ONE HOUR OF SHAME.
A vessel was being hauled in at the Long Wharf, at New Haven--a
weather-beaten vessel--that gave evidence of a long voyage over the
seas. Two men leaped from the deck, as she was slowly warped to her
moorings, and stood together a few moments at the head of the wharf.
They were both fine looking men, but in a different way. The one had a
frank, honest countenance, that expressed great natural vigor of mind,
joined with a physical organization of uncommon strength. The other was
lighter, taller, and more decidedly intellectual every way. Indeed, a
face like that was not met with on the same thoroughfare once in a
twelvemonth.
This man seemed eager to be moving; he held a small portmanteau in his
hands, while a few hurried words passed between him and his companion.
"Then you wont go into the town with me and give us both a fair start?"
said the stouter of the two. "The stage starts from Buck's Tavern at
daylight."
"No, no; I could not sleep, I could not rest within ten miles of home.
Think how long I have been away--of all that has happened."
"But we are four hours too late for the morning stage, captain."
"I know; but what then? It is but an easy walk after all. I can be there
before noon."
Rice laughed, and slily winked one eyelid.
"All right," he said; "this comes of being a married man; a ten miles'
tramp, with a heart fluttering like a partridge all the way. Well, we
old bachelors have nothing to hurry for, and can afford to take it
comfortably. I'll go down to Bucks, and be at the old woman's to supper.
But keep dark; I want to come down upon her and Kate all of a sudden, to
say nothing of that little shaver and cuff--so keep a close lip,
captain."
The captain gave a happy laugh, thinking that he would be too pleasantly
employed for any chance at gossip, so he promised silence very
cordially, and the two shook hands.
"Good luck to you," exclaimed Rice, with hearty good will, "I'll be
after you in short order."
They parted here. The man with the portmanteau walking with rapid
strides toward the highway which led to the country, and our sailor
friend taking a more leisurely course into the town.
He was so busy with thoughts of home at first that a certain bustle and
excitement among the people upon the sidewalks failed to arrest his
attention. But as he approached the heart of the city this unusual
bustle aroused him. The people all seemed to be going one way, men
hurried along in eager haste, women jostled against each other in their
reckless movements, some dragging little children after them, and
scolding their slow progress.
Rice followed the current. He, too, became anxious to see what was
taking a whole population so completely in one direction, and having
plenty of time, sauntered on, with the easy roll learned in his home on
the rolling deep. He asked no questions, indeed he felt very little
interest in the matter. Something was going on--it might be a political
meeting, or "a general training," it made very little difference to him
which it should prove. There seemed to be a crowd assembling somewhere,
and that was all he cared about the matter.
At last the throng of people grew so thick around one of these green
enclosures, common to the City of Elms, that Rice made his way onward
with some difficulty. He paused to take an observation, saw the great
square crowded full of people that murmured and swayed to and fro, when
new crowds poured in from the streets, as he had seen the ocean in many
a dangerous storm.
The general excitement fully aroused him now, and he looked keenly
around while elbowing his way through the human masses, asking the crowd
in general, and no one in particular, what the noise was about.
No one answered him. All were eagerly searching for commodious standing
room, and his questions remained unheeded. At last he saw, looming up in
the centre of the public green, a mass of timber, great, heavy oaken
posts, and a cross-beam rising above a scaffold, upon which a mass of
white, that possibly shrouded a human figure, was lifted above the
crowd.
Rice paused, with a sudden exclamation.
"What is that?" he said, turning to a female, who elbowed him fiercely
with one arm, lifting up her child with the other.
"What is it? Can't you see? Look for yourself. What should it be but a
gallows, and a woman on it?" cried the mother, lifting the little,
golden-haired girl on her shoulder, that she might command a view of the
show.
"A gallows, and a woman on it!" exclaimed Rice, losing half of his
ruddy color. "Oh, my good woman, what has the poor thing done?"
"Done! why, where did you come from? Done enough to hang her as high as
Haman, where she ought to be swinging this minute. Done, indeed!"
With these words the woman thrust herself forward, marking her rude
progress by the frightened face of the child, which rose and fell in
that ocean of human heads like some flower tossed upward by a storm.
A strange feeling seized upon Rice--a desperate wish to struggle through
the crowd, and flee from the spot. He turned and pressed blindly against
the human masses that heaved around him. But, in spite of his great
strength, they bore him onward like the waters of a vortex, till he was
flung, against his own will, almost at the foot of the gallows.
Yes; a woman was shrouded in that white drapery--a fair young girl, so
fair and so young that the sailor's heart melted with pity at the first
glance. How still and white she was. How like some of the Madonnas he
had seen in the churches and cathedrals of foreign parts; those hands
were folded under the cloud-like sleeves. She was very slender and
frail. Rice could trace the blue veins on her temples, and see the
quiver of her hands under the white drapery. A hideous thing was coiled,
like a great ash-colored serpent, around that delicate neck, and fell
writhing along the scaffold.
Rice uttered a cry of horror; something in that face smote all the
strength from his heart. The sight of that rope made him tremble like a
little child. The meek eyelids drooping over the shrinking agony of
those eyes, the mouth parting now and then from its tremulous pressure,
the small feet resting so helplessly on the scaffold. It was a pitiful
sight.
I cannot explain why that craving desire to know who the criminal was,
seized upon the strong man, whose face the unhappy creature would not
have known had she lifted those heavy eyes? "Who is it? why is she here?
will no one tell me?"
An old woman, or the shadow of an old woman, who leaned against the
timbers of the gallows, looked up at this outcry, and her eyes settled
on his face. Then her poor withered hands were slowly lifted, and fell
helplessly into his.
"My son!"
"Mother--my mother, and looking so!"
"Hush!" she said, lifting her trembling finger, and pointing to the girl
on the scaffold. "It is our Katharine."