University of Virginia Library

4. PART IV.

We will return to the humble cottage occupied by
Edward and Charlotte, and present to the reader the
lovely scene it exhibited one evening about three
weeks after Isabel's departure, and a few days after
they had learned of Colonel Willis's death and bequest.
Edward's religious feelings had returned in their full
power, with his improved circumstances and more
softened feelings—but he first past through a penitential
ordeal of agonising and mental suffering. He was
seated by her bedside, reading the twenty-fifth psalm,
selected as being peculiarly appropriated to his present
circumstances. Charlotte lay with her hands clasped
in his, listening to the sublime language of inspiration,
her eyes lifted prayerfully, or now turned fondly, and
beaming with happiness, upon him. Her face was
very pale, and illness had given her features the delicacy
of chiselling. Occasionally, she would draw a
long breath as if in pain, but not a murmur of impatience
escaped her lips. Edward, at length, reverently
closed the book, and kneeled by the couch of the invalid,
and addressed the throne of grace, his countenance
as he proceeded, becoming eloquent with sorrow,

love, gratitude, and devotion; his words burned, and
his language was impressive for its fervor and strength,
and for its unaffected humility, such as became a returning
wanderer to the fold, from which he had so
long strayed. Affliction softens or hardens the human
heart—it either leads man to cast himself humbly
upon the mercy of the chastener, or to murmur against
his dispensations and accuse him of injustice. In the
Christian, their dispositories are more remarkable, and
elevate his spirited character, or steel him to insensibility.
The Christian who cannot profit by chastisements,
is the most deplorably wretched of all men.
Edward Carrington, during the height of his temporal
wretchedness was one of these. But he had now
learned to bless the hand that chastened him.

Rising from his evening devotions, he kissed Charlotte's
blue-veined temples and retired.

In the morning Edward awoke to find Charlotte
cold and dead beside him, buried in that sleep that
“knows no waking.” She was indeed dead and
lovely even in death!

The first sensation Edward experienced, was that
of horror. The next, when the awful conviction of
the dreadful reality pressed upon his senses—of unbounded
grief. We will briefly pass over the scenes
that followed the publicity of that event. Edward's
creditors had waited several days after Isabel's departure,
but hearing nothing further from her, they again
became more clamorous than ever, and Edward again
found himself the object of suspicion, hatred and contempt.
During the brief suspension of their siege,
which Isabel's influence had effected, his creditors
seemed to have gathered fresh vigor.—There are some
men of naturally tyrannical dispositions, and who love
the exercise of power if their dog is only the object,
who, when they have a debtor in their power, love to
make him feel it, and the more worthy the individual,
the higher he is above them in the moral or social scale,

the more tyrannical they are in using the power with
which the misfortunes of a fellow being may have
given them. Of this character were the majority of
Edward's creditors, and we regret to state, that he
found no difference between those of them who professed
religion, and were members of the church, and
those who made no profession; indeed in one instance,
his bitterest persecution was from an elder who had
sold him, from his store, certain articles of clothing.
The feelings of the prejudiced community of the village,
therefore, were easily aroused against so ripe a
victim. Edward was seized by the infuriated mob,
and borne to the office of the magistrate, who, as he
beheld him, humanely said, “I prophecied you'd come
to the gallows, young sir!” Lynching, that praise-worthy
substitute for trial by jury, and which leaves
the magna charta in the shade, was not then in vogue,
or our tale would soon end. He was fully committed
for trial. Alas, how fatal to be poor and friendless!
How criminal to be in debt! If a wealthy individual
had awoke in the morning and found his wife a corpse
by his side, he would have been permitted to follow
her in peace to the grave. Charlotte was buried by
strangers, who, slandering her while living, commiserated
her, dead! She was lowered in her lonely
grave, at the moment that Edward, overwhelmed by
the accumulation of his sorrows, cast himself upon
the floor of his dungeon in sleepless despair.

The day of trial came. Public excitement was immense—its
prejudices strongly against the prisoner.
Edward had fortified his soul with prayer, and bowed
with resignation to the divine will. He was happy!
for he soon expected to rejoin Charlotte in heaven!
The judge, and the officers of the court assisting him
in his solemn duties, had taken their usual places upon
the bench, the court was opened, and the Attorney General
announced in the customary manner to the court
that he was ready to proceed with the trial. After

the jury were empannelled, and the usual preliminaries
of a trial were completed, there was a simultaneous
movement of heads throughout the thronged court,
and “The prisoner—the prisoner!” was repeated in a
hundred whispers.

Edward entered the court with a firm step and collected
manner; his face was very pale, but its expression
was that of settled resignation. As he entered,
he cast his eye over the pavement of human heads,
and as a thousand curious eyes encountered his own,
his cheek glowed, and dropping his eye lids, he raised
them afterwards only to his counsel, the jury, or the
bench. The clerk rising, informed him of his right to
a peremptory challenge of the jury; and although he
observed three or four of his most unrelenting creditors
among them he remained silent. The prisoner
having already been indicted, the indictment was read
to the jury, the cause was opened, and the trial proceeded.
The details of the trial can only be very
briefly noticed. The circumstantial evidence was so
conclusive, combined with “the well-known character
of the prisoner,” that the testimony on both sides
closed. The judge then charged the jury, recapitulating
the most important features of the testimony, and
explaining at some length, the law for their guidance
on so solemn an occasion. He finally charged them,
that “if they entertained any doubts as to the guilt of
the prisoner, they should be thrown in the scale for
his benefit, and they would be bound to acquit him:
but, if they had no doubt of his guilt, it was their
duty to find him guilty.”

After an absence of ten minutes, the jury returned
into court with a verdict of “Guilty.