AN UNEXPECTED WITNESS.
A young woman, evidently of the working classes, was talking eagerly
with a policeman, stationed at the door of the court-room, which
disturbed the judge, who looked that way with an expression of
annoyance.
Boyce also gazed anxiously around; a deadly whiteness crept over his
face, as he looked for some other door by which he might hope to escape.
None presented itself. Rendered desperate by fear, he hurried toward the
woman, and attempted to pass her, forcing a ghastly smile to his lips,
calling her by name, and saying, with airy lightness, that he wished to
speak with her.
The woman turned upon him fiercely. He saw that her eyes were heavy with
weeping, and her whole face flushed with angry grief. Every nerve in his
body quivered; the breath stopped in his throat. He could not have
maintained that jaunty air a moment longer.
“Come along! I have lots to say to you!”
“Say it to him!” answered the woman, pointing toward the policeman. “He
will go with you, I dare say. I have got business in here.”
“Business! You? What? What business?”
“Come back, and you’ll hear. At any rate, I’m not afraid of you going
far. Make sure that you’ll be wanted!”
“What do you mean, woman? Are you going back on your own husband?”
gasped the frightened wretch, in a hoarse whisper. “Are you, Mary?”
“Not yet,” answered the woman. “But no wonder you think so, for I’m
going to do a queer thing for once!”
“What? What is that?”
“I’m going to speak the truth, and shame—Well, no matter.”
“Mary!”
“Yes! That’s my name. Mary Boyce. Tell Mr. Mahone that the old name is
good enough for me and my baby; but then we don’t wear French caps and
pink streamers, and no young lady is yearning to give me five thousand
dollars for disgracing innocent people! Such things don’t often come in
the way of a poor woman, who goes out to day’s washing to support
herself and her child, besides handing over her hard earnings to the man
who wants to leave her.”
“Mary! Mary! Listen to me! You are mistaken! Some wicked person has been
telling you lies!”
Boyce caught his sister-in-law by the arm, driven frantic by her words.
She tore herself from his hold, and hurrying up to the judge, broke in
upon him.
“Sir! Yer honor! I know all about this case! That young man standing
there is Jared Boyce, my husband’s brother. Swear me, please. Let me
tell the story with my hand on the Bible.”
“Let her be sworn,” said the judge; and the woman who had been engaged
for extra help in Mrs. Lambert’s laundry laid her hand on the Bible and
kissed it reverently.
“Now,” said the magistrate, “what is it you wish me to hear?”
The woman answered promptly and under considerable excitement.
“It was my husband and that copper-headed scamp that robbed Mr. Smith’s
store. They two planned it weeks and weeks ago; but it was not till
Smith took a new boy on, that they could make anything of a haul. They
did it together. My own husband, who is a footman in Fifth Avenue, only
he goes by another name, expects that will carry him through bigamy and
burglary, and everything else bad that begins with a B. In short, sir,
only this morning, going out to my day’s work, as innocent as a lamb,
thinking my husband was at his place down town, where females couldn’t
come, though I never saw a smithereen of his money—not I. Well, yer
honor, I went to me day’s work in a new place, being on account of
another woman’s not being well, and there I finds my own husband making
up to a creature that yer honor wouldn’t wipe your shoes on, saving yer
presence, and she calling him Mr. Mahone, and talking about a wedding
dress that stands alone with richness, and a Miss Spicer, who wants
eternal and everlasting disgrace to fall on a family by the name of
Laurence.
“Well, yer honor, the long and the short of it is this entirely. Jared
Boyce and his brother, me own lawfully wedded husband, robbed Mr.
Smith’s store, both of groceries and money, which they divided atween
them, in my own room, and the groceries they packed away under my bed
and in the closet, and me saying nothing, till they come one night and
carried them away; so I, being put about by this, followed after them,
and, with my own eyes, saw Jared and me husband hide the groceries and
other things away in a wood-house back of a little place where I
afterwards saw yon woman going in and out as if she belonged there.
“Well, yer honor, I said nothing about that, but minded me work, and
keeping the baby nice in hopes it might ’tice me husband home more,
wondering what it all meant, when I found out behind that close-horse in
the laundry what was going on in them underground rooms, where servants
set up for ladies; I just wiped the soap suds from my arms, put on my
bit of a hood and foregathered awhile with a policeman that stands on
our corner, about the best way of telling the truth and keeping me
husband from that prowling lion with the cap, and it please your honor,
he told me to come down here, and never fear that your honor wouldn’t
give Robert a taste of Blackwell’s Island which I hope you will, just
enough to set him straight and keep him out of the way of females in
caps till he turns to his own lawfully married wife and child. That is
all I ask your honor, and if you don’t believe me, just send some one up
to me little place and I’ll show him a chist of tea and a box of
crackers that they left with me, besides other things just to pacify me
for taking off the rest, which I didn’t like at all, not always having
tea and such things in the house.”
Here Mrs. Boyce was interrupted by the Judge, who pointed towards the
door, and in a stern voice ordered the officer to stop that man.
The man was Jared Boyce, who had been making sickly efforts to slink out
of sight, while his sister-in-law was giving her evidence. He had crept
up to the door through which he was about to make a desperate plunge
just as the Judge observed him. Terrified and shaking from head to foot,
the poor wretch muttered that he wasn’t meaning to go out, and retreated
to the nearest bench, where his limbs shrunk together, and his face grew
more and more livid, as the woman rambled on with her evidence.
“Your honor,” said she, “I don’t want yez to be hard on my Robert. A
week at Blackwell’s Island will be plenty to bring him to his sinses and
make an honest man and dutiful husband of him. But as for the woman who
was tempting him into unlawful bigermy, as the perliceman calls it;
twenty years wouldn’t be too much for her, with plinty of hard work at
the wash-tub, and bread and water to live on.”
