CHAPTER XIII.
Was it for this we sent outLiberty’s cry from our shore?Was it for this that her shoutThrill’d to the world’s very core?Moore’s National Airs.
Was it for this we sent outLiberty’s cry from our shore?Was it for this that her shoutThrill’d to the world’s very core?Moore’s National Airs.
Was it for this we sent outLiberty’s cry from our shore?Was it for this that her shoutThrill’d to the world’s very core?Moore’s National Airs.
Was it for this we sent out
Liberty’s cry from our shore?
Was it for this that her shout
Thrill’d to the world’s very core?
Moore’s National Airs.
The third day after the interviews just related, the whole party left Rattletrap for Timbully, where their arrival was expected by the bride and bridegroom, if such terms can be applied to a woman of forty-five and a man of sixty. The Duke’s county circuit and oyer and terminer were about to be held, and it was believed that Mary Monson was to be tried. By this time so lively an interest prevailed among the ladies of the McBrain and Dunscomb connections in behalf of the accused, that they had all come to a determination to be present in court. Curiosity was not so much at the bottom of this movement as womanly kindness and sympathy. There seemed a bitterness of misery in the condition of Mary Monson, that appealed directly to the heart; and that silent but eloquent appeal was answered, as has just been stated, generously and with warmth by the whole party from town. With Anna Updyke the feeling went materially farther than with any of her friends. Strange as it may seem, her interest in John increased that which she felt for his mysterious client; and her feelings became enlisted in the stranger’s behalf, so much the more, in consequence of this triangular sort of passion.
The morning of the day on which the party crossed the country from Rattletrap to Timbully, Timms arrived at the latterplace.place.He was expected, and was soon after closeted with the senior counsel in the pending and most important cause.
“Does the District Attorney intend to move for the trial?” demanded Dunscomb, the instant the two were alone.
“He tells me he does, sir; and that early in the week, too. It is my opinion we should go for postponement. We are hardly ready, while the State is too much so.”
“I do not comprehend this, Timms. The law-officers of the public would hardly undertake to run down a victim, and she a solitary and unprotected woman!”
“That’s not it. The law-officers of the State don’t care a straw whether Mary Monson is found guilty or is acquitted. That is, they care nothing about itat present. The case may be different when they are warmed up by a trial and opposition. Our danger comes from Jesse Davis, who is a nephew of Peter Goodwin, his next of kin and heir, and who thinks a great deal of money was hoarded by the old people; much more than the stocking ever held or could hold, and who has taken it into his wise head that the prisoner has laid hands on this treasure, and is carrying on her defence with his cash. This has roused him completely, and he has retained two of the sharpest counsel on our circuit, who are beginning to work as if the bargain has been clenched in the hard metal. Williams has given me a great deal of trouble already. I know him; he will not work without pay; but pay him liberally, and he is up to anything.”
“Ay, you are diamond cut diamond, Timms—outsiders in the profession. You understand that I work only in the open court, and will know nothing of this out-door management.”
“We do not mean to let you know anything about it, ’Squire,” returned Timms, drily. “Each man to his own manner of getting along. I ought to tell you, however, it has got out that you are working without a fee, while I am paid in the most liberal manner.”
“I am sorry for that. There is no great harm in the thing itself; but I dislike the parade of seeming to be unusually generous. I do not remember to have spoken of this circumstance where it would be likely to be repeated; and I beg you will be equally discreet.”
“The fact has not come from me, I can assure you, sir. It puts me in too awkward a position to delight me; and I make it a point to say as little as possible of what is disagreeable. I do not relish the idea of being thought selfish by my future constituents. Giniros’ty is my cue beforethem. But they say you work for love, sir.”
“Love!” answered Dunscomb, quickly—“Love of what?—or ofwhom?”
“Of your client—that’s the story now. It is said that you admire Miss Monson; that she is young, and handsome, and rich; and she is to marry you, if acquitted. If found guilty and hanged, the bargain is off, of course. You may look displeased, ’Squire; but I give you my word such is the rumour.”
