University of Virginia Library

2. PART SECOND.

The interest which I took in Brown's mother and Sarah,
induced me to visit them after he was sent to the
penitentiary, to which he was sentenced for ten years.
His afflicted mother, overcome by accumulated sorrow
for his many crimes and their consequences, rapidly
sank into the grave. I happened to call at her humble
dwelling the night she died. Sarah supported her by
her needle, and a hard task it was, for the doctor's bill
and the little luxuries which her relative needed, more
than consumed her hard earnings.

The old woman called me to her bed-side, and together
with Sarah, made me promise that if I saw her
son again I would tell him that with her dying breath
she prayed for him. The promise was made, and while
she was in the act of praying her voice grew inaudible,
and uttering with her last feeble breath an ejaculation
for mercy, not for herself, but for her outcast child, her
spirit passed to the judgment seat; and if memory and
affection hold sway in the disembodied soul, doubtless
she will be a suppliant there for him, as she was here.

After the death of the old woman, I saw Sarah once
or twice, and then suddenly lost all trace of her. More

than a year had now elapsed since Brown's conviction,
and in increasing ill health and the presence of other
scenes and circumstances as touching as those of the
mother and the cousin, I had forgotten them. I was
advised by my physician to forsake all business, obtain
a vehicle and by easy stages, traveling whither Fancy
led, try to resuscitate my system. In fulfilment of this
advice, I was proceeding on my way to Columbus,
Ohio, with the double purpose of improving my health,
and by making acquaintances in the State where I had
settled, facilitate and increase my practice, should I
ever be permitted to resume my profession.

The sun was just setting in a summer's evening, as,
within a half a mile of Columbus, I passed a finely
formed female on the road, who was stopping along with
a bundle on her arm. There was something of interest
in the appearance of the girl which caused me to
look back at her after I had passed. Instantly I drew
up my horse. It was Sarah Mason. Her meeting with
me seemed to give her great pleasure. I asked her if
she would not ride, and thanking me, she entered my
vehicle and took a seat by my side.

She had been very anxious to obtain a pardon for
Brown before his mother's death. I had told her it
would be fruitless unless she could get the jury who
condemned him, together with the judges, to sign the
recommendation to the governor, and I did not beheve
they would do it. I, however, at her earnest solicitation,
drew up the petition, and when I last asked her
about her success, which was, in fact, the last time I
saw her, she told me she had not got one of the jury to
sign it, but that several had told her that they would do
so, if she would obtain, previously, the signature of the
presiding judge. By the law of Ohio, a judgeship is

not held for life, but for a term of years. The term of
office of the presiding judge on Brown's trial had expired,
and a new party prevailing in the legislature from
that which had appointed him, he had failed to obtain
the re-appointment. He had removed to St. Louis for
the purpose of practising law there, and thither Sarah
had repaired with her unsigned petition. After repeated
solicitations and prayerful entreaties, she at last prevailed
on the ex-judge to sign it. She then returned to
Cincinnati, and after considerable trouble succeeded in
finding ten of the jury, some of whom followed the
judge's example. The rest refused, stating what was
too true, that the ease with which criminals obtained
pardon from gubernatorial clemency in this country,
was one of the great causes of the frequency of crime,
for it removed the certainty of punishment which should
ever follow conviction, and which has more effect upon
the mind than severity itself, when there is a hope of
escaping it.

A new governor, in the rapid mutations of official
life in the United States had become dispenser of the
pardoning power shortly after Brown's conviction, and
it was his ear that Sarah personally sought, armed with
the recommendation.

He was a good, easy man, where party influence
was not brought to bear adversely on him, and after he
had read the petition, Sarah's entreaty soon prevailed,
and Brown was pardoned.

The very day he was pardoned he called on me at
Russell's hotel with his cousin, and after they had mutually
returned me their thanks for the interest which I
took in their behalf, he promised me, voluntarily, to pay
me a fee with the first earnings he got, which he said
solemnly should be from the fruits of honest industry.

