A NAME AND A MESSAGE
When Hammer called his name, Joe felt a revival of his old desire to go
to the witness-chair and tell Judge Maxwell all about it in his own way,
untenable and dangerous as his position had appeared to him in his hours
of depression. Now the sheriff released his arm, and he went forward
eagerly. He held up his hand solemnly while the clerk administered the
oath, then took his place in the witness-chair. Ollie's face was the
first one that his eyes found in the crowd.
It seemed as if a strong light had been focused upon it, leaving the
rest of the house in gloom. The shrinking appeal which lay in her eyes
moved him to pity. He strove to make her understand that the cunning of
the sharpest lawyer could set no trap which would surprise her secret
from him, nor death itself display terrors to frighten it out of his
heart.
It seemed that a sunbeam broke in the room then, but perhaps it was only
the clearing away of doubt and vacillation from his mind, with the
respectable feeling that he had regained all the nobility which was
slipping from him, and had come back to a firm understanding with
himself.
And there was Alice, a little nearer to the bar than he had expected to
see her. Her face seemed strained and anxious, but he could not tell
whether her sympathy was dearer, her feeling softer for him in that hour
than it would have been for any other man. Colonel Price had yielded his
seat to a woman, and now he stood at the back of the room in front of
the inner door as a privileged person, beside Captain Taylor.
Mrs. Newbolt sat straight-backed and expectant, her hand on the back of
Joe's empty chair, while the eager people strained forward to possess
themselves of the sensation which they felt must soon be loosed among
them.
Joe's hair had grown long during his confinement. He had smoothed it
back from his forehead and tucked it behind his ears. The length of it,
the profusion, sharpened the thinness of his face; the depth of its
blackness drew out his pallor until he seemed all bloodless and cold.
Three inches of great, bony arm showed below his coat sleeves; that
spare garment buttoned across his chest, strained at its seams. Joe wore
the boots which he had on when they arrested him, scarred and work-worn
by the stubble and thorns of Isom Chase's fields and pastures. His
trousers were tucked into their wrinkled tops, which sagged half-way
down his long calves.
Taken in the figure alone, he was uncouth and oversized in his common
and scant gear. But the lofty nobility of his severe young face and the
high-lifting forehead, proclaimed to all who were competent in such
matters that it was only his body that was meanly clad.
Hammer began by asking the usual questions regarding nativity and age,
and led on with the history of Joe's apprenticeship to Chase, the terms
of it, its duration, compensation; of his treatment at his master's
hands, their relations of friendliness, and all that. There was a little
tremor and unsteadiness in Joe's voice at first, as of fright, but this
soon cleared away, and he answered in steady tones.
The jurors had straightened up out of their wearied apathy, and were
listening now with all ears. Joe did not appear to comprehend their
importance in deciding his fate, people thought, seeing that he turned
from them persistently and addressed the judge.
Joe had taken the stand against Hammer's advice and expectation, for he
had hoped in the end to be able to make his client see the danger of
such a step unless he should go forward in the intention of revealing
everything. Now the voluble lawyer was winded. He proceeded with extreme
caution in his questioning, like one walking over mined ground, fearing
that he might himself lead his client into some fateful admission.
They at length came down to the morning that Isom went away to the
county-seat to serve on the jury, and all had progressed handsomely. Now
Joe told how Isom had patted him on the shoulder that morning, for it
had been the aim of Hammer all along to show that master and man were on
the most friendly terms, and how Isom had expressed confidence in him.
He recounted how, in discharge of the trust that Isom had put in him, he
had come downstairs on the night of the tragedy to look around the
premises, following in all particulars his testimony on this point
before the coroner's jury.
Since beginning his story, Joe had not looked at Ollie. His attention
had been divided between Hammer and the judge, turning from one to the
other. He addressed the jury only when admonished by Hammer to do so,
and then he frequently prefaced his reply to Hammer's question with:
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," as if he feared he might have hurt their
feelings by his oversight.
Ollie was cold with apprehension as Joe approached the point in his
recital where the danger lay for her. He seemed now to be unaware of her
presence, and the fact that he did not seek to assure her with his eyes
gave a somber color to her doubts. She knew Hammer's crafty reputation,
and understood his eagerness to bring his client off clear. Perhaps he
had worked on Joe to make a clean breast of it. Maybe he was going to
tell.
All her confidence of a little while ago dissolved, the ease which
followed her descent from the witness-chair vanished. She plucked at her
dark vestments with trembling hands, her lips half open, her burning
eyes on Joe's unmoved face. If he should tell before all these people,
before that stern, solemn judge--if he should tell!
Joe went on with his story, Hammer endeavoring to lead him, to the best
of his altogether inadequate ability, around the dangerous shoals. But
there was no avoiding them. When it came to relating the particulars of
the tragedy, Hammer left it all to Joe, and Joe told the story, in all
essentials, just as he had told it under the questioning of the
coroner.
"We had some words, and Isom started for the gun," said he.
He went over how he had grappled with Isom in an endeavor to prevent him
turning the gun against him; told of the accidental discharge of the
weapon; the arrival of Sol Greening.
