my debt, and wished to pay me in flour. I
told him politely it was the money which I wanted.
He swore that I should not have money or flour
either. He raised his whip to strike me. I flew
into a passion, dared him to lay the weight of his
finger on me, and abused him, as a man in a
passion and injured would do under the circumstances;
perhaps I threatened him; I do not know
exactly what I said in my anger. This was yesterday
afternoon. It seems that the Colonel went
to Mr. Pottea's afterwards, returned after night,
was waylaid, and killed. How his pocketbook
came by my house, I know not. As for the dagger,
I had such a one. When I changed my name
I thought, to make everything about me seem
natural with it, that I would have Bassford
engraved on it. I lost it some months ago, and
have not seen it since, till to-day. Such, gentlemen,
is the truth; but, great God! what is to
become of myself and family, with such testimony
out that they knew me before, that I had been in
the Ohio penitentiary, that my name is Brown;
and here is my quarrel with the Colonel, his murder
on the heels of it, my dagger by his dead body,
and his empty pocketbook by my house. Notwithstanding
all this, gentlemen, I am innocent. Do
you think that, if I had murdered him, I would
not have hid my dagger? and would I have rifled
his pocketbook and pitched it away by my own
door-sill, where anybody might find it? No; my
enemy must have contrived this to ruin me.”
At this instant the door was opened by the
sheriff, and Brown's wife admitted; she threw herself
into his arms, exclaiming, “He is innocent,
I know he is innocent!” while Brown, utterly
overcome by his emotions, pressed her to his heart,
and wept bitterly. I whispered to De Berry that
we had better leave them, and accordingly withdrew.
That afternoon, Mrs. Brown called to see me.
She asked me if I would aid her husband; and I
promised that I would. She looked neat and tidy,
said she had two children, and I saw that she was
soon again to be a mother. She told me the same
story that Brown had told me, and I could not
but express the deepest regret for his and her
situation.
The name of Brown's former accomplice, with
a desperate character, perfectly unfeeling and unprincipled,
and possessed of great energy of spirit
and frame. It is surprising that Brown should
have overcome him. Brown's mastery originated,
doubtless, in the fury of his insulted feelings.
De Berry became very much interested in
Brown's case. The morning of his interference in
his behalf, Brown had been taken upon the charge
of murdering Colonel Cameron. While the sheriff,
who was well-disposed towards him, was proceeding
with him to the magistrate's, the crowd had
gathered round them so thickly as to interrupt
their progress, and Brown had been separated
from the officer. The crowd, among whose leaders
was Burnham, had made furious demonstrations
against the prisoner; but his resolute manner had
prevented their laying hands on him, when De
Berry and myself rode up, and the sheriff, as we
have related, took his charge to jail, to prevent an
outrage, until the excitement had somewhat subsided.
The next morning De Berry insisted upon having
a hearing before the magistrate, asserting that he
meant to offer bail for Brown. As we proceeded to
the magistrate's, we stopped at Brown's humble
dwelling, and took his wife and children with us.
The tidiness of his afflicted wife and children, and
made a most favorable impression upon us.
As we approached the magistrate's, we wondered
that we saw nobody about the door of his office;
but we learned, on arriving, that the officer of the
law had determined to have the hearing in the
court-house, in consequence of the anticipation of
a great crowd, who would be anxious to hear. To
the court we repaired. There was an immense
concourse about the door, though the sheriff had
not yet appeared with his charge. De Berry sent
the wife and children to the jail, that they might
come with him to the court-house, and by their
presence and the sympathy that they would excite,
prevent any outbreak from the mob. We took our
station on the court-house steps, where, elevated
above the crowd, we could observe their demeanor
as the sheriff and Brown advanced. By our side
stood a tall gaunt Kentuckian, clad in a hunting-shirt,
and leaning on his rifle. He seemed to be
an anxious observer of myself and friend. He soon
gathered from our conversation the position in
which we stood towards Brown, and remarked to
us—
“Strangers, I suppose you are lawyers for Bassford;
I am glad he has help, I fear he'll need it;
but he once did me a service, and I want to see
right 'twixt man and man.”
Before De Berry could reply, we were attracted
direction of the jail, we saw the sheriff advancing
with the prisoner, who was accompanied by his
wife and children. Approaching close behind
them, were several horsemen, among whom we
could not fail to observe Burnham, from the eagerness
with which he pressed forward.
With not so much as the ordinary bustle and
confusion incident upon such occasions, in fact,
with less expressed emotion, the crowd gathered
into the court-house, the squire occupying the seat
of the judge, and the prisoner a chair within the
bar, by the side of De Berry and myself, with his
anxious wife to his right. The prosecuting attorney,
who was a warm friend of the deceased
colonel, seated himself opposite to us. Burnham
pressed through the crowd within the bar, and stationed
himself near the prosecutor, to whom I overheard
him say—
“There are folks here who can prove that his
real name is not Bassford but Brown, and that he
was pardoned out of the Ohio Penitentiary; that
man, by his lawyer, can prove it, so can I; but you
had better call him, he knows—”
“Let me pass, let me pass!” exclaimed a female
at this moment, pressing through the crowd with
stern energy; “I'll tell the truth; Bassford is innocent!”
