7. CHAPTER VII.
RETURN TO THE CAPITAL.
Hall was mounted upon one of the trooper's horses, and conveyed back to
the stockade. When brought into the room where the diabolical deed had
been perpetrated, no one could express more horror and astonishment than
the prisoner. Up to that moment a sort of stupefaction had seized upon his
faculties—he scarcely seemed to believe that the murder had actually been
committed, or if he did, could not fully realize the fact in all its dreadful particulars,
until he saw them with his own eyes; much less could he realize the
position in which he stood, and those circumstances tending to induce the
belief that he had done it. When he heard the evidence detailed, he was
scarcely surprised that others suspected him, for he would have suspected
another under similar circumstances. It made him almost superstitious, when
his faculties were sufficiently relieved from the astounding blow to contemplate
it, that any one could be placed in such a situation. If he had been
disposed to fatalism, here was ample materials to fortify his philosophy, but we
have seen already how he scouted the tempter under circumstances much less
urgent. So overpowering was the first weight of the blow, that the fact of
Henry Lee, his chief enemy, appearing as his accuser, witness, and judge,
for the time being, scarcely attracted his attention. All these minor affairs
were swallowed up in the astounding fact, that he must appear to the world as
a murderer. Then there came over him the recollection of all the late
disasters from which he had just escaped, but which now, when once brought
back before they were cleared up, would appear as so many corroborating
circumstances. When asked by Lee to explain the position in which he
found himself, he sank into a seat and covered his face with his hands. He
was bewildered and confounded. To the spectators, this looked exactly as
they supposed he might; it had a very natural appearance for a murderer,
who, if not detected in the very act, was apprehended with the blood of his
victim still upon his hands. At length, however, he rallied, and made an effort
to tell all that had happened within his knowledge during the previous night.
He stated that he had sought the room in which he slept for the purpose of
privacy, and that so far from seeking to have any thing to do with the other
travellers, that he had particularly designed to avoid them by going there—
that he was entirely unaware that the room was occupied at a later period of
the night by others, until he awakened about an hour before the break of day—
that as soon as he discovered it, he stepped lightly over the sleepers as he
supposed them to be, and pursued his journey straightway. He professed to
know nothing of the other traveller who was missing—the young Indian—
that he had neither seen him during the night, nor in the morning. He heard
no noise in the night, and was, he said, entirely unconscious how the blood
came upon his face—that he was as much shocked and surprised to find it
there as any one, and was wholly unable to explain it. He called the attention
of those around him, however, to the fact, that his cloak, in which he
slept, was also stained with blood, which he had discovered since his arrest—
that it was impossible for him to have committed the murder, wrapped up as
ho was—that the stains upon the garment corresponded exactly with the position
which he had described as the one in which he slept—and that his hands
and not his face would have been stained—his other garments, and not his
cloak, had he been the murderer. He stated, also, that there was no ill will
between him and Capt. Spotswood—that the last interview between them had
been of a friendly nature, and that he had actually left Temple Farm on the
Captain's business.
The whole of this statement, and much more which we have omitted, was
written down at the time by Henry Lee, and signed by the prisoner; after
which, he was secured on horseback—the corpse put into a cart, and with a
guard of half dozen troopers, set out upon their return to the capital.
It is much easier to conceive than describe the sensations of Hall, as he thus
began to realize the fact that he was a prisoner once more, and for an ignominious
offence.
At first, his whole nature shrunk from the disgrace and exposure, and he
thought that he never could or would survive its publicity. He could not help
contrasting his present situation—riding between two troopers and tied upon his
horse, like a petty larceny thief—with his youthful days, when he had travelled
surrounded by those willing and anxious to minister to his slightest wish.
