University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.

Moreland found the father and sister of Norman
already in the prison, with his friend Howard.
The sad scene had been witnessed but by the
black walls alone; nor shall we attempt to describe
this meeting of a father and sister with a beloved
and only son and brother, but recently dragged from
the bosom of a happy family, with all the refinement
of education, all the sensitiveness of delicacy
and feeling, and about to perish like a common ruffian
upon a scaffold.

The clock tolled six. It was the hour appointed
for the reopening of the court. At the earnest solicitations

of the father and sister of Norman, he
consented that the latter should be present during
the whole of the trial. The request was also
urged by Moreland, who conceived that her appearance
would prepare the jury to receive with more
liberality the arguments and proof of the defence.

“Well, father,” said Norman, with a forced smile,
“and dear, dear Julia, now we part, and certainly
for ever. After the verdict, I cannot, I will not, trust
myself again within the sound of any human voice
I love. No one, with my permission, shall look
upon my face again. Farewell, farewell!—may
Almighty God bless—protect—relieve you—nay,
Julia, nay—father, support yourself—my sweet
Julia—Howard, for God's sake—”

They were interrupted by a summons for the
prisoner. The young lawyer, his own eyes bathed
in tears, drew away with gentle violence the father,
while Howard supported the shuddering and fainting
sister, after an embrace more than twice repeated,
which seemed to drain the life-blood from
their lips and hearts. As they were thus led from
the cell, Julia, with a shriek of agony, fell senseless
into the arms of Howard.

Returning, to his surprise, Moreland found the
countenance and demeanour of Norman calm—
even cold.

“Thank God!—thank God!” he said, in a steady
voice, “it is done. The bond is severed—the darkness,
the bitterness of death is passed. It is this,
dear Albert, that I most feared—not death itself,
but these scenes of frightful grief and harrowing
affection. But we, too, must part. I must meet
my fate alone—without a friend—without a hope—
to the bar—to the sentence—to the scaf—” A
quivering agony shot across his features; then again
all was calm and cold as marble.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, after a moment's pause,
to the officers in waiting to conduct him back to
court, “may I beg one word in private with this
my friend and counsellor?”

The permission was granted, and they were
locked in the cell.

“Albert,” cried Norman, in a voice as changed,
wild, and hurried as if his senses were wavering,
“Albert, hear me!—by your friendship—by your
love—by the happiness of my family—by my life-blood—by
your own honour and peace of mind—
by earth—by the God that made it—grant, grant
my request!”

“Speak—speak, my injured, my noble friend!”
said Moreland, partaking his agitation.

“You saw my poor father but now?”

“Well, Norman?”

“And my sweet sister?—a beautiful, blooming
girl, with the bright world before her.”

“Well, dear Norman?”

“That noble man's proud head, Albert—that
dear girl's pure, fond, high heart, as susceptible to
pride, Albert, as sensitive to grief and disgrace,
as—”

He struck his hand upon his forehead; his
bosom heaved and panted; and his nostril dilated
with the hard-drawn breath.

“Well, Norman, hope for the best.”

“Albert,” said Norman, “trifle not with me. I
must be crushed in this dreadful fate. Earth cannot
save me. Heaven will not! To-night I shall
be adjudged guilty; and in a few more days the
crowd—the cord—the scaffold—end Norman Leslie.
Death alone I do not fear. Oh, God! how I
have wished for it!—but I must die on the scaffold,
before the mob—the shouting, laughing, reckless,
jesting mob—a spectacle of horror and ignominy—

a public proverb! Oh, Albert, Albert!—my friend
—my guardian—my saviour—my last—best—only
—only hope—”

His paleness grew frightful.

“Norman,” cried Moreland, in a tone of alarm,
“in the name of mercy, what would you ask?”

“Think—my friend—think,” said Norman.

“I am dizzy, dear Norman, I cannot think.”

A new summons interrupted them.

“Albert—we will meet again. I must die—but
not on the scaffold. Forbid it, friendship—manly
honour! After this mummery is over—this farcical,
ridiculous ceremony of a trial, where every
word that is spoken is a black slander, an unholy
lie, where falsehood and prejudice appear to testify,
and where even truth herself comes only in a
vile and monstrous disguise—when this stupid
mockery is over, come to me, Albert, bring me
the means of escape.”