Judge Maxwell leaned back in his chair and listened, his face a study of
perplexity and interest. Now and then he lifted his drooping lids and
shot a quick, searching glance at the witness, as if seeking to fathom
the thing that he had covered--the motive for Isom Chase's act. It was
such an inadequate story, yet what there was of it was undoubtedly
true.
After Hammer had asked further questions tending to establish the fact
of good feeling and friendship between Joe and Isom, he gave it over,
knowing full well that Joe had set back his chances of acquittal further
than he had advanced them by his persistency in testifying as he had
done.
The jury was now in a fog of doubt, as anybody with half an eye could
see, and there was Sam Lucas waiting, his eyes glistening, his hard lips
set in anticipation of the coming fight.
"Take the witness," said Hammer, with something in his manner like a
sigh.
The prosecuting attorney came up to it like a hound on the scent. He had
been waiting for that day. He proceeded with Joe in a friendly manner,
and went over the whole thing with him again, from the day that he
entered Isom's house under bond service to the night of the tragedy. Sam
Lucas went with Joe to the gate; he stood with him in the moonlight
there; then he accompanied him back to the house, clinging to him like
his own garments.
"And when you opened the kitchen door and stepped inside of that room,
what did you do?" asked the prosecutor, arranging the transcript of
Joe's testimony before the coroner's jury in his hands.
"I lit the lamp," said Joe.
"Yes; you lit the lamp. Now, _why_ did you light the lamp?"
"Because I wanted to see," replied Joe.
"Exactly. You wanted to see."
Here the prosecutor moved his eyes slowly along the two rows of jurors
as if he wanted to make certain that none of them had escaped, and as if
he desired to see that every one of them was alert and wakeful for what
he was about to develop.
"Now, tell the jury _what_ you wanted to see."
"Object!" from Hammer, who rose with his right hand held high, his small
finger and thumb doubled in his palm, like a bidder at an auction.
"Now, your honor, am I to be--" began the prosecutor with wearied
patience.
"Object!" interrupted Hammer, sweating like a haymaker.
"To _what_ do you object, Mr. Hammer?" asked the court mildly.
"To anything and everything he's about to ask!" said Hammer hotly.
The court-room received this with a laugh, for there were scores of
cornfield lawyers present. The judge smiled, balancing a pen between
finger and thumb.
"The objection is overruled," said he.
"When you lit that lamp, what did you want to see?" the prosecutor asked
again.
"I wanted to see my way upstairs," Joe answered.
The prosecutor threw off his friendly manner like a rustic flinging his
coat for a fight. He stepped to the foot of the dais on which the
witness chair stood, and aimed his finger at Joe's face.
"What were you carrying in your hand?" he demanded, advancing his finger
a little with every word, as if it held the key to the mystery, and it
was about to be inserted in the lock.
"Nothing, sir."
"What had you hidden in that room that you wanted a light to find?"
Ha, he's coming down to it now! whispered the people, turning wise looks
from man to man. Uncle Posen Spratt set his horn trumpet to his ear,
gave it a twist and settled the socket of it so firmly that not a word
could leak out on the way.
"I hadn't hidden anything, sir," said Joe.
"Where did Isom Chase keep his money?"
"I don't know."
"Had you ever seen him putting any of it away around the barn, or in the
haystack, maybe?"
"No, I never did, sir," Joe answered, respectfully.
The prosecutor took up the now historic bag of gold-pieces and held it
up before the witness.
"When did you first see this bag of money?" he asked, solemn and severe
of voice and bearing.
"When Isom was lying on the floor, after he was shot."
"You didn't see it when he was trying to get the gun, and when you say
you were struggling with him, doing the best you could to hold him
back?"
Joe turned to the judge when he answered.
"It might have been that Isom had it in his arm, sir, when he made for
the place where the gun was hanging. I don't know. But he tried to keep
me off, and he hugged one arm to his side like he was trying to hide
something he didn't want me to see."
"You never saw that bag of money until the moment that Isom Chase fell,
you say," said the prosecutor, "but you have testified that the first
words of Isom Chase when he stepped into the kitchen and saw you, were
'I'll kill you!' Why did he make that threat?"
"Well, Isom was a man of unreasonable temper," said Joe.
"Isn't it a fact that Isom Chase saw you with that bag of money in your
hand when he came in, and sprang for the gun to protect his property?"
Joe turned to the judge again, with an air of respectful patience.
"I never saw that little pouch of money, Judge Maxwell, sir, until Isom
fell, and lay stretched out there on the floor. I never saw that much
money before in my life, and I expect that I thought more about it for a
minute than I did about Isom. It all happened so quick, you know, sir."
Joe spoke the last words with a covert appeal in them, as if placing the
matter before the judge alone, in the confidence of his superior
understanding, and the belief that he would feel their truth.
The judge seemed to understand. He nodded encouragingly and smiled.
"Do you recall the morning after your arrival at the home of Isom Chase
to begin your service there, when you threatened to kill him?" asked the
prosecutor.
"I do recall that morning," admitted Joe; "but I don't feel that it's
fair to hold me to account for words spoken in sudden anger and under
trying circumstances. A young person, you know, sir"--addressing the
judge--"oftentimes says things he don't mean, and is sorry for the next
minute. You know how hot the blood of youth is, sir, and how it drives a
person to say more than he means sometimes."
