Thenext day found a crowd around the court house, hours before the time for opening—an eager-eyed, jostling throng, to whom a trial for life was sure to bring keen excitement of some kind. In a Puritan State, where places of amusement are seldom found, any thing calculated to excite public curiosity is an event which makes the most painful occasions a sort of holiday for the populace. The horrible fascination which a trial like that always possesses for the human mind was added to other feelings with which the people of that day frequented the courts of justice, and any trial which had a tragic interest for the people, drew crowds around the court house, full of eager curiosity, and sometimes almost ferocious excitement—crowds which watched the progress of events like men enthralled by the horror of a terrible play.
The events which caused the arrest of Katharine Allenhad been a favorite theme of conversation for months. Public excitement was at its highest pitch; and, when the day of her trial came, a stranger, passing through the streets, might have believed that some event was transpiring in which the highest interests of the whole community were at stake.
A crowd gathered about the old jail, which loomed up in the midst of the town—a dark monument of human sorrow and human crime. A moving throng was in every street which led from thence to the court house—men, women, and little children, brought out as for a holiday show, all waiting, breathless and eager, for the appearance of the poor girl they were ready to hunt to an ignominious death.
Now and then you passed a face that looked grave or sad, as if the moral lesson of that trial was felt, and not without sympathy for the poor young creature who was to be its object.
The crowd had been waiting for hours, and so singularly organized is this miserable human nature of ours, so dependent are our feelings upon the position in which we are placed, so completely do our sympathies waver to and fro, according to our particular situation, that it was noticeable, as time wore on, that murmurs grew harsher and more sullen. The hard faces grew harder; even those which had expressed something akin to pity lost their softness, and wherever a knot of such women as love scenes of this kind were gathered, execrations and complaints against the criminal were the most severe and cruel.
At last there was a little bustle in the jail yard; the crowd responded by eager murmurs. Slowly the heavy gates swung open; a simultaneous rush was madetoward them, and it required all the efforts of the armed constables to force back the eager mob.
At length, a passage was made down the street, and the crowd pushed back on either side. Then slowly, with a dull, ominous sound, a wagon, drawn by a single horse, rolled out of the jail yard and took its way through the street.
In this wagon, with an officer upon either side, sat Katharine Allen.
She was deadly pale, her sunny hair, too bright for a scene like that, was brushed smoothly back under her bonnet; a large shawl was thrown over her white dress, and she sat between her guards so still and silent that she hardly seemed conscious of her position, or terrified by the danger which gathered closer and closer about her.
A new murmur of pity went up from the people who thronged the sidewalks. In her statue-like quiet, the girl looked so young and fair, it appeared incredible that she could have been guilty of the crime with which she was charged.
At that sound, Katharine raised her head quickly, her great eyes wandered to and fro, hopeless, helpless, a vivid crimson swept over her whole countenance, then it faded almost as quickly as it came, leaving the features paler than before. With a low moan, the poor young creature closed her eyes, her lips moved tremulously. Amid all the terror of that scene—with judgment and death so near—a calm, such as she had not before felt, settled down upon her soul.
I do believe that in that hour of supreme agony, God sent His angels to whisper comfort and peace. By no human law could one have accounted for the change which came over her.
On through the street passed the little cortege, the constables marching in front, and pushing aside the people, who, faithful to their New England instincts, yielded almost ungrumblingly to the dictates of those armed with the power they so reverenced—that of the law.
Katharine did not look up again; the deathly pallor had left her face; but around the lips, which still moved at intervals, a smile had settled like a ray of sunlight.
It was a glorious morning; the sun lay golden and warm upon the town; it fell caressingly upon the girl in the prison wagon, revealing her broadly to the rude gaze of those curious eyes.
As they approached the court house, the crowd grew denser. The wagon moved more and more slowly, and the people grew keenly eager, as if curiosity and interest had reached a climax when the victim was about disappearing from their sight.
The court room was a bare, gloomy apartment, where every thing seemed to deepen the usual horror connected with such a place—a dark chamber where the shadows never wholly dispersed. No matter how brightly the sun shone without, the golden radiance broke against the window panes, as if frightened by the appearance of the place, and in passing through the dusty windows, seemed to lose all brilliancy and warmth.
On that day it was packed with a dense crowd, all waiting eagerly for the entrance of the girl whose conviction they had come to witness.
Every one was there—the judge upon his bench, cold and silent as a marble image of justice; the jury in their box, and, a little way off, the witnesses.
Mrs. Allen sat by the side of old Mr. Thrasher; hehad taken her hand, meaning to speak some last word of consolation, but the agony in her eyes froze the words upon his lips; he could only hold fast to that withered hand, which in her anguish she wrenched away from him, impatient even of sympathy.
The dead silence of the court room was broken by a dull murmur from without, through which the rattle of the wagon wheels was distinctly audible.
A sound upon the stairs—the tread of heavy feet, and the door swung slowly upon its hinges. A shiver ran through Mrs. Allen's frame; she sank heavily back, moaning. She knew that her child had been brought in; she heard the bustle with which they placed her in the criminal's seat, but when she tried to raise her eyes it seemed as if the lids had turned to iron.
When silence was again restored she made one violent effort and looked up. Katharine was sitting still and white in her place of shame. The mother half rose, with a vague impulse to rush forward and save her child. That moment Katharine lifted her heavy eyes, and met that longing gaze—unconsciously she extended her arms.
"Mother! oh, mother!"
The words died on those white lips in a moan so faint that it failed to reach the most eager listener. Then the stern old woman leaned heavily back in her seat, and fainted away so quietly that no human soul was aware of it.
Outupon the steps of the court house were a couple of men who had been Mrs. Allen's neighbors, and had known Katharine from childhood. There they stood, unable to gain entrance to the court—talking one to the other in subdued voices.
At last, a man from the same neighborhood forced his way through the crowd upon the stairs and hurried up to the spot where they stood.