“She's crazy,” exclaimed Burnham, looking
as if privately to her, to hush, forgetting that
the eyes of all were upon him.
“Crazy!” retorted the woman, who was of slender
person and fine features, though they were distorted
by excess and passion, and who seemed to
be possessed by some furious purpose, as if by a
fiend. “They shall judge if I am crazy. Prove
it, and then you may prove that Bassford is
guilty. Gentlemen, John Burnham there, murdered
Colonel Cameron! There is the money that
Burnham took from the dead body; there are the
letters, here is his watch! Bassford's dagger he
got in a quarrel with him; he murdered the colonel
with it, and left it by the dead body, and the
pocketbook by Bassford's house, to throw the guilt
on him!”
“How can you prove this, good woman?” inquired
the magistrate, while the crowd, in breathless
eagerness, were as hushed as death.
“Prove it! By myself, by these letters, by that
watch, by that dagger, by everything—by what I
am, by what I was! The time has been when I
was as innocent as I am now vicious—as spotless
as I am now abandoned; but for that man, that
time were now. Hear me for a moment; the truth
that is in me shall strike your hearts with justice
and with terror; shall acquit the innocent, and
appal the guilty. In better days I knew both
education had been good; that was all my parents
left me, with a good name. He was thoughtless
and wild then, but not criminal; he fell in with
this man, Burnham, whom he brought to my
father's house, and made his confidant. Burnham
professed a partiality for me, which I rejected with
scorn. He led Bassford into error, into crime.
He coiled himself into his confidence, and made
him believe that I had abandoned myself to him;
at the same time he was torturing me with inventions
of Bassford's faithlessness towards me. Each
of us, Bassford and myself, grew reserved towards
the other, without asking or making any explanation.
Oh! the curse of this pride—this pride!
Burnham widened the breach! He drove me nearly
mad with jealousy, and Bassford with distrust. Bassford
and I parted in anger. Burnham all the while
pressed his passion on me. Bassford left that part
of the country, Hagerstown, Maryland. I promised
to marry Burnham; in a spell of sickness,
which fell upon me in the absence of Bassford,
he drugged me with opium, made me what I am,
and abandoned me to my fate. After many
wretched years of ignominy and shame, I fell in
at Louisville, three weeks since, with Burnham; I
came here with him. He saw Bassford—tried to
draw him into his guilty plots—they quarrelled;
and he—he never, never told me aught until he
to ruin Bassford; and there, I repeat it,” pointing
to the watch, the money, and the letters of the deceased,
“there are the evidences of his guilt.”
“Sheriff,” said the magistrate, “take Burnham
into your custody.”
“Kill him!” cried out an hundred voices from
the crowd, while several attempted to seize him.
Uttering a yell like a wild Indian at bay, Burnham
eluded their grasp, and drawing at the same
instant a bowie-knife from his breast, he darted
forward and plunged it into the heart of the woman.
The crowd shrank back in terror as the
death-cry of the victim broke upon their ear; while
the murderer brandished the bloody knife over
his head, and, before any one could arrest him,
sprang out of one of the windows of the court-room.
It was a leap which none chose to follow;
and all rushed instantaneously to the door. Before
the crowd got out, Burnham had mounted his
horse, and made for the woods. Several of the
horsemen, who had come in the line, mounted and
darted after, as if to take him.
“They want to save him,” exclaimed several,
who were also mounting other horses that stood by.
“Clear the road!” shouted the Kentuckian,
who, rifle in hand, had sprang upon a mound,
within a few feet of the court-house. The horsemen
looked fearfully back, as if instinctively they
their horses from the track of the flying man. The
Kentuckian raised his rifle to his shoulder; instantly
its sharp report was heard. All eyes were
turned to the murderer, who was urging his steed
to the utmost. He started, as if in renewed energy,
then reeled to and fro like a drunken man, then
fell upon the neck of his horse, at the mane of
which he seemed to grasp blindly; in a moment
more he tumbled to the earth like a dead weight.
He was dragged, with his foot in the stirrup,
nearly a mile before his horse was overtaken and
stopped. The bullet of the sure-sighted Kentuckian
had lodged in the murderer's brain. He
had fallen dead from his saddle, and was so disfigured
as scarcely to be recognized. The body
was consigned to a prayerless, hurried, and undistinguished
grave by the roadside.
Brown is still alive, where I left him, an entirely
reformed and honest man. A stone slab, with
some rude attempts at sculpture on it, at the foot
of Brown's garden, designates the mortal resting-place
of the woman, who, though fallen and degraded,
was true to her first affection, and braved
death to save him. His children, with holy gratitude,
have kept the weeds from growing there, and
ever, in their play, become silent when they approach
it.
| John Randolph, of Roanoke, and other sketches
of character, including William Wirt | |