THE TRIAL.
You few that love me,
And dare be bold to weep for such as I--
My gentle friends and fellows, whom to leave
Is only bitter to me, only dying--
Go with me, like good angels, to mine end,
And when the long divorce of death falls on me,
Make of your prayers one most sweet sacrifice,
And lift my soul to heaven.--SHAKESPEARE.
The news of the arrest of Valentine spread rapidly over the city and
surrounding country, creating everywhere an intense excitement, and
reviving all the deep interest that had been felt two years before, at
the epoch of the crime.
This excitement prevailed all around Fannie, yet she knew nothing of it,
or at least of its cause. There was no one found willing to carry this
sorrowful intelligence to her, whom it most concerned; and she remained
in total ignorance of the arrest of her husband until the next day,
which being Saturday, she was looking forward, as usual, to an early
closing of the shop, and a walk out into the country, to spend the night
and the Sabbath with her old mother, and to comfort Valentine, when,
unexpectedly, poor Phaedra, recovered in some degree from the shock she
had received, and accompanied by Elisha, arrived at her daughter's
humble little home.
With all possible consideration and gentleness the old negro preacher
broke the intelligence of Valentine's imprisonment to Fannie.
But, alas! if all fateful antecedents had not led her to anticipate this
consequence, what further possible preparation could fit her to receive
such intelligence? And, indeed, in any event, what preparation would
soften such calamity?
Poor Fannie's frame was very delicate, and her heart by many blows had
become physically feeble, and was, at best, a very imperfect instrument
of her will. Had it not been so, the poor girl might have better borne
up; as it was, she succumbed to the new blow, and a night of dangerous
illness followed.
Yet, the next morning Fannie insisted on leaving her bed, and though
apparently more dead than alive, and having to be supported between
Phaedra and old Elisha, she went to the prison to see Valentine.
All prisons are, of course, wretched places; but the jail of M---- was
one of the most wretched of its kind. Comparatively small, shamefully
overcrowded, close, ill-ventilated and pestilential, it insured nothing
but the safe custody of the bodies of its miserable inmates. Evidently
reform had not even looked upon its outer walls, far less opened one of
its doors or windows.
For greater security Valentine had been confined in the condemned cell.
A slight irregularity, but one of which no one had the right to
complain. Although, under circumstances less tragic it must have seemed
ludicrous to associate the graceful and almost girlish delicacy of poor
Valentine's figure with danger to the security of bolts and bars and
prison walls.
Howbeit, in the condemned cell Valentine was placed, and there Fannie
and her companions found him.
Valentine received them with great composure, that was only slightly
disturbed when Fannie, upon first seeing him, threw herself, with a cry
of passionate sorrow, upon his bosom.
When the turnkey had left the cell, and locked them all in together,
Valentine addressed himself to soothing Fannie. And after a while,
favored by the exhaustion that followed her vehement emotion, he
succeeded in quieting her.
After a little conversation, the old preacher invited all to join him in
prayer, and, kneeling down, offered up a fervent petition for the divine
mercy on the prisoner. Through the whole of the interview, all were
impressed by the perfect composure and cheerfulness of Valentine. He
seemed like a man who had cast a great weight from his breast, or in
some other way had been relieved from a heavy burden. Though his manner
was perfectly free from any charge of reprehensible levity, there was
certainly an elasticity of spirit in all he said or did, that was as
strange as it was entirely sincere and unaffected. Was this because he
felt that he had nothing further to hope or fear, and trouble had ceased
with uncertainty? Whatever was the cause, his mood happily influenced
others, and they grew quiet and cheerful in his company.