"Now, your honor, this defendant has counsel to plead for him at the
proper time," complained the prosecutor, "and I demand that he confine
himself to answering my questions without comment."
"Let the witness explain in his own way," said the judge, who probably
felt that this concession, at least, was due a man on trial for his
life. There was a finality in his words which did not admit of dispute,
and the prosecuting attorney was wise enough not to attempt it.
"You threatened to kill Isom Chase that morning when he laid hands on
you and pulled you out of bed. Your words were, as you have heard Mrs.
Chase testify under oath in that very chair where you now sit, 'If you
hit me, I'll kill you in your tracks!' Those were your words, were they
not?"
"I expect I said something like that--I don't just remember the exact
words now--but that was what I wanted him to understand. I don't think
I'd have hurt him very much, though, and I couldn't have killed him,
because I wasn't armed. It was a hot-blooded threat, that's all it
was."
"You didn't ordinarily pack a gun around with you, then?"
"No, sir, I never did pack a gun."
"But you said you'd kill old Isom up there in the loft that morning, and
you said it in a way that made him think you meant it. That's what you
wanted him to understand, wasn't it?"
"I talked rough, but I didn't mean it--not as bad as that anyhow."
"No, that was just a little neighborly joke, I suppose," said the
prosecutor sneeringly. He was playing for a laugh and he got it.
Captain Taylor almost skinned his knuckles rapping them down that time,
although the mirth was neither general nor boisterous. Joe did not add
to Lucas's comment, and he went on:
"Well, what were you doing when Isom Chase opened the door and came into
the kitchen that night when he came home from serving on the jury?"
"I was standing by the table," said Joe.
"With your hat in your hand, or on your head, or where?"
"My hat was on the table. I usually left it there at night, so it would
be handy when I came down in the morning. I threw it there when I went
in, before I lit the lamp."
"And you say that Isom opened the door, came in and said, 'I'll kill
you!' Now, what did he say before that?"
"Not a word, sir," insisted Joe.
"Who else was in that room?"
"Nobody, sir."
The prosecutor leaned forward, his face as red as if he struggled to
lift a heavy weight.
"Do you mean to sit there and tell this jury that Isom Chase stepped
right into that room and threatened to kill you without any reason,
without any previous quarrel, without seeing you doing something that
gave him ground for his threat?"
Joe moved his feet uneasily, clasped and unclasped his long fingers
where they rested on the arm of his chair, and moistened his lips with
his tongue. The struggle was coming now. They would rack him, and tear
him, and break his heart.
"I don't know whether they'll believe it or not," said he at last.
"Where was Ollie Chase when Isom came into that room?" asked the
prosecutor, lowering his voice as the men who tiptoed around old Isom
when he lay dead on the kitchen floor had lowered theirs.
"You have heard her say that she was in her room upstairs," said Joe.
"But I am asking you this question," the prosecutor reminded him
sharply. "Where was Ollie Chase?"
Joe did not meet his questioner's eyes when he answered. His head was
bowed slightly, as if in thought.
"She was in her room, I suppose. She'd been in bed a long time, for it
was nearly midnight then."
The prosecuting attorney pursued this line of questioning to a
persistent and trying length. He wanted to know all about the relations
of Joe and Ollie; where their respective rooms were, how they passed to
and from them, and the entire scheme of the household economy.
He asked Joe pointedly, and swung back to that question abruptly and
with sharp challenge many times, whether he ever made love to Ollie;
whether he ever held her hands, kissed her, talked with her when Isom
was not by to hear what was said.
The people snuggled down and forgot the oncoming darkness, the gray
forerunner of which already had invaded the room as they listened. This
was what they wanted to hear; this was, in their opinion, getting down
to the thing that the prosecutor should have taken up at the beginning
and pushed to the guilty end. They had come there, day after day, and
sat patiently waiting for that very thing. But the great sensation which
they expected seemed a tedious thing in its development.
Joe calmly denied the prosecutor's imputations, and put them aside with
an evenness of temper and dignity which lifted him to a place of high
regard in the heart of every woman present, from grandmother to
high-school miss. For even though a woman believes her sister guilty,
she admires the man who knows when to hold his tongue.
For two hours and more Sam Lucas kept hammering away at the stern
front of the defendant witness. He had expected to break him down,
simple-minded country lad that he supposed him to be, in a quarter of
that time, and draw from him the truth of the matter in every detail. It
was becoming evident that Joe was feeling the strain. The tiresome
repetition of the questions, the unvarying denial, the sudden sorties
of the prosecutor in attempt to surprise him, and the constant labor of
guarding against it--all this was heaping up into a terrific load.
Time and again Joe's eyes had gone to the magnet of Alice Price's face,
and always he had seen her looking straight at him--steadily,
understandingly, as if she read his purpose. He was satisfied that
she knew him to be innocent of that crime, as well as any of the
indiscretions with Ollie which the prosecutor had attempted to force
him to admit. If he could have been satisfied with that assurance
alone, his hour would have been blessed. But he looked for more in
every fleeting glance that his eyes could wing to her, and in the
turmoil of his mind he was unable to find that which he sought.
