University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

The day after the incident recorded in the last
chapter, Bradshaw had recovered, with the exception
of a painful arm, which he was obliged to
wear in a sling. He had not yet left the house,
when the following note was handed to him.

Sir—In honour of your intrepid conduct,
displayed at the fire in — lane, on Tuesday
evening last, and in respect for your talents and
character, we have the high gratification, as a committee
in behalf of the fire companies of our city,
to invite you to a public dinner, to be given at
the City Hotel, at such a time as your health will
permit: of which please apprize us. Permit us
to hope that your rapid restoration will give us
the honour of meeting you at the social board
very soon.

We are, sir, with sentiments of the highest respect,

Willoughby was also invited. In his note accepting
the invitation, Bradshaw mentioned the following
Monday, as the day when his health would
allow him to attend. On Monday, a sumptuous
dinner was, accordingly, served up, in an immense
hall, which was crowded. Bradshaw had the post
of honour, and beside him sat Willoughby. When
the cloth was removed, Bradshaw was toasted in
a highly flattering manner, and received with three
cheers, when he rose to return his thanks. His
remarks were admirably calculated to produce effect.
His language and thoughts were felicitous,
and every word was seconded by the voice and the
eye. They cheered him over and over again, as
he spoke, while his powers, like every true orator's,
gathered and glowed till there was not an
unmoved heart in the assembly. A true orator
can make any subject, where you touch his feelings,
of deep interest to his audience. He complimented
Willoughby in the happiest manner, and
said—“he deserves all the honours of this occasion:
he risked his life, to save one whom he
could have no motive to save, but the promptings
of a heart, that could not let the most lowly, and
the most unworthy suffer. I acted,” continued
Bradshaw, “to save him who possessed these noble
qualities of which I have just spoken, who is
an ornament, and an honour to society, and who,
from a love of adventure, and from a friendly regard
to myself, was thrown into danger. None
could have blamed him, if he had left Adams to
his fate—it was a fate, which all would have said
the ruffian merited. But I—I—had I not exerted

myself for the rescue of my friend—and under
these circumstances, I would have deserved, ay,
richly deserved, the fiery death which he escaped.
When Willoughby was toasted, in noticing the
remark of Bradshaw, he said—“My friend, to
whom I owe the deep debt of gratitude for my life
and who, if his life had been lost in attempting to
save mine, would have fallen, as though a star, which
had newly risen above the horizon, with a glorious
track before it, and with men's eyes upon it, in
wonder and admiration, had become suddenly extinct,
has been pleased to say, I deserved the honours
of this occasion. Now, ain't this a pretty
story?—when if he had not been there, I could not
possibly have been here.”

During Bradshaw's confinement, Mr. Shaffer had
been appointed state's attorney, in which capacity
it was his duty, to prefer the indictment to the
grand jury against criminals, and to appear in behalf
of the state at their trial. The court was
soon to set, and Bradshaw, was anxious to know
what would be done in Jane Durham's case. She
had not yet, of course, been indicted; but he was
satisfied that Johnson would do all in his power to
have a bill found; and he was desirous that it
should not be done, until he knew more of the case—
had spoken with her on the subject, and had heard
something of Glassman. Before the fire, he had
inquired several times for Glassman among his
acquaintance, and the answer was, he had heard
town; but Bradshaw could not learn where he had
gone. Twice he had been to Glassman's house to
inquire, but he found it shut up, and he rapped in

vain at the door—no servant came. Glassman was
a man of such erratic habits, that his disappearance
for a day or two was scarcely noticed, but by
those who had intrusted business to him, and who
feared that he was neglecting it. He was not habitually
intemperate, but he took too frequently
what is called a “frolic,” or “spree,” during which,
for days together, he would plunge into every excess,
which was sometimes followed by severe indisposition.
The day of the public dinner was the
first that Bradshaw had left the house since the
fire; and when the company broke up, he walked
round to Glassman's office, in the hope of hearing
something of him. On the rapper of the door of
the dwelling part of the house, he saw a napkin
tied; and he hesitated, at this sign of sickness within,
whether he should rap or not. While he stood in
perplexity, he saw Mr. Shaffer, the new state's attorney,
passing; and joining him, he inquired if he
could tell him any thing of Glassman.

