University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
THE ARREST.

THE eloquent editor from whom I have just quoted
told the truth when he said that Metropolisville
was “the red-hot crater of a boiling and seething
excitement.” For everybody had believed in Charlton.
He was not popular. People with vicarious
consciences are not generally beloved unless they are tempered
by much suavity. And Charlton was not. But everybody, except
Mrs. Ferret, believed in his honesty and courage. Nobody
had doubted his sincerity, though Smith Westcott had
uttered many innuendoes. In truth, Westcott had had an uncomfortable
time during the week that followed the drowning.
There had been much shaking of the head about little
Katy's death. People who are not at all heroic like to have
other people do subline things, and there were few who did
not think that Westcott should have drowned with Katy, like
the hero of a romance. People could not forgive him for
spoiling a good story. So Smith got the cold shoulder, and
might have left the Territory, but that his land-warrant had
not come. He ceased to dance and to appear cheerful, and his
he! he! took on a sneering inflection. He grew mysterious,
and intimated to his friends that he'd give Metropolisville
something else to talk about before long. By George! He!

he! And when the deputy of the United States marshal
swooped down upon the village and arrested the young postmaster
on a charge of abstracting Smith Westcott's land-warrant
from the mail, the whole town was agog. “Told you so.
By George!” said Westcott.

At first the villagers were divided in opinion about Albert
Plenty of people, like Mrs. Ferret, were ready to rejoice that
he was not so good as he might be, you know. But many
others said that he wouldn't steal. A fellow that had thrown
away all his chances of making money wouldn't steal. To
which it was rejoined that if Charlton did not care for money
he was a good hater, and that what such a man would not
do for money he might do for spite. And then, too, it was
known that Albert had been very anxious to get away, and
that he wanted to get away before Westcott did. And that
everything depended on which should get a land-warrant first.
What more natural than that Charlton should seize upon
Smith Westcott's land-warrant, and thus help himself and retard
his rival? This sort of reasoning staggered those who would
have defended him on the ground of previous good character.

But that which shook the popular confidence in Albert most
was his own behavior when arrested. He was perfectly collected
until he inquired what evidence there was against him.
The deputy marshal said that it was very clear evidence, indeed.
“The land-warrant with which you pre-empted your
claim hore a certain designating number. The prosecution can
prove that that warrant was mailed at Red Owl on the 24th
of August, directed to Smith Westcott, Metropolisville, and
that he failed to receive it. The stolen property appearing in
your hands, you must account for it in some way.”

At this Charlton's countenance fell, and he refused to make
any explanations or answer any questions. He was purposely
kept over one day in Metropolisville in hope that something
passing between him and his friends, who were permitted to
have free access to him, might bring further evidence to light.
But Charlton sat, pale and dejected, ready enough to converse
about anything else, but declining to say one word in regard to
his guilt or innocence of the crime charged. It is not strange that
some of his best friends accepted the charge as true, and only
tried to extenuate the offense on the ground that the circumstances
made the temptation a very great one, and that the motive was
not mercenary. Others stood out that it would yet be discovered
that Plausaby had stolen the warrant, until half-a-dozen people
remembered that Plausaby himself had been in Red Owl at
that very time—he had spent a week there laying out a marshy
shore in town lots down to the low-water mark, and also laying
out the summit of a bluff three hundred and fifty feet
high and sixty degrees steep. These sky and water lots were
afterward sold to confiding Eastern speculators, and a year or
two later the owner of the water privileges rowed all over his
lots in a skiff. Whether the other purchaser used a balloon to
reach his is not known. But the operation of staking out these
ineligible “additions” to the city of Red Owl had attracted
much attention, and consequently Plausaby's alibi was readily
established. So that the two or three who still believed Albert
innocent did so by “naked faith,” and when questioned about it,
shook their heads, and said that it was a great mystery. They
could not understand it, but they did not believe him guilty.
Isabel Marlay believed in Albert's innocence as she believed the
hard passages in the catechism. She knew it, she believed it, she

could not prove it, but she would not hear to anything else.
She was sure of his innocence, and that was enough. For
when a woman of that sort believes anything, she believes in
spite of all her senses and all reason. What are the laws of
evidence to her! She believes with the heart.

Poor Mrs. Plausaby, too, sat down in a dumb despair, and
wept and complained and declared that she knew her Albert
had notions and such things, but people with such notions
wouldn't do anything naughty. Albert wouldn't, she knew.
He hadn't done any harm, and they couldn't find out that
he had. Katy was gone, and now Albert was in trouble, and
she didn't know what to do. She thought Isa might do
something, and not let all these troubles come on her in
this way. For the poor woman had come to depend on
Isa not only in weighty matters, such as dresses and bonnets,
but also in all the other affairs of life. And it seemed
to her a grievous wrong that Isabel, who had saved her
from so many troubles, should not have kept Katy from
drowning and Albert from prison.

