University of Virginia Library

57. CHAPTER LVII.

THE momentous day was at hand—a day that promised to
make or mar the fortunes of the Hawkins family for all
time. Washington Hawkins and Col. Sellers were both up
early, for neither of them could sleep. Congress was expiring,
and was passing bill after bill as if they were gasps
and each likely to be its last. The University was on
file for its third reading this day, and to-morrow Washington
would be a millionaire and Sellers no longer impecunious;
but this day, also, or at farthest the next, the jury
in Laura's case would come to a decision of some kind or
other—they would find her guilty, Washington secretly feared,
and then the care and the trouble would all come back again
and there would be wearing months of besieging judges for
new trials; on this day, also, the re-election of Mr. Dilworthy
to the Senate would take place. So Washington's mind was
in a state of turmoil; there were more interests at stake than
it could handle with serenity. He exulted when he thought
of his millions; he was filled with dread when he thought of
Laura. But Sellers was excited and happy. He said:

“Everything is going right, everything's going perfectly
right. Pretty soon the telegrams will begin to rattle in, and
then you'll see, my boy. Let the jury do what they please;
what difference is it going to make? To-morrow we can send

a million to New York and set the lawyers at work on the
judges; bless your heart they will go before judge after
judge and exhort and beseech and pray and shed tears. They
always do; and they always win, too. And they will win
this time. They will get a writ of habeas corpus, and a stay
of proceedings, and a supersedeas, and a new trial and a
nolle prosequi, and there you are! That's the routine, and
it's no trick at all to a New York lawyer. That's the regular
routine—everything's red tape and routine in the law, you
see; it's all Greek to you, of course, but to a man who is acquainted
with those things it's mere—I'll explain it to you
sometime. Everything's going to glide right along easy and
comfortable now. You'll see, Washington, you'll see how
it will be. And then, let me think..... Dilworthy will be
elected to-day, and by day after to-morrow night he will be
in New York ready to put in his shovel—and you haven't
lived in Washington all this time not to know that the people
who walk right by a Senator whose term is up without hardly
seeing him will be down at the deepo to say `Welcome back
and God bless you, Senator, I'm glad to see you, sir!' when
he comes along back re-elected, you know. Well, you see,
his influence was naturally running low when he left here,
but now he has got a new six-years' start, and his suggestions
will simply just weigh a couple of tons a-piece day after to-morrow.
Lord bless you he could rattle through that habeas
corpus and supersedeas and all those things for Laura all by
himself if he wanted to, when he gets back.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” said Washington, brightening,
“but it is so. A newly-elected Senator is a power, I know
that.”

“Yes indeed he is.—Why it is just human nature. Look
at me. When we first came here, I was Mr. Sellers, and
Major Sellers, and Captain Sellers, but nobody could ever get
it right, somehow; but the minute our bill went through
the House, I was Colonel Sellers every time. And nobody
could do enough for me; and whatever I said was wonderful,
Sir, it was always wonderful; I never seemed to say any flat
things at all. It was Colonel won't you come and dine with us;
and Colonel why don't we ever see you at our house; and
the Colonel says this; and the Colonel says that; and we
know such-and-such is so-and-so, because husband heard Col.
Sellers say so. Don't you see? Well, the Senate adjourned
and left our bill high and dry, and I'll be hanged if I warn't
Old Sellers from that day till our bill passed the House again
last week. Now I'm the Colonel again; and if I were to eat
all the dinners I am invited to, I reckon I'd wear my teeth
down level with my gums in a couple of weeks.”

“Well I do wonder what you will be to-morrow, Colonel,
after the President signs the bill?”

“General, sir!—General, without a doubt. Yes, sir, to-morrow
it will be General, let me congratulate you,
sir; General, you've done a great work, sir;—you've
done a great work for the niggro; Gentlemen, allow me the
honor to introduce my friend General Sellers, the humane
friend of the niggro. Lord bless me, you'll see the newspapers
say, General Sellers and servants arrived in the city
last night and is stopping at the Fifth Avenue; and General

Sellers has accepted a reception and banquet by the Cosmopolitan
Club; you'll see the General's opinions quoted, too—
and what the General has to say about the propriety of a new
trial and a habeas corpus for the unfortunate Miss Hawkins
will not be without weight in influential quarters, I can tell
you.”

“And I want to be the first to shake your faithful old hand
and salute you with your new honors, and I want to do it now
—General!” said Washington, suiting the action to the word,
and accompanying it with all the meaning that a cordial
grasp and eloquent eyes could give it.

