The Redemption of
Freetown
By
REV. CHARLES M. SHELDON
Author of "In His Steps," etc.
[Illustration]
United Society of Christian Endeavor
Boston and Chicago
* * * * *
_Copyright, 1898_
BY UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
I. --THE PROBLEM OF FREETOWN 7
II. --JUDGE VERNON'S TROUBLE 14
III. --HOWARD DOUGLASS'S PLAN 21
IV. --THE CARLTONS' TROUBLE 28
V. --CALLERS AT MR. DOUGLASS'S 35
VI. --SOME MOMENTOUS DECISIONS 42
VII. --THE FREETOWN SETTLEMENT STARTED 50
VIII. --FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER 57
* * * * *
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Escape 12
Claude Vernon's Return 19
"Have you heard the news?" 26
Inez Comes Home 31
Winifred and Isabel 36
"Will you live there yourself?" 44
"Burke Williams's case has been called
up to a higher court" 51
"As he reached the corner, he stopped
and looked back" 63
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION
This little story was first read by me to my Young People's society
of Christian Endeavor in the Central Church, Topeka, Kan., during the
spring of 1898.
There is nothing impossible in the story, which is largely founded
on actual facts known to very many besides myself. What seems to be
miraculous or impossible in the redemption of humanity seems so because
too often the Christian disciple does not give himself for the solution
of the human problem.
This is the one great truth I have wished to impress by the telling of
this history, which is partly true, and might easily be wholly so; the
truth that it is God with us, Emmanuel, who is redeeming the world, and
it must be _ourselves_, the Christ in us, with the unredeemed humanity
near us, that must redeem it. The moment the churches, the Endeavor
societies, the Christian disciples everywhere, put themselves into any
unredeemed spot in any town or city or place, the miracle of redemption
will begin.
It is with the prayer that all who read this little story will give
something of this redeeming love to a needy world that the book is sent
out. There is the secret of the atonement in the three short words,
"Who gave _Himself_."
CHARLES M. SHELDON.
CHAPTER I.
THE PROBLEM OF FREETOWN.
It was very still in the district courtroom. The jury had just brought
in a verdict of guilty, and the judge was about to pronounce the
sentence.
The room was filled with the usual crowd of spectators. The lawyers
occupied the space railed off from the raised seats at the rear
where the public was admitted. All whispers and noise on the part of
witnesses, attorneys, and court officers had ceased, and every eye was
on the man who had just been pronounced guilty.
"Prisoner at the bar," said Judge Vernon, leaning a little forward in
his chair until his arm rested on the desk in front of him, "have you
anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon you?"
The prisoner was a young negro not more than twenty years old. He had
been standing when the verdict of the jury was given. His hand rested
on the back of a chair, and he faced the judge with a look of stolid,
sullen defiance.
"I've got only this to say, judge. The shooting was accidental. If I'd
had a fair trial, I'd been let off. But everything's been against me
here."
There was a pause while the man passed the back of his hand over his
mouth and shifted his position nervously.
Judge Vernon waited a moment.
"Is that all you have to say?"
"That's all, unless--I think I ought to have another trial. I don't
count this fair, judge."
"You have been fully and fairly tried," replied the judge firmly.
Then, after a moment of silence, he continued: "Prisoner at the bar, I
sentence you to the penitentiary for twenty years. Bailiff, remove the
prisoner. Call the next case."
The prisoner made a movement as if he intended to utter a word, but his
lawyer behind him pulled him down into a seat; the bailiff came to the
little gate of the railing and beckoned to the prisoner, who was led
out. The machinery of the court went on, the next case was called, and
the usual stir of the courtroom rose again, in sharp contrast with the
moment's intense stillness that had just preceded.
The evening of that same day, as Judge Vernon sat down to dinner in his
residence up on the boulevard, his wife noticed an unusual seriousness
in his face. She did not speak of it at once, however.
"Where is Claude?" the judge asked, as his wife and two girls took
their places at the table. They all remained standing, for the judge
held to the custom which his father before him had observed, of waiting
until every member of his family was present before sitting down to the
table.
"He was invited out to a card-party at the Carltons'," said Mrs.
Vernon, slowly.
The judge frowned, but said nothing. They all sat down, and Mrs. Vernon
looked carefully across the table at her husband. It was then that she
spoke of his look of care, greater, it seemed to her, than usual.
"Have you had a trying day, John?" asked Mrs. Vernon, a little timidly.
She did not often venture to question her husband about his duties as
judge.
"Yes," Judge Vernon answered, almost curtly. Then he looked across
at his wife, and went on in a different tone. "The fact is, Eliza,
the condition of affairs out at Freetown is getting desperate. To-day
I sentenced one of the boys from that district to twenty years for
a shooting affray. That makes over fifteen criminal cases from that
neighborhood in two weeks. Crime and rowdyism of every description seem
to be on the increase there."