Dunscomb was extremely vexed; but he was too proud to make any answer. He knew that he had done that which, among the mass of this nation, is a very capital mistake, in not placing before its observation an intelligiblemotive—one on the level of the popular mind—to prevent these freaks of the fancy dealing with his affairs. It is true, that the natural supposition would be that he worked for his fee, as did Timms, had not the contrary got out; when he became subject to all the crude conjectures of those who ever look for the worst motives for everything. Had he been what is termed a favourite public servant, the very reverse would have been the case, and there was little that he might not have done with impunity; but, having no such claims on the minds of the mass, he came under the common law which somewhat distinguishes their control. Too much disgusted, however,to continue this branch of the subject, the worthy counsellor at once adverted to another.
“Have you looked over the list of the jurors, Timms?” he demanded, continuing to sort his papers.
“That I never fail to do, sir, the first thing. It’s my brief, you know, ’Squire Dunscomb. AllsafeYork law, now-a-days, is to be found in that learned body; especially in criminal cases. There is but one sort of suit in which the jury counts for nothing, and might as well be dispensed with.”
“Which is——?”
“An ejectment cause. It’s not one time in ten that they understand anything about the matter, or care anything about it; and the court usually leads in those actions—but our Duke’s county juries are beginning to understand their powers in all others.”
“What do you make of the list?”
“It’s what I call reasonable, ’Squire. There are two men on it who would not hang Cain, were he indicted for the murder of Abel.”
“Quakers, of course?”
“Not they. The time was when we were reduced to the ‘thee’s’ and the ‘thou’s’ for this sort of support; but philanthropy is abroad, sir, covering the land. Talk of the schoolmaster!—Why, ’Squire, a new philanthropical idee will go two feet to the schoolmaster’s one. Pro-nigger, anti-gallows, eternal peace, woman’s rights, the people’s power, and anything of that sort, sweeps like a tornado through the land. Get a juror who has just come into the anti-gallows notion, and I would defy the State to hang a body-snatcher who lived by murdering his subjects.”
“And you count on two of these partisans for our case?”
“Lord no, sir. The District Attorney himself knows them both; and Davis’s counsel have been studying that list for thelast week, as if it were Blackstone in the hands of a newbeginner.beginner.I can tell you, ’Squire Dunscomb, that the jury-list is a most important part of a case out here in the country!”
“I am much afraid it is, Timms; though I never examined one in my life.”
“I can believe you, sir, from what I have seen of your practice. But principles and facts won’t answer in an age of the world when men are ruled by talk and prejudice. There is not a case of any magnitude tried, now-a-days, without paying proper attention to the jury. We are pretty well off, on the whole; and I am tolerably sanguine of a disagreement, though I fear an acquittal is quite out of the question.”
“You rely on one or two particularly intelligent and disinterested men, ha! Timms?”
“I rely on five or six particularly ignorant and heated partisans, on the contrary;—men who have been reading about the abolishing of capital punishments, and who in gin’ral, because they’ve got hold of some notions that have been worn out as far back as the times of the Cæsars, fancy themselves philosophers and the children of progress. The country is getting to be full of what I call donkeys and racers; the donkey is obstinate, and backs going up hill; while the racers will not only break their own necks, but those of their riders too, unless they hold up long before they reach their goal.”
“I did not know, Timms, that you think so much on such subjects. To me, you have always appeared to be a purely working-man—no theorist.”
“It is precisely because I am a man of action, and live in the world, and see things as they were meant to be seen, that I laugh at your theorists. Why, sir, this country, in my judgment, for the time being, could much better get along without preaching, than without hanging. I don’t say always; for there is no telling yet what is to be the upshot of preaching. It may turn out asmany think; in which case human natur’ will undergo a change that will pretty much destroy our business. Such a state of things would be worse for the bar, ’Squire, than the Code, or the last fee-bill.”
“I’m not so sure of that, Timms; there are few things worse than this infernal Code.”