The men turned toward him with eager questions, while he wiped his face with a huge silk pocket handkerchief, breathing hard, like a man who had been engaged in some painful struggle.
"How do they get on, Mr. Amos?" asked one of the men.
"They've just had her mother up," he answered, in a low voice. "I couldn't stand it a minit longer—I felt as if I was choking to death."
"What did she say?"
"Oh, it wasn't that. She went toward the stand quiet enough, but just as they held the Bible out to her she looked up at Katharine, and begun to shake so that one of the constables had to take hold of her."
"What did the girl do?"
"She kind o' raised herself and looked at her mother. I can't tell you what it was like. I've seen a lamb look like it when the knife was at its throat. The old woman tried to stand up firm, but when she saw that poor creturshe just laid her head down on the railing and begun shaking and sobbing like every thing, but she didn't shed a single tear. When she lifted her head again, Katharine looked at her and smiled. She did actually, but it was enough to break a man's heart. I'd rather a seen her cry right out a thousand times."
The farmer paused here, took out his silk handkerchief again, and turned his face away.
"Poor gal," muttered one of his listeners; "it seems as if it was only yesterday I see her dancing about like a little poppet, with her curls hanging down her shoulders. I can't believe she did it, I can't, in spite of every thing; 'taint in natur."
"What's that they are saying?" cried one of the group. "The doctor's called up; I want to hear his evidence. Come, let's try and crowd in."
The two men joined forces, and elbowed their way into the court room again, not unfriendly to the poor girl, as our readers have seen, but resolved against losing a single feature of the scene they had come ten miles to witness.
It was, indeed, the doctor whose name had been called. He was enrolled among the witnesses of the prosecution; but those who knew that eccentric, but really great man, had an idea that, in attempting to criminate the poor girl by that witness, the law would find its match. The lawyers themselves partook somewhat of this feeling, and rather shrunk from the keen sarcasm and sly wit with which he was likely to retort upon any professional encroachment. As for his old neighbors, the doctor's evidence was a point in the trial which engaged their keenest interest. They held a sort of property right in the doctor's reputation for curt eccentricity,and were anxious to pit him against the lawyers in the most striking manner before the assembled wisdom of all Connecticut.
Thus, hundreds of faces, familiar about Bungy, Falls Hill, and Chewstown, brightened eagerly when the doctor's name was called out, and murmurs ran through the crowd that now those city lawyers would find their match. No mistake about it!
The doctor, who had been sitting in a corner of the court room, watching the proceedings with vigilant attention, heard his name called, and arose. You would hardly have known the man, as he made a slow progress toward the witness stand. The usual quaint smile had left his lips, and his eyes, always full of droll or sarcastic humor, were bright with the dignity of an earnest purpose. He stood upon the witness stand, leaning heavily on his crutches; but, notwithstanding this disadvantage, a dignity was imparted to his presence that no one could resist—you would not have believed that a droll saying had ever passed those lips.
The prisoner leaned forward, clasped her hands, and pressing them heavily on her lap, looked at him in wild dismay. The change in all his features struck her with terror; it seemed as if he had suddenly turned her enemy.
The doctor observed this wild astonishment, and his face softened a little; nay, those stern features began to quiver, and he was obliged to look down a moment to recover himself.
"May it please the Court," he said at length, motioning the person away who came forward to administer the oath. "I am a physician, and bound by a professional oath not to reveal the secrets of my patient. Iam not sure that any knowledge which I have would bear against this poor girl, and from the depths of my heart I believe her innocent, but I ask to be excused from bearing evidence in the case."
There was a moment's consultation among the counsel. That for the prosecution sprung up as if there had been high treason in the doctor's speech, and insisted that no distinctions should be made in his favor. A great crime had been committed against the Commonwealth, an unnatural crime, and the ends of justice demanded that every means should be used for obtaining the truth. The judge yielded to, or rather sustained his argument, and the doctor was courteously desired to take the oath.
A gleam in the doctor's eye, and a keen glance at the prosecuting attorney, prepared his friends for a sharp encounter of wits, but he was a man to rise steadily with the occasion. Terrible interests were at stake here, and his true character rose out of its eccentricity. He took the oath reverently, and stated the facts already known to the reader, in a clear, impressive manner that told greatly upon the jury, but sheltering himself within the strict limits of the law, he volunteered nothing, neither did he shrink from any question propounded to him; all this struck his friends with a sort of awe. They were profoundly impressed by the dignity of his course, but a little disappointed, nevertheless. Once the doctor turned and looked anxiously on the prisoner. It was when the lawyer asked if Katharine had exhibited any anxiety to conceal the birth of her child from the neighbors—if, in fact, she had not requested the doctor to keep it a secret.
The doctor hesitated, moved uneasily, and half wheeledaround, as if determined to leave the witness stand, for he knew what effect his answer would have.
Katharine leaned more decidedly toward him, and while the court was hushed under a general anxiety to hear his reply, her sweet, clear voice penetrated through the silence.
"Speak, doctor; I did ask you not to tell—I was afraid of what they would think."
The officer stepped forward to enforce silence, and the prisoner shrunk back affrighted.
Now the doctor's stern lip began to quiver, and his keen eyes flashed sharp as steel through the tears that shot into them, for the first time, perhaps, since his manhood.
"Yes," he said, "if you will force me to it—she did make this request; but it was only for a little delay. The poor child wished her secret kept till some one should return."
"And who was that person?"
Katharine's lips parted, and she held her breath with keen interest till the answer was given.
"I do not know."
"And she never told you?"
"She never did."
"And you have no suspicion who this person was?"
"Suspicion is not evidence. I have no knowledge."
The questions now took a professional turn, and the doctor's evidence bore strongly in favor of the prisoner. His deep knowledge, and clear elucidation of medical theories bearing on the case, made a deepimpressionupon the jury, and threw out gleams of light that were adopted with avidity by the defence.
