 | XXV.
FIAT JUSTITIA. Neighbor's wives |  |
25. XXV.
FIAT JUSTITIA.
Eliza had written to her friend of the condition of
affairs in her old home. He promptly and generously
replied: —
“Your place seems to be there for the present.... I
trust all to you; for I know you will do what is right.”
So Eliza remained. And more, — she placed what
was left of her savings at Abel's disposal.
It was a grief for him to be obliged to accept still
further pecuniary assistance from her.
“It is all one,” she said. “Even if I did not owe you
more for years of kindness to me than I can ever hope
to acknowledge, still I am your sister, you know, and
all that is mine is yours.” And she forced her earnings
into his hands.
“I can't!” he exclaimed. “I have no right to your
poor little purse, Eliza.”
“Don't you go to making fun of it, if it is little,” she
cheerily replied. “I am little, and, I tell you, little
things are not to be despised.”
“But your marriage,” said Abel. “You must not
go to your husband penniless.'
“He is well-off, and needs none of my money. He
has told me so.”
“I — am glad he is well off,” faltered Abel, with an
indescribable contraction of the heart.
“So am I — for his sake. And for ours, too, Abel,”
she added, frankly. “For you will need more than I
have, to pay your lawyers; he mentions that in his
letter, and offers to lend you.”
This was rather too much for proud Abel Dane. He
choked upon it a minute, and wrung her hand.
“Thank him for me. I am in your power; I am at
your mercy, Eliza. Don't be too kind to me!”
So it was settled that Eliza should remain till after
Abel's trial. And there was need; for the old lady
could not endure even the thought of her going; and
Ebby clung to his new mamma; and Faustina continued
a prey to depression and nervous caprice; and both the
management and cheerfulness of the household depended
upon Eliza.
And the weeks went swiftly by, and the time of the
trial arrived.
It was now December, — a bleak sky overhead, a barren,
paralyzed world beneath, cold winds blowing,
streams freezing over, and thin flurries of snow flying
here and there in the sullen, disheartened weather.
During two days the trial progressed; two days of
dread and uncertainty to the innocent accused, and no
less to the guilty unaccused; two days of general excitement
in the village, and of sharp forensic fencing,
much unwholesome heat and fetor in the court-room.
With the feverish details of those days, — how Abel
bore himself in that shameful public position, confronting
the abusive attorneys, the grave judges, the silent
twelve, and the open-mouthed multitude; what his
mother suffered, awaiting the result which was to decide
not his fate only, but which would also prove a
word of life or death to her; and how Faustina experienced
a plentiful lack of amusement during those two
days and nights, — it is needless to weary the reader.
It was the wish of Abel's lawyers to have both his
wife and mother present in the court-room. The age,
infirmities, and tears of the elder lady, and the beauty and
affection of the younger, could not fail, they argued, to
have a favorable effect on the jury. And Ebby, held up
in their arms, would have been an important addition to
the group. But old Mrs. Dane was already worn out
with anxiety in his behalf, and he knew that it was not
possible for her to support the fatigue and agitation of
witnessing his arraignment. And Faustina was kept at
home by her own miserable terrors and an illness either
feigned or real.
With two invalids to care for, Eliza could not easily
leave, to go and sit by Abel's side in this hour of doubt
and peril. But, on the morning of the third day, she felt
irresistibly impelled to the court-house. The case had
been given to the jury the night before, and at the opening
of the court it was expected they would bring in
her; but she must hasten, and be on the spot.
Accordingly, she left Melissa in charge, and set out on
foot for the centre of the town. It was full two miles to
the court-house. She walked all the way, through a
blinding storm. The snow, which had evidently been
trying hard to fall during those two days, was now filling
the air, and whirling in the wintry gale. It drove
full in Eliza's face, but little she cared for it, hastening
on a business the thoughts of which were far more biting
and bitter.
The court-room was already crowded on her arrival;
and, to her despair, she found herself unable to penetrate
the steaming throngs that choked the passages. She did
not know the way to the more private entrance, where,
as a friend of the accused, she might have gained admission
and found a seat near his side. So, after all her
trouble, she could not get in; and, being shorter than
anybody else, she could see nothing but the elbows and
backs between which she was soon tightly wedged, the
gray, unsympathizing ceiling when she looked up, and
now and then, when she looked down, a glimpse of the
little close-shaded puddles of trodden and melting snow
under her feet.
The court had not yet come in; and some of the spectators
near her filled the interval with conversation and
comment.
“They say his wife used to be a great belle,” said a
red-cheeked maiden.