“Well, to my taste, the fee-bill is the most disagreeable of the two. A man can stand any sort of law, and any sort of practice; but he can’t stand any sort of pay. I hear the circuit is to be held by one of the new judges—a people’s man, altogether.”
“You mean by that, I suppose, Timms, one of those who did not hold office under the old system? It is said that the new broom sweeps clean—it is fortunate ours has not brushed away all the old incumbents.”
“No, that is to come; and come it will, as sure as the sun rises. We must have rotation on the bench, as well as in all other matters. You see, ’Squire, rotation is a sort ofclaimwith many men, who have no other. They fancy the earth to have been created on a sort of Jim Crow principle, because it turns round.”
“That is it; and it explains the clamour that is made about it. But to return to this jury, Timms; on the whole, you like it, I should infer?”
“Not too well, by any means. There are six or eight names on the list that I’m always glad to see; for they belong to men who are friendly tome——”me——”
“Good God, man—it cannot be possible that you count on such assistants in a trial for a human life!”
“Not count on it, ’Squire Dunscomb! I count on it from an action of trespass on the case, to this indictment—count on it, quite as much, and a good deal more rationally, than you count on your law and evidence. Didn’t I carry that heavy caseforthe railroad company on that principle altogether? The law waslead against us they say, and the facts were against us; but the verdict was in our favour. That’s what I call practising law!”
“Yes; I remember to have heard of that case, and it was always a wonder with the bar how you got along with it. Had it been a verdictagainsta corporation, no one would have thought anything of it—but to carry a bad casefora company, now-a-days, is almost an unheard-of thing.”
“You are quite right, sir. I can beat any railroad in the State, with a jury of a neighbourhood, let the question or facts be what they may; but, in this instance, I beat the neighbourhood, and all through the faith the jury had inme. It’s a blessed institution, this of the jury, ’Squire Dunscomb!—no doubt it makes us the great, glorious, and free people that we are!”
“If the bench continue to lose its influence as it has done, the next twenty years will see it a curse of the worst character. It is now little more than a popular cabal in all cases in the least calculated to awaken popular feeling or prejudice.”
“There’s the rub in this capital case of ours. Mary Monson has neglected popularity altogether; and she is likely to suffer for it.”
“Popularity!” exclaimed Dunscomb, in a tone of horror—“and this in a matter of life and death! What are we coming to in the law, as well as in politics! No public man is to be found of sufficient moral courage, or intellectual force, to stem this torrent; which is sweeping away everything before it. But in what has our client failed, Timms?”
“In almost everything connected with this one great point; and what vexes me is her wonderful power of pleasing, which is completely thrown away. ’Squire Dunscomb, I would carry this county for Free Sile or ag’in it, with that lady to back me, as a wife.”
“What, if she should refuse to resort to popular airs and graces?”
“I mean, of course, she aiding and abetting. I would give the world, now, could we get the judge into her company for half an hour. It would make a friend of him; and it is still something to have a friend in the judge in a criminal case.”
“You may well say ‘still,’ Timms; how much longer it will be so, is another matter. Under the old system it would be hopeless to expect so much complaisance in a judge; but I will not take it on myself to say what a people’s judge will not do.”
“If I thought the thing could be managed, by George I would attempt it! The grand jurors visit the gaols, and why not the judges? What do you think, sir, of an anonymous letter hinting to his honour that a visit to Mrs. Gott—who is an excellent creature in her way—might serve the ends of justice!”
“As I think of all underhanded movements and trickery. No, no, Timms; you had better let our client remain unpopular, than undertake anything of this nature.”
“Perhaps you are right, sir. Unpopular she is, and will be, as long as she pursues her present course; whereas she might carry all classes of men with her. For my part, ’Squire Dunscomb, I’ve found this young lady”—here Timms paused, hemmed, and concluded by looking a little foolish—a character of countenance by no means common with one of his shrewdness and sagacity.
“So, so, Master Timms,” said the senior counsel, regarding the junior with a sort of sneer—“you are as great a fool as my nephew, Jack Wilmeter; and have fallen in love with a pretty face, in spite of the grand jury and the gallows!”