“Mr. Bradshaw, my respects to you, sir,” said
Mr. Shaffer, in his formal, but courteous manner.
“I understand, my young friend, that you have
been doing yourself great honour lately; honour
at the fire, sir, and honour to-day at the dinner,
which has been given to you. You deserve it,
sir, and I understand that there was a very large
assemblage who were very much pleased; an evidence
of a popularity, which I have no doubt will
increase. You ask me, sir, for Mr. Glassman.
Mr. Bradshaw, there, is a man of great talents,
who, like the sun in a cloudy day, has scarcely
given a glimpse of the brilliancy which he possesses—his

vices, sir, have obscured what should
have been a most brilliant career. Sir, Mr. Glassman,
as I have just been informed, (for I had some
business with him, and I have been inquiring for
him for this last week,) is just out of the hospital,
sir, where he has been, to use the vulgar expression,
as crazy as a bed-bug, from a fit of intemperance.
His friends, sir, don't want this publicly
known, and they have been trying all they can to
conceal it; but, sir, I may mention it to you. It
is melancholy. Every young man should reflect
upon it. Glassman is now better—he was brought
home this morning. He is still quite ill, his
nerves are in such a state, that his physician has
deemed it proper to forbid his being seen. Is
your business urgent, my young friend? come,
this is my office, you know. Walk in.”

Bradshaw accepted the invitation, and entered
Mr. Shaffer's office. After they were seated, he
congratulated the old gentleman on his appointment,
and said, “I shall obtain more fees, Mr.
Shaffer, and lose more cases.”

“Ha! ha! Mr. Bradshaw. You compliment
me, sir. But, as I'm getting old, I must occasionally
get you to assist me, when some stern
case comes up. I see you rescued a girl from that
notorious scoundrel, Adams, the other evening.
She is accused of murder, I'm told, sir. Since,
too, you have caught Adams. Well, sir, that was
a bold stroke. He is one of the greatest offenders,
and most determined ruffians, I ever knew.”

Bradshaw thought this a fit opportunity to speak
to Mr. Shaffer of Jane Durham, and he accordingly

narrated to him the whole circumstances;
observing,—“Though, Mr. Shaffer, you are the attorney
for the state, I feel no delicacy in mentioning
this to you. My object is not to get a
fee, but to have justice done. The girl I do not
believe is guilty—my suspicions rest elsewhere.”

“Well, sir, I will look into the case particularly.
I think I have some talent at ferreting out
a bad cause.”

After a few common-place observations, Bradshaw
took his departure, and went over to the jail.

“Mr. Bradshaw,” said Job, “I missed you sorely.
I wanted to ax you on several pints of law
that I've been disputing upon with them magistrates
that come here. I tell 'em it may turn out
that Job Presley knows more of the law than they
think for.”

“Oh! Mr. Bradshaw, you're good for weak eyes,”
exclaimed Mrs. Presley, as Bradshaw entered her
apartment; while Lucy rose to hand him a chair.
“I'm a sight,” said Bradshaw to Lucy, “which I
suspect your eyes, Lucy, will not soon require, then.
Where's my fair client?”

“She has, just this moment, gone into her room,
sir. She was wishing very much to see you,” replied
Lucy.

“How do you like her?”

“Oh! very much, indeed, sir. She helps mammy
and I, at our sewing, or she sits and reads to
us. We don't believe one word that's said against
her. Will you walk in? Here she is, sir.”

Bradshaw, accordingly, entered the room, and
Lucy left it, closing the door after her. Jane Durham

showed great joy at seeing him, and after,
with many tears, expressing her deep sorrow for
the trouble she had given him, and for the great
risk which he had run on her account, she told
him she would narrate to him—if he could spare
time to listen—all that she knew of Adams, and
how she came in the lane; protesting, at the same
time, that she was entirely guiltless of murder.
“I am a guilty creature,” she said, “but no murderess,
no murderess! But there is a curse on me,
it may be, that demands my life. Yes, a curse, a
curse—Oh! how have I fallen! how have I fallen!”
she burst into tears.

“Calm yourself, Jane,” said Bradshaw, in a
soothing voice; “why exaggerate your errors into
crimes? You let your imagination brood too much
on the events of the lane; one, possessed of your
sensibility, never can see her situation, when
there is any difficulty in it, in a proper point of
view. Unfortunate circumstances may place any
one in, apparently, the most desperate difficulty;
but, remember, that the darkest night is often succeeded
by the brightest day.”

“Mr. Bradshaw, you don't remember me?” said
Jane Durham, in a more cheerful tone.

“No, I do not remember you,” said Bradshaw,
“but it strikes me forcibly, that I ought to remember
you—that I have seen you somewhere. Where
was it?”

