The funeral was over, and there were two fresh graves—the only ones in the bit of prairie set apart for a graveyard. I have written enough in this melancholy strain. Why should I pause to describe in detail the solemn services held in the grove by the lake? It is enough that the land-shark forgot his illegal traffic in claims; the money-lender ceased for one day to talk of mortgages and per cent and foreclosure; the fat gentleman left his corner-lots. Plausaby's bland face was wet with tears of sincere grief, and Mr. Minorkey pressed his hand to his chest and coughed more despairingly than ever. The grove in which the meeting was held commanded a view of the lake at the very place where the accident occurred. The nine survivors sat upon the front seat of all; the friends of the deceased were all there, and, most pathetic sight of all, the two mute white faces of the drowned were exposed to view. The people wept before the tremulous voice of the minister had begun the service, and there was so much weeping that the preacher could say but little. Poor Mrs. Plausaby was nearly heart-broken. Nothing could have been more pathetic than her absurd mingling for two days of the sincerest grief and an anxious questioning about her mourning-dress. She would ask Isa's opinion concerning her veil, and then sit down and cry piteously the next minute. And now she was hopeless and utterly disconsolate at the loss of her little Katy, but wondering all the time whether Isa could not have fixed her bonnet so that it would not have looked quite so plain.
The old minister preached on "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." I am afraid he said some things which the liberalism of to-day would think unfit—we all have heresies nowadays; it is quite the style. But at least the old man reminded them that there were better investments than corner-lots, and that even mortgages with waivers in them will be brought into judgment. His solemn words could not have failed entirely of doing good.
But the solemn funeral services were over; the speculator in claims dried his eyes, and that very afternoon assigned a claim, to which he had no right, to a simple-minded immigrant for a hundred dollars. Minorkey was devoutly thankful that his own daughter had escaped, and that he could go on getting mortgages with waivers in them, and Plausaby turned his attention to contrivances for extricating himself from the embarrassments of his situation.
The funeral was over. That is the hardest time of all. You can bear up somehow, so long as the arrangements and cares and melancholy tributes of the obsequies last. But if one has occupied a large share of your thoughts, solicitudes, and affections, and there comes a time when the very last you can ever do for them, living or dead, is done, then for the first time you begin to take the full measure of your loss. Albert felt now that he was picking up the broken threads of another man's life. Between the past, which had been full of anxieties and plans for little Kate, and the future, into which no little Kate could ever come, there was a great chasm. There is nothing that love parts from so regretfully as its burdens.
Mrs. Ferret came to see Charlton, and smiled her old sudden puckered smile, and talked in her jerky complacent voice about the uses of sanctified affliction, and her trust that the sudden death of his sister in all the thoughtless vanity of youth would prove a solemn and impressive warning to him to repent in health before it should be with him everlastingly too late. Albert was very far from having that childlike spirit which enters the kingdom of heaven easily. Some natures, are softened by affliction, but they are not such as his. Charlton in his aggressiveness demanded to know the reason for everything. And in his sorrow his nature sent a defiantwhyback to the Power that had made Katy's fate so sad, and Mrs. Ferret's rasping way of talking about Katy's death as a divine judgment on him filled him with curses bitterer than Job's.
Miss Isa Marlay was an old-school Calvinist. She had been trained on the Assembly's Catechism, interpreted in good sound West Windsor fashion. In theory she never deviated one iota from the solid ground of the creed of her childhood. But while she held inflexibly to her creed in all its generalizations, she made all those sweet illogical exceptions which women of her kind are given to making. In general, she firmly believed that everybody who failed to have a saving faith in the vicarious atonement of Christ would be lost. In particular, she excepted many individual cases among her own acquaintance. And the inconsistency between her creed and her applications of it never troubled her. She spoke with so much confidence of the salvation of little Kate, that she comforted Albert somewhat, notwithstanding his entire antagonism to Isa's system of theology. If Albert had died, Miss Marlay would have fixed up a short and easy road to bliss for him also. So much, more generous is faith than logic! But it was not so much Isa's belief in the salvation of Katy that did Albert good, as it was her tender and delicate sympathy, expressed as much when she was silent as when she spoke, and when she spoke expressed more by the tones of her voice than by her words.