“Used to?” retorted an affectedly soft masculine voice.
“Handsomest woman th' is in this county, to-day!”
“I want to know!” whistled a toothless woman's
voice. “You know her, then?”
“Like a book; neighbor o' mine! such a figger! and
eyes, — glorious, you better believe!”
“Is she so very perty, though?” asked she of the red
cheeks, with a slightly envious intonation.
“Pufficly magnificent, I assure ye! Unlucky day for
her, though, when she married that sneaking Abel Dane.”
Moved by an impulse of angry indignation, Eliza
thrust herself forward, till she could see, over the old
woman's hood, the half-shut, simpering eyes and smirking
mouth of the speaker. She would have been tempted to
strike that lying mouth, had it not been safe beyond her
reach.
“So you set it down he's guilty,” whistled the old
woman.
“Guilty!” echoed the young man. “Nobody doubts
that, that knows him as well as I do.”
“Oh, ain't it too bad, aunt!” said the girl. “They
say his conduct has broke her heart.”
“Yes,” corroborated the youth. “She's been sick
a-bed ever since he was took up, — apprehended, ye
know,” — hastening to amend his speech with the more
elegant word that occurred to him. “Naturally harrowing
to a wife's feelings, y' und'stand.”
“What a shame, to disgrace his family that way!”
said the elderly female.
“He might at least have had some regard for his
wife!” chimed in the girl.
“Outrageous!” added the smirking mouth. “Take a
beautiful girl away from her home, — creature of exqueezit
sensibilities, ye know; genteel folks, fust-rate
tip-top 'ristocratic s'ciety, ye know; surrounded by the
lap of luxury” —
“I want to know if she was, poor thing!” exclaimed
the whistler.
“Better believe!” And a dingy hand, presenting a
remarkable contrast of foul nails and showy rings,
stroked a languid mustache that shaded the smirking
mouth. “Outrageous, I say, — get a wife on false pretences
that way, and then go to committing burglary,
as if expressly a-puppus to overwhelm her with
obliquity!”
“Tasso Smith!” cried a warning tongue in the
crowd.
The proprietor of the rings started, and looked all
around, with a foolish, apprehensive stare, to see who had
spoken. It was apparently a female voice, and it seemed
to come from some mysterious depths in the crowd.
“Is't re'ly burglary now!” exclaimed the woman, to
whose ear the word had an appalling sound.
“Burglary in th' secon' degree,” the youth answered,
lowering his voice, and still glancing uneasily around.
“'Twould have been burglary in the fust degree, if he'd
broke into the house — entered the tenement, ye know,”
he added, in more classic phrase, — “in the night. Perpetrating
degree.”
“But I thought they couldn't prove just when he
broke in; that's how I understood it,” observed a rough-looking
man, whose shaggy coat concealed Eliza.
“My friend,” — the youth, recovering his equanimity,
spoke with a complacent, patronizing air, as if conscious
of showing off his attainments to an admiring audience,
— “My friend, you understood puffic'ly correct. Nobody
seen him break in, of course. But it's mos' probable he
done it — consummated the atrocity, ye know,” he translated
himself, — “the afternoon the Apjohns was away;
absent from the dormitory, ye understand.”
“Absent from the domicile, you mean!” sneered a lad
of fifteen, regarding him with immense disgust.
“Same thing,” — and the ringed and grimy paw was
passed once more across the conceited mouth. “Clock
being stopped at certain hour that afternoon, which was
effected mos'; probable, when he took out the key of the
chist or put it back ag'in, — ye know, — seems to indicate
the time of the operation. That's no consequence,
though; they'll prove a compound larceny, safe enough,
and that covers the hull ground, y' und'stand.”
“His lawyers made a bad job, trying to prove his
whereabouts all that afternoon,” observed the rough-coated
stranger.
“Puffic'ly! Ye see, it couldn't be did. Lucky for
him a wife ain't permitted to testify against her husband;
if he gets off, — successful acquittal, ye know, —
it 'll be on that account.”
“What, sir!” whizzed the imperfect dental apparatus
of the girl's aunt, “ye don't think she know'd of his
hookin' the money?”
A peculiarly knowing smile stirred the young man's
mustache. “I — ah — apprehend she knowed as much
about it as anybody. Ye see, she might 'a' been convicted,
in her own mind, of his turbitude, or else she
wouldn't been so puffic'ly succumbed by the dispensation!”
he added, with that characteristic elegance of
diction which corresponded well with his jewelry, being,
one may say, the pinchbeck of language displayed on
the unwashed joints of a vulgar mind.