"Dearest friends," Valentine said, afterward, to Elisha, "these things
that have occurred were obliged to happen; no power on earth could have
prevented them; and the power of Heaven never intervenes to perform
miracles, or to avert evil at the expense of moral free agency. I am
not a predestinarian, Brother Elisha, but I know that certain causes
must produce certain effects, as surely as given figures produce known
results. As I told you before, I always knew that this was to be my
fate. From the first moment that I was provoked to strike Oswald Waring,
I have seen this crime and this fate before me, like a horrible cloud. I
would try to close my eyes to it--try to forget it. In vain--for even in
my brightest moments it would fall suddenly like a funeral pall around
me, blackening all the light of life. When poor Oswald Waring lay dead
before me, I did not realize the crime more intensely than I had by
presentiment a hundred times before. And when I shall stand, as I shall
very soon do, upon the scaffold's fatal drop, with the cord around my
neck, and the cap that is about to shut out the last glimpse of this
world's sunshine from my eyes, descending over my face--even in that
supreme moment, I know I cannot feel the situation more acutely than I
have done prophetically a thousand times before!
"This prophetic feeling was the secret horror of my whole life. I dared
not confide it to any one; therefore, it preyed upon my spirits, driving
me at times almost to insanity. Yet, friends, there was nothing occult
in this presentiment. It was but the swift and sure inference of certain
effects from certain causes. It was rather a helpless foresight, than
second sight. Well, the worst has come! I am calmer and happier now than
I have been for many long, sad years. This fate is not nearly so
horrible in reality as it seemed in anticipation. The only earthly
trouble that I have is in the thought of my little family. Comfort them,
Brother Elisha! Help them to bring all the power of religion to their
support. Time and religion cures the worst of sorrows; it will cure
theirs. Only, in the meantime--in the hour of their greatest trial, and
the first dark days that follow it--watch over them, sustain and comfort
them, and lift up their hands to God, Elisha."
"I will--I will, indeed, Brudder Walley," promised the old preacher.
Valentine was not left alone in his trials. The friends of the Methodist
church flocked around, and one or another was always with him. The
clergymen of every denomination took a great interest in his situation
and character. And the better Valentine was known, the deeper this
interest grew. In advance of his trial, the press took up his case, and
the papers were filled with accounts of visits that this or that
gentleman had made him; conversations that one or another clergyman had
held with him in his cell; and with descriptions of his good looks,
graceful manners, intelligence, knowledge, conversational powers and
eloquence--all "so remarkable in one of his race and station." It would
seem, indeed, as if, unhappily, the good points of the unhappy young man
had never been known or suspected, until crime had brought him
prominently before the public. If there was anything to be regretted in
the great sympathy that was felt for him, it was that the sympathizers
kept up too much fuss around him for the good of one of his excitable
temperament, and thus prevented the self-recollection and sobriety that
befited the solemnity of his situation. Through the kindness of these
friends, the best counsel that could be prevailed upon to take up his
hopeless cause was retained, to defend Valentine in the approaching
trial.
There was one affecting circumstance that occurred just before the
sitting of the criminal court. Mrs. Waring had been subpoenaed to attend
as a witness for the prosecution. She came up from Louisiana; and, soon
after her arrival in the city, she sought out the poor, little, obscure
wife of the prisoner, and gave her what comfort she could
impart--telling her, that though she was the principal witness, her
testimony would not bear hard upon Valentine, whom she felt persuaded
was mad, and unconscious of his acts at the moment she witnessed them.
And that she hoped his life might yet be spared, for she felt convinced
that capital punishment was in no case a corrector or a preventor of
crime. And that, if the trial should terminate unfavorably, she would
petition the governor for a commutation of the sentence. And that her
petition, under the circumstances, would be the most powerful that could
be presented. These and other merciful promises and reviving hopes did
the gentle-hearted widow infuse into the poor girl's sinking heart.
And, oh! how Fannie knelt, and covered the lady's hands with loving
kisses, and bathed them with grateful tears. And Mrs. Waring, when she
left her, went directly to the most eminent lawyer in the city--one who
had indignantly repulsed a clergyman who wished to retain him for the
prisoner--and, after telling him very much what she had told Fannie
relative to the character of her own testimony, succeeded in retaining
him to defend Valentine; for this gentleman seemed to think that the
favorable opinion and testimony of Mrs. Waring would make a very great
difference in the respectability, popularity and security of the cause
that he no longer hesitated to embrace.
Of course, there was much diversity of opinion in regard to Mrs.
Waring's course. All wondered at her, many censured her, while a few saw
in her conduct the perfection of Christian charity. But, like all who
have thought and suffered much, and profited by such experience, Mrs.