Indeed, the doctor, acting himself under a clear convictionof the prisoner's innocence, contributed more than any other person in fastening the same idea upon the court. But one terrible fact remained immovable—the burial of the child. The apparent forethought by which this had been accomplished. The time seized upon during the absence of the mother. What eloquence could sweep these fatal truths from the case? None, none!
Oncemore Mrs. Allen was put upon the stand to undergo the questions which had been so fruitless with the doctor. It was this point of the case alone which struck terror to the prisoner. When a question was asked which apparently threatened to drag her husband's name through that tortuous investigation, her lips would blanch and her eyes fill with sharp anxiety. Thus her face gleamed out white and ghastly when Mrs. Allen was put under the torture of new questions. The mother looked at her gravely, and turned to the judge; but when the attorney proceeded with his interrogations, she answered simply:
"I am her mother. Let me go."
They did let her go. The attorney had no heart to press that pale, tortured woman farther, and became generous, partly from humanity, partly because there was something in the face of his witness which warned him that nothing short of death would force her to speak.
Unfortunately he had evidence enough, and could afford to take this poor mother from the rack of his questions.
When this danger was over, the prisoner fell back into her previous state of gentle resignation. So long as her husband's reputation was safe, so long as his name was kept out of the proceedings, she had no feeling of resistance.
The business of the court went on. All the details of that strange death and burial, so far as known evidence could give them, were laid before the court. The prisoner heard them like one in a dream. Once or twice she lifted those mournful eyes as some detail struck suddenly on her remembrance; but the connecting links being deficient in her mind, baffled its consciousness. Then a change came upon the court. The witness stand was empty, and a tall, hard-faced man stood before the judge, pledging himself to prove her guilt. Katharine heard him with a sort of dreary amazement. How sturdily he denounced her. How bitter were his words. How cruelly sharp those dark eyes as they turned from the jury to her face. Poor thing, it seemed very cruel. What had she done that a strong man should hunt her to death with his words.
Then another man arose. She knew him, for he had visited her in prison. The look which he cast upon her was full of compassion. He pleaded for her like one inspired. His face was pale with emotion—his voice faltered and his eyes filled when he turned to make a last appeal to the twelve men who held her life in their hands. In the midst of this appeal, Katharine came out of her dream and began to weep from self pity. Her sufferings all rose vividly before her, but it seemedanother person she was pitying, not herself. She met the softened glances turned toward the place where she sat with tender sympathy, as if they were all deploring the misery of some third person. Thus, a faint glow shone out from the pallor of her face, which deepened the sentiment in her behalf.
Then the judge arose with his face to the jury. His voice was slow and grave, his countenance sad. She could not comprehend him. He was neither stern like her enemy, nor pathetic like her friend. Still, under his seriousness she felt that some pity for her youth existed. When he sat down she gave him a long, sorrowful look, which he broke by lifting one hand to his face as if those eyes troubled him.
The twelve men arose and went out, one after another, like mourners at a funeral. Then a murmur ran through the court, and suppressed whispers went from lip to lip. She knew that these men held her life, but could not realize that their fiat was so near. Time went by. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours, for aught she knew, since those men had left their seats empty. The court was still thronged. The judge sat in his arm-chair, shrouding his face with one hand.
A faint bustle. The twelve men glided into their old places, and a voice, deep, solemn, and stern, spoke out:
"Prisoner, look upon the jury—jury, look upon the prisoner."
Katharine stood up. Those twelve men met her mournful gaze with shrinking glances.
"Guilty, or not guilty?"
"Guilty! But not of murder in the first degree. Not guilty unto death!"
There was a hushed tumult in the crowd. Those wholooked upon her face rejoiced that she was saved the last penalty. Some muttered bitterly against the verdict, and grew indignant with the jury for depriving them of a death spectacle; and a few said, in their hearts, this verdict is unjust—that young creature is innocent.
Katharine sat down; a band, hard and firm as iron, that had seemed tightening around her heart all the day, broke, and flooded her being with tears. Poor, poor child! she had been so afraid to die. Amid all her heroism, there was a perpetual dread, which made her gentle nature shrink from the horror before her. Besides, death would take her away fromhim, perhaps, forever and ever. This thought had been the most cruel of all. But it was over now. They would not take her life—she might see him again—he would love her all the better for having shielded his name from this trouble and disgrace; at any rate, she would not die, she would not die.
Overwhelmed with these feelings, she heard nothing that was going on in the court, but sat with her hands clasped and quivering in her lap, while the tears fell, drop by drop, down her cheeks, whispering:
"I live! I live! and shall see him again!"
A voice called forth her name, commanding her to stand up and hear the sentence of the court.
She arose, supporting herself by the railing, for the last few moments had left her very weak. Her eyes were full of tears. She saw the judge through a mist, and his words sounded from a great distance.
"Condemned to sit upon a gallows, erected on the public common of New Haven, for one hour, with a halter around your neck; and, after that, to be confinedin the State's Prison, at Simsbury Mines, during eight years."
She heard words of kindly encouragement and entreaty to use the mercy extended by the court as a means of repentance. Her great sin, unnatural cruelty. Time for reformation—fragments like these floated by her, but they left no impression. She only comprehended one thing—they had given her life! life! life! life!
She sunk on her knees as the judge ceased, buried her face on the criminal's seat—and thanked God that he had permitted her to live. The old widow had sat through it all quiet—as great suffering most frequently is—pale as death, but with a certain stern fortitude which a Spartan mother might have felt without shame. When the jury came in she arose with slow unconsciousness, and stood upright in the presence of the court, her gray eyes heavy with anguish, her white lips parted in an agony of suspense. Guilty, but not unto death. She lifted her clasped hands feebly upward, and fell back, sobbing like a little child.