Sam Lucas, seeing that the witness was nearing the point of mental and
physical strain at which men go to pieces, and the vigil which they have
held above their secrets becomes open to surprise, hung to him with his
worriment of questions, scarcely granting him time to sigh.
Joe was pestered out of his calm and dignified attitude. He twisted in
his chair, where many a confounded and beset soul had writhed before
him, and ran his fingers through his long hair, disturbing it into
fantastic disorder. His breath came through his open lips, his shoulders
sagged wearily, his long back was bent as he drooped forward, whipping
his fagged mind to alertness, guarding every word now, weighing every
answer a deliberate while. Sweat drenched his face and dampened the
thick wisps of hair. He scooped the welling moisture from his forehead
with his crooked finger and flung it to the floor with a rustic trick of
the fields.
Sam Lucas gave him no respite. Moment by moment he pressed the panting
race harder, faster; moment by moment he grew more exacting, imperative
and pressing in his demands for unhesitating replies. While he harassed
and urged the sweating victim, the prosecutor's eyes narrowed, his thin
lips pressed hard against his teeth. The moment was approaching for the
final assault, for the fierce delivery of the last, invincible dart.
The people felt it coming, and panted with the acute pleasures of
expectation; Hammer saw its hovering shadow, and rose to his feet; Mrs.
Newbolt suffered under the strain until she rocked from side to side,
unconscious of all and everybody but herself and Joe, and groaned.
What were they going to do to Joe--what were they going to do?
Sam Lucas was hurling his questions into Joe's face, faster and faster.
His voice was shaded now with the inflection of accusation, now
discredit; now it rose to the pitch of condemnation, now it sank to a
hoarse whisper of horror as he dwelt upon the scene in Isom Chase's
kitchen, the body of old Isom stretched in its own blood upon the
floor.
Joe seemed to stumble over his replies, to grope, to flounder. The agony
of his soul was in his face. And then, in a moment of tortured
desperation he rose from his seat, tall, gaunt, disordered, and clasped
his hand to his forehead as if driven to the utmost bound of his
endurance and to the outer brink of his resources.
The prosecutor paused with leveled finger, while Joe, remembering
himself, pushed his hair back from his brow like one waking from a hot
and troubled sleep, and resumed his seat. Then suddenly, in full volume
of voice, the prosecutor flung at him the lance for which he had been
weakening Joe's defenses through those long and torturing hours.
"Tell this jury what the 'words' were which you have testified passed
between you and Isom Chase after he made the threat to kill you, and
before he ran for the gun!"
Hammer bellowed forth an objection, which was quietly overruled. It
served its purpose in a way, even though it failed in its larger intent,
for the prosecutor's headlong assault was checked by it, the force of
his blow broken.
Joe sat up as if cold water had been dashed over him. Instead of
crushing him entirely, and driving him to the last corner shrinking,
beaten and spiritless, and no longer capable of resistance, it seemed to
give him a new grip on himself, to set his courage and defiance again on
the fighting line.
The prosecuting attorney resented Hammer's interference at the moment of
his victory--as he believed it--and turned to him with an ugly scowl.
But Hammer was imperturbable. He saw the advantage that he had gained
for Joe by his interposition, and that was more than he had expected.
Only a moment ago Hammer had believed everything lost.
Sam Lucas repeated the question. Joe drew himself up, cold and
forbidding of front. He met the prosecutor eye to eye, challenge for
challenge.
"I can't tell you that, sir," he replied.
"The time has come when you must tell it, your evasions and dodgings
will not avail you any longer. What were those words between you and
Isom Chase?"
"I'm sorry to have to refuse you--" began Joe.
"Answer--my--question!" ordered the prosecutor in loud voice, banging
his hand upon the table to accent its terror.
In the excitement of the moment people rose from their seats, women
dropping things which they had held in their laps, and clasping other
loose articles of apparel to their skirts as they stood uncouthly, like
startled fowls poising for flight.
Joe folded his arms across his chest and looked into the prosecutor's
inflamed face. He seemed to erect between himself and his inquisitor in
that simple movement an impenetrable shield, but he said nothing. Hammer
was up, objecting, making the most of the opportunity. Captain Taylor
rapped on the panel of the old oak door; the crouching figures in the
crowd settled back to their seats with rustlings and sighs.
Sam Lucas turned to the judge, the whiteness of deeper anger sweeping
the flush of excitement from his face. His voice trembled.
"I insist, your honor, that the witness answer my question!"
Hammer demanded that the court instruct his client regarding his
constitutional privileges. Mrs. Newbolt leaned forward and held out her
hands in dumb pleading toward her son, imploring him to speak.
"If the matter which you are withholding," began the judge in formal
speech, "would tend to incriminate you, then you are acting within your
constitutional rights in refusing to answer. If not, then you can be
lodged in jail for contempt of court, and held there until you answer
the question which the prosecuting attorney has asked you. Do you
understand this?"
"Yes, sir; I understand," said Joe.
"Then," said the judge, "would it incriminate you to reply to the
prosecuting attorney's question?"
A faint flush spread on Joe's face as he replied:
"No, Judge Maxwell, it wouldn't incriminate me, sir."