There was indeed one part of Isabel's theology that Charlton would have much liked to possess. He had accepted the idea of an Absolute God. A personal, sympathizing, benevolent Providence was in his opinion one of the illusions of the theologic stage of human development. Things happened by inexorable law, he said. And in the drowning of Katy he saw only the overloading of a boat and the inevitable action of water upon the vital organs of the human system. It seemed to him now an awful thing that such great and terrible forces should act irresistibly and blindly. He wished he could find some ground upon which to base a different opinion. He would like to have had Isabel's faith in the Paternity of God and in the immortality of the soul. But he was too honest with himself to suffer feeling to exert any influence on his opinions. He was in the logical stage of his development, and built up his system after the manner of the One-Hoss Shay. Logically he could not see sufficient ground to change, and he scorned the weakness that would change an opinion because of feeling. His soul might cry out in its depths for a Father in the universe. But what does Logic care for a Soul or its cry? After a while a wider experience brings in something better than Logic. This is Philosophy. And Philosophy knows what Logic can not learn, that reason is not the only faculty by which truth is apprehended—that the hungers and intuitions of the Soul are worth more than syllogisms.
Do what he would, Charlton could not conceal from himself that in sympathy Miss Minorkey was greatly deficient. She essayed to show feeling, but she had little to show. It was not her fault. Do you blame the dahlia for not having the fragrance of a tuberose? It is the most dangerous quality of enthusiastic young men and women that they are able to deceive themselves. Nine tenths of all conjugal disappointments come from the ability of people in love to see more in those they love than ever existed there. That love is blind is a fable. He has an affection of the eyes, but it is not blindness. Nobody else ever sees so much as he does. For here was Albert Charlton, bound by his vows to Helen Minorkey, with whom he had nothing in common, except in intellect, and already his sorrow was disclosing to him the shallowness of her nature, and the depth of his own; even now he found that she had no voice with which to answer his hungry cry for sympathy. Already his betrothal was becoming a fetter, and his great mistake was disclosing itself to him. The rude suspicion had knocked at his door before, but he had been able to bar it out. Now it stared at him in the night, and he could not rid himself of it. But he was still far enough from accepting the fact that the intellectual Helen Minorkey was destitute of all unselfish feeling. For Charlton was still in love with her. When one has fixed heart and hope and thought on a single person, love does not die with the first consciousness of disappointment. Love can subsist a long time on old associations. Besides, Miss Minorkey was not aggressively or obtrusively selfish—she never interfered with anybody else. But there is a cool-blooded indifference that can be moved by no consideration outside the Universal Ego. That was Helen.
I have before me, as one of the original sources of information for this history, a file ofThe Wheat County Weakly Windmillfor 1856. It is not a large sheet, but certainly it is a very curious one. In its day thisWindmillground many grists, though its editorial columns were chiefly occupied with impartial gushing and expansive articles on the charms of scenery, fertility of soil, superiority of railroad prospects, admirableness of location, healthfulness, and general future rosiness of the various paper towns that paid tribute to its advertising columns. And the advertising columns! They abounded in business announcements of men who had "Money to Loan on Good Real Estate" at three, four, five, and six per cent a month, and of persons who called themselves "Attorneys-at-Law and Real Estate Agents," who stated that "All business relating to pre-emption and contested claims would be promptly attended to" at their offices in Perritaut. Even now, through the thin disguise of honest-seeming phrases, one can see the bait of the land-shark who speculated in imaginary titles to claims, or sold corner-lots in bubble-towns. And, as for the towns, it appears from these advertisements that there was one on almost every square mile, and that every one of them was on the line of an inevitable railroad, had a first-class hotel, a water-power, an academy, and an indefinite number of etcaeteras of the most delightful and remunerative kind. Each one of these villages was in the heart of the greatest grain-growing section of the State. Each, was the "natural outlet" to a large agricultural region. Each commanded the finest view. Each point was the healthiest in the county, and each village was "unrivaled." (When one looks at these town-site advertisements, one is tempted to think that member serious and wise who, about this time, offered a joint resolution in the Territorial Legislature, which read: "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, That not more than two thirds of the area of this Territory should be laid out in town-sites and territorial roads, the remaining one third to be sacredly reserved for agricultural use.")
But I prize this old file of papers because it contains a graphic account of the next event in this narrative. And the young man who edited theWindmillat this time has told the story with so much sprightliness and vigor that I can not serve my reader a better turn than by clipping his account and pasting it just here in my manuscript. (I shall also rest myself a little, and do a favor to the patient printer, who will rejoice to get a little "reprint copy" in place of my perplexing manuscript.) For where else shall I find such a dictionariful command of the hights and depths—to say nothing of the lengths and breadths—of the good old English tongue? This young man must indeed have been a marvel of eloquent verbosity at that period of his career. The article in question has the very flavor of the golden age of Indian contracts, corner-lots, six per cent a month, and mortgages with waiver clauses. There, is also visible, I fear, a little of the prejudice which existed at that time in Perritaut against Metropolisville.
[Illustration: THE EDITOR OF "THE WINDMILL."]