Timms gave a gulp, seemed to catch his breath, and regained enough of his self-command to be able to answer.
“I’m in hopes that Mr. Wilmeter will think better of this, sir,” he said, “and turn his views to a quarter where they will be particularly acceptable. It would hardly do for a young gentleman of his expectations to take a wife out of a gaol.”
“Enough of this foolery, Timms, and come to the point. Your remarks about popularity may have some sense in them, if matters have been pushed too far in a contrary direction. Of what do you complain?”
“In the first place, she will not show herself at the windows; and that offends a great many persons, who think it proud and aristocratic in her not to act as other criminals act. Then, she has made a capital mistake with a leading reporter, who sent in his name, and desired an interview; which she declined granting. She will hear from that man, depend on it, sir.”
“I shall look to him, then—for, though this class of men is fast putting the law under foot, it may be made to turn on them, by one who understands it, and has the courage to use it. I shall not allow the rights of Mary Monson to be invaded by such a fungus of letters.”
“Fungus of letters! Ahem—if it was anybody but yourself, ’Squire, that I was talking to, I might remind you that these funguses flourish on the dunghill of the common mind.”
“No matter; the lawcanbe made to touch them, when in good hands; and mine have now some experience. Has this reporter resented the refusal of the prisoner to see him?”
“He is squinting that way, and has got himself sent to Biberry by two or three journals, to report the progress of the trial. I know the man; he is vindictive, impudent, and always uses his craft to indulge his resentments.”
“Ay, many of those gentry are up to that. Is it not surprising, Timms, that in a country for ever boasting of its freedom, men do not see how much abuse there is of a very important interest, in suffering these irresponsible tyrants to ride rough-shod over the community?”
“Lord, ’Squire, it is not with the reporters only, that abuses are to be found. I was present, the other day, at a conversation between a judge and a great town lawyer, when the last deploredthe state of the juries! ‘What would you have?’ says his Honour; ‘angels sent down from Heaven to fill the jury-boxes?’ Waal”—Timms never could get over the defects of his early associations—“Waal, ’Squire,” he continued, with a shrewd leer of the eyes, “I thought a few saints might be squeezed in between the lowest angel in Heaven and the average of our Duke’s county pannels. This is a great fashion of talking that is growing up among us to meet an objection by crying out, ‘men are not angels;’ as if some men are not better than others.”
“The institutions clearly maintain that some men are better than others, Timms!”
“That’s news to me, I will own. I thought the institutions declared all men alike—that is, all white men; I know that the niggers are non-suited.”
“They are unsuited, at least, according to the spirit of the institutions. If all men are supposed to be alike, what use is there in the elections? Why not draw lots for office, as we draw lots for juries? Choice infers inequalities, or the practice is an absurdity. But here comes McBrain, with a face so full of meaning, he must have something to tell us.”
Sure enough, the bridegroom-physician came into the room at that instant; and without circumlocution he entered at once on the topic that was then uppermost in his mind. It was the custom of the neighbourhood to profit by the visits of this able practitioner to his country place, by calling on him for advice in such difficult cases as existed anywhere in the vicinity of Timbully. Even his recent marriage did not entirely protect him from these appeals, which brought so little pecuniary advantage as to be gratuitous; and he had passed much of the last two days in making professional visits in a circle around his residence that included Biberry. Such were the means by which he had obtained the information that now escaped from him, as it might be, involuntarily.
“I have never known so excited a state of the public mind,” he cried, “as now exists all around Biberry, on the subject of your client, Tom, and this approaching trial. Go where I may, see whom I will, let the disease be as serious as possible, all, patients, parents, friends and nurses, commence business with asking me what I think of Mary Monson, and of her guilt or innocence.”
“That’s because you are married, Ned,”—Dunscomb coolly answered—“Now, no one thinks of putting such a question tome. I see lots of people, as well as yourself; but not a soul has asked me whether I thought Mary Monson guilty or innocent.”