The chief trouble in the mind of Albert was not the
probability of imprisonment, nor the overthrow of his educational
schemes—though all of these were cups of bitterness.
But the first thought with him was to ask what would
be the effect of his arrest on Miss Minorkey. He had felt
some disappointment in not finding Helen the ideal woman
he had pictured her, but, as I said a while ago, love does
not die at the first disappointment. If it finds little to live
on in the one who is loved, it will yet find enough in the
memories, the hopes, and the ideals that dwell within the
lover. Charlton, in the long night after his arrest, reviewed

everything, but in thinking of Miss Minorkey, he did not
once recur to her lack of deep sympathy with him in his
sorrow for Katy. The Helen he thought of was the radiant
Helen that sat by his beloved Katy in the boat on that
glorious evening in which he rowed in the long northern
twilight, the Helen that had relaxed her dignity enough to
dip her palm in the water and dash spray into his face. He
saw her like one looking back through clouds of blackness
to catch a sight of a bit of sky and a single shining
star. As the impossibility of his marrying Helen became
more and more evident to him, she grew all the more glorious
in her culture, her quietness, her thoughtfulness. That
she would break her heart for him, he did not imagine, but
he did hope—yes, hope—that she would suffer acutely on
his account.

And when Isa Marlay bravely walked through the crowd
that had gathered about the place of his confinement, and
asked to see him, and he was told that a young lady wanted
to be admitted, he hoped that it might be Helen Minorkey.
When he saw that it was Isabel he was glad, partly
because he would rather have seen her than anybody else,
next to Helen, and partly because he could ask her to carry
a message to Miss Minorkey. He asked her to take from his
trunk, which had already been searched by the marshal's
deputy, all the letters of Miss Minorkey, to tie them in a
package, and to have the goodness to present them to that
lady with his sincere regards.

“Shall I tell her that you are innocent?” asked Isabel,
wishing to strengthen her own faith by a word of assurance
from Albert.

“Tell her—” and Albert cast down his eyes a moment
in painful reflection—“tell her that I will explain some day.
Meantime, tell her to believe what you believe about me.”

“I believe that you are innocent.”

“Thank you, Miss Isabel,” said Albert warmly, but then
he stopped and grew red in the face. He did not give her
one word of assurance. Even Isa's faith was staggered for a
moment. But only for a moment. The faith of a woman
like Isabel Marlay laughs at doubt.

I do not know how to describe the feelings with which
Miss Marlay went out from Albert. Even in the message,
full of love, which he had sent to his mother, he did not
say one word about his guilt or innocence. And yet Isabel
believed in her heart that he had not committed the crime.
While he was strong and free from suspicion, Isa Marlay
had admired him. He seemed to her, notwithstanding his
eccentricities, a man of such truth, fervor, and earnestness of
character, that she liked him better than she was willing to
admit to herself. Now that he was an object of universal
suspicion, her courageous and generous heart espoused his
cause vehemently. She stood ready to do anything in the
world for him. Anything but what he had asked her to
do. Why she did not like to carry messages from him to
Miss Minorkey she did not know. As soon as she became
conscious of this jealous feeling in her heart, she took herself
to task severely. Like the good girl she was, she set her sins
out in the light of her own conscience. She did more than
that. But if I should tell you truly what she did with this
naughty feeling, how she dragged it out into the light and
presence of the Holy One Himself, I should seem to be writing

cant, and people would say that I was preaching. And
yet I should only show you the source of Isa's high moral
and religious culture. Can I write truly of a life in which
the idea of God as Father, Monitor, and Friend is ever present
and dominant, without showing you the springs of that
life?

When Isabel Marlay, with subdued heart, sought Miss
Minorkey, it was with her resolution fixed to keep the trust
committed to her, and, as far as possible, to remove all suspicions
from Miss Minorkey's mind. As for any feeling in her
own heart—she had no right to have any feeling but a
friendly one to Albert. She would despise a woman who
could love a man that did not first declare his love for her.
She said this to herself several times by way of learning the
lesson well.

Isa found Miss Minorkey, with her baggage packed, ready
for a move. helen told Miss Marlay that her father found the
air very bad for him, and meant to go to St. Anthony, where
there was a mineral spring and a good hotel. For her part,
she was glad of it, for a little place like Metropolisville was
not pleasant. So full of gossip. And no newspapers or books.
And very little cultivated society.

Miss Marlay said she had a package of something or other,
which Mr. Charlton had sent with his regards. She said
“something or other” from an instinctive delicacy.

“Oh! yes; something of mine that he borrowed, I suppose,”
said Helen. “Have you seen him? I'm really sorry for
him. I found him a very pleasant companion, so full of
reading and oddities. He's the last man I should have believed
could rob the post-office.”

“Oh! but he didn't,” said Isa.

“Indeed! Well, I'm glad to hear it. I hope he'll be able
to prove it. Is there any new evidence?”