“Norman, I do not understand.”

“Not from these dismal walls, Albert”—he approached,
and whispered in his ear, with a look of
wild meaning, and struck his hand upon his breast
—“from this!”

“Great God!”

“Fail me, Albert, and I die—despising; assist
me, and I bless you with my expiring breath.
This thought has supported me; this cooled the
scorching fever in my veins and bursting temples
during the last two days.”

A more imperative call now cut short the interview.

He smiled as the officers now entered; and,
bearing up proudly and loftily under the gaze of
the crowds assembled outside the prison to see
him pass, he stepped with a calm and thoughtful
air through the passage opened for him by the

throngs in the corridors of the hall, and in the
chamber of justice, and assumed his accustomed
seat. His coolness created in some surprise, in
others indignation, according as in their shortsighted
and superficial observations they ascribed
it to hackneyed villany, or impudent confidence in
his connexions and rank in society. Who shall
read the heart in those ever-changing and accidental
moods which chance upon the manners or countenance?

“He depends upon a pardon,” said one.

“Influence at court,” cried another.

“Kissing goes by favour!” exclaimed a third.

“But he'll swing for it yet,” cried a fourth, “or
my name aint Jemmy Jackson!”

“The bloodthirsty villain,” observed one; “how
he glares at the prosecuting attorney!”

“That proud rascal yonder,” said Jemmy Jackson,
who, from some capricious association, had
conceived an especial antipathy to the prisoner,
“and that girl in the black veil—that's his father
and sister, ye see.”

“Poor people!” rejoined the person to whom
was made this communication; “they must feel
terrible, sure enough.”

“Hoot, man, I'll warrant them as bad as he,”
returned the implacable Jemmy Jackson; “such
fruit could spring from no good tree. In my opinion
they ought to be all hanged together. I should
not wonder if he paid his way through yet.”

“Jemmy Jackson, you are an old fool,” said a
Marine Court lawyer, himself rather advanced in
years.

“Then it's pot calling kettle black, I'm thinkin,”
said Jemmy, winking to his companions. “And
why am I a fool, Mr. Oakum?”

“Because ye are, Jemmy; and that's a better

reason than you can give for saying that anybody
pays his way. Here no one pays his way; not
even yourself, Jemmy, if you should be called on
to be hanged one day, which is not unlikely.”

“But there is such a thing as bribing a witness,”
said Jemmy, who, without the least cause but his
own whim, had so dogmatically determined upon
the guilt of the prisoner and all his relations, that
if the murdered girl herself had made her appear
ance to disprove the charge of her death, he would
have laid it to bribery. “You remember the gold
snuff-box which one of you lawyers quietly passed
to a juror, Mr. Oakum?”

“Not I, Jemmy; I never passed a gold snuff-box
to a juror.”

“No,” said Jemmy, “the gold snuff-boxes you
may have, friend Oakum, you are more likely to
keep yourself; not on account of your conscience
but your pocket.”

“Hoot, hist, silence!” cried Mr. Oakum, pretending
not to hear the laugh which Jemmy Jackson's
wit occasioned; “don't you see they're going
to begin. Mr. Loring is going to open the defence.
There are two sides to a stone wall, you know,
Mr. Jemmy Jackson. Sit down there! no standing
up within the bar! Silence!” and his whisper
was echoed in an obstreperous tone by the crier.

The counsel for the prisoner, Mr. Loring, commenced
his arduous and apparently hopeless duties.

We must here again express in a few lines what
occupied the court a long time. It was admitted
that Miss Romain disappeared the afternoon of her
ride with the prisoner. That he had gone out
with her and returned alone. His own explanation
stated that Miss Romain had ridden with him
upon a casual invitation; that on reaching an unfrequented
place, they met a lady riding alone in

a gig, and, what he considered very extraordinary,
driving herself. The deceased entered the gig,
and, after a few moments' private conversation
with her, and with many apologies to the prisoner,
expressed a wish to return with her. That prisoner
had then gone back alone by a different route,
and had not suspected her disappearance till some
time after, when he immediately called on her
father to explain what he knew of so extraordinary
a circumstance.