Free for the moment from his watchful sword-play of eyes with the
prosecutor, Joe had sought Alice's face when he replied to the judge. He
was still holding her eyes when the judge spoke again.
"Then you must answer the question, or stand in contempt of court," said
he.
Joe rose slowly to his feet. The sheriff, perhaps thinking that he
designed making a dash for liberty, or to throw himself out of a window,
rushed forward in official zeal. The judge, studying Joe's face
narrowly, waved the officer back. Joe lifted a hand to his forehead in
thoughtful gesture and stroked back his hair, standing thus in studious
pose a little while. A thousand eyes were bent upon him; five hundred
palpitating brains were aching for the relief of his reply. Joe lifted
his head and turned solemnly to the judge.
"I can't answer the prosecuting attorney's question, sir," he said. "I'm
ready to be taken back to jail."
The jurors had been leaning out of their places to listen, the older
ones with hands cupped to their ears. Now they settled back with
disappointed faces, some of them shaking their heads in depreciation of
such stubbornness.
"You are making a point of honor of it?" said the judge, sharply but not
unkindly, looking over his glasses at the raw citadel of virtue which
rose towerlike before him.
"If you will forgive me, sir, I have no more to say," said Joe, a
flitting shadow, as of pain, passing over his face.
"Sit down," said the judge.
The prosecutor, all on fire from his smothered attempt to uncover the
information which he believed himself so nearly in possession of,
started to say something, and Hammer got the first syllable of his
objection out of his mouth, when the judge waved both of them down. He
turned in his chair to Joe, who was waiting calmly now the next event.
Judge Maxwell addressed him again. He pointed out to Joe that, since he
had taken the witness-stand, he had thus professed his willingness to
lay bare all his knowledge of the tragedy, and that his reservation was
an indication of insincerity. The one way in which he could have
withheld information not of a self-incriminating nature, was for him to
have kept off the stand. He showed Joe that one could not come forward
under such circumstances and tell one side of a story, or a part of it,
confessing at the same time that certain pertinent information was
reserved.
"No matter who it hurts, it is your duty now to reveal the cause of your
quarrel between yourself and Isom Chase that night, and to repeat, to
the best of your recollection, the words which passed between you."
He explained that, unless Joe should answer the question, it was the one
duty of the court to halt the trial there and send him to jail in
contempt, and hold him there, his case undecided, until he would answer
the question asked.
Joe bowed respectfully when the judge concluded, conveying in that
manner that he understood.
"If anything could be gained by it, sir, by anybody--except myself,
perhaps--or if it would bring Isom back to life, or make anybody
happier, I wouldn't refuse a minute, sir," said Joe. "What Mr. Lucas
asks me to tell I've refused to tell before. I've refused to tell it for
my own mother and Mr. Hammer and--others. I respect the law and this
court, sir, as much as any man in this room, and it pains me to stand in
this position before you, sir.
"But I can't talk about that. It wouldn't change what I've told about
the way Isom was killed. What I've told you is the truth. What passed
between Isom and me before he took hold of the gun isn't mine to tell.
That's all there is to be said, Judge Maxwell, sir."
"You must answer the prosecuting attorney's question," said Judge
Maxwell sternly. "No matter what motive of honor or fealty to the dead,
or thought of sparing the living, may lie behind your concealment of
these facts, the law does not, cannot, take it into account. Your duty
now is to reply to all questions asked, and you will be given another
opportunity to do so. Proceed, Mr. Prosecutor."
Hammer had given it up. He sat like a man collapsed, bending over his
papers on the table, trying to make a front in his defeat before the
public. The prosecuting attorney resumed the charge, framing his attack
in quick lunges. He was in a clinch, using the short-arm jab.
"After Isom Chase came into the room you had words?"
"We had some words," replied Joe slowly, weary that this thing should
have to be gone over again.
"Were they loud and boisterous words, or were they low and subdued?"
"Well, Isom talked pretty loud when he was mad," said Joe.
"Loud enough for anybody upstairs to hear--loud enough to wake anybody
asleep up there?"
"I don't know," said Joe coldly, resentful of this flanking subterfuge.
He must go through that turmoil of strain and suffering again, all
because Morgan, the author of this evil thing, had lacked the manhood to
come forward and admit his misdeeds.
The thoughts will travel many a thousand miles while the tongue covers
an inch; even while Joe answered he was thinking of this. More crowded
upon him as he waited the prosecutor's next question. Why should he
suffer all that public misjudgment and humiliation, all that pain and
twisting of the conscience on Morgan's account? What would it avail in
the end? Perhaps Ollie would prove unworthy his sacrifice for her, as
she already had proved ungrateful. Even then the echo of her testimony
against him was in his ears.
Why should he hold out faithfully for her, in the hope that Morgan would
come--vain hope, fruitless dream! Morgan would not come. He was safe,
far away from there, having his laugh over the muddle that he had made
of their lives.
"I will ask you again--what were the words that passed between you and
Isom Chase that night?"
Joe heard the question dimly. His mind was on Morgan and the white road
of the moonlit night when he drove away. No, Morgan would not come.
"Will you answer my question?" demanded the prosecutor.
Joe turned to him with a start. "Sir?" said he.