Nomore brilliant house than that of Mrs. Nelson could be found in the city of New York. This woman had flashed upon society like a meteor. Her dress—her style so original that they were taken to be foreign. Her quick wit and sumptuous beauty won hosts of admirers.Her carriage was the most splendid and nobly appointed of any that appeared in the fashionable thoroughfares. Every thing rich and unique that a prodigal taste could imagine or money obtain, was to be found in her home. All the costly adornments which her husband had prepared for her, with so much solicitude, were crowded into side rooms and entrance halls, while she filled the principal apartments after a fancy entirely her own. The great joy of her life was in spending money, and in parading the result before the world. To defy emulation and excite envy was her crowning desire. Yet, with all this prodigality, she was never generous, never felt the sweet impulses of charity, or knew the gentle bliss of self-sacrifice.
It sometimes, nay, often happens, that those who rise from poverty to sudden wealth, are more hard-hearted than persons born to affluence. This may arise from a reluctance to review painful or humiliating associations; or it may be that, with some characters, poverty has a hardening process, and, when lifted above it, they feel a sort of pleasure in seeing others suffer as they have done. This is a bad phase of human nature—but who can say that it seldom presents itself in society.
Mrs. Nelson was one of these women. She would not, knowingly, have perpetrated a crime, or done a palpable injustice; but her whole life was made up of trivial vanity and intense selfishness. What little feeling she possessed, had been sacrificed to a craving desire for wealth, and she bent all her faculties to one end, that of securing all its privileges and enjoyments to herself.
It was not long before her husband became convinced of this; for real and deep passion rendered himkeen sighted. His character, naturally stern and silent, grew bitter under this one thought; but the fatal love which had led him to lavish so much upon her, still imprisoned his heart as the serpents of the laocoon coil around their victims.
A few months of married life, and this was the condition in which the Nelsons found themselves. He a lonely, sullen slave—she reckless and egotistical, at the best—sometimes insolent in her exactions, and always ungrateful. But this did not impair her popularity, or, in truth, meet public observation at all. To the world she was every thing charming. But it is at home we must seek this woman in order to judge her aright in this new phase of her strange life.
It was Mrs. Nelson's caprice to breakfast alone in a little room which opened to the sunniest nook of the flower garden. In less than three weeks after her marriage she began to separate her life from that of her husband in every possible manner, and absolutely sold the fragments of time which she doled out to him, bartering them off unblushingly for some new extravagance, until even his absorbing passion revolted at her egotism.
The room that we speak of was really an exquisite affair in its way; very cheerful and sumptuous in all its appointments. Lace curtains were looped back from the deep windows, so heavy with embroidery that they fell over the pure plate-glass like snow wreaths floating over ice. Through this transparent cloud came the cool rustle of tree boughs, the gleam of flowers, and glimpses of warm sunshine, turning the grass to a golden green. A broad mirror, surmounted by a wreath of gilded foliage, reflected back this out-door picturefrom its limpid surface. The carpet appeared but a continuation of the blossoming turf without; you seemed to trample upon a living flower at every step, and the foot sank luxuriously into its rich pile, as if pressing wood moss in a forest. The hangings upon the walls were of pale green clustering with golden roses. Small tables of oriental alabaster and delicate mosaic supported vases of flowers, which shed a delicate perfume through the apartment. Two easy chairs of the most elaborate construction, and a couch that yielded to pressure like down, completed the rich assemblage.
Most regally did this apartment frame in the queenly woman who formed a tableau of wonderful effect in its centre. The rare tone of her beauty demanded delicate tints, and these were in direct contrast with the colors that predominated in the room. Morning dresses, as they are now worn, were not then in vogue, but a Canton crape dress, of a glowing red, fell across her bosom in surplice folds, revealing glimpses of costly lace underneath; the sleeves fitted her symmetrical arms to the elbow, where they terminated in a fall of frost-like lace. A gossamer cap seemed to have settled like a butterfly on the lustrous tresses coiled around her proud head, which she crushed ruthlessly against the back of her chair, rather than change her idle position. She held a newspaper in her hand, while her foot rested on the ebony claw of a small table, on which the frosted silver and delicate china of a breakfast service were arranged.
Mrs. Nelson was no reader, but she loved to drone over the morning papers after breakfast, picking up such fragments of gossip and news as floated through their columns with satisfaction, so long as no effort of thought was necessary. Thus her eyes roved restlesslyover the paper in her hand until they fell upon the heading of a paragraph that sent the bloom for a moment from her cheeks. It was an account of Katharine Allen's trial. She read it breathlessly from beginning to end. A cloud gathered on her fair forehead as she proceeded, which grew dark and stormy when she approached the termination.
Jealousy is more likely to spring from self-love than from pure affection. The pang which Mrs. Nelson felt was not the less keen because she had no real regard for the man whom she had married. Her arrogant vanity had been pampered till its craving could not be satisfied, and the idea that another would dare lift admiring eyes to the man it had been her pleasure to select, wounded her almost as if she had possessed a heart. She remembered Katharine Allen as she had appeared that night at her own humble home in the pine woods, and a clear conviction fell upon her that Nelson Thrasher was in some way implicated in the trouble that had fallen upon the girl. Had he—her slave, her spaniel, whom it was her right to caress or spurn, dared to swerve from his allegiance to her, even when she was the wife of another?
The question filled her heart with bitter scorn. She gloried over the fact that this girl would be degraded and crushed out of respectable life for having presumed to cross her path. She remembered the delicate beauty which had been so remarkable that evening, and bit her lips fiercely as the idea presented itself, that less adroit management on her part might have placed Katharine in the honorable possession of all she enjoyed so keenly. What if he should relent, even then? What if the knowledge of this poor girl's terrible position shouldtouch the heart she had herself trampled down so insolently, while it was loading her with benefits!
She grasped the paper in her hand—no, no, he must never hear the news it contained. She would change her course, and strive to endure his society. He had grown sullen of late. What if his love for her should change. The crowning passion of her character revolted at this, but still a lurking fear crept in, and she reflected that the slavery of a strong heart would not last forever.
She touched a curious little bell that stood on the table, and a servant opened the door.
"Send me all the papers that have been brought this morning!"