Mr. Loring opened the defence by stating that
the incident was plunged in doubt and mystery.
The idea that a man of the prisoner's character,
even were he inclined to commit a murder, would
select such a time and such means, was absurd.
He might as well have perpetrated it in the city
streets at noonday. It was evident that some unfathomable
mystery was connected with it, with
which the prisoner had nothing to do, and which
the court had not yet approached. It was one of
those inexplicable occurrences which, when genius,
and acuteness, and professional learning had
vainly endeavoured to solve, unfolded of itself in
the course of time. “The explanation of the prisoner
may appear a clumsy fabrication, too clumsy
to believe; yet, gentlemen, beware how you admit
that supposition. To me its very clumsiness and
improbability furnish a reason for its truth. You
smile. But do improbable things never happen?
Are all the actions of the great, confused, clashing,
mutable world, probable? Must a man perish because
an improbable fact has taken place? I say,
gentlemen, the greater the improbability of this
story, the more implicitly I believe it. Had he
wished to invent a story, it would have been more
cunningly devised,” etc.

The evidence for the prisoner was very limited.

The officers swore to his horror and astonishment
at being arrested; but, in the cross-examination,
confessed that he betrayed extraordinary signs of
confusion, strongly resembling guilt. Others had
seen him on his return from the fatal ride, without
observing any embarrassment or abstraction.

The evidence of Miss Leslie, although indirect,
was received with lively marks of sympathy. She
had met her brother, on his arrival from the afternoon
ride, and had particularly remarked his health
and cheerfulness. She described him as peculiarly
gay, having been one of a party of ladies and gentlemen
who walked on the Battery in the evening,
and discovering, in all the thousand offices of courtesy,
a heart entirely at rest.

“Oh,” continued the young and lovely girl, enthusiastic
affection quite drowning every consideration
of personal embarrassment, “they who believe
Norman capable of committing that or any
other crime, little know his character. Even supposing
it possible in a moment of delirium, it is
not possible that afterward he could be so natural
and easy, so completely unembarrassed and happy.
From boyhood, Norman has been remarkable for
betraying in his countenance what was passing in
his heart, and even for blushing when any thing
confused him. But we saw no kind of agitation
whatever; and I am certain that he could not
have concealed from us, had any secret weighed
upon—”

“This is all very well,” said Mr. Germain, who
had been particularly vehement and bitter during
the whole trial, against everybody and every thing
tending to exculpate the prisoner—“this is all very
well; but I ask the court if it is evidence. The
young lady, I believe, comes here as a witness, not
as counsel.”

This was received—as any levity that breaks
the monotonous solemnity of a court of justice is
sure to be received—with a slight general titter;
although one of the jurors was observed to pass
his fingers hastily over his glistening eyes. The
prisoner smiled bitterly, and shook his head, as if
in wonder. Moreland rose for the first time.

“May it please the court,” cried Moreland, in a
voice low almost to a whisper, but so perceptibly
tremulous that a general hush succeeded his first
words—“may it please the court: we are a tribunal
of justice. I am aware that we are judges, jury,
counsel, and spectators; and from such assemblies
I know it is proper to exclude all feeling. But,
nevertheless, we are—we ought to be men. If the
prisoner be guilty—though young, proud, beautiful,
and noble, with other deep hearts wound convulsively
around him, and bound up in him—yet, if
he be guilty, let him die the death of violence and
ignominy.”

A shudder and a drawing in of the breath was
heard from the sister, like that of the victim when
the edge of the axe first glitters before his eyes.
The spectators grew more profoundly motionless
and silent, and Moreland, rising and warming with
his emotions, went on:—

“I would not from private feeling, not even from
private opinion, turn aside the sword of public justice.
But I will not, I dare not, I cannot sit silently
by, and behold the best emotions of nature outraged,
ridiculed, trampled down, by the habitual coldness
or hardened zeal of the profession to which I
belong. If the sister of this unhappy man in her
secret soul believes him guilty,” still her trembling
voice, her streaming eyes, her woman's heart raised
in his behalf, demand the respect and attention of
a civilized people. But if this amiable and lovely

girl here plead for the life of a brother, on whose
utter and complete innocence she relies as she has
faith in her own existence and in her God—if
she possess knowledge, if she can advance arguments
to rescue him from a dishonourable and
untimely grave, or even to relieve her own broken
heart with the outpourings of its swollen and agonized
fulness—let the hand that would stay her
fall palsied—let the tongue that would deride her
blister. The motive which now inspires this affectionate
sister to throw herself—timid and trembling
woman as she is—before a tribunal of justice,
and before such a crowd as now hears me, to
speak in defence of a beloved brother, is pure, exalted,
unalloyed, and noble; and, in the name of
every thing good and generous—in the name of
mercy, of charity—in the name of woman, I claim
for her protection from the derision and sneers
which the learned gentlemen on the other side of
the question have thought it not beneath them to
express against the defence.”