He thought, too, of his late bold promises to himself, while in jail, and how
brave then he thought his spirit. “But merciful heaven, who could have
conceived that I should ever be brought to this!” and with this inward exclamation,
he wrung his manacled hands, and the scalding tears ran down his
manly cheeks. But this melting mood did not last long—the mind under the
heaviest depression rebounds exactly in proportion to that depression, just as
the spring of a piece of machinery when bent with great force in one direction
flies back in the opposite direction with a corresponding force. For a
while his heart sunk down and down, until there was a blackness over all
the landscape—the sun itself seemed to shine unnaturally—though it had
cleared off beautifully since the morning. The ribald jests of the vulgar men
at his side sounded ill-timed. It seemed to him as if the world itself was
coming to an end, and talking of the things of to-morrow, the greatest absurdity
imaginable. There are few people in this world of sorrow and trouble,
who have not experienced more or less of this feeling, just as they happen to
be endowed with much or little sensibility, and to be tried with heavy or light
afflictions.
Black and dreary would be the colors of the landscape in such a case, did
not the tender and gentle emotions of the heart glide in to soften it. Hall
was speedily approaching a point of recklessness and desperation, which
would but poorly have prepared him to fulfil the high and heroic resolves of
his prison chamber, until his memory began to wander back along the bright
and glowing path of his youthful days. Then it was that the tears burst
forth—and they were succeeded by a calm repose and a high settled purpose
of endurance and perseverance to the end. He thought that the wheel of
fortune—to speak in the language of the world—was now down to its nadir,
and must needs soon commence its revolution towards the zenith.
He had ample time to summon up his courage and his energies, for they
were nearly three days in making their way back to the capital—very little
faster than Hall had walked the same distance.
It is impossible to describe the consternation produced in the city by the
news that Hall had murdered the son of the Governor. How it got there no
one knew, but such news always seems to be borne ahead by some winged
messenger. We have known rumors of such facts outstrip any possible
carthly conveyance.
The cart conveying the corpse was surrounded by hundreds before it
entered even the suburbs of the city, and Hall found himself a spectacle for
idle boys and negroes to gaze at, even before he had entered the scene where
he had expected it. For this abject humiliation, he was wholly unprepared.
He could have raet the scorn of gentlemen with scorn, but against the jeers
and ribaldry of the mob he had nothing to oppose—he was wholly defenceless.
Public opinion was fast gathering head against him—eager gossips picked
up the horrid details from the soldiers and negroes who accompanied the
corpse, as the more respectable persons drawn thither by the crowd caught a
few brief words and an ominous shake of the head or two from Harry Lee.
While the cart containing the body rested in the public square, Lee rode on
to the Palace, to communicate the heart-rending news. The scene which
there preseuted itself beggars description—the news had preceded him, and
the ladies of the mansion were already frantic with grief. His ears were
saluted with the wild shrieks of despair, and the Governor was locked up in
his room and would not see even him. He sent him a message to take the
prisoner before a magistrate, and have him examined.
This was done accordingly, and the same evidence detailed which we have
already condensed. Not the slightest hesitation was manifested by the
magistrate in making out Hall's commitment, for there appeared no redeeming
circumstances whatever, save those thrown into his former statement, which
of course passed for nothing, at the present stage of the proceedings.
The unfortunate, or the guilty young man, as the case might be, was loaded
with irons, and deposited in the same prison which he had left but a few days
before. Very few persons ventured to question his guilt—indeed, the general
opinion settled down at once, that Hall had killed young Spotswood, in mistake
for Harry Lee; there was very little room for surmise in the matter—there
was no one else to suspect—no one else upon whom suspicion could fasten.
There were some mysterious and unexplained circumstances attending the
dreadful deed, as there generally is attending all murders, such as the presence
of the Indian boy. Public ingenuity was at fault in fastening upon any one
whom the description would suit, and that feature of the tragedy was soon
overlooked or forgotten in the absorbing horror of the plain, straight forward
matters of fact. The previous circumstances connected with the history of
the prisoner—such as his reputed change of name—obtaining money under
false pretences, with a hundred other things which he had never done—soon
accumulated into such a torrent of public indignation, that his personal safety
might have been endangered in a large and more populous city. In a few days,
however, this all settled down into the undoubted conviction, that John Spotswood,
the son of the Governor of Virginia, had been murdered by a young
man named Hall, who had found his way into the Governor's family as private
tutor.