“Have you seen the poor creetur' lately?” inquired
the toothless one.
“No, madam, I hain't, not very recent.” The youth
drew himself up pompously. “Ye see, after that — ah,
despisable affair — I cut her husband's acquaintance.
A gentleman don't like to compromise his repetation, y'
und'stand, by calling at the house of a thief, if he has
got a charming woman for a wife.”
“Tasso Smith!” called once more the mysterious,
warning voice.
“Hello!” said Pinchbeck, with a gasp, and a sallow
grin. “Who speaks? Good joke! ha! ha!” — with a
forced laugh.
“Somebody's callin' Tasso Smith!” said the woman.
“Be you Tasso Smith?”
“That's my — ah — patternimic,” the young man acknowledged.
“Now I wan'to know! Huldy Smith's boy, be ye?
Huldy Bobbit that was? Why, me an' her was schoolgals
together. Didn't ye never hear her tell of Marshy
Munson?”
“Can't say I ever did!” and the young man lifted
his head superciliously.
“Wal, you tell her how you seen Marshy Munson to
the trial. It's Munson still, tell her. I'm a livin' now
to my brother's, 'Gustus Munson's; this's his darter.
Your mother married a Smith, I heerd, and had a son
Tasso; though it's years sence I've seen her; but I hope
now we shall visit back and forth a little. Dear me!”
— the scraggy-toothed spinster interrupted herself, regarding
Tasso admiringly, — “is it possible Huldy Bobbit's
got a boy that tall! smart and good-lookin' too; I
can say that 'thout flatterin'. And to think I should
meet you here, and find out who you be, and that
you knowed all about the case 'fore ever it come to
trial!”
“I — congratulate myself,” said Tasso, haughtily,
“that I was 'bout as well posted as mos' folks, — generality
of individuals, y' und'stand.”
“How about the letter he lost in Apjohn's house?”
inquired Marshy Munson's niece. “Was that proved
against him?”
“It was, miss, supposed to be,” smiled Tasso; “and it's
one of the mos' overwhelming circumstances in the case.”
“And the tomatoes, that was hung onto Apjohn's
door — wasn't that mean?”
“Mean? I believe ye!” said Tasso, slightly wincing.
“And of course he done it, you think?”
“Of course? Nobody mean enough to — perpetrate
such a thing, without it's Abel Dane; as anybody that
knows him” —
“Tasso Smith, you are a liar!”
Tasso turned yellow as his linen, and stopped short as
if the little hand, instead of the little tongue, of the concealed
speaker, had smitten him. From that moment, he
became singularly reserved, not venturing to open again
his mendacious mouth. He now turned his eyes steadfastly
towards the bar; and the tittering occasioned by
his discomfiture had scarcely ceased, when the court
came in.
“Hello, my little girl,” said the rough-coated stranger
to Eliza, “you seem bound to git a look.”
“Oh, sir! if I only could?”
“Sho! some friend of your'n, is he? — this Abel
Dane?”
“He — is — a dear friend — my adopted brother!”
faltered Eliza, from her anxiously throbbing heart.
“Ye don't say! Here, I'll make a place for you.
Give way a little there, you square-shouldered fellers;
let this young woman pass in; she's the man's sister, —
Abel Dane's sister!”
Although ashamed of being thus publicly announced,
Eliza was glad of the advantage the kind, rough man
obtained for her; and in a minute she had passed, she
scarcely knew how, the close barrier of the crowd, and
the strain and pressure they had sustained.
Before her was a railing as high as her arms, and
within that a bewildering scene; — the lawyers and privileged
visitors, whispering, writing, arranging papers,
or getting their seats, — in the midst of whom her eye
singled out the well-known side-head of the man she
sought. He was seated, composedly awaiting the arrival
of the jury with their verdict. He turned to speak
to a friend by his side, and then she saw his features,
which were firm, but careworn and haggard. She dared
not move beyond the rail; but at sight of that dear, suffering
face, she flew to him in spirit, and flung her arms
about him, and irrepressible tears ran down her cheeks.
Order was soon secured in the court, and from a distant
door an official-looking personage entered, bearing a
portentous perpendicular staff, and ushering in a file of
twelve men, who silently took their places upon seats
reserved for them beyond the bar, at the right-hand of
the judicial bench. Eliza almost forgot to breathe, and
leaned faintly upon the rail before her, as she thought
that the fate of Abel lay in the voice of these twelve
men, and that in another instant she might hear his
doom pronounced.