A burst of irrepressible applause, notwithstanding
the solemnity of the place, followed this out-flash
of indignant feeling; but it was instantly and
sternly silenced and rebuked by the court, who
threatened to commit immediately to prison any
one guilty of such a contempt in future, and directed
the officers to be watchful.

The prosecuting counsel, Mr. Germain, against
whose head this bolt had been evidently directed,
rose, rubbing his hands with a distrustful smile,
and a confidential look along the jury.

“May it please the court—but one word, your
honour,” he said; “the gentleman misunderstands
me. My heart bleeds as well as his own at the
sight of private suffering; but I know how necessary
it is in matters of justice to guard against personal

feeling. Virtue and domestic love are beautiful
words; but there are also such words as law
and justice. I perceive the artifice of the ingenious
counsel in producing before the jury the father and
sister of the prisoner, to soften our hearts and inflame
our feelings. It is a trick of the profession.
Legal questions should be discussed only by the
light of reason. They require only a deliberate
and unprejudiced examination of proof, and a cold
knowledge of statutes—the colder and more
unfeeling, the better. Whatever may be the sufferings
of the prisoner or his family, what bearing
can they have, ought they to have, on the naked
question, `Is he or is he not guilty?' In respect to
the evidence of Miss Leslie, whom, of course, we
are bound to believe very pure in her intentions, I
wish only to restrict her within the legal limits of
a witness. If sisters turn pleaders, stealing in under
license of witnesses, a new and most dangerous
era will be introduced into our jurisprudence. Private
feeling, however harrowing, is but insignificant
when compared with the public good. Neither
should we forget to distinguish between the
pain resulting directly from guilt in those connected
with the guilty party, and that inflicted by him
upon others. The parent and sister of the unhappy
culprit are not the only bereaved victims of this
crime now within hearing of my voice. The griefstricken
heart of that old man, whose only daughter
fell beneath the prisoner's hand—have we no sympathy
with his dark age, with his deserted hearth?
Let the unfortunate man at the bar regard the
wreck he has caused in his own circle with feelings
of bitter anguish, and may Heaven support
him under the trial! But we have nothing to see,
nothing to feel, but whether, on the proof adduced,
he be guilty or not guilty.'

The court begged that nothing more might be
said on the subject. They had heard the counsel
for the defence, because they wished to extend towards
the prisoner every possible clemency, and
the prosecution had a certain right to reply; but
the question respecting the evidence of the witness
was unimportant. She must be allowed to relate
her statements in her own way; and if, from her
feelings or her inexperience, out of order, she would
be restrained by the court.

“What else do you know respecting the case?”
inquired Mr. Loring of the witness.

“Nothing,” was the reply, and thus the long
debate had been unnecessary.

After a confused mass of contradictory testimony,
Mr. Loring announced his intention of producing
one more witness, who had voluntarily
come forward in the cause of innocence, and to
prevent the unjust effusion of human blood—one
whose station and character were unimpeachably
pure; whose motives could not be impugned or
traduced; who was swayed neither by the power
of domestic love, nor by any intimate acquaintance
with the prisoner; a lady, the daughter of one of
the most distinguished families in the city: her
testimony, he added, would be conclusive. It had
come to his knowledge by accident, and only this
moment, and could not fail to acquit the prisoner.

This announcement produced much excitement.
The judge turned to gaze with an eagerness almost
incompatible with his dignity; the jury looked
anxiously forward; the prosecuting counsel smiled
shrewdly, and muttered aloud, “A new device of
the enemy;” and the auditory at large stretched
their necks to behold the new-comer, whom more
than one pronounced to be Miss Romain herself.
Not among the least surprised was the prisoner,

who leaned forward with evident curiosity. The
side-doors being opened, a female, enveloped in a
close bonnet and veil, entered, and took her seat on
the witness's stand