The man went away and returned with several of the morning journals; she glanced them over hurriedly, pressing her lips hard, while each column was scanned. That paragraph was only to be found in the paper that lay crushed in her lap. She arose hurriedly, and passing through the entrance hall, swept toward the kitchen.
The cook stopped in the middle of the floor, struck with astonishment by the presence of her haughty mistress in that place. Mrs. Nelson walked toward the range, and taking up a heavy poker, thrust the newspaper into the fire, holding it down till the fragments floated in black flakes over her hand. She laid the poker down, observing that the woman was regarding her curiously.
"Send in coffee, and some of those delicate French rolls which Mr. Nelson is so fond of," she said, indifferently; "with any other nice thing you can pick up."
Thecook was full of regrets that madame had been compelled to give her own orders, and, amid a world of protestations, Mrs. Nelson went back to her room. Soon after she rang the bell with emphasis, and directly that exquisite breakfast service was re-arranged for two, and one of the silken easy chairs rolled opposite her own.
"Go tell Mr. Nelson that I am waiting for him to breakfast with me," she said, drawing close to the table, and forcing the clouds from her face.
She waited impatiently till the man came back, tapping the carpet with her restless foot. What if she had gone too far? If he ever could have thought of another might it not be so again? and she so completely in his power, so helpless without his wealth.
The servant came back.
"Mr. Nelson's compliments, but he had taken breakfast hours ago."
The woman absolutely turned pale. It was the first time he had ever refused an advance of any kind from her. She arose, stood in thought an instant, and then left the room.
"Master is in his office, madame," said the servant.
"Yes, I know—he was not well this morning."
She swept through the hall again, and crossing two or three rooms, entered one in the extreme southern wing of the house. In this place, Nelson had, of late, takenhis meals alone. It was simply an office upon the ground floor, containing a few chairs, an oaken bookcase, heavy with carving, and a library table, which stood in the centre of a small Persian carpet. There was nothing very remarkable in this apartment, except one thing. The floor was paved like the entrance hall, with a rich mosaic pattern of variously tinted marble. Mrs. Nelson felt a chill from the stones through her thin slippers, and exclaimed:
"Dear me, Nelson, what a dreary place you have! All wood work and stone. I never observed how very comfortless it was before."
Nelson was locking something in a drawer of his writing-table, and his face was bent, but she saw the blood rush to his forehead.
"I do not find it disagreeable," he said, gravely.
"Ah, but my room is so much pleasanter," she said, approaching the table, and laying a hand caressingly on his arm.
He rose up suddenly, shaking her hand away.
The color mounted to her temples, but she controlled the temper that burned within her.
"You are out of sorts, dear husband; and I am lonesome. Come away from this cold room."
"It is not colder than usual," he answered, curtly; but a thrill ran through his frame and the blood tingled in his veins. She had never called him by that endearing name but once before, not even in the first days of their marriage.
Her hand had fallen lightly on his wrist—she felt the leap of the pulse, and smiled with inward triumph.
"Come, come. I am getting angry. How could you neglect me so? Busy, busy, all the time; about what?and I left alone! Come—this morning I will take no refusal! Youshallbreakfast with me!"
Nelson took her hand, grasping it hard, and looked steadily in her face.
"Ellen, what is the meaning of this?"
"It means that I want to see my husband now and then, or he will forget how much I love him."
Nelson shook his head. This sweet flattery was too sudden. It lacked the ring of truth, and he felt it.
He looked at her sternly.
"Ellen!"
"Well, what is it?"
"What do you desire in exchange for these minutes of deception?"
"Nelson!"
"It is a simple question. If you have any wish ungratified, speak. This cajolery is not necessary."
"You are cruel, Nelson."
He saw the tears mount slowly to her eyes; the hand which touched his, trembled.
"You have ceased to love me, Nelson?"
She asked this question breathlessly; all the splendor of her position seemed fading away. Her lips grew white, and she leaned heavily on the table. Ambition spoke loudly as her heart should have done.
Her evident grief made his pulses leap. The white lips—the trembling of those limbs. The emotion thus betrayed must be genuine. He stood irresolute, looking at her. The thick lashes drooped over her eyes, her bosom began to heave.
"Ellen, is this real?"
She lifted those velvety eyes to his, and the man was her slave again.
Three weeks from this day, two important things were concluded. A deed of gift, conveying the mansion house, was made out in favor of Ellen Nelson, and a large amount of foreign gold was deposited in one of the leading city banks, subject to her order. Those few sweet words had brought her a golden harvest; but what was that compared to the vast wealth which still remained in her husband's power? wealth that could not be brought out in the face of the world, though she had never been permitted to know its hiding-place. While her husband held this great secret back from her knowledge she could not feel altogether secure, for what was moderate wealth to a woman who had dreamed so long of millions?
In the depth of his heart, Nelson may have felt that his secret was the strongest tie that bound him to his wife. If so, it was one of those cruel thoughts that men put away from their souls only to feel them creeping back again like serpents. One thing is certain, he clung to the secret of his gold with stern tenacity, and watched all her stealthy movements toward it with the vigilance of a hound. The golden chains with which his wife was bound became more important to him every day. While he lived, that should fetter her to his side if love could not. When he died—a shudder ran through his soul as he thought of that. Was he certain that retribution would wait for him till then?
A vesselwas being hauled in at the Long Wharf, at New Haven—a weather-beaten vessel—that gave evidence of a long voyage over the seas. Two men leaped from the deck, as she was slowly warped to her moorings, and stood together a few moments at the head of the wharf. They were both fine looking men, but in a different way. The one had a frank, honest countenance, that expressed great natural vigor of mind, joined with a physical organization of uncommon strength. The other was lighter, taller, and more decidedly intellectual every way. Indeed, a face like that was not met with on the same thoroughfare once in a twelvemonth.
This man seemed eager to be moving; he held a small portmanteau in his hands, while a few hurried words passed between him and his companion.