“I have been your schoolmate,” replied she,
with a deep blush. We must be about the same
age. Don't you remember Jane Durham, who
used to go to Mr. Lusby's? pretty Jane, they used

to call me. It may be, that the vanity engendered
in my heart, then, ruined me.”

“Bless me, yes,” said Bradshaw, “I remember
you. Pretty Jane! I remember you well; we
must, as you say, be about the same age. We
were about twelve, when we were schoolmates?”

“Yes, sir, near that age. My father hired a
small farm from Mr. Carlton; we lived, just before
you get to the school-house, on the left hand side,
you know, after you passed the Branch. You frequently
used to stop at my father's, as you went to
school, and ask, if “pretty Jane” had gone yet.
I was just twelve, when my father moved away
from the neighbourhood of the Purchase, and went
to Long Swamp to live, near the third turnpike
gate, a little this side of the village they call, Fair
View.”

“I felt that I had seen you somewhere,” said
Bradshaw, “and that I ought to know you. Pretty
Jane! how often you have sung for me! Do you
remember it? Why, we have paddled in the Branch
together, after many a pretty pebble. Well, Jane, I
am glad I came through the alley that night: be
assured, that I will exert myself all I can in your
case.”

“O! I know you will, sir; I know you will. As
soon as I heard the watchman mention your name,
by the dead man, I thought it must be Mr. David
Bradshaw's son. I had heard of you often. Mr.
Glassman talks a great deal of you. And when
I came to inquire of aunt Nancy, I knew you must
be the same.” She mused a moment, and then

continued, in a sorrowful strain—“My father is
dead, you know, sir. He died shockingly, shockingly!
My mother! my mother! she's dead now,
too—I have an uncle living in Pennsylvania; he's
all the kin I have on earth. Believe me, I have
tried to resist degradation and shame—I have tried
as the weak bird tries to resist the net of the fowler.
Mr. Bradshaw, indeed, I have been unfortunately,
miserably situated. Whom have I had to
guide, to advise, to shield, to protect me? My father—it
is not wronging even the dead, to say it—
was no father to me; and my mother! she meant
well, generally, but she was weak and easily deceived.
We lived comparatively happy, while we
were on Mr. Carlton's place; my father, intemperate
as you know he was, even then, was still within some
bounds—the good examples round him, in some
measure restrained him, and, at times, we had hopes
that he would do better. How fondly, even then,
a child, with all my apparent giddiness, I nursed
the hope!—After some low debauch, in which he
would abuse my mother and myself, often turning
us out in the cold nights, into the woods, where, in
the leaves, we have slept, or lain down with the
beasts in their wretched shed, have we crept towards
the house in the morning early, and appeared
to be busy about it, at our work, to prevent the
neighbours from suspecting our situation. Sometimes,
after one of these miserable nights, he would
come out and call us in, and ask my mother, in a
kind tone, for his breakfast: then, partly from remorse,
and partly from the shattered state of his
nerves, he would weep, declare how much he loved
us, and say, this should be the last time we should
be so treated. Oh! with what watchful anxiety
would my mother and I try to keep him from
drink. We would sit by him, together, for hours,
and try to talk cheerfully, and, as if nothing had
happened,—if mother had to go away, to attend to
the cows, or get wool to card, I would sit by him,
child as I was, and try to amuse him. If he wanted
tobacco—and often, after one of these scenes,
and while he yet felt ashamed of it, he would say
he wanted it, as an excuse to go to the grocery, on
the road, and drink—as soon as he expressed the
wish, I would insist upon going, and, in the dark
night, on the lonely road, I have hastened off to get
it, while mother would try to amuse him till I
returned. At last, when, as he often would, he
avowed his purposes, and said he didn't want tobacco,
he wanted drink, mother would persuade him
to let me go and buy it for him, hoping that, by keeping
him at home, we might restrain him within
some bounds, or, at least, hide the vice from our
neighbours, which we could not prevent; he would
say he had no money, and he must go himself to
get credit; mother would then produce her last
cent, which we had obtained for carding or knitting,
and send me. Alas! for what good? The
neighbours knew it long before we dreamed they
knew it. And when the drink was brought to him
at home, he would get crazy on it, drive mother
and myself, in the middle of the night, into the
woods, lock the house, and threaten our lives, if we
dared to return to it. These scenes, which were
not unfrequent, even when we lived on Mr. Carlton's
place, became, I might almost say, of daily
occurrence, when we moved to Long Swamp. At
the Swamp, we were miserably situated—we lived
in an old log house, off of the road, but within sight
of the village and the grocery. We had no comforts—comforts!
we often wanted bread. My mother's
health grew worse and worse from the unhealthy
situation. My father never brought a
cent into the house, and often, with threats and the
most horrible curses, extorted from my mother the
few she had, that were to buy us bread for the
only meal we had in the twenty-four hours. In
winter, we had no wood; while my mother has
been shivering in her wretched bed, with an old
blanket for a covering, and the wind whistling
through the logs on her, I have cowered over a
few coals in our desolate hearth, and at every noise
I heard, started up and looked between the logs,
through which you might have put your fist, out
on the old fields, in which our cabin was situated,
with the fear and dread of seeing my father staggering
over the heath, muttering curses on us, as
he came. Oh!” exclaimed she, clasping her hands
together, “this was heaven to what I have known.
One day, I remember it now, as I felt the superstition
then that it was ominous, one cold winter's
day, I sat by our lonely hearth, and thought it
would not be wrong to pray to Heaven, that, in returning
from the village, my father might never be
permitted to enter the house again. I started at a
noise I heard without, while a conviction of the
wickedness of my own thoughts struck me with
terrible dread. I looked through the logs, and beheld
my father, who was so drunk, that he could
not walk alone, staggering towards the house, supported
by a man whom I did not know then, but
who was Adams.”