Here Mrs. Boyce was preparing to step down from the witness stand but
turned back again, having thought of something else.
“It was that female, your honor, that set him on to parsecute this
woman, that never says a word or cries a tear more an if she was made of
stone, yer honor; and it was her that put him up to marrying her ownself
before the priest, so ye cannot give the crather too much punishment,
which is all I have to say, that I think of now.”
Having thus expressed her wishes, Mrs. Boyce came down from the witness
stand with a look of triumph on the face that had been stained with
tears when she went up; for she had great faith in her own eloquence,
and entertained no doubt that the judge would kindly deal out justice
exactly as she had recommended, for he had seemed deeply interested, and
smiled more than once while she was giving her evidence.
But the woman’s countenance fell when she saw Jared crouching on his
bench, pale and shivering with dread of the fate her words had prepared
for him. She went up to him, with a little hesitation, and was about to
assure him of her protection, but he glared upon her like a wild beast,
and turned his face to the wall, muttering hoarsely,
“Get out of my sight, you fool! It is in States Prison for years you’ve
put me and your own husband this day.”
The woman was struck dumb by his words; the color left her face to its
natural wan misery. She looked wildly around toward the judge, who was
talking with the tall gentleman who had entered the court-room so
quietly. She looked again at Boyce, and in a broken, piteous voice
besought him to tell her the truth, would the judge be so cruel after
all she had said to him.
“Cruel, you idiot! he can’t help himself,” answered the clerk, livid
with malice and cowardly dread, “you’ve done for me, and you’ve done for
your own husband.”
“No, no, it’s wanting to break my heart ye are, just out of spite; but I
don’t believe ye. It’s the woman he’ll send up yonder.”
“The woman, he can’t touch her!”
“What! what is it ye say.”
“That woman will carry her head high as ever, while you are worse than a
widow, that’s what I say.”
“A widdy—me a widdy, whist now, Jared, it’s jokin’ ye are.”
“Joking,” repeated the clerk, bitterly, “It seems like a joke, don’t it?
They are making out the warrants now, but I can tell you this, for your
comfort. Robert will be married before they can reach him.”
“Married! To that woman?”
“To that woman.”
Once more Mrs. Boyce rushed before the judge.
“Oh, yer honor—”
The judge waved her back, he was giving orders about some papers that a
clerk was writing out.
“But, yer honor,” persisted the distracted creature.
“You can go home now, my good woman. The officer will let you know when
you are wanted again,” said the judge, without lifting his eyes.
The poor woman looked wildly around the court-room, but there was no one
to whom she could appeal. Then struck with the thought that her husband
was perhaps being married, she rushed from the room.
It was nearly dark when this poor wife, stung with regret for what she
had done, and tortured with dread, reached the vicinity of Mrs.
Lambert’s dwelling. She dared not attempt to go in, but walked up and
down the block, keeping the servants’ entrance in view all the time.
Once or twice she passed a police officer who seemed watching like
herself, but shunned him with trembling dread. What did he want there,
and who was he waiting for?
After it became quite dark, the poor woman lingered in sight of the
house. She had walked all the way down to the Tombs and back again, her
limbs were weary, her heart ached with apprehension. Oh, if she could
only see her husband one moment to warn him of the danger her own
ignorance had brought upon him.
The woman grew desperate, she could pace that side-walk no longer. It
was quite dark and her child would be crying with hunger; at any rate
she would ring at the servants door.
As Mrs. Boyce was advancing for that purpose a carriage drove up. She
hesitated and drew back into a shadow of the garden wall. The policeman
was near her, but she was too much absorbed to observe him.
Directly the door opened and two persons came out. One a figure in
flowing white garments that gleamed like snow across the darkness; the
other a man. There was a pause near the carriage, and the woman was
close enough to hear every word these two persons said. The woman drew
back and seemed to hesitate about entering the carriage.
“Your friend is not here; we cannot proceed without him; there must be
witnesses,” she said.
“But we shall find them at the minister’s,” pleaded the man. “I don’t
pretend to know what keeps my friend Boyce, but one witness is as good
as another; do step in, or we shall be late.”
Ellen Post had her foot on the step and was gathering the bridal veil
about her, when a strange hand was laid on her arm, and the face of Mrs.
Boyce gleamed on her with the lamp light full upon it.
“Woman, go back into the house, take off them white things and ask God
to forgive you. This man is my own lawfully wedded husband.”
The deep, honest feeling of the wife gave dignity to her speech. Ellen
Post stepped back and stood gazing on her, pale and breathless.
“Who are you? What does this mean?” she faltered at last.
“I am this man’s wife, that’s what I am, and we have one child, which
you can see any day if you will come to my place, Ellen Post.”
“I don’t believe it. Mahone, Mahone, come here and tell this woman she
lies.”
“Oh Robert, Robert, run for your life. Jared is in prison; they will be
after you,” pleaded the poor wronged wife. “Don’t wait for anything, but
go.”
“Why don’t you speak? Why don’t you deny this?” demanded Ellen Post,
stamping her whitely-clad foot on the side-walk.
“The gentleman has something else to do,” answered the strange voice of
a man who had quietly drawn near and laid his hand on Mahone’s shoulder.
“Robert Boyce, you must go with me.”
“A policeman!” faltered the bride, “what does this mean?”
“A policeman,” moaned the wife; “oh Robert, Robert, say you forgive me!”
Boyce turned his wild eyes from his wife to the officer, and stared a
moment in the man’s face. Then he made a sudden twist, wrenched himself
free, and made a bound forward—one bound and the heavy hand grasped his
shoulder again.
Before either of the women could speak, Robert Boyce was led off into
the darkness.