“Poh! You are her counsel, and no one could take theliberty.liberty.I dare say that even Mr. Timms, here, your associate, has never compared notes with you on that particular point.”
Timms was clearly not quite himself; and he did not look as shrewd as he once would have done at such a remark. He kept in the back-ground, and was content to listen.
“I do suppose association with a brother in the law, and in a case of life and death, is something like matrimony, Dr. McBrain. A good deal must be taken for granted, and not a little on credit. As a man is bound to believe his wife the most excellent, virtuous, most amiable and best creature on earth, so is a counsel bound to consider his client innocent. The relation, in each case, is confidential, however; and I shall not pry into your secrets, any more than I shall betray one of my own.”
“I asked for none, and wish none; but one may express surprise at the intense degree of excitement that prevails all through Duke’s, and even in the adjacent counties.”
“The murder of a man and his wife in cold blood, accompanied by robbery and arson, are enough to arouse the community. In this particular case the feeling of interest is increased, I make no doubt, by the extraordinary character, as well as by the singular mystery, of the party accused. I have had many clients, Ned,but never one like this before; as you have had many wives, but no one so remarkable as the present Mrs. McBrain.”
“Your time will come yet, Master Dunscomb—recollect I have always prognosticated that.”
“You forget that I am approaching sixty. A man’s heart is as hard and dry as a bill in chancery at that age—but, I beg your pardon, Ned;youare an exception.”
“I certainly believe that a man can have affections, even at four-score—and what is more, I believe that when the reason and judgment come in aid of the passions——”
Dunscomb laughed outright; nay, he even gave a little shout, his bachelor habits having rendered him more exuberant in manner than might otherwise have been the case.
“Passions!” he cried, rubbing his hands, and looking round for Timms, that he might have some one to share in what he regarded as a capital joke. “The passions of a fellow of three-score! Ned, you do not flatter yourself that you have been marrying the Widow Updyke in consequence of anypassionyou feel for her?”
“I do, indeed,” returned the Doctor, with spirit; mustering resolution to carry the war into the enemy’s country—“Let me tell you, Tom Dunscomb, that a warm-hearted fellow can love a woman dearly, long after the age you have mentioned—that is, provided he has not let all feeling die within him, for want of watering a plant that is the most precious boon of a most gracious Providence.”
“Ay, if he begin at twenty, and keep even pace with his beloved down the descent of time.”
“That may all be true; but, if it has been his misfortune to lose one partner, a second——”
“And a third, Ned, a third—why not foot the bill at once, as they say in the market?”
“Well, a third, too, if circumstances make that demand onhim.him.Anything is better than leaving the affections to stagnate for want of cultivation.”
“Adam in Paradise, by Jove!—But, I’ll not reproach you again, since you have got so gentle and kind a creature, and one who is twenty years your junior——”
“Only eighteen, if you please, Mr. Dunscomb.”
“Now, I should be glad to know whether you have added those two years to the bride’s age, or subtracted them from that of the bridegroom! I suppose the last, however, as a matter of course.”
“I do not well see how you can suppose any such thing, knowing my age as well as you do. Mrs. McBrain is forty-two, an age when a woman can be as loveable as at nineteen—more so, if her admirer happens to be a man of sense.”
“And sixty-two. Well, Ned, you are incorrigible; and, for the sake of the excellent woman who has consented to have you, I only hope this will be the last exhibition of your weakness. So they talk a good deal of Mary Monson, up and down the country, do they?”
“Of little else, I can assure you. I am sorry to say, the tide seems to be setting strongly against her.”
“That is bad news; as few jurors, now-a-days, are superior to such an influence. What is said, in particular, Dr. McBrain?—In the way of facts, I mean?”
“One report is that the accused is full of money; and that a good deal of that which she is scattering broad-cast has been seen by different persons, at different times, in the possession of the deceased Mrs. Goodwin.”