I wish that an obstinate scruple on the part of the printers and the limits of a duodecimo page did not forbid my reproducing here, in all their glory, the unique head-lines which precede the article in question. Any pageant introduced by music is impressive, says Madame de Stael. At least she says something of that sort, only it is in French, and I can not remember it exactly. And so any newspaper article is startling when introduced by the braying of head-lines. Fonts of type for displayed lines were not abundant in the office of theWindmill, but they were very stunning, and were used also for giving prominence to the euphonious names of the several towns, whose charms were set forth in the advertisements. Of course the first of these head-lines ran "Startling Disclosures!!!!" and then followed "Tremendous Excitement in Metropolisville!" "Official Rascality!" "Bold Mail Robbery!" "Arrest of the Postmaster!" "No Doubt of his Guilt!" "An Unexplained Mystery!" "Sequel to the Awful Drowning Affair of Last Week!" Having thus whetted the appetite of his reader, and economized in type-setting by nearly a column of such broad and soul-stirring typography, the editor proceeds:
"Metropolisville is again the red-hot crater of a boiling and seething excitement. Scarcely had the rascally and unscrupulous county-seat swindle begun to lose something of its terrific and exciting interest to the people of this county, when there came the awful and sad drowning of the two young ladies, Miss Jennie Downing and Miss Katy Charlton, the belles of the village, a full account of which will be found in theWindmillof last week, some copies of which we have still on hand, having issued an extra edition. Scarcely had the people of Metropolisville laid these two charming and much-lamented young ladies in their last, long resting-place, the quiet grave, when there comes like an earthquake out of a clear sky, the frightful and somewhat surprising and stunning intelligence that the postmaster of the village, a young man of a hitherto unexceptionable and blameless reputation, has been arrested for robbing the mails. It is supposed that his depredations have been very extensive and long continued, and that many citizens of our own village may have suffered from them. Farther investigations will doubtless bring all his nefarious and unscrupulous transactions to light. At present, however, he is under arrest on the single charge of stealing a land-warrant.
"The name of the rascally, villainous, and dishonest postmaster is Albert Charlton, and here comes in the wonderful and startling romance of this strange story. The carnival of excitement in Metropolisville and about Metropolisville has all had to do with one family. Our readers will remember how fully we have exposed the unscrupulous tricks of the old fox Plausaby, the contemptible land-shark who runs Metropolisville, and who now has temporary possession of the county-seat by means of a series of gigantic frauds, and of wholesale bribery and corruption and nefarious ballot-box stuffing. The fair Katy Charlton, who was drowned by the heart-rending calamity of last week, was his step-daughter, and now her brother, Albert Charlton, is arrested as a vile and dishonest mail-robber, and the victim whose land-warrant he stole was Miss Kate Charlton's betrothed lover, Mr. Smith Westcott. There was always hatred and animosity, however, between the lover and the brother, and it is hinted that the developments on the trial will prove that young Charlton had put a hired and ruthless assassin on the track of Westcott at the time of his sister's death. Mr. Westcott is well known and highly esteemed in Metropolisville and also here in Perritaut. He is the gentlemanly Agent in charge of the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co., and we rejoice that he has made so narrow an escape from death at the hands of his relentless and unscrupulous foe.
"As for Albert Charlton, it is well for the community that he has been thus early and suddenly overtaken in the first incipiency of a black career of crime. His poor mother is said to be almost insane at this second grief, which follows so suddenly on her heart-rending bereavement of last week. We wish there were some hope that this young man, thus arrested with the suddenness of a thunderbolt by the majestic and firm hand of public justice, would reform; but we are told that he is utterly hard, and refuses to confess or deny his guilt, sitting in moody and gloomy silence in the room in which he is confined. We again call the attention of the proper authorities to the fact that Plausaby has not kept his agreement, and that Wheat County has no secure jail. We trust that the youthful villain Charlton will not be allowed to escape, but that he will receive the long term provided by the law for thieving postmasters. He will be removed to St. Paul immediately, but we seize the opportunity to demand in thunder-tones how long the citizens of this county are to be left without the accommodations of a secure jail, of which they stand in such immediate need? It is a matter in which we all feel a personal interest. We hope the courts will decide the county-seat question at once, and then we trust the commissioners will give us a jail of sufficient size and strength to accommodate a county of ten thousand people.