He took my address and departed. I thought no more
of it, till, one day, most opportunely, I received, thro'
the post-office, a two hundred dollar bill of the United
States Bank, with a well-written letter from him, stating
that he had reformed his course of life, and that it was
through the influence of his cousin, whom he had
married, that he had done so. He said that he had assumed
another name in the place where he then dwelt,
which he would have no objection to communicate to
myself, but as it was of no consequence to me, and
might be to him, should my letter fall into the hands of
another person, he had withheld it, together with the
name of the place where himself and wife were located.
The letter had been dropped in the Cincinnati post-office,
and there was no clue whereby I could have
traced him had I entertained such a wish, which I did
not.

Some time after this I was a sojourner in the south,
spell-bound by the fascinations of a lady with whom I
became acquainted the previous summer in Philadelphia,
where she was spending the sultry season. She
lived with her parents on a plantation near a certain
city of the Mississippi, which, for peculiar reasons, I
may not name. Her brother was practising law there,
and he and I became close cronies. Frequently I rode
to the city with him, and on one occasion we were both
surprised, as we entered it, by an unusual commotion
among the inhabitants, who were concentrating in
crowds to a spot, collected by some strange and boisterous
attraction.

My friend rode into the melee, and presently returned
to my side, with the crowd about him, from whom he
was, evidently, protecting a man, who walked with his
hand on the neck of my friend's horse. The man walked

as if he felt that he was protected, but would die
game if he were attacked.

“Sheriff,” called out my friend to a tall person who
was expostulating with the crowd, “it is your duty to
protect Bassford; he has lived here with us some time—
has a wife and family, a good name, and he must and
shall have a fair trial.”

“Colonel Camerons' empty pocket-book was found
near Bassford's house,” exclaimed one of the crowd,
“and Bassford's dagger by the dead body.”

“And Bassford and the colonel were overheard quarrelling
a few hours before he was killed,” shouted another.

“Let Bassford answer then according to law,” said
my friend. “I will kill the first man who lays violent
hands on him.”

“And I will justify and assist you,” said the sheriff.
Mr. Leo, Mr. Gale and you, sir,” continued the officer,
turning to me, “I summon you to assist me in lodging
this man safely in jail, there to abide the laws of his
country.”

Awed by the resolution which the sheriff and his
posse exhibited, the crowd slunk back, but with deep
mutterings of wrath, while we gathered round Bassford,
and hastened with him to the jail, which was not
far off, in which we soon safely lodged him.

It occurred to me when I first looked on Bassford,
that I had seen him before, but I could not tell where.
A minuter scrutiny, as I stood by his side in the jail,
satisfied me that he was no other than my old client,
Brown. Feeling that my recognition of him would not
advance his interests if I should be questioned about
him, I maintained silence, and stood by, a spectator.—
Brown stated to the sheriff that he wished my friend,

whom I will call De Berry, to be his counsel, and requested
that he might be placed alone with him, where
he might have some private conversation with him. The
sheriff said “certainly,” and we all retired, De Berry
asking me to wait for him without. I did so, and in a
few minutes he came to me, and said that the prisoner
wished to see me. “I presume, sheriff, you will have
no objection.”

“Not the least,” replied the sheriff. “Take Mr. Trimble
in with you.”

I accordingly entered, and the moment the door was
closed Brown asked me “if I remembered him.”

“Perfectly,” I replied.