"Then you wont go into the town with me and give us both a fair start?" said the stouter of the two. "The stage starts from Buck's Tavern at daylight."
"No, no; I could not sleep, I could not rest within ten miles of home. Think how long I have been away—of all that has happened."
"But we are four hours too late for the morning stage, captain."
"I know; but what then? It is but an easy walk after all. I can be there before noon."
Rice laughed, and slily winked one eyelid.
"All right," he said; "this comes of being a marriedman; a ten miles' tramp, with a heart fluttering like a partridge all the way. Well, we old bachelors have nothing to hurry for, and can afford to take it comfortably. I'll go down to Bucks, and be at the old woman's to supper. But keep dark; I want to come down upon her and Kate all of a sudden, to say nothing of that little shaver and cuff—so keep a close lip, captain."
The captain gave a happy laugh, thinking that he would be too pleasantly employed for any chance at gossip, so he promised silence very cordially, and the two shook hands.
"Good luck to you," exclaimed Rice, with hearty good will, "I'll be after you in short order."
They parted here. The man with the portmanteau walking with rapid strides toward the highway which led to the country, and our sailor friend taking a more leisurely course into the town.
He was so busy with thoughts of home at first that a certain bustle and excitement among the people upon the sidewalks failed to arrest his attention. But as he approached the heart of the city this unusual bustle aroused him. The people all seemed to be going one way, men hurried along in eager haste, women jostled against each other in their reckless movements, some dragging little children after them, and scolding their slow progress.
Rice followed the current. He, too, became anxious to see what was taking a whole population so completely in one direction, and having plenty of time, sauntered on, with the easy roll learned in his home on the rolling deep. He asked no questions, indeed he felt very little interest in the matter. Something was going on—it might be a political meeting, or "a generaltraining," it made very little difference to him which it should prove. There seemed to be a crowd assembling somewhere, and that was all he cared about the matter.
At last the throng of people grew so thick around one of these green enclosures, common to the City of Elms, that Rice made his way onward with some difficulty. He paused to take an observation, saw the great square crowded full of people that murmured and swayed to and fro, when new crowds poured in from the streets, as he had seen the ocean in many a dangerous storm.
The general excitement fully aroused him now, and he looked keenly around while elbowing his way through the human masses, asking the crowd in general, and no one in particular, what the noise was about.
No one answered him. All were eagerly searching for commodious standing room, and his questions remained unheeded. At last he saw, looming up in the centre of the public green, a mass of timber, great, heavy oaken posts, and a cross-beam rising above a scaffold, upon which a mass of white, that possibly shrouded a human figure, was lifted above the crowd.
Rice paused, with a sudden exclamation.
"What is that?" he said, turning to a female, who elbowed him fiercely with one arm, lifting up her child with the other.
"What is it? Can't you see? Look for yourself. What should it be but a gallows, and a woman on it?" cried the mother, lifting the little, golden-haired girl on her shoulder, that she might command a view of the show.
"A gallows, and a woman on it!" exclaimed Rice,losing half of his ruddy color. "Oh, my good woman, what has the poor thing done?"
"Done! why, where did you come from? Done enough to hang her as high as Haman, where she ought to be swinging this minute. Done, indeed!"
With these words the woman thrust herself forward, marking her rude progress by the frightened face of the child, which rose and fell in that ocean of human heads like some flower tossed upward by a storm.
A strange feeling seized upon Rice—a desperate wish to struggle through the crowd, and flee from the spot. He turned and pressed blindly against the human masses that heaved around him. But, in spite of his great strength, they bore him onward like the waters of a vortex, till he was flung, against his own will, almost at the foot of the gallows.
Yes; a woman was shrouded in that white drapery—a fair young girl, so fair and so young that the sailor's heart melted with pity at the first glance. How still and white she was. How like some of the Madonnas he had seen in the churches and cathedrals of foreign parts; those hands were folded under the cloud-like sleeves. She was very slender and frail. Rice could trace the blue veins on her temples, and see the quiver of her hands under the white drapery. A hideous thing was coiled, like a great ash-colored serpent, around that delicate neck, and fell writhing along the scaffold.
Rice uttered a cry of horror; something in that face smote all the strength from his heart. The sight of that rope made him tremble like a little child. The meek eyelids drooping over the shrinking agony of those eyes, the mouth parting now and then from its tremulous pressure, the small feet resting so helplessly on the scaffold. It was a pitiful sight.
I cannot explain why that craving desire to know who the criminal was, seized upon the strong man, whose face the unhappy creature would not have known had she lifted those heavy eyes? "Who is it? why is she here? will no one tell me?"
An old woman, or the shadow of an old woman, who leaned against the timbers of the gallows, looked up at this outcry, and her eyes settled on his face. Then her poor withered hands were slowly lifted, and fell helplessly into his.
"My son!"
"Mother—my mother, and looking so!"
"Hush!" she said, lifting her trembling finger, and pointing to the girl on the scaffold. "It is our Katharine."
Ricedid not speak—he did not move—a weight of blood fell back on his heart, turning it to stone. He felt like a drowning man, with the billows of a turbulent ocean heaving around him.
The old woman left her support against the timbers of the gallows, and rested against him. Unconsciously he circled her with one arm. She looked up in his face, and the slow relief of tears gathered in her eyes.
All this had passed very quietly. No one saw it, for but few had heeded the old woman who crept silently after the cortege when it left the jail. As the sheriffled his charge up to the scaffold, a stifled moan had made him pause, and he saw a thin hand steal forth from the crowd and touch that of the prisoner, without seeming to heed the act; for he was a kind man, and guessed who the woman was. Then the strong, brave son came up, and the old woman recognized him with sorrowful gladness; but the crowd was eager for the spectacle of human shame, and cared nothing for that.