"We would not judge young Charlton before he has a fair trial. We hope he will have a fair trial, and it is not for us to express any opinions on the case in advance. If he shall be found guilty—and we do not for a moment doubt he will—we trust the court will give him the full penalty of the law without fear or favor, so that his case may prove a solemn and impressive warning that shall make a lasting impression on the minds of the thoughtless young men of this community in favor of honesty, and in regard to the sinfulness of stealing. We would not exult over the downfall of any man; but when the proud young Charlton gets his hair cropped, and finds himself clad in 'Stillwater gray,' and engaged in the intellectual employments of piling shingles and making vinegar-barrels, he will have plenty of time for meditation on that great moral truth, that honesty is generally the best policy."
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 sublime 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 post-master 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 bore 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'salibiwas 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 theheart.
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 protested 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 spice 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 es 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.
[Illustration: "GIT UP AND FOLLER!"]
"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 inStillwater 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?
Albert was conveyed to St. Paul, but not until he had had one heart-breaking interview with his mother. The poor woman had spent nearly an hour dressing herself to go to him, for she was so shaken with agitation and blinded with weeping, that she could hardly tie a ribbon or see that her breast-pin was in the right place. This interview with her son shook her weak understanding to its foundations, and for days afterward Isa devoted her whole time to diverting her from the accumulation of troubled thoughts and memories that filled her with anguish—an anguish against the weight of which her feeble nature could offer no supports.
When Albert was brought before the commissioner, he waived examination, and was committed to await the session of the district court. Mr. Plausaby came up and offered to become his bail, but this Charlton vehemently refused, and was locked up in jail, where for the next two or three months he amused himself by reading the daily papers and such books as he could borrow, and writing on various subjects manuscripts which he never published.
The confinement chafed him. His mother's sorrow and feeble health oppressed him. And despite all he could do, his own humiliation bowed his head a little. But most of all, the utter neglect of Helen Minorkey hurt him sorely. Except that she had sent, through Isabel Marlay, that little smuggled message that she was sorry for him—like one who makes a great ado about sending you something which turns out to be nothing—except this mockery of pity, he had no word or sign from Helen. His mind dwelt on her as he remembered her in the moments when she had been carried out of herself by the contagion of his own enthusiasm, when she had seemed to love him devotedly. Especially did he think of her as she sat in quiet and thoughtful enjoyment in the row-boat by the side of Katy, playfully splashing the water and seeming to rejoice in his society. And now she had so easily accepted his guilt!
These thoughts robbed him of sleep, and the confinement and lack of exercise made him nervous. The energetic spirit, arrested at the very instant of beginning cherished enterprises, and shut out from hope of ever undertaking them, preyed upon itself, and Albert had a morbid longing for the State's prison, where he might weary himself with toil.
His counsel was Mr. Conger. Mr. Conger was not a great jurist. Of the philosophy of law he knew nothing. For the sublime principles of equity and the great historic developments that underlie the conventions which enter into the administration of public justice, Mr. Conger cared nothing. But there was one thing Mr. Conger did understand and care for, and that was success. He was a man of medium hight, burly, active, ever in motion. When he had ever been still long enough to read law, nobody knew. He said everything he had to say with a quick, vehement utterance, as though he grudged the time taken to speak fully about anything. He went along the street eagerly; he wrote with all his might. There were twenty men in the Territory, at that day, any one of whom knew five times as much law as he. Other members of the bar were accustomed to speak contemptuously of Conger's legal knowledge. But Conger won more cases and made more money than any of them. If he did not know law in the widest sense, he did know it in the narrowest. He always knew the law that served his turn. When he drew an assignment for a client, no man could break it. And when he undertook a case, he was sure to find his opponent's weak point. He would pick flaws in pleas; he would postpone; he would browbeat witnesses; he would take exceptions to the rulings of the court in order to excite the sympathy of the jury; he would object to testimony on the other side, and try to get in irrelevant testimony on his own; he would abuse the opposing counsel, crying out, "The counsel on the other side lies like thunder, and he knows it!" By shrewdness, by an unwearying perseverance, by throwing his whole weight into his work, Conger made himself the most successful lawyer of his time in the Territory. And preserved his social position at the same time, for though he was not at all scrupulous, he managed to keep on the respectable side of the line which divides the lawyer from the shyster.
Mr. Conger had been Mr. Plausaby's counsel in one or two cases, and Charlton, knowing no other lawyer, sent for him. Mr. Conger had, with his characteristic quickness of perception, picked up the leading features of the case from the newspapers. He sat down on the bed in Charlton's cell with his brisk professional air, and came at once to business in his jerky-polite tone.
"Bad business, this, Mr. Charlton, but let us hope we'll pull through.Wegenerallydopull through. Been in a good many tight places in my time. But it is necessary, first of all, that you trust me. The boat is in a bad way—you hail a pilot—he comes aboard. Now—hands off the helm—you sit down and let the pilot steer her through. You understand?" And Mr. Conger looked as though he might have smiled at his own illustration if he could have spared the time. But he couldn't. As for Albert, he only looked more dejected.