The Colonel was touched; he was pleased and proud, too;
his face answered for that.

Not very long after breakfast the telegrams began to arrive.
The first was from Braham, and ran thus:

“That's the right talk,” said Sellers. “That Braham's a
wonderful man. He was the only man there that really understood
me; he told me so himself, afterwards.”

The next telegram was from Mr. Dilworthy:

“Good again!” said the Colonel. “That man's talent for
organization is something marvelous. He wanted me to go
out there and engineer that thing, but I said, No, Dilworthy,
I must be on hand here, both on Laura's account and the
bill's—but you've no trifling genius for organization yourself,
said I—and I was right. You go ahead, said I—you can fix
it—and so he has. But I claim no credit for that—if I
stiffened up his back-bone a little, I simply put him in the
way to make his fight—didn't make it myself. He has captured
Noble—I consider that a splendid piece of diplomacy—
Splendid, sir!”

By and by came another dispatch from New York:

“Premature!” gasped Washington, turning white. “Then
they all expect that sort of a verdict, when it comes.”

And so did he; but he had not had courage enough to put
it into words. He had been preparing himself for the worst,
but after all his preparation the bare suggestion of the possibility
of such a verdict struck him cold as death.

The friends grew impatient, now; the telegrams did not
come fast enough; even the lightning could not keep up with
their anxieties. They walked the floor talking disjointedly
and listening for the door-bell. Telegram after telegram
came. Still no result. By and by there was one which contained
a single line:

“Oh, I wish they would finish!” said Washington. “This
suspense is killing me by inches!”

Then came another telegram:

“Well, well, well, this is trying,” said the Colonel. And
after a pause, “No dispatch from Dilworthy for two hours,
now. Even a dispatch from him would be better than nothing,
just to vary this thing.”

They waited twenty minutes. It seemed twenty hours.

“Come!” said Washington. “I can't wait for the telegraph
boy to come all the way up here. Let's go down to
Newspaper Row—meet him on the way.”

While they were passing along the Avenue, they saw some
one putting up a great display-sheet on the bulletin board of
a newspaper office, and an eager crowd of men was collecting
about the place. Washington and the Colonel ran to the spot
and read this:

“Good heavens and earth!” exclaimed the Colonel.

“To the Capitol!” said Washington. “Fly!”

And they did fly. Long before they got there the news-boys
were running ahead of them with Extras, hot from the
press, announcing the astounding news.

Arrived in the gallery of the Senate, the friends saw a
curious spectacle—every Senator held an Extra in his hand
and looked as interested as if it contained news of the destruction
of the earth. Not a single member was paying the least
attention to the business of the hour.

The Secretary, in a loud voice, was just beginning to read
the title of a bill:

“House-Bill-No.-4,231,-An-Act-to-Found-and-Incorporate-the
Knobs-Industrial-University!-Read-first-and-second-time
—considered-in-committee-of-the-whole-ordered-engrossed-the-and-passed-to-third-reading-and-final-passage!”

The President—“Third reading of the bill!”

The two friends shook in their shoes. Senators threw
down their extras and snatched a word or two with each other
in whispers. Then the gavel rapped to command silence
while the names were called on the ayes and nays. Washington
grew paler and paler, weaker and weaker while the
lagging list progressed; and when it was finished, his head
fell helplessly forward on his arms. The fight was fought,
the long struggle was over, and he was a pauper. Not a
man had voted for the bill!

Col. Sellers was bewildered and well nigh paralyzed, himself.
But no man could long consider his own troubles in
the presence of such suffering as Washington's. He got him

up and supported him—almost carried him indeed—out of
the building and into a carriage. All the way home Washington
lay with his face against the Colonel's shoulder and
merely groaned and wept. The Colonel tried as well as he
could under the dreary circumstances to hearten him a little,
but it was of no use. Washington was past all hope of cheer,
now. He only said:

“Oh, it is all over—it is all over for good, Colonel. We
must beg our bread, now. We never can get up again. It
was our last chance, and it is gone. They will hang Laura!
My God they will hang her! Nothing can save the poor
girl now. Oh, I wish with all my soul they would hang me
instead!”

Arrived at home, Washington fell into a chair and buried
his face in his hands and gave full way to his misery. The
Colonel did not know where to turn nor what to do. The
servant maid knocked at the door and passed in a telegram,
saying it had come while they were gone.

The Colonel tore it open and read with the voice of a man-of-war's
broadside:

“Verdict of jury, Not Guilty and Laura is free!”