“Let them retail that lie, far and near, ’Squire, and we’ll turn it to good account,” said Timms, taking out his note-book, and writing down what he had just heard. “I have reason to think that every dollar Miss Monson has uttered since her confinement——”
“Imprisonment would be a better word, Mr. Timms,” interrupted the Doctor.
“I see no great difference,” replied the literal attorney—“but imprisonment, if you prefer it. I have reason to think that every dollar Mary Monson has put in circulation since she entered the gaol at Biberry, has come from either young Mr. Wilmeter or myself, in exchange for hundred-dollar notes—and, in one instance, for a note of five hundred dollars. She is well off, I can tell you, gentlemen; and if she is to be executed, her executor will have something to do when all is over.”
“You do not intend to allow her to be hanged, Timms?” demanded McBrain, aghast.
“Not if I can help it, Doctor; and this lie about the money, when clearly disproved, will be of capital service to her. Let them circulate it as much as they please, the rebound will be in proportion to the blow. The more they circulate that foolish rumour, the better it will be for our client when we come to trial.”
“I suppose you are right, Timms; though I could prefer plainer dealings. A cause in which you are employed, however, must have more or less of management.”
“Which“Whichis better, ’Squire, than your law and evidence. But what else has Dr. McBrain to tell us?”
“I hear that Peter Goodwin’s nephew, who it seems had some expectations from the old people, is particularly savage, and leaves no stone unturned to get up a popular feeling against the accused.”
“He had best beware,” said Dunscomb, his usually colourless but handsome face flushing as he spoke. “I shall not trifle in a matter of this sort—ha! Timms?”
“Lord bless you, ’Squire, Duke’s county folks wouldn’t understand a denial of the privilege to say what they please in a case of this sort. They fancy this is liberty; and ‘touch my honour,take your poker,’ is not more sensitive than the feelin’ of liberty in these parts. I’m afraid that not only this Joe Davis, but the reporters, will say just what they please; and Mary Monson’s rights will whistle for it. You will remember that our judge is not only a bran-new one, but he drew the two years’ term into the bargain. No, I think it will be wisest to let the law, and old principles, and the right, andtrueliberty, quite alone; and to bow the knee to things as they are. A good deal is said about our fathers, and their wisdom, and patriotism, and sacrifices; but nobody dreams of doing as theydid, or of reasoning as theyreasoned. Life is made up, in reality, of these little matters in a corner; while the great principles strut about in buckram, for men to admire them, and talk about them. I do take considerable delight, ’Squire Dunscomb, in hearing you enlarge on a principle, whether it be in law, morals, or politics; but I should no more think of practysing on ’em, than I should think of refusing a thousand dollar fee.”
“Is that your price?” demanded McBrain, with curiosity—“Do you work for as large a sum as that, in this case, Timms?”
“I’m paid, Doctor; just as you was”—the attorney never stuck at grammar—“just as you was for that great operation on the Wall-Street Millenary’ian——”
“Millionaire, you mean, Timms,” said Dunscomb, coolly—“it means one worth a million.”
“I never attempt a foreign tongue but I stumble,” said the attorney, simply; for he knew that both his friends were familiar with his origin, education, and advancement in life, and that it was wisest to deny nothing tothem; “but since I have been so much with Mary Monson and her woman, I do own a desire to speak the language they use.”
Again Dunscomb regarded his associate intently; something comical gleaming in his eye.
“Timms, you have fallen in love with our handsome client,” he quietly remarked.
“No, sir; not quite as bad as that,yet; though I will acknowledge that the lady is very interesting. Should she be acquitted, and could we only get some knowledge of her early history—why, thatmightput a new face on matters.”
“I must drive over to Biberry in the morning, and have another interview with the lady myself. And now, Ned, I will join your wife, and read an epithalamium prepared for this great occasion. You need not trouble yourself to follow, the song being no novelty; for I have read it twice before on your account.”
A hearty laugh at his own wit concluded the discourse on the part of the great York counsellor; though Timms remained some time longer with the Doctor, questioning the latter touching opinions and facts gleaned by the physician in the course of his circuit.