"Now," he proceeded, "let's get to business. In the first place, you must trust me with everything. You must tell me whether you took the warrant or not." And Mr. Conger paused and scrutinized his client closely.
Charlton said nothing, but his face gave evidence of a struggle.
"Well, well, Mr. Charlton," said the brisk man with the air of one who has gotten through the first and most disagreeable part of his business, and who now proposes to proceed immediately to the next matter on the docket. "Well, well, Mr. Charlton, you needn't say anything if the question is an unpleasant one. An experienced lawyer knows what silence means, of course," and there was just a trifle of self-gratulation in his voice. As for Albert, he winced, and seemed to be trying to make up his mind to speak.
"Now," and with thisnowthe lawyer brought his white fat hand down upon his knee in an emphatic way, as one who says "nextly." "Now—there are several courses open to us. I asked you whether you took the warrant or not, because the line of defense that presents itself first is to follow the track of your suspicions, and fix the guilt on some one else if we can. I understand, however, that that course is closed to us?"
Charlton nodded his head.
"We might try to throw suspicion—only suspicion, you know—on the stage-driver or somebody else. Eh? Just enough to confuse the jury?"
Albert shook his head a little impatiently.
"Well, well, that's so—notthebestline. The warrant was in your hands. You used it for pre-emption. That is very ugly, very. I don't think much of that line, under the circumstances. It might excite feeling against us. It is a very bad case. But we will pull through, I hope. We generally do. Give the case wholly into my hands. We'll postpone, I think. I shall have to make an affidavit that there are important witnesses absent, or something of the sort. But we'll have the case postponed. There's some popular feeling against you, and juries go as the newspapers do. Now, I see but one way, and that is to postpone until the feeling dies down. Then we can manage the papers a little and get up some sympathy for you. And there's no knowing what may happen. There's nothing like delay in a bad case. Wait long enough, and something is sure to turn up."
"But I don't want the case postponed," said Charlton decidedly.
"Very natural that you shouldn't like to wait. This is not a pleasant room. But it is better to wait a year or even two years in this jail than to go to prison for fifteen or twenty. Fifteen or twenty years out of the life of a young man is about all there is worth the having."
Here Charlton shuddered, and Mr. Conger was pleased to see that his words took effect.
"You'd better make up your mind that the case is a bad one, and trust to my experience. When you're sick, trust the doctor. I think I can pull you through if you'll leave the matter to me."
"Mr. Conger," said Charlton, lifting up his pale face, twitching with nervousness, "I don't want to get free by playing tricks on a court of law. I know that fifteen or twenty years in prison would not leave me much worth living for, but I will not degrade myself by evading justice with delays and false affidavits. If you can do anything for me fairly and squarely, I should like to have it done."
"Scruples, eh?" asked Mr. Conger in surprise.
"Yes, scruples," said Albert Charlton, leaning his head on his hands with the air of one who has made a great exertion and has a feeling of exhaustion.
"Scruples, Mr. Charlton, are well enough when one is about to break the law. After one has been arrested, scruples are in the way."
"You have no right to presume that I have broken the law," said Charlton with something of his old fire.
"Well, Mr. Charlton, it will do no good for you to quarrel with your counsel. You have as good as confessed the crime yourself. I must insist that you leave the case in my hands, or I must throw it up. Take time to think about it. I'll send my partner over to get any suggestions from you about witnesses. The most we can do is to prove previous good character. That isn't worth anything where the evidence against the prisoner is so conclusive—as in your case. But it makes a show of doing something." And Mr. Conger was about leaving the cell when, as if a new thought had occurred to him, he turned back and sat down again and said: "Thereisone other course open to you. Perhaps it is the best, since you will not follow my plan. You can plead guilty, and trust to the clemency of the President. I think strong political influences could be brought to bear at Washington in favor of your pardon?"
Charlton shook his head, and the lawyer left him "to think the matter over," as he said. Then ensued the season of temptation. Why should he stand on a scruple? Why not get free? Here was a conscienceless attorney, ready to make any number of affidavits in regard to the absence of important witnesses; ready to fight the law by every technicality of the law. His imprisonment had already taught him how dear liberty was, and, within half an hour after Conger left him, a great change came over him. Why should he go to prison? What justice was there in his going to prison? Here he was, taking a long sentence to the penitentiary, while such men as Westcott and Conger were out. There could be no equity in such an arrangement. Whenever a man begins to seek equality of dispensation, he is in a fair way to debauch his conscience. And another line of thought influenced Charlton. The world needed his services. What advantage would there be in throwing away the chances of a lifetime on a punctilio? Why might he not let the serviceable lawyer do as he pleased? Conger was the keeper of his own conscience, and would not be either more or less honest at heart for what he did or did not do. All the kingdoms of the earth could not have tempted Charlton to serve himself by another man's perjury. But liberty on one hand and State's-prison on the other, was a dreadful alternative. And so, when the meek and studious man whom Conger used for a partner called on him, he answered all his questions, and offered no objection to the assumption of the quiet man that Mr. Conger would carry on the case in his own fashion.
