THE DAY BEFORE TRIAL.
There is no unendurable sorrow which is not the outgrowth of some sin. A
peaceful conscience cannot be rendered altogether miserable, place it
where you will. You would not have suspected that the fair young
creature who sat within those prison bars from morning till night, when
her misery was lost in the darkness, had been charged with the dread
crime of murder. Indeed, a person with quick sensibilities might have
regarded her rather as some gentle martyr, waiting to seal her faith by
sublime suffering, for a more heavenly face than hers never appeared
behind the rusted gratings of a dungeon.
Up to this time, Katharine had been a bright and very beautiful girl;
such graces as youth, bloom, and cheerfulness give, she had possessed in
perfection, but she was something more now. The roses had died on her
cheeks, but a pure whiteness rested there, more lovely by far. The
dimples had faded from the corners of her mouth, but an expression of
holy sweetness was left behind, that sometimes deepened to a smile when
any one spoke to her with unusual kindness. But her eyes--those who have
seen the original Beatrice Cenci, where it hangs an embodied sorrow in
that old Roman palace, would ask no farther description of the look
which slept forever in the deep blue orbs of the American girl; there
was, indeed, a difference to be felt rather than portrayed. Through all
the exquisite sadness in those eyes, a terrible remembrance sleeps,
which leads you to forgive, but not altogether acquit, the Cenci. But
with Katharine nothing but sublime innocence lay beneath the sorrow. The
expression of the living eyes was mournful as those of the immortal
picture, but you looked upon them with less pain.
Thus in the twilight of her prison she sat reading the family Bible,
which had been brought to that place by her mother. It was an old book,
worn with much handling, the paper yellow with age, and the leathern
cover broke at the corners. Since Katharine's remembrance, this Bible
had occupied the round candle stand by her mother's bed. When that
singular woman first entered the prison, after giving up her home, she
laid this most precious of her treasures upon the young girl's lap,
without speaking a word. Katharine knew what this act imported, and
bowed her fair head in thankfulness, for she sorely lacked the comfort
those holy pages might bring.
Katharine had never been a great reader, but her intellect was clear,
and her heart, rendered earnest by suffering, seized upon the solemn
truths of that book as a flower absorbs the air and sunshine, until she
grew strong beneath their lessons.
Not long after that Bible was laid in her lap, much of the horrible
dread of death went out from her soul. In its holy pages she found how
tranquilly innocence could die, how trustfully it could repose in the
hands of God, and from that day the sublime beauty that I have mentioned
dawned on her face.
Thus, as I said awhile ago, Katharine sat in her prison, reading. The
Bible lay open on her lap; but while her eyelids drooped, and their
lashes shaded those deep blue orbs, they were tinged with the depths of
their color, as violets cast purple shadows where the sun touches them.
The golden tresses of her hair, embraided around her head, scintillated
the sunbeams that fell through her prison bars like a glory. Her dress
was white dimity, a fabric much worn in those days, which fell heavily
around her like the marble drapery of a statue. Thus she was surrounded
with a whiteness which threw her figure out in strong relief from a
background of shadows gathering on the walls of her dungeon.
As the last sunbeam left the heavy bars that rusted across the window,
she lifted her eyes and waited, with one hand--alas! snow-white from
confinement--resting upon the open page. A footstep near the door, and
the jingle of keys, had disturbed her. She looked earnestly toward the
noise until the door opened. Then the expression of her face grew
animated. She laid the Bible down upon her bed, and moved forward with
both hands extended.
"You have come; ah, I knew it; when did you break a promise."
The old man who entered took her hand softly between his two hard palms,
and glancing at the open Bible, said:
"You were well employed, child; I can bring you no better company than
that."
Katharine looked back upon the Bible, smiling faintly, the only way she
ever smiled in those days.
"Yes, I know," she said; "but you look pale, have you brought news for
me?"
"Yes, dear," said old Mrs. Thrasher, coming forward and kissing the
prisoner, "he brings news, but keep a good heart. God is above all."
Katharine bent her head an instant and stood before them in silence,
then she looked gravely up and said:
"Is it to-morrow."
"Yes, Katharine, it is to-morrow; are you ready?" answered the old man.
"Yes, father, I am ready."
Her voice was low, but clear as the fall of water-drops.
"I am ready to live or to die as God shall will it. Our Lord has told me
how to do both."
"Blessed be his holy name!" broke forth the old man.
"Amen," whispered the gentle woman by his side.