"Why don't you double up the sentences, father?" asked one of the
girls, a stylishly dressed young woman.
Judge Vernon looked at her, and smiled slightly.
"I'm afraid that doubling the sentences is not the cure for the crimes
committed. In fact, Isabel, I am afraid that the heavier the sentence,
the more the convicted criminals are regarded as heroes by their
companions and so regard themselves."
"There ought to be some law to prevent the dreadful state of things in
Freetown," said Winifred, the other girl, a little younger than her
sister. "Claude was telling me the other day that the hardest, worst
elements in the city are crowded into Freetown, and that it isn't safe
to walk through it after midnight. Just think of it! Right near the
best residence part of the city, too. I think there ought to be a law
compelling those folks to sell out to the white people!" continued
Winifred, whose ideas of law were somewhat vague and general.
"I'm afraid they are there to stay," said Judge Vernon, absently. He
seemed to be brooding over something, and even the light-minded Isabel
was afraid to interrupt her somewhat stern father when he looked that
way. He did not speak for some time, and then, as the girls were
talking over a theatre party to be formed for an evening of that week,
Judge Vernon suddenly asked again about his son.
"Has Claude finished that writing I gave him to do?" he asked his wife.
Mrs. Vernon looked down at the table, as she answered in a low voice,
"He has not touched it yet."
Judge Vernon looked angry. "Send him into the library when he comes
in," he said. He rose abruptly, and went into a little room adjoining
the library, used for a private reading-room by himself.
Isabel and Winifred looked at each other. The look said very plainly,
"I'm glad I'm not in Claude's place."
After supper Isabel went to the piano, and Winifred took up a book.
Mrs. Vernon sat down to some fancy-work. The evening passed on slowly.
It was an unusual thing for the girls to be at home. They found it very
stupid. At last they went up to their rooms, and Mrs. Vernon sat on by
her beautiful lamp, apparently deeply interested in her work. But she
was thinking of her son, and was not happy. Often she lifted her head
to listen while the fingers ceased to be busy, and as often she dropped
her head again and went on. The night was very still, and it seemed
impossible that events were rapidly shaping which would before morning
change the lives of more than one person in the city of Merton.
The prisoner had been taken at once from the courtroom to the county
jail. He had been put in the cage where a dozen other criminals were
confined. He had at once gone to a corner, and remained there in sullen
silence, refusing to talk with any one. The day had drawn to its close.
The lights in the corridors had been turned on, supper had been served,
and most of the men who had been walking about in the cage had gone
into their cells.
The jailer suddenly came down a short flight of stone steps that led
from the detention-room, and, unlocking the cage door, called out,
"Burke Williams!"
At first there was no answer. Then the figure of the negro rose and
came towards the door.
"What do you want?" the prisoner asked in a surly voice.
"Come out here!" called the jailer, roughly. "And keep a civil tongue.
You're wanted up in the detention-room. Quick, now! Move along!"
The prisoner came out, and the jailer locked the door, and, taking out
the keys, shoved the man along the short corridor towards the flight of
steps. The negro purposely delayed his going as much as possible.
"Move along!" cried the jailer. The prisoner pretended to stumble, and
the jailer roughly caught hold of his arm and pulled him forward. At
the same instant, as quick as lightning the prisoner seized the jailer,
and with the exercise of all his young strength threw him heavily upon
the floor. The jailer's head struck on the corner of the stone step,
and he lay there stunned.
With a rapidity that seemed impossible from his awkward movements
before, the prisoner snatched the keys where the jailer had let
them fall, and with one bound was up the stone steps and in the
detention-room. This opened from the jailer's office, and that had a
door opening directly on the street.
There was one man in the detention-office, and he had risen and was
near the door leading to the guard-room. The prisoner saw in an instant
that it was the attorney who had conducted his case. He had come to
have an interview with reference to some part of the case relating to
a motion for a new trial. In special cases prisoners were allowed to
confer with visitors in the detention-room.
The negro dashed through the room before the astonished attorney could
stop him. The jailer's door was locked, but from the bunch of keys the
prisoner chanced to choose the right one first. He thrust it into the
lock, turned the bolt just as the bewildered lawyer rushed upon him,
opened the door, shut it, and, bracing his excited strength upon it,
locked it again.
He was outdoors and for the moment free. He could hear the uproar from
within the jail as the assistant jailer and a companion rushed into
the office from the corridors where they had been busy clearing up the
prisoners' supper things.
[Illustration: THE ESCAPE.]
It was just at this moment that Judge Vernon sat down to dinner.