Many a man is willing to be a martyr till he sees the stake and fagots.
From the time that Charlton began to pettifog with his conscience, he began to lose peace of mind. His self-respect was impaired, and he became impatient, and chafed under his restraint. As the trial drew on, he was more than ever filled with questionings in regard to the course he should pursue. For conscience is like a pertinacious attorney. When a false decision is rendered, he is forever badgering the court with a bill of exceptions, with proposals to set aside, with motions for new trials, with applications for writs of appeal, with threats of a Higher Court, and even with contemptuous mutterings about impeachment. If Isa had not written to him, Albert might have regained his moralaplombin some other way than he did—he might not. For human sympathy is Christ's own means of regenerating the earth. If you can not counsel, if you can not preach, if you can not get your timid lips to speak one word that will rebuke a man's sin, you can at least show the fellowship of your heart with his. There is a great moral tonic in human brotherhood. Worried, desperate, feeling forsaken of God and man, it is not strange that Charlton should shut his teeth together and defy his scruples. He would use any key he could to get out into the sunlight again. He quoted all those old, half-true, half-false adages about the lawlessness of necessity and so on. Then, weary of fencing with himself, he wished for strength to stand at peace again, as when he turned his back on the temptations of his rescuers in Metropolisville. But he had grown weak and nervous from confinement—prisons do not strengthen the moral power—and he had moreover given way to dreaming about liberty until he was like a homesick child, who aggravates his impatience by dwelling much on the delightfulness of the meeting with old friends, and by counting the slow-moving days that intervene.
But there came, just the day before the trial, a letter with the post-mark "Metropolisville" on it. That post-mark always excited a curious feeling in him. He remembered with what boyish pride he had taken possession of his office, and how he delighted to stamp the post-mark on the letters. The address of this letter was not in his mother's undecided penmanship—it was Isa Marlay's straightforward and yet graceful writing, and the very sight of it gave him comfort. The letter was simply a news letter, a vicarious letter from Isabel because Mrs. Plausaby did not feel well enough to write; this is what Isa said it was, and what she believed it to be, but Charlton knew that Isa's own friendly heart had planned it. And though it ran on about this and that unimportant matter of village intelligence, yet were its commonplace sentences about commonplace affairs like a fountain in the desert to the thirsty soul of the prisoner. I have read with fascination in an absurdly curious book that people of a very sensitive fiber can take a letter, the contents and writer of which are unknown, and by pressing it for a time against the forehead can see the writer and his surroundings. It took no spirit of divination in Charlton's case. The trim and graceful figure of Isa Marlay, in perfectly fitting calico frock, with her whole dress in that harmonious relation of parts for which she was so remarkable, came before him. He knew that by this time she must have some dried grasses in the vases, and some well-preserved autumn leaves around the picture-frames. The letter said nothing about his trial, but its tone gave him assurance of friendly sympathy, and of a faith in him that could not be shaken. Somehow, by some recalling of old associations, and by some subtle influence of human sympathy, it swept the fogs away from the soul of Charlton, and he began to see his duty and to feel an inspiration toward the right. I said that the letter did not mention the trial, but it did. For when Charlton had read it twice, he happened to turn it over, and found a postscript on the fourth page of the sheet. I wonder if the habit which most women have of reserving their very best for the postscript comes from the housekeeper's desire to have a good dessert. Here on the back Charlton read:
"P.8.—Mr. Gray, your Hoosier friend, called on me yesterday, and sent his regards. He told me how you refused to escape. I know you well enough to feel sure that you would not do anything mean or unmanly. I pray that God will sustain you on your trial, and make your innocence appear. I am sure you are innocent, though I can not understand it. Providence will overrule it all for good, I believe."