The prosecutor repeated it, and stood leaning forward for the answer,
his hands on the table. Joe bent his head as if thinking it over.
And there lay the white road in the moonlight, and the click of buggy
wheels over gravel was in his ears, as he knew it must have sounded when
Morgan drove away, easy in his loose conscience, after his loose way.
Why should he sacrifice the promise of his young life by meekly allowing
them to fasten the shadow of this dread tragedy upon him, for which
Morgan alone was to blame?
It was unfair--it was cruelly unjust! The thought of it was stifling the
breath in his nostrils, it was pressing the blood out of his heart! They
were waiting for the answer, and why should he not speak? What profit
was there in silence when it would be so unjustly interpreted?
As Ollie had been thoughtless of Isom, so she might be thoughtless of
him, and see in him only a foolish, weak instrument to use to her own
advantage. Why should he seal his lips for Ollie, go to the gallows for
her, perhaps, and leave the blight of that shameful end upon his name
forever?
He looked up. His mind had made that swift summing up while the
prosecutor's words were echoing in the room. They were waiting for his
answer. Should he speak?
Mrs. Newbolt had risen. There were tears on her old, worn cheeks, a
yearning in her eyes that smote him with an accusing pang. He had
brought that sorrow upon her, he had left her to suffer under it when a
word would have cleared it away; when a word--a word for which they
waited now--would make her dun day instantly bright. Ollie weighed
against his mother; Ollie, the tainted, the unclean.
His eyes found Ollie's as he coupled her name with his mother's in his
mind. She was shrinking against her mother's shoulder--she had a mother,
too--pale and afraid.
Mrs. Newbolt stretched out her hands. The scars of her toilsome years
were upon them; the distortion of the labor she had wrought for him in
his helpless infancy was set upon their joints. He was placing his
liberty and his life in jeopardy for Ollie, and his going would leave
mother without a stay, after her sacrifice of youth and hope and
strength for him.
Why should he be called upon to do this thing--why, _why_?
The question was a wild cry within his breast, lunging like a wolf in a
leash to burst his lips. His mother drew a step nearer, unstayed by the
sheriff, unchecked by the judge. She spread her poor hands in
supplication; the tears coursed down her brown old cheeks.
"Oh, my son, my son--my little son!" she said.
He saw her dimly now, for tears answered her tears. All was silent in
that room, the silence of the forest before the hurricane grasps it and
bends it, and the lightnings reave its limbs.
"Mother," said he chokingly, "I--I don't know what to do!"
"Tell it all, Joe!" she pleaded. "Oh, tell it all--tell it all!"
Her voice was little louder than a whisper, yet it was heard by every
mother in that room. It struck down into their hearts with a sharp,
riving stab of sympathy, which nothing but sobs would relieve.
Men clamped their teeth and gazed straight ahead at the moving scene,
unashamed of the tears which rolled across their cheeks and threaded
down their beards; the prosecutor, leaning on his hands, bent forward
and waited.
Joe's mind was in a tornado. The debris of past resolutions was flung
high, and swirled and dashed in a wild tumult. There was nothing
tangible in his reasoning, nothing plain in his sight. A mist was before
his eyes, a fog was over his reason. Only there was mother, with those
soul-born tears upon her face. It seemed to him then that his first and
his most sacred duty was to her.
The seconds were as hours. The low moaning of women sounded in the room.
Somebody moved a foot, scraping it in rude dissonance across the floor.
A girl's voice broke out in sudden sobbing, which was as quickly
stifled, with sharp catching of the breath.
Judge Maxwell moved in his chair, turning slowly toward the witness, and
silence fell.
They were waiting; they were straining against his doubts and his
weakening resolution of past days, with the concentration of half a
thousand minds.
A moment of joy is a drop of honey on the tongue; a moment of pain is
bitterer than any essence that Ignatius ever distilled from his evil
bean. The one is as transitory as a smile; the other as lingering as a
broken bone.
Joe had hung in the balance but a matter of seconds, but it seemed to
him a day. Now he lifted his slim, white hand and covered his eyes. They
were waiting for the word out there, those uplifted, eager faces; the
judge waited, the jury waited, mother waited. They were wringing it from
him, and honor's voice was dim in its counsel now, and far away.
They were pressing it out of his heart. The law demanded it, justice
demanded it, said the judge. Duty to mother demanded it, and the call of
all that lay in life and liberty. But for one cool breath of sympathy
before he yielded--for one gleam of an eye that understood!
He dropped his hand at his side, and cast about him in hungry appeal.
Justice demanded it, and the law. But it would be ignoble to yield, even
though Morgan came the next hour and cleared the stain away.
Joe opened his lips, but they were dry, and no sound issued. He must
speak, or his heart would burst. He moistened his lips with his hot
tongue. They were demanding his answer with a thousand burning eyes.
"Tell it, Joe--tell it all!" pleaded his mother, reaching out as if to
take his hand.
Joe's lips parted, and his voice came out of them, strained and shaken,
and hoarse, like the voice of an old and hoary man.
"Judge Maxwell, your honor----"
"No, no! Don't tell it, Joe!"