Waring was indifferent to any earthly judgment outside the sphere of her
own affections; and so, ignorant and regardless of popular praise or
censure, the lady went calmly on her merciful course.
The day of the sitting of the court drew near, when, one morning, a
bustle in the gallery leading to Valentine's cell attracted the
attention of the latter, and he had just concluded that the officials
were bringing in a new prisoner, when the noisy group paused before his
own door, unlocked it, and introduced Governor, Major Hewitt's big
negro. With a few parting words, the turnkey and the constable left him,
went out, and locked the door.
Then, for the first time, Valentine recovered from his surprise, and
spoke to the newcomer.
But Governor, standing bolt upright until his tall figure and large head
nearly reached the low ceiling, looked the image of stupor, and answered
never a word.
Valentine knew, of course, that he was in desperate trouble, or he would
not be in that cell. Kindly taking his hand, he led him to the bed, and
made him sit down upon it. He was as docile as the gentlest child,
though seemingly more stupid than any brute. And it was hours before he
recovered sufficiently to tell Valentine the cause of his arrest.
The story gathered from his thick and incoherent talk was this: He
himself was a huge, black, unsightly negro, painfully conscious of his
personal defects. He was married to Milly, a pretty mulatto woman, whom
he loved with the idolatrous affection that often distinguishes his
race, and who had loved him in return, for the wealth of goodness under
his rude exterior.
And he had been very happy with his wife and two little girls, until the
new overseer came.
This person was a young, unmarried man, and his name was Moriarty. He
took a fancy to Milly; used to stop every day at the door of her cabin,
to ask for a drink of water; then, after a while, he got into the habit
of going into her cabin to sit down and rest, and was never in a hurry
to go away.
If there was any work to be done in the overseer's house, Milly was
always sent for to do it, and always detained a long time. Governor was
dispatched to labor upon the most remote part of the plantation; and
whenever a messenger was required to go upon a distant errand, Governor
was selected.
Poor fellow! he was not acute enough to be suspicious, or bad enough to
be jealous. On the contrary, he was very good-natured, stupid and
confiding. And he might have gone on forever, without suspecting that
there was anything wrong, had not Milly, upon every Sunday and holiday,
appeared in finery better than any of her companions could sport, and so
excited their envy, quickened their perceptions and stimulated their
tongues.
And rudely enough were the poor husband's eyes opened, and from that
time no more wretched man than Governor lived upon this earth. He
expostulated with Milly, who tearfully confessed to receiving presents
from the new overseer, and protested her innocence of everything but
their acceptance. And it is probable that up to this time, and for a
long time after, Milly, who sincerely loved the ugly, but good-hearted
father of her children, was innocent of everything except vanity; and
could she have been delivered from the power of the tempter, would have
remained blameless.
But there was no such deliverance for her. And now commenced the most
troubled life that could be imagined for the husband. He felt that Milly
still loved him with undiminished fidelity, but he knew, also, the power
of temptation and of example. How many virtuous women were there on that
or any other plantation? Why, virtue was not taught them--was not
expected of them; and if they were born with the instinct, it was soon
lost among a class where licentiousness was the rule and integrity the
exception. The generality of this misfortune among his fellow-slaves did
not make it any the less painful to this poor man to see his beloved
Milly tempted from his bosom.
And he saw, with increasing anguish, that Milly, notwithstanding her
penitence and tearful declaration that she would be faithful to Governor
forever and forever, could not prevent the daily calls of the overseer
at her cabin, and dared not disobey his commands, when he summoned her
to work in his house.
Governor was still and ever kept at work upon the most distant parts of
the plantation, and the overseer still and ever appropriated as much as
he possibly could of Milly's time and services. There was no help for
them.
Major Hewitt, in many respects a kind master, had, for his peace, long
closed his ears to complaints of the slaves against their overseer, and
Governor knew full well that his master would hear not one word against
Mr. Moriarty.
Why lengthen a sad story? All the women of the plantation knew that,
sooner or later, Milly would have no right to look down from her pride
of integrity upon them. Yet it was some time--more than a year--before
she was numbered among the frail ones.