Something in the simple-hearted faith of Isabel did him a world of good. He was in the open hall of the jail when he read it, and he walked about the prison, feeling strong enough now to cope with temptation. That very morning he had received a New Testament from a colporteur, and now, out of regard to Isa Marlay's faith, maybe—out of some deeper feeling, possibly—he read the story of the trial and condemnation of Jesus. In his combative days he had read it for the sake of noting the disagreements between the Evangelists in some of the details. But now he was in no mood for small criticism. Which is the shallower, indeed, the criticism that harps on disagreements in such narratives, or the pettifogging that strives to reconcile them, one can hardly tell. In Charlton's mood, in any deeply earnest mood, one sees the smallness of all disputes about sixth and ninth hours. Albert saw the profound essential unity of the narratives, he felt the stirring of the deep sublimity of the story, he felt the inspiration of the sublimest character in human history. Did he believe? Not in any orthodox sense. But do you think that the influence of the Christ is limited to them who hold right opinions about Him? If a man's heart be simple, he can not see Jesus in any light without getting good from Him. Charlton, unbeliever that he was, wet the pages with tears, tears of sympathy with the high self-sacrifice of Jesus, and tears of penitence for his own moral weakness, which stood rebuked before the Great Example.
And then came the devil, in the person of Mr. Conger. His face was full of hopefulness as he sat down in Charlton's cell and smote his fat white hand upon his knee and said "Now!" and looked expectantly at his client. He waited a moment in hope of rousing Charlton's curiosity.
"We've got them!" he said presently. "I told you we should pull through.Leave the whole matter to me."
"I am willing to leave anything to you but my conscience," said Albert.
"The devil take your conscience, Mr. Charlton. If you are guilty, and so awfully conscientious, plead guilty at once. If you propose to cheat the government out of some years of penal servitude, why, well and good. But you must have a devilish queer conscience, to be sure. If you talk in that way, I shall enter a plea of insanity and get you off whether you will or not. But you might at least hear me through before you talk about conscience. Perhaps evenyourconscience would not take offense at my plan, unless you consider yourself foreordained to go to penitentiary."
"Let's hear your plan, Mr. Conger," said Charlton, hoping there might be some way found by which he could escape.
Mr. Conger became bland again, resumed his cheerful and hopeful look, brought down his fat white hand upon his knee, looked up over his client's head, while he let his countenance blossom with the promise of his coming communication. He then proceeded to say with a cheerful chuckle that there was a flaw in the form of the indictment—the grand jury had blundered. He had told Charlton that something would certainly happen. And it had. Then Mr. Conger smote his knee again, and said "Now!" once more, and proceeded to say that his plan was to get the trial set late in the term, so that the grand jury should finish their work and be discharged before the case came on. Then he would have the indictment quashed.
He said this with so innocent and plausible a face that at first it did not seem very objectionable to Charlton.
"What would we gain by quashing the indictment, Mr. Conger?"
"Well, if the indictment were quashed on the ground of a defect in its substance, then the case falls. But this is only defective in form. Another grand jury can indict you again. Now if the District Attorney should be a little easy—and I think that, considering your age, and my influence with him, he would be—a new commitment might not issue perhaps before you could get out of reach of it. If you were committed again, then we gain time. Time is everything in a bad case. You could not be tried until the next term. When the next term comes, we could then see what could be done. Meantime you could get bail."
If Charlton had not been entirely clear-headed, or entirely in a mood to deal honestly with himself, he would have been persuaded to take this course.
"Let me ask you a question, Mr. Conger. If the case were delayed, and I still had nothing to present against the strong circumstantial evidence of the prosecution—if, in other words, delay should still leave us in our present position—would there be any chance for me to escape by a fair, stand-up trial?"
"Well, you see, Mr. Charlton, this is precisely a case in which we will not accept a pitched battle, if we can help it. After a while, when the prosecuting parties feel less bitter toward you, we might get some of the evidence mislaid, out of the way, or get some friend on the jury, or—well, we might manage somehow to dodge trial on the case as it stands. Experience is worth a great deal in these things."
"There are, then, two possibilities for me," said Charlton very quietly."I can run away, or we may juggle the evidence or the jury. Am I right?"
"Or, we can go to prison?" said Conger, smiling.
"I will take the latter alternative," said Charlton.
"Then you owe it to me to plead guilty, and relieve me from responsibility. If you plead guilty, we can get a recommendation of mercy from the court."
"I owe it to myself not to plead guilty," said Charlton, speaking still gently, for his old imperious and self-confident manner had left him.
"Very well," said Mr. Conger, rising, "if you take your fate into your own hands in that way, I owe it tomyselfto withdraw from the case."
"Very well, Mr. Conger."
"Good-morning, Mr. Charlton!"
"Good-morning, Mr. Conger."
And with Mr. Conger's disappearance went Albert's last hope of escape. The battle had been fought, and lost—or won, as you look at it. Let us say won, for no man's case is desperate till he parts with manliness.