The words sounded like a warning call to one about to leap to
destruction. They broke the tenseness of that moment like the noise of a
shot. It was a woman's voice, rich and full in the cadence of youth;
eager, quick, and strong.
Mrs. Newbolt turned sharply, her face suddenly clouded, as if to
administer a rebuke; the prosecutor wheeled about and peered into the
room with a scowl. Judge Maxwell rapped commandingly, a frown on his
face.
And Joe Newbolt drew a long, free breath, while relief moved over his
troubled face like a waking wind at dawn. He leaned back in his chair,
taking another long breath, as if life had just been granted him at a
moment when hope seemed gone.
The effect of that sudden warning had been stunning. For a few seconds
the principals in the dramatic picture held their poses, as if standing
for the camera. And then the lowering tempest in Judge Maxwell's face
broke.
"Mr. Sheriff, find out who that was and bring him or her forward!" he
commanded.
There was no need for the sheriff to search on Joe's behalf. Quick as a
bolt his eyes had found her, and doubt was consumed in the glance which
passed between them. Now he knew all that he had struggled to know of
everything. First of all, there stood the justification of his long
endurance. He had been right. She had understood, and her opinion was
valid against the world.
Even as the judge was speaking, Alice Price rose.
"It was I, sir," she confessed, no shame in her manner, no contrition in
her voice.
But the ladies in the court-room were shocked for her, as ladies the
world over are shocked when one of their sisters does an unaccountably
human thing. They made their feelings public by scandalized aspirations,
suppressed _oh-h-hs_, and deprecative shakings of the heads.
The male portion of the audience was moved in another direction. Their
faces were blank with stunned surprise, with little gleams of admiration
moving a forest of whiskers here and there whose owners did not know who
the speaker was.
But to everybody who knew Alice Price the thing was unaccountable. It
was worse than interrupting the preacher in the middle of a prayer, and
the last thing that Alice Price, with all her breeding, blood and
education would have been expected to do. That was what came of leveling
oneself to the plane of common people and "pore" folks, and visiting
them in jail, they said to one another through their wide-stretched
eyes.
Alice went forward and stood before the railing. The prosecuting
attorney drew out a chair and offered it to Mrs. Newbolt, who sat,
staring at Alice with no man knew what in her heart. Her face was a
strange index of disappointment, surprise, and vexation. She said
nothing, and Hammer, glowing with the dawning of hope of something that
he could not well define, squared around and gave Alice a large, fat
smile.
Judge Maxwell regarded her with more surprise than severity, it
appeared. He adjusted his glasses, bowed his neck to look over them,
frowned, and cleared his throat. And poor old Colonel Price, overwhelmed
entirely by this untoward breach of his daughter's, stood beside Captain
Taylor shaking his old white head as if he was undone forever.
"I am surprised at this demonstration, Miss Price," said the judge.
"Coming from one of your standing in this community, it is doubly
shocking, for your position in society should be, of itself, a guarantee
of your loyalty to the established organization of order. It should be
your endeavor to uphold rather than defeat, the ends of justice.
"The defendant at the bar has the benefit of counsel, who is competent,
we believe, to advise him. Your admonition was altogether out of place.
I am pained and humiliated for you, Miss Price.
"This breach is one which could not, ordinarily, be passed over simply
with a reprimand. But, allowing for the impetuosity of youth, and the
emotion of the moment, the court will excuse you with this. Similar
outbreaks must be guarded against, and any further demonstration will be
dealt with severely. Gentlemen, proceed with the case."
Alice stood through the judge's lecture unflinchingly. Her face was
pale, for she realized the enormity of her transgression, but there was
neither fear nor regret in her heart. She met the judge's eyes with
honest courage, and bowed her head in acknowledgment of his leniency
when he dismissed her.
From her seat she smiled, faintly above the tremor of her breast, to
Joe. She was not ashamed of what she had done, she had no defense to
make for her words. Love is its own justification, it wants no advocate
to plead for it before the bar of established usage. Its statutes have
needed no revision since the beginning, they will stand unchanged until
the end.
The prosecuting attorney had seen his castle fall, demolished and beyond
hope of repair, before a charge from the soft lips of a simple girl.
Long and hard as he had labored to build it up, and encompass Joe within
it, it was in ruins now, and he had no heart to set his hand to the task
of raising it again that day. He asked for an adjournment to morning,
which the weary judge granted readily.
People moved out of the room with less haste and noise than usual, for
the wonder, and the puzzle, of what they had heard and seen was over
them.
What was the aim of that girl in shutting that big, gangling, raw-boned
boy's mouth just when he was opening it to speak, and to speak the very
words which they had sat there patiently for days to hear? What was he
to Alice Price, and what did she know of the secret which he had been
keeping shut behind his stubborn lips all that time? That was what they
wanted to know, and that was what troubled them because they could not
make it out at all.
Colonel Price made his way forward against the outpouring stream to
Alice. He adjusted her cloak around her shoulders, and whispered to her.
She was very pale still, but her eyes were fearless and bright, and they
followed Joe Newbolt with a tender caress as the sheriff led him out,
his handcuffs in his pocket, the prisoner's long arms swinging free.