There was a brief delay, she knew not for what; then
the question was asked, — had the jury agreed upon their
verdict.
They had agreed. Low and ominous came the response
from the foreman.
Was the accused at the bar guilty or not guilty?
Eliza's brain reeled. She did not know whether she
heard the answer, or only a part of it. She looked dizzily
around. She saw the excited faces; she heard the whispered
echoes; then all was chaos and darkness about
her. But she still clung to the rail, and did not
faint.
“Told ye so!” said Tasso, with a look of malicious
satisfaction at his new acquaintances. “Yes!” he
whispered to the tiptoe listeners behind him; “GUILTY!
GUILTY!”
When Eliza recovered the mastery of her senses, she
saw, as in a dream, Abel standing up in court, erect and
pale; and heard some one inquiring if he had anything
to say why sentence should not be passed upon him.
Abel's voice was deep and agitated, as he answered, —
“I have nothing to say, but once more to protest
my innocence, and that is idle now. I believe the jury
have come honestly to their decision; but, God knows,
they have condemned an innocent man.”
Silence followed these impressive words, broken only
by a single cry of pain, — a sharp moan wrung from
Eliza's very soul.
Abel, after hesitating a moment, as if there was more
he would have said, passed his hand across his forehead,
and sat down. But he was presently required to stand
up again, and receive the sentence of the court.
“Oh, his poor old mother! his poor little baby!”
sobbed Eliza, audibly.
Abel hid his face with his hand for a minute, struggling
with the emotions that had well-nigh mastered
him, then stood up, stern and calm.
In the midst of the hushed and crowded court-room,
— confronting the jury that had pronounced him guilty,
and the judge who was to declare his sentence, — the focus
of a thousand eyes which well might burn his cheeks to
coals, or whiten them to ashes, — the one absorbing object
of pity, or wonder, or gloating satisfaction, to all those
packed benches, and thronged windows and doorways,
— a spectacle also, no doubt, to bands of angels, weeping
over the weakness of human judgments, or tenderly
smiling with joy at the divine wisdom which underlies
them, and works through them, and changes the bitterness
of wrong into the sweetness of mercy at last, —
there, on that wild December day, which blinded the windows
with snow, and darkened all the air with storm,
Abel Dane, the carpenter, stood up to receive the doom
of a felon.
In a slow, monotonous, and dogmatic speech, the
judge commented on the majesty of the law, which had
been offended, and the necessity of dealing justice to the
offender. Next, the enormity of Abel's crime against
society was duly made clear to him. He was also reminded
of the obligation he was under to feel grateful
for the enlightened process of law by which he had been
convicted, and for the patience and impartiality with
which his case had been heard. It now remained to determine
the punishment, which should be at once a just
to other wrong-doers.
Then, in the same unmoved, formal, droning tone of
voice, the court proceeded to discharge its heavy responsibility,
by pronouncing judgment.
This was the judgment:
To serve a term of FIVE YEARS, AT HARD LABOR, IN
THE STATE PRISON.
This was the doom of Abel Dane.
It smote the appalled heart of Eliza. Five years!
It seemed to her that the heavens had fallen, and justice
had not been done.
Abel bowed his head, and sat down, and the sentence
was irrevocably recorded against his name. He was
committed to the charge of the sheriff, to be taken from
the court to the jail, and thence to be conveyed to the
place of his long, weary, ignominious confinement.
He was marched away by the officers. The distant door
opened before him and closed again behind him. It was
done. And Eliza, forced into something like calmness by
the very intensity of her despair, or stunned by the awfulness
of the stroke, or held by a ghastly unbelief, looked
about her, — saw the soulless visage of the judge still
sitting there; the misty sea of faces around; the windows
streaming, as it were, with tears; the vast, dim, empty
space under the dome, but nowhere Abel; receiving, in
that instant of time, upon the tablet of her brain, a picture
of blurred desolation, of sickening unreality, to haunt her
days thenceforward, and to wake her by night from harrowing
dreams.
She was roused from that momentary palsy of the
soul, by the audience breaking up; — for the show was
over, the tragedy ended; the strained chord of excited
interest had snapped; and the next case on the docket
was too tame to excite the public appetite after such a
highly seasoned entertainment as had just been enjoyed.
The jury went out and another came in. And the court
coldly turned to the next case. And the lawyers scribbled
and quibbled. And the darkening storm whirled
and whistled without. And the affairs of the great
world went on, and there was joy, and there was laughter,
just the same now as when Abel Dane, the convict,
was a free and happy man.
| XXV.
FIAT JUSTITIA. Neighbor's wives | |