“Mr. Trimble,” he continued, “I saw you with Mr.
De Berry, and knew that you recognized me. I supposed
that you might tell him what you knew of me to
my prejudice. Here I have maintained a good character,
and I therefore resolved to see you with him, and
tell you the circumstances. I am as guiltless now as I
was guilty then. Mr. De Berry says that the court,
upon application, will admit you, if it is necessary, to
defend me with him, and I wish you would do it. Let
me tell this affair. I know it looks black against me,
but hear me first. After my cousin obtained my pardon
in Ohio, I married her, swore an oath to lead a better
life, and before God have done so. Sarah was and
is every thing to me. Not for the wealth of worlds
would I involve myself in guilt which might fall upon
her and her children. Knowing, Mr. Trimble, that in
Ohio I could not obtain employment or reinstate myself
in character, I came here with a changed name and nature,
to commence, as it were, the world again. Since
I have been here my character, as Mr. De Berry will
tell you, has been without reproach. But old associations

and companions dog us, though we fly from them.
I have been located here on a little farm belonging to
Mr. De Berry, which, with the aid of two negroes hired
from him, I cultivate, raising vegetables and such things
for the market. I had hoped the past was with the past,
but last week there came along one of my old associates,
who urged me to join with him and others in a
certain depredation. I told him of my altered life, and
positively refused. He insisted and taunted me with
hypocrisy and so forth, 'till he nearly stung me to madness.
I bore it all, until, on my telling him that my wife
had reformed me, and that, on her account, I meant to
be honest, he threw slurs on her of the blackest die. I
could bear it no longer, but leaped upon him and would
have slain him, had not some of his companions came up
and rescued him. It was on the banks of the river in
a lonely spot that we met, and their coming up might
have been accident or not. He vowed vengeance against
me and mine, and left. Colonel Cameron, as you know,
Mr. De Berry, bore the character of an overbearing
and tyrannical man. We had some dealings together.
He was in my debt, and wished to pay me in flour. I
told him politely it was the money which I wanted.—
He swore that I should not have money or flour either.
He raised his whip to strike me. I flew into a passion,
dared him to lay the weight of his finger on me, and
abused him as a man in a passion and injured would do
under the circumstances—perhaps I threatened him—I
do not know exactly what I said in my anger. This
was yesterday afternoon. It seems that the Colonel
went to Mr. Pottea's afterwards—returned after night—
was waylaid and killed. How his pocket book came by
my house I know not. As for the dagger I had such a
one, When I changed my name I thought to make
every thing about me seem natural with it, that I would
have Bassford engraved on it. I lost it some months
ago, and have not seen it since 'till to-day. Such, gentlemen,
is the truth, but great God, what is to become
of myself and family with such testimony against me.
Two or three men in the crowd called out that they
knew me before—that I had been in the Ohio penitentiary—that
my name was Brown, and here is my quarrel
with the colonel, his murder on the heels of it—my
dagger by his dead body, and his empty pocket-book
by my house. Notwithstanding all this, gentlemen, I
am innocent. Do you think, if I had murdered him
that I would not have hid my dagger—and would I
have rifled his pocket-book and pitched it away by my
own door-sill, where anybody might find it? No, my
enemy must have contrived this to ruin me.”

At this instant the door was opened by the sheriff,
and Brown's wife admitted—she threw herself into his
arms, exclaiming:—“He is innocent, I know he is innocent!”
while Brown, utterly overcome by his emotions,
pressed her to his heart and wept bitterly. I
whispered to De Berry that we had better leave them,
and accordingly withdrew.

That afternoon, Mrs. Brown called to see me. She
asked me if I would aid her husband; and I promised
that I would. She looked neat and tidy, said she had
two children, and I saw that she was soon again to be
a mother. She told me the same story that Brown had
told me, and I could not but express the deepest regret
for his and her situation.

The name of Brown's former accomplice, with whom
he had quarrelled, was Burnham. He was a desperate
character, perfectly unfeeling and unprincipled, and
possessed of great energy of spirit and frame. It is

surprising that Brown should have overcome him.
Brown's mastery originated, doubtless, in the fury of
his insulted feelings.