Ollie and her mother were standing near Colonel Price and Alice, waiting
for them to move along and open the passage to the aisle. As Alice
turned from looking after Joe, the eyes of the young women met, and
again Ollie felt the cold stern question which Alice seemed to ask her,
and to insist with unsparing hardness that she answer.
A little way along Alice turned her head and held Ollie's eyes with her
own again. As plain as words they said to the young widow who cringed at
her florid mother's side:
"You slinking, miserable, trembling coward, I can see right down to the
bottom of your heart!"
Joe returned to his cell with new vigor in his step, new warmth in his
breast, and a new hope in his jaded soul. There was no doubt now, no
groping for a sustaining hand. Alice had understood him, and Alice
alone, when all the world assailed him for his secret, and would have
torn it from his lips in shame. She had given him the sympathy, for the
lack of which he must have fallen; the support, for the want of which he
must have been lost.
For a trying moment that afternoon he had forgotten, almost, that he was
a gentleman, and under a gentleman's obligation. There had been so much
uncertainty, and fear, and so many clouded days. But a man had no
excuse, he contended in his new strength, even under the direst
pressure, to lose sight of the fact that he was a gentleman. Morgan had
done that. Morgan had not come. But perhaps Morgan was not a gentleman
at all. That would account for a great deal, everything, in fact.
There would be a way out without Morgan now. Since Alice understood,
there would be shown a way. He should not perish on account of Morgan,
and even though he never came it would not matter greatly, now that
Alice understood.
He was serene, peaceful, and unworried, as he had not been for one
moment since the inquest. The point of daylight had come again into his
dark perspective; it was growing and gleaming with the promise and cheer
of a star.
Colonel Price had no word of censure for his daughter as they held their
way homeward, and no word of comment on her extraordinary and
immodest--according to the colonel's view--conduct fell from his lips
until they were free from the crowd. Then the colonel:
"Well, Alice?"
"Yes, Father."
"Why did you do it--why didn't you let him tell it, child? They'll hang
him now, I tell you, they'll hang that boy as sure as sundown! And he's
no more guilty of that old man's death than I am."
"No, he isn't," said she.
"Then why didn't you let him talk, Alice? What do you know?"
"I don't know anything--anything that would be evidence," she replied.
"But he's been a man all through this cruel trial, and I'd rather see
him die a man than live a coward!"
"They'll hang that boy, Alice," said the colonel, shaking his head
sadly. "Nothing short of a miracle can save him now."
"No, they'll never do that," said she, in quiet faith.
The colonel looked at her with an impatient frown.
"What's to save him, child?" he asked.
"I don't know," she admitted, thoughtfully. Then she proceeded, with an
earnestness that was almost passionate: "It isn't for himself that he's
keeping silent--I'm not afraid for _him_ on account of what they wanted
to make him tell! Can't you see that, Father, don't you understand?"
"No," said the colonel, striking the pavement sharply with his stick,
"I'll be switched if I do! But I know this bad business has taken hold
of you, Alice, and changed you around until you're nothing like the girl
I used to have.
"It's too melancholy and sordid for you to be mixed up in. I don't like
it. We've done what we can for the boy, and if he wants to be stubborn
and run his neck into the noose on account of some fool thing or another
that he thinks nobody's got a right to know, I don't see where you're
called on to shove him along on his road. And that's what this thing
that you've done today amounts to, as far as I can see."
"I'm sorry that you're displeased with me, Father," said she, but with
precious little indication of humility in her voice, "but I'd do the
same thing over again tomorrow. Joe didn't want to tell it. What he
needed just then was a friend."
That night after supper, when Colonel Price sat in the library gazing
into the coals, Alice came in softly and put her arm about his
shoulders, nestling her head against his, her cheek warm against his
temple.
"You think I'm a bold, brazen creature, Father, I'm afraid," she said.
"The farthest thing from it in this world," said he. "I've been thinking
over it, and I know that you were right. It's inscrutable to me, Alice;
I lack that God-given intuition that a woman has for such things. But I
know that you were right, and time and events will justify you."
"You remember that both Mr. Hammer and Mr. Lucas asked Joe and Mrs.
Chase a good deal about a book-agent boarder, Curtis Morgan?" said she.
"Only in the way of incidental questioning," he said. "Why?"
"Don't you remember him? He was that tall, fair man who sold us the
_History of the World_, wasn't he?"
"Why, it is the same name," said the colonel. "He was a man with a quick
eye and a most curious jumble of fragmentary knowledge on many subjects,
from roses to rattlesnakes. Yes, I remember the fellow very well, since
you speak of him."
"Yes. And he had little fair curls growing close to his eyes," said she.
"It's the same man, I'm certain of that."
"Why, what difference does it make?" asked he.
"Not any--in particular--I suppose," she sighed.
The colonel stroked her hair.
"Well, Alice, you're taking this thing too much at heart, anyhow," he
said.
Later that night, long after Joe Newbolt had wearied himself in pacing
up and down his cell, with the glow of his new hope growing brighter as
his legs grew heavier, Alice sat by her window, gazing with fixed eyes
into the dark.
On her lips there was a name and a message, which she sent out from her
heart with all the dynamic intensity of her strong, young being. A name
and a message; and she sped them from her lips into the night, to roam
the world like a searching wind.