Here a gentle tap was heard at Jane Durham's
door, and Lucy Presley entered and said, “That
her mammy had got supper; and wouldn't Mr.
Bradshaw come and take a cup of tea with them.”

“With great pleasure, Lucy,” said Bradshaw.

“Come, Jane,” said Lucy, in a kind tone, to
Jane Durham: and they were soon seated round
Mrs. Presley's table. The jailer's wife and Lucy
had arranged every thing in apple-pie order, in
honour of Bradshaw. There were several kinds
of preserves; bread of the whitest; toast of Lucy's
making, and biscuits spread out on a table-cloth
white as snow. The tea—Nancy had often proclaimed
that Mrs. Presley made as good a dish
of tea as any body need taste—would have made
Dr. Johnson take his thirteenth cup. The jailer's
wife bustled around; and officiously, with her
apron, wiped off a chair, and handed it to Bradshaw.
She had dressed herself in her best cap—
while old Job had put on a clean shirt and cravat,
with a fine broadcloth coat, that he had had for
years, and which he only wore on extraordinary
occasions. Much as Job liked Bradshaw before,
and he had often been heard to say, pointing to
him, that that young lawyer was going to take
the rag off the bush, at that bar; yet his rescue of
Jane Durham from Adams, which he had heard
from the girl herself—his conduct at the fire, and

the talk which it had made about town—the dinner,
and Bradshaw's speech, of which Job, who
had been in the city, had heard great accounts,
all combined to raise him higher in the jailer's
admiration than any other man had ever stood.
Job brought the newspaper home that gave an
account of the fire, and of Bradshaw and Willoughby,
and read it with great unction to his
wife and Lucy. “There,” said he, “what did I
always tell you about Squire Bradshaw, from the
first time I set eyes upon him! What did I tell
you? every body's found it out now—there it is
in print—I guess they know, too, that old Job
Presley knows something about human natur.—
When a man's done a thing, any body can say
he did it; but it isn't every body that can foretell
that he could do it—that's the pint”—said
Job, as he finished reading the article in the paper—getting,
not without great difficulty, over
some of the longest words, which he attributed
to his bad eyesight, as he wiped his spectacles—
“that's the pint. I can read human natur, just
as I read that paper—better! I can read human
natur without specks. There, daughter Lucy,
put that paper away. Mr. Bradshaw 'ill be in
more papers 'an that, 'afore the sod's on him, if
Job Presley knows any thing.”

At supper, Job questioned Bradshaw, over and
over again, of the manner in which they managed
old Scratch, and took Adams. He laughed loud
and long at the narrative Bradshaw, who told a
tale well, gave of Willoughby's conversation with
the fellow at Scratch's. Time slipped away unobserved

by Bradshaw, as he sat conversing with
the jailer and his wife, daughter, and Jane Durham.
Not feeling very well, for the excitement of the
day had given him a violent headach, he arose,
and telling Jane Durham, he would call over and
see her again soon, he bid them good night, and left
the jail.