De Berry became very much interested in Brown's
case. The morning of his interference in his behalf,
Brown had been taken upon the charge of murdering
Colonel Cameron. While the Sheriff, who was well
disposed towards him, was proceeding with him to the
magistrate's, the crowd had gathered round them so
thickly as to interrupt their progress, and Brown had
been separated from the officer. The crowd, among
whose leaders was Burnham, had made furious demonstration
against the prisoner; but his resolute manner
had prevented their laying hands on him, when De
Berry and myself rode up, and the Sheriff, as we have
related, took his charge to jail, to prevent an outrage,
until the excitement had somewhat subsided.

The next morning, De Berry insisted upon having a
hearing before the magistrate, asserting that he meant
to offer bail for Brown. As we proceeded to the magistrate's,
we stopped at Brown's humble dwelling, and
took his wife and children with us. The tidiness of
his afflicted wife and children, and the evident order of
his household and garden, made a most favorable impression
upon us.

As we approached the magistrate's, we wondered
that we saw nobody about the door of his office, but we
learned, on arriving, that the officer of the law had determined
to have the hearing in the court-house, in consequence
of the anticipation of a great crowd, who
would be anxious to hear. To the court we repaired.
There was an immense concourse about the door,
though the Sheriff had not yet appeared with his charge.
De Berry sent the wife and children to the jail, that

they might come with him to the court-house, and by
their presence and the sympathy that they would excite,
prevent any outbreak from the mob. We took our station
on the court-house steps, where, elevated above
the crowd, we could observe their demeanor as the
Sheriff and Brown advanced. By our side stood a tall
gaunt Kentuckian, clad in a hunting-shirt, and leaning
on his rifle. He seemed to be an anxious observer of
myself and friend. He soon gathered from our conversation
the position in which we stood towards Brown,
and remarked to us:

“Strangers, I suppose you are lawyers for Bassford;
I am glad he has help, I fear he'll need it, but he once
done me a service, and I want to see right 'twixt man
and man.”

Before De Berry could reply, we were attracted by a
stir among the crowd, and not far off, in the direction
of the jail, we saw the sheriff advancing with the
prisoner, who was accompanied by his wife and children.
Approaching close behind them, were several
horsemen, among whom we could not fail to observe
Burnham, from the eagerness with which he pressed
forward.

With not so much as the ordinary bustle and confusion
incident upon such occasions; in fact, with less
suppressed emotion, the crowd gathered into the court-house,
the Squire occupying the seat of the Judge and
the prisoner a chair within the bar, by the side of De
Berry and myself, with his anxious wife to his right.
The prosecuting attorney, who was a warm friend of
the deceased Colonel, seated himself opposite to us.
Burnham pressed through the crowd within the bar,
and stationed himself near the prosecutor, to whom I
overheard him say:

“There are folks here who can prove that his real
name is not Bassford but Brown, and that he was pardoned
out of the Ohio penitentiary; that man by his
lawyer can prove it, so can I, but you had better call
him, he knows—”

“Let me pass, let me pass!” exclaimed a female at
this moment, pressing through the crowd with stern
energy; “I'll tell the truth—Bassford is innocent!”

“She's crazy!” exclaimed Burnham, looking around
with alarm, and making a threatening gesture, as if privately,
to her to hush, forgetting that the eyes of all
were upon him.

“Crazy!” retorted the woman, who was of slender
person and fine features, though they were distorted by
excess and passion, and who seemed to be possessed
by some furious purpose as if by a fiend. “They shall
judge if I am crazy. Prove it, and then you may prove
that Bassford is guilty. Gentlemen, John Burnham
there, murdered Colonel Cameron! There is the money
that Burnham took from the dead body!—there are
letters—here is his watch. Bassford's dagger he got in
a quarrel with him; he murdered the Colonel with it,
and left it by the dead body, and the pocket-book by
Bassford's house to throw the guilt on him!”

“How can you prove this, good woman?” inquired
the magistrate, while the crowd, in breathless eagerness,
were as hushed as death.