Oh, how differently the half brother looked on that scaffold now! He saw the delicate form drooping in the presence of a great multitude. The sunlight fell around her with a soft, mocking radiance. Not even a cloud crept mercifully into the heavens to vail her with shadows. Her eyes were bent on the rough, unjoined boards beneath her feet. The tumult of popular curiosity rose and swelled around her, but she never moved or looked up. Coarse words and harsh revilings passed by her, but save a quiver of the eyelids, you would not have known that she heard them.
As she sat thus meek and still while the minutes of her punishment dropped into eternity, carrying her shame with them, the great multitude around her grew turbulent. After all, what was it to walk so far and stay so long only to see a young girl sitting upon a platform of boards, without giving a sign or lifting her eyes? They had come to see a murderess—something wild and exciting—a scene to frighten their children with in after times, and talk over with the neighbors when subjects of gossip ran low. Why did not the sheriff make her stand up and confess her crime before them all? That would be something to satisfy the law!
As the hour wore on these expressions of discontent grew strong. Men shouted for her to stand up, whilethe mocking voices of disappointed females scoffed at her with unwomanly fierceness.
All feelings are contagious when humanity crowds itself into masses. Lashed by these jibes the people grew coarse and cruel—the meek silence of the prisoner seemed like obstinacy to them. Her drooping face, half hidden from their eager glances, had no right to evade them thus.
These murmurs of discontent grew turbulent and surged through the crowd like the dashing of spent waves upon a rocky bank—a sea of human faces waved to and fro, white and terrified with conflicting emotions. In all that throng there was, perhaps, not one countenance which expressed indifference; a great painter might have made his name immortal could he have pictured that dense multitude as it really appeared. Men and women looked cruel and hard, as if they longed to drag the miserable young creature down from her place of shame with their own hands and put her to death. Here and there a visage appeared which seemed to express something akin to pity; but the most tender-hearted would hardly have ventured, amid that excited populace, to have expressed a word of sympathy.
In the midst of this tumult Rice heard a voice close to his elbow, which hissed in his ear like a serpent. A rough looking man stood by him with a face full of cruel mockery uplifted to the gallows. He stooped down and spoke to a lad who stood near:
"Go and give the halter a jerk, my little fellow, and I'll pay ye a ninepence the minute it's done. If you pull her off so much the better; I'll make the ninepence a shilling!"
These were the words which made Rice start, andlook fiercely around. He saw the boy, an evil-visaged imp, skulking away toward the gallows. Looking back over his shoulder, with a sly, cunning smile.
"Mother, stand alone one minute," he said, in a hoarse whisper.
The old woman could not stand without support, but she fell back against the gallows timbers, looking wildly in his face. He waited for nothing, but sprang into the crowd with the bound of a panther, grappled the lad by the throat, just as his hand touched an end of the rope which had fallen over the scaffold. With the strength of a giant he lifted the boy high in the air with both hands, and pitched him far over the heads of the multitude. Here the urchin fluttered and turned, like some uncouth bird, till he was engulfed by the crowd, amid shouts of laughter and wild exclamations of astonishment.
Pale and trembling with rage, Rice turned upon the man who had instigated this dastardly act, but the craven took prompt warning, and plunged into the crowd, which, closing upon him, left Rice with his hand clenched and specks of foam trembling on his lips. A hand was laid heavily on his shoulder. Thinking it was some constable ready to arrest him, Rice turned, but only to meet a mild and elderly face, whose placid eyes looked gently into his. It was old Mr. Thrasher.
"Stop, stop, my friend. Let the laws be fulfilled without tumult. God may be doing a great work here."
"But what is man now doing, I should like to know?" cried the angry sailor. "Can your God look down on such work as this and not hate the people He has made? Look at this girl! look at the old woman yonder! My mother and my sister!"
"Your mother—sister! Then you are David Rice?"
"Yes, I am Dave Rice, that old woman's son. I hadn't seen her for nigh upon eight years, and this is how I find her!" cried Dave, shaking all over with a burst of grief; "and that's how I find my half sister, the sweetest little child that man ever sat eyes on."
Great tears trembled in his eyes and dropped down his cheeks, he wiped them away with the cuff of his sailor's jacket, dashing his hand down in a passion of self-contempt.
"What has the girl done? What does this all mean? If you know, tell me—do tell me!"
"Be calm—be still!"answeredThrasher, in a voice that carried soothing in its very tones. "She is innocent as a lamb."
"Innocent, and there?"
"Yes, I say it again, in spite of her trial—in spite of her sentence, just now commenced. Your sister is innocent of the murder."
"The murder! God help us!"
"The murder of her child!"
"Her child! My little sister's child!"
"Wait—wait till you see her. She has bound me by a promise, but you are her brother, and have rights. I am glad you have come. With your knowledge of sea-life he may be found. My son, Nelson Thrasher, I mean."
"Nelson Thrasher! And what has he to do with her and this?"
"Nothing with this. It would distress him as it does us, but he is away—knows nothing about it, and she——But, hush! the time is up. The sheriff tells her to come down."
The two men moved closer to the scaffold. At the voice of the sheriff Katharine lifted her head slowly, and cast a frightened look at the crowd, which became more and more riotous as the hour closed. For the first time that day a faint flush stole to her forehead, and her eyes quailed with affright from all the eager faces uplifted toward her. The sheriff spoke again before she attempted to arise. Then a voice followed his, saying:
"Take courage, Katharine, we are here!"
She knew the voice well, arose, unsteadily, to her feet, and staggered, in a blind way, across the scaffold, with her arms held out. The changeable mob began to pity her then, for the sight of her face might have moved the very stones to compassion. More kindly murmurs reached her; you could see it by the quiver of her features and the pathetic helplessness with which she looked toward the spot whence the voices came.
David Rice could bear the scene no longer; he rushed by the sheriff, sprang upon the scaffold, and took the unhappy girl in his arms, crying out:
"Katy, Katy! God forgive them, for they are killing you! My sister, my little sister!"
She may have heard his voice, and the name by which he called her; if so, it smote the remaining strength from her frame, for she fell away in his arms, limp and dead, like a lily broken at the stalk.