Charlton had the good fortune to secure a young lawyer of little experience but of much principle, who was utterly bewildered by the mystery of the case, and the apparently paradoxical scruples of his client, but who worked diligently and hopelessly for him. He saw the flaw in the indictment and pointed it out to Charlton, but told him that as it was merely a technical point he would gain nothing but time. Charlton preferred that there should be no delay, except what was necessary to give his counsel time to understand the case. In truth, there was little enough to understand. The defense had nothing left to do.
When Albert came into court he was pale from his confinement. He looked eagerly round the crowded room to see if he could find the support of friendly faces. There were just two. The Hoosier Poet sat on one of the benches, and by him sat Isa Marlay. True, Mr. Plausaby sat next to Miss Marlay, but Albert did not account him anything in his inventory of friends.
Isabel wondered how he would plead. She hoped that he did not mean to plead guilty, but the withdrawal of Conger from the case filled her with fear, and she had been informed by Mr. Plausaby that he could refuse to plead altogether, and it would be considered a plea of not guilty. She believed him innocent, but she had not had one word of assurance to that effect from him, and even her faith had been shaken a little by the innuendoes and suspicions of Mr. Plausaby.
Everybody looked at the prisoner. Presently the District Attorney moved that Albert Charlton be arraigned.
The Court instructed the clerk, who said, "Albert Charlton, come forward."
Albert here rose to his feet, and raised his right hand in token of his identity.
The District Attorney said, "This prisoner I have indicted by the grand jury."
"Shall we waive the reading of the indictment?" asked Charlton's counsel.
"No," said Albert, "let it be read," and he listened intently while the clerk read it.
"Albert Charlton, you have heard the charge. What say you: Guilty, or, Not guilty?" Even the rattling and unmeaning voice in which the clerk was accustomed to go through with his perfunctory performances took on some solemnity.
There was dead silence for a moment. Isa Marlay's heart stopped beating, and the Poet from Posey County opened his mouth with eager anxiety. When Charlton spoke, it was in a full, solemn voice, with deliberation and emphasis.
"Thank God!" whispered Isa.
The Poet shut his mouth and heaved a sigh of relief.
The counsel for the defense was electrified. Up to that moment he had believed that his client was guilty. But there was so much of solemn truthfulness in the voice that he could not resist its influence.
As for the trial itself, which came off two days later, that was a dull enough affair. It was easy to prove that Albert had expressed all sorts of bitter feelings toward Mr. Westcott; that he was anxious to leave; that he had every motive for wishing to pre-empt before Westcott did; that the land-warrant numbered so-and-so—it is of no use being accurate here, they were accurate enough in court—had been posted in Red Owl on a certain day; that a gentleman who rode with the driver saw him receive the mail at Red Owl, and saw it delivered at Metropolisville; that Charlton pre-empted his claim—the S.E. qr. of the N.E. qr., and the N. 1/2 of the S.E. qr. of Section 32, T. so-and-so, R. such-and-such—with this identical land-warrant, as the records of the land-office showed beyond a doubt.
Against all this counsel for defense had nothing whatever to offer. Nothing but evidence of previous good character, nothing but to urge that there still remained perhaps the shadow of a doubt. No testimony to show from whom Charlton had received the warrant, not the first particle of rebutting evidence. The District Attorney only made a little perfunctory speech on the evils brought upon business by theft in the post-office. The exertions of Charlton's counsel amounted to nothing; the jury found him guilty without deliberation.
The judge sentenced him with much solemn admonition. It was a grievous thing for one so young to commit such a crime. He warned Albert that he must not regard any consideration as a justification for such an offense. He had betrayed his trust and been guilty of theft. The judge expressed his regret that the sentence was so severe. It was a sad thing to send a young man of education and refinement to be the companion of criminals for so many years. But the law recognized the difference between a theft by a sworn and trusted officer and an ordinary larceny. He hoped that Albert would profit by this terrible experience, and that he would so improve the time of his confinement with meditation, that what would remain to him of life when he should come out of the walls of his prison might be spent as an honorable and law-abiding citizen. He sentenced him to serve the shortest term permitted by the statute, namely, ten years.
The first deep snow of the winter was falling outside the court-house, and as Charlton stood in the prisoners' box, he could hear the jingling of sleigh-bells, the sounds that usher in the happy social life of winter in these northern latitudes. He heard the judge, and he listened to the sleigh-bells as a man who dreams—the world was so far off from him now—ten weary years, and the load of a great disgrace measured the gulf fixed between him and all human joy and sympathy. And when, a few minutes afterward, the jail-lock clicked behind him, it seemed to have shut out life. For burial alive is no fable. Many a man has heard the closing of the vault as Albert Charlton did.