“Prove it!—by myself, by these letters, by that watch,
by that dagger—by everything, by what I am, by what
I was. The time has been when I was as innocent as
I am now vicious—as spotless as I am now abandoned;
but for that man, that time were now! Hear me for a
moment; the truth that is in me shall strike your hearts
with justice and with terror, shall acquit the innocent

and appal the guilty. In better days I knew both these
men; Bassford I loved—he loved me. My education
had been good; that was all my parents left me, with a
good name. He was thoughtless and wild then, but
not criminal; he fell in with this man Burnham, whom
he brought to my father's house and made his confidant.
Burnham professed a partiality for me, which I
rejected with scorn. He led Bassford into error, into
crime. He coiled himself into his confidence, and made
him believe that I had abandoned myself to him, at the
same time he was torturing me with inventions of Bassford's
faithlessness towards me. Each of us, Bassford
and myself, grew reserved towards the other, without
asking or making any explanation. Oh! the curse of
this pride—this pride! Burnham widened the breach.
He drove me nearly mad with jealousy, and Bassford
with distrust. Bassford and I parted in anger. Burnham
all the while pressed his passion on me. Bassford
left that part of the country, Hagerstown, Maryland.
I promised to marry Burnham; in a spell of
sickness, which was brought on me by the absence of
Bassford, he drugged me with opium made me what I
am, and abandoned me to my fate. After many wretched
years of ignominy and shame, I fell in at Louisville,
three weeks since, with Burnham; I came here with
him. He saw Bassford—tried to draw him into his
guilty plots—they quarrelled; and he—he never, never
told me aught until he had done the deed—he murdered
Colonel Cameron to ruin Bassford; and there, I repeat
it,” pointing to the watch, the money, and the
letters of the deceased, “there are the evidences of his
guilt!”

“Sheriff,” said the magistrate, “take Burnham into
your custody.”

“Kill him!” cried out an hundred voices from the
crowd, while several attempted to seize him. Uttering
a yell like a wild Indian at bay, Burnham eluded the
grasp, and drawing, at the same instant, a bowieknife
from his breast, he darted forward and plunged it
into the heart of the woman. The crowd shrunk back
in terror, as the death cry of the victim broke upon the
ear, while the murderer, brandished the bloody knife
over his head, and before any one could arrest him, he
sprung out of one of the windows of the court-room.
It was a leap which none chose to follow, and all rushed
instantaneously to the door Before the crowd got
out, Burnham had mounted his horse and made for the
woods. Several of the horsemen who had come in the
line, mounted and darted after, as if to take him.

“They want to save him,” exclaimed several who
were also mounting other horses that stood by.

“Clear the road!” shouted the Kentuckian, who, rifle
in hand, had sprung upon a mound within a few feet of
the court-house. The horsemen looked fearfully back,
as if instinctively they understood the purpose of the
hunter, and spurred their horses from the track of the
flying man. The Kentuckian raised his rifle to his
shoulder—instantly its sharp report was heard. All
eyes were turned to the murderer, who was urging his
steed to the utmost. He started, as if in renewed energy,
then reeled to and fro like a drunken man, then
fell upon the neck of his horse, at the mane of which he
seemed to grasp blindly; in a moment more he tumbled
to the earth like a dead weight. He was dragged,
with his foot in the stirrup, nearly a mile, before his
horse was overtaken and stopped. The bullet of the
sure-sighted Kentuckian had lodged in the murderer's
brain. He had fallen dead from his saddle, and was so

disfigured as scarcely to be recognized. The body
was consigned to a prayerless, hurried, and undistinguished
grave by the road side.

Brown is still alive where I left him, an entirely reformed
and honest man. A stone slab, with some rude
attempts at sculpture on it, at the foot of Brown's garden,
designate the mortal resting-place of the woman,
who, though fallen and degraded, was true to her first
affection, and braved death to save him. His children,
with holy gratitude, have kept the weeds from growing
there, and ever, in their play, become silent when they
approach it.