And then, as guilt is so much more circumspect than innocence, poor
Governor was deceived into a fool's paradise of confiding love, and led
to believe that the overseer had entirely abandoned the persecution of
Milly.
This blind confidence lasted until one day, when one of those sudden
little breaks of water, so small that its surface might be covered with
two hands, yet, withal, the herald of that terror of the Gulf planters,
a devastating "crevasse," appeared in the midst of a valuable field,
and it became necessary to arrest its progress at once.
A party of negroes was dispatched to the spot, and Governor was sent
with them. In the course of a few hours, the crevasse had made dangerous
progress, and they had to work until very late at night. But it was
early when the overseer left them.
It was between eleven and twelve o'clock when a young negro from the
quarters came down to the works, and, taking Governor aside, whispered
something in his ear.
Down went the man's shovel, and away he sprang, and--all on fire with
rage and jealousy--a man no longer, but an unreasoning brute--ran and
leaped, bounding over everything that came in his way, and taking a
bee-line to his cabin, the door of which he burst open.
A moment and the overseer lay dead, slain by the hand of the injured
husband.
Governor did not hurt a hair of Milly's head; even in his mad and blind
rage he had spared her, still so beloved. Neither did he attempt to save
himself by flight, but lay moaning and groaning upon the cabin floor
until he was taken into custody.
This was the substance of the story related to Valentine.
"I'se sorry I killed him, Brudder Walley! dough I hardly knowed what I
was a doin' of. I'se sorry, dough it was all so tryin' from fuss to
las'. Yes! I is berry sorry, dough it ain't no use to say it, 'cause I
knows how, ef it wur to do ober agin', I should be sure to do it ober
agin'! so, what's de use o' pentin'?"
Valentine pressed his hand in silence, scarcely knowing what to reply
just then, sadly thinking of the many thousands whose positions were
just as false, as trying, as maddening, as his own and Governor's had
been.
About noon that day, Major Hewitt came into the cell to see his slave.
The Major was very much overcome at the sight of Governor, and spoke
with great feeling.
"Oh, Governor! my heart bleeds for you, and for what you have done, my
poor fellow! Oh! Governor, why, why did you take your revenge in your
own hands, in this horrible manner? Why did you not, long ago, complain
to me? I would have seen you righted."
"Ah, Marse Major, you never would hear no 'plaints we-dem made against
the oberseer. It's been tried often, and you never would!"
"Yes, but my poor fellow! in such a case I would have listened to your
complaint. I would have protected your family peace at every cost. If
necessary, I would have discharged Moriarty. Yours was an exceptional
case, and I would have attended to it."
"Ah, Marse Major, honey! I dessay you think you would now, as it has
come to dis yer! But you wouldn't o' done it, Marse Major, honey! 'deed
you wouldn't, 'cause you see it has been tried afore, an' you never
would listen to nothin' 't all 'bout de oberseer. It's on'y 'cause it's
come to dis yer you thinks different," said Governor, sadly, but
respectfully, and even affectionately.
Major Hewitt did not reply; perhaps he felt that the slave had spoken
the truth, for he looked extremely distressed, and told him that he
would engage the best counsel to defend him; that no cost should be
spared, even to the half of his estate, to save him.
And Major Hewitt kept his word, and hastened to secure the best legal
aid to be had for Governor.
The day of the trial was at hand. It was known that two were to be tried
for similar offenses. But every one was interested in Valentine, and no
one, except his master, seemed to care one farthing for Governor. Those
who saw him said he was "an ill-looking fellow," and there left the
subject.
Valentine was the first arraigned. When his case was fully investigated,
it was obvious to all minds that on the fatal encounter in which Mr.
Waring fell, Valentine had struck only in self-defense--only after his
own blood had been drawn, and he had been once felled to the floor. But
then the blow had been fatal. And though he was well and ably defended,
yet the verdict rendered against the prisoner was "Willful Murder."
Valentine heard the verdict, and afterward received his sentence
quietly, as a matter of course. At its conclusion, he bowed gravely, and
was conducted from the court-room.