The sheriff would have taken her from those strong arms, but Rice waved him back.
"Don't be afeared, don't be afeared," he said, hoarse with grief; "I shan't run away with the poor lamb; but she's dead, and no one but her brother shall touch her. Keep as close as you like. Show me the way to herprison. I aint a going to break any law; but she's my sister, and that poor old soul there is my mother. Help her along, if you've got a heart, and leave this poor lamb to me."
The sheriff had no heart to separate the prisoner from her newly-found brother; he would even have aided old Mrs. Allen, as Rice had desired, but Mr. Thrasher and his good wife were by her side, supporting her with such kindly help that any offers of assistance would have been intrusive. Thus surrounded by constables, the little group gathered in a close knot, carrying Katharine Allen from her place of shame.
The crowd fell back reverently before Rice, who followed the sheriff with the tread of a lion, while that white face rested on his shoulder. This last anguish had left her like a corpse before the crowd had changed all its impatient revilings into compassion. The children looked frightened or began to cry when they saw terror or tears upon their mother's cheeks. The men grew pale, and looked at each other upbraidingly, as the Jews must have done when the great sacrifice was urged forward by their hands.
Thus the little group passed away from the crowd and into the dark shadows of a prison, which seemed like heaven to this poor girl when she came to life, with the remembrance of all those glaring eyes and scowling faces turning their hate upon her.
WhenDavid Rice left the jail that night, he had the certificate of his sister's marriage in his bosom, and under it was a stern resolve to find out the man who had left her to the chance of all this suffering, and bring him to a stern account.
There was no need of his going further now; all the bright hopes of the morning were swept away. The broken household around that prison was all he could find of his old home. But the gloom of this place was too oppressive; fresh from the broad sweep of the ocean, he could not breathe in all this close misery.
The next day, Rice escaped from the contemplation of all this ruin, and took a long walk into the country, bending his way toward Hotchkistown. The rapid exercise cooled the fever of his blood, while it deepened the profound compassion excited by his sister's wrongs. As he was passing under the shadows of the East Rock, a traveller, coming from an opposite direction, appeared in the distance. Rice instantly knew the little valise and the upright figure of the man. It was the companion from whom he had parted only the day before. But why had he returned so soon? What was the meaning of that quick, almost fierce, walk?
The two men drew close to each other, and, pre-occupied as they were, stopped abruptly in mutual surprise, each astonished by the change that had come upon the other.
"Rice, my poor friend!"
"Captain, what is the matter? I know that you have heard; but my troubles can't have done this."
The stranger wrung the hand which Rice held out, but he did not speak—the encounter had come upon him suddenly.
"You found all well at home, I hope," said Rice. "Don't tell me that any thing has gone wrong there, I couldn't stand it."
The stranger wrung his friend's hand again. "Rice, I found the house empty."
"Empty! What, moved?"
"Gone, both of them; God only knows where."
"Gone!"
"No one can tell me where. The house was shut up. The grass had grown high around the gate. The bucket from long disuse had dropped to pieces on the well-pole. This is all that I can gather of a certainty."
"And did the neighbors know nothing?"
"They told me a great deal, but it led to nothing; my wife really gave no one an idea of what she intended to do. I see how it is; she was very proud, and thinking herself compelled to work for a living went off into some strange place. It was like her, but where can I go, how search her out? She left no trace. Surely she might have waited a few months longer!"
The proud anguish in his friend's voice drew Rice from his own troubles.
"Come," he said, "I will turn back, and we will talk this over. Some way will be found. 'Never give up the ship.' That has been our motto for many a day, captain. The storm has burst on me, and it may reach you, but we'll sail in the same boat anyhow."
"But this suspense is terrible, Rice. Does it seem possible that a man should be made so wretched in a single day? But for this hard walk I should have gone crazy."
"I know what it is, captain; all my timbers are shaking now with what happened yesterday, but I've seen many a wreck come up shipshape again. Let's keep afore the breeze, if it does blow a gale. I feel sartin that our course lies the same way, somehow. Here, give us hold of your valise. You look clean tuckered out."
The man surrendered his valise with a faint smile, saying:
"I only intended to go on a little till the stage overtook me, but forgot all about it, or that I was walking fast, till ten minutes' rest convinced me how tired I was." That moment the heavy stage-coach came swinging round a corner of the turnpike, its four horses galloping forward in a cloud of dust, through which a bright, boyish face was seen leaning out of the window.
"Hallo, there, I say, you driver, let me out—hurry—can't you hear a fellow? What are you thinking on?"
The driver heard this energetic shout above the tramp of his horses, and drew up, covering the travellers by the way-side with a storm of dust.
The lad opened the heavy stage door for himself and sprang out, telling the driver, with a magnificent flourish of the hand, that he could treat himself with the extra fare, paid in advance, from Hotchkistown to New Haven. Then he began advising two old ladies in the back seat to take a little more room and make themselves comfortable, a piece of consideration that was cut short by a sharp crash of the door, and a lurch of the stage, which set the establishment in motion again.
Left alone in the street our friend Tom took a rapid survey of the two men, and advanced toward them, lifting his new straw hat, which sported a red ribbon around the crown, after a fashion which he had admired greatly in little Paul, and regarding this a proper occasion, practiced with considerable effect. He glanced at Rice with a rather dissatisfied air, and partly turned his back on him while addressing the other person.
"I reckoned I should find you somewhere on the road, captain, and so cut after," he said, turning his back decidedly on Rice. "Expected to find you all alone, though."
"This person is my friend."
"Yes, sir, but he isn't mine, so if you'd just as lief step round back of that juniper bush, mebby I'll tell you something."
The person addressed as captain accepted this invitation, and walked to the other side of a juniper tree, which stood close by, heavy with clusters of blue berries. Tom followed the stranger with one hand thrust into his trowser's pocket, from which came a faint rustle of paper.