Isa was obliged to confess that she had heard of none,
and Miss Minorkey proceeded like a judge to explain to Miss
Marlay how strong the evidence against him was. And then
she said she thought the warrant had been taken, not from
cupidity, but from a desire to serve Katy. It was a pity the
law could not see it in that way. But all the time Isa pro
tested with vehemence that she did not believe a word of it.
Not one word. All the judges and juries and witnesses in
the world could not convince her of Albert's guilt. Because
she knew him, and she just knew that he couldn't do it,
you see.

Miss Minorkey said it had made her father sick. “I've
gone with Mr. Charlton so much, you know, that it has made
talk,” she said. “And father feels bad about it. And”—seeing
the expression of Isa's countenance, she concluded that
it would not do to be quite so secretive—“and, to tell you
the truth, I did like him. But of course that is all over.
Of course there couldn't be anything between us after this,
even if he were innocent.”

Isa grew indignant, and she no longer needed the support
of religious faith and high moral principle to enable her
to plead the cause of Albert Charlton with Miss Minorkey.

“But I thought you loved him,” she said, with just a spiee
of bitterness. “The poor fellow believes that you love him.”

Miss Minorkey winced a little. “Well, you know, some
people are sentimental, and others are not. It is a good thing
for me that I'm not one of those that pine away and die

after anybody. I suppose I am not worthy of a high-toned
man, such as he seemed to be. I have often told him so. I
am sure I never could marry a man that had been in the
penitentiary, if he were ever so innocent. Now, could you,
Miss Marlay?”

Isabel blushed, and said she could if he were innocent.
She thought a woman ought to stand by the man she loved
to the death, if he were worthy. But Helen only sighed
humbly, and said that she never was made for a heroine. She
didn't even like to read about high-strung people in novels.
She supposed it was her fault—people had to be what they
were, she supposed. Miss Marlay must excuse her, though.
She hadn't quite got her books packed, and the stage would
be along in an hour. She would be glad if Isabel would tell
Mr. Charlton privately, if she had a chance, how sorry she
felt for him. But please not say anything that would compromise
her, though.

And Isa Marlay went out of the hotel full of indignation
at the cool-blooded Helen, and full of a fathomless pity for
Albert, a pity that made her almost love him herself. She
would have loved to atone for all Miss Minorkey's perfidy.
And just alongside of her pity for Charlton thus deserted,
crept in a secret joy. For there was now none to stand
nearer friend to Albert than herself.

And yet Charlton did not want for friends. Whisky Jim
had a lively sense of gratitude to him for his advocacy of
Jim's right to the claim as against Westcott; and having also
a lively antagonism to Westcott, he could see no good reason
why a man should serve a long term in State's-prison for
taking from a thief a land-warrant with which the thief

meant to pre-empt another man's claim. And the Guardian
Angel had transferred to the brother the devotion and care he
once lavished on the sister. It was this unity of sentiment
between the Jehu from the Green Mountains and the minstrel
from the Indiana “Pocket” that gave Albert a chance for
liberty.

The prisoner was handcuffed and confined in an upper room,
the windows of which were securely boarded up on the outside.
About three o'clock of the last night he spent in Metropolisville,
the deputy marshal, who in the evening preceding had
helped to empty two or three times the ample flask of Mr. Westcott,
was sleeping very soundly. Albert, who was awake,
heard the nails drawn from the boards. Presently the window
was opened, and a familiar voice said in a dramatic tone:

“Mr. Charlton, git up and foller.”

Albert arose and went to the window.

“Come right along, I 'low the coast's clear,” said the Poet.

“No, I can not do that, Gray,” said Charlton, though the
prospect of liberty was very enticing.

“See here, mister, I calkilate as this is yer last chance fer
fifteen year ur more,” put in the driver, thrusting his head in
alongside his Hoosier friend's.

“Come,” added Gray, “you an' me'll jest put out together
fer the Ingin kedentry ef you say so, and fetch up in Kansas
under some fancy names, and take a hand in the wras'le
that's agoin' on thar. Nobody'll ever track you. I've got a
Yankton friend as 'll help us through.”

“My friends, I'm ever so thankful to you—”

“Blame take yer thanks! Come along,” broke in the Superior
Being. “It's now ur never.”

“I'll be dogged ef it haint,” said the Poet.

Charlton looked out wistfully over the wide prairies. He
might escape and lead a wild, free life with Gray, and then
turn up in some new Territory under an assumed name and
work out his destiny. But the thought of being a fugitive
from justice was very shocking to him.

“No! no! I can't. God bless you both. Good-by!” And

he went back to his pallet on the floor. When the rescuers
reached the ground the Superior Being delivered himself of
some very sulphurous oaths, intended to express his abhorrence
of “idees.”

“There's that air blamed etarnal infarnal nateral born eejiot
'll die in Stillwater penitensh'ry jest fer idees. Orter go to
a 'sylum.”

But the Poet went off dejectedly to his lone cabin on the
prairie.

And there was a great row in the morning about the
breaking open of the window and the attempted rescue. The
deputy marshal told a famous story of his awaking in the
night and driving off a rescuing party of eight with his revolver.
And everybody wondered who they were. Was
Charlton, then, a member of a gang?