Katharine clasped her hands and lifted her eyes upward, while her lips
moved silently.
"We have good counsel; every thing has been done that lies within mortal
power," said Mr. Thrasher.
"I know it. The lawyers were here questioning me. They told me it might
be soon, but to-morrow--that is sudden."
"But it will be over in a little while," said Mrs. Thrasher, anxious to
throw in her mite of consolation.
"Yes, it will be over, and then----"
Katharine's voice trembled. She was so young, poor thing, and sometimes
her timid nature fell away from the faith that gave it strength, and
shuddered at the death before her.
"Then and now we must put our faith in Him," answered the old man, with
tender solemnity.
"I know--I do, father!"
There was something very sweet in the way she uttered this little word
"father." Indeed, Katharine had been brought to trust in the old man so
thoroughly that she followed him as a lamb keeps by the side of its
shepherd. But for his mild, firm teachings, the poor child must have
fallen under the burden of her misfortunes, and the sorrow of her young
life might have taken a different course.
"What is sorrow, what is death itself, compared to the pangs of guilt,
my child?"
"I know, father, but death seems terrible to me sometimes when I am
alone here in the night."
Mrs. Thrasher began to sob and Mrs. Allen looked down upon her child in
pale grief.
"Ah, why cannot I, who am old, and used to trouble, take her place," she
said, drearily.
"Yes, mother, I want courage. At first, when they left me, I was a
coward, but it is not so of late, at least not often. Something here
grows stronger every day."
The girl laid one hand on her heart, while a soft glow came to her face.
"And that is faith," said Mr. Thrasher.
"It seems like a living presence; as if my babe had turned to an angel,
and were folding its wings here. How can any one think I killed it--I
who gloried so in being its mother."
"We know that you never harmed it," said Mrs. Allen. "That is one
comfort, my child."
"No, no; we never thought it, neither your father nor your two mothers,"
said Mrs. Thrasher, planting herself by Mrs. Allen's side; thus
suggesting her own right to be considered.
"It is strange," said Katharine, thoughtfully, "very strange that any
one can believe such things of a poor girl. I am sure no woman in the
world ever got this idea of herself."
"No woman would have the heart to think it," muttered Mrs. Thrasher;
"but the law, that is stern and cruel enough for any thing."
"To-morrow it will prove cruel with me, I am sure," said Katharine;
"when they took me away from home the little children looked after me as
if there was blood on my clothes. It made my heart ache to see their
frightened faces at the windows as the wagon went by. If children can
judge one so harshly, what will a court full of stern men do."
"The men who look so stern are sometimes very kind at heart," said Mr.
Thrasher.
Katharine lifted her eyes to his face.
"You will be there, father, and you--and you, my mothers?"
"Yes, Katharine, we will be there," said both the women at once.
"And a greater than they will be there, Katharine," added the old man,
solemnly, and resting one hand on her head a moment, he turned away.
The two women saw that his lip quivered as he passed through the door,
but to Katharine he was an embodiment of sublime strength, and it took
away half her courage when his shadow disappeared from the threshold of
her prison. Alas, she was nothing but a girl, timid from want of
experience, and greatly dependent for strength on those she loved. When
Katharine Allen was left alone she began to realize that the day of her
great trouble was near at hand. A faintness like that of death itself
crept over her, and she sat down in the midst of her dungeon chamber,
sinking down upon the floor in a wild, dreary way, that would have
brought tears to the eyes of her worst enemy.
By many an anxious question she had won from the jailor a general
knowledge of the forms which attend a criminal trial. She knew that
crowds of curious people, perhaps coarse-hearted people, would jostle
her on the way to prison--that scores on scores of eyes would follow her
with hate and loathing. She saw the band of jurors grasping her life in
their will, listening with heavy countenances to the evidence of a crime
that was not hers, but of which it seemed impossible that any human
tribunal could absolve her.
Then, going to and from the trial, little children would look up at her
as they had done when she passed the red school-house at Shrub Oak, some
with timid pity, others with coarse amazement, and others still ready to
break forth into hoots and sneers, as if some abhorrent animal had
crossed their path. These thoughts were hard to endure. She had so
dearly loved little children, and turned so naturally for affection
toward all living things, that the edict of hate, though undeserved,
made her shrink with absolute pain.
She took up her Bible and tried to read, but the letters ran together on
the page, harassing her sight, but giving back no sense. Thus the
evening found her going out into blank space till the darkness crept
through her prison bars and fell over her like a pall.