bench, glanced a moment round the room. There was a lofty pride in his
demeanor which I shall never forget. A death-like silence pervaded the
hundreds there, and scarcely an eye but quailed beneath that fearless
glance. He then took his seat. A murmur ran around the room. The
impression made by the prisoner’s demeanor was evidently favorable. Pity
usurped the place of idle curiosity. His sweet wife’s presence did not
lessen this favorable sentiment. She had insisted on being present
during the whole of the trial, and she now sat beside her husband,
clasping his hand in hers, and looking up into his face with a glance
which told, that whatever others might think, she at least knew him to
be innocent. Thank God! there is such a thing in this world as woman’s
love.
The jury was impanelled; the indictment read; and the prisoner pleaded
“not guilty,” putting himself, in the words of the law, “upon God and
his country.” The attorney general then arose and opened his case; and
rarely have I listened to a more artful address. The history of the
prisoner’s love, his marriage with the daughter of the deceased, the
separation which had ever since existed betwixt the families, and the
natural irritation which the accused must have felt toward the murdered
man, and which might have led to the sudden sacrifice of his life in a
moment of passion, even without any premeditated design against him,
were all worked up with such consummate skill, that, when the evidence
came to be detailed, the jury looked knowingly at each other, as if
satisfied that the prisoner was the only person who could have been
guilty of the murder. Indeed, the circumstances were unanswerable. Look
at them. Here is a man wronged, deeply wronged by the deceased—that man
is stung to madness by the horrors of approaching starvation—he leaves
his house, at the dead of night and does not return until morning, and
he brings with him on his return a purse which is subsequently
identified as having been in the possession of the murdered man. Nor is
this all. The murderer obviously committed the crime under a sudden
impulse, for on recognising the deceased he made a passionate
exclamation, and discharged his pistol. After the deed, he, as well as
his companions, terrified at what had been done, fled in dismay. They
are tracked until one of their number left them, and the footsteps of
that one led to Stanhope’s door. What could be more conclusive? Such was
the substance of the argument against the prisoner, an argument so
compact, candid, and devoid of declamation as to be irresistibly
convincing; and when it was finished I trembled—and not without
cause—for the life of the accused.
The evidence was the same as that upon the examination prior to the
commitment of the prisoner. There was no discrepancy in the statements
of the witnesses. All was clear, truth-like, and irresistible. Even the
talents of my colleague failed to elicit any thing material on the
cross-examination, although he subjected the witnesses severally to as
severe a scrutiny as I ever saw exercised. The man especially who
testified to having examined the tracks of the robbers in the snow
underwent the most searching probing. The efforts of the defence were
directed to establish the possibility that there might have been three
fugitives on the first track even after the separation—in short, to
overthrow the view taken by the prosecution that the robbers separated
at this point.
“Did you,” said my colleague, “inspect the tracks of the larger body of
fugitives after the supposed defection of one of their number?”
The man answered in the affirmative, and said that he was certain there
could not have been more than two, by the number of foot-marks.
“How far did you follow the tracks?”
“To the neighboring creek.”
“And why did you not pursue them farther?”
“Because the creek being frozen over, the ice was what is called glip,
and the wind had consequently so drifted the snow off from the surface,
that we lost all sight of the path pursued by the robbers.”
“Did you examine the opposite bank in order to recover the trail?”
“Yes!—for a quarter of a mile, but to no purpose.” My colleague was
foiled.
We opened our case as we best could. The gigantic difficulties against
which we had to contend almost disheartened us; but one look at the
prisoner and his sweet wife inspired us with renewed energy. Poor Ellen!
how eagerly she hung on every word, gazing now on her husband and then
on the speaker, and seeming to say in every look, that though all the
world might desert the accused, she at least would cling to him to the
last.
Our evidence was confined almost wholly to the character of the accused,
although the account which he gave of himself on the night of the murder
was skilfully introduced by my colleague, as a portion of a conversation
between the prisoner and one of the commonwealth’s witnesses, which had
been given only in part by the prosecution. It was in substance as
follows:
Stung to madness on the night of the murder, by the horrors of
approaching starvation, Stanhope had left his home, scarcely knowing
whither to bend his steps for aid. For several hours he wandered about
in the wintry night, and at length found himself on the borders of the
creek, back of the village. While standing there moodily, it began to
snow. All was silent around. As the white flakes drove in his face, and
the biting air swept over his cheek, his feelings became gradually less
excited, and he was on the point of returning home, when he perceived
three men rapidly approaching through the snow-storm. For the first time
in his life he stooped to beg. The nearest man turned sharply around on
him as he spoke, seemed to hesitate a moment, and then, as if by a
sudden impulse, flung him the purse, which was subsequently identified
as Mr. Howard’s. The men then dashed down the bank toward the stream,
and vanished as rapidly as they had appeared.
Such was the substance of our defence. It met with nothing but sneers
from the prosecuting officer, who, in his address to the jury, treated
it as a story fabricated solely for the occasion. Too many of the
spectators appeared to agree with him, and when he sat down, the ominous
faces of the jury chilled my very heart. At this moment, however, my
colleague rose to reply.
Never shall I forget the impression made by this rejoinder. Few men of
his day possessed so much eloquence, and on the present occasion it was
exerted to the utmost. Skilfully availing himself of the course of
argument adopted by the attorney general, he drew in the darkest colors,
the unnatural conduct of Mr. Howard to his daughter, and her subsequent
destitution owing thereto, and then, by one of those bursts of passion
for which he was remarkable, picturing her as she now sat, almost
heart-broken, by her husband’s side, he succeeded in awakening the
deepest pity in his audience toward the accused. Then, by a sudden
transition, he seized upon the testimony of the last witness of the
prosecution, and in a few rapid, lightning-like sentences, tore it into
shreds. “Yes! gentlemen of the jury,” continued my impassioned
colleague, “there is no evidence whatever to criminate the defendant.
The grand error of all prosecutions is in thinking a certain man guilty,
and then proceeding to account for his conduct. But you must proceed in
a manner directly the reverse of this. You must start with the murder
and trace up, from that point, the perpetrator. Take the present case,
dismiss the idea that Stanhope is the murderer—start afresh on the
search after the guilty man—follow up the fugitives to the moment when
these other footsteps are met with, and then before God and your own
consciences, is there any proof—I repeat it, is there any _proof_, that
James Stanhope left the path, or even whether any man left it? You
start. But here is the gist of the argument. Here is the broken link in
the chain of testimony against us. Unless you are satisfied that some
one of the robbers _did_ leave the gang, you must acquit the prisoner.
Might not the unfortunate man at the bar have been, as he says, on the
spot when these men passed? The finding of the purse on the prisoner
proves nothing, for might he not have obtained it in alms? Would not the
murderer, indeed, gladly rid himself of this tell-tale, in order to
divert suspicion from himself? The character, the relationship, the
honor, the common sense of my client forbid the supposition that he
would commit so frightful a crime, and yet instantly seek his home,
although the ground was covered with snow, and he knew that detection,
under such circumstances would be inevitable. Gentlemen, it could not
be. On your oaths you will say it could not be. And as you value a
fellow creature’s life, as you value your eternal peace, I conjure you
to remember that the least doubt must acquit the prisoner. Convict
him—and you destroy an innocent man. Acquit him—and you give peace to
a broken-hearted wife. If you condemn him, oh! what will be your pangs
of remorse when the real criminal is detected. I leave you to your God
and yourselves. I implore heaven to guide you aright.”
He took his seat. A dead silence hung over the vast assembly. The effect
was too deep for words. At length a heavy, long-protracted sigh was
heard throughout the crowd, as if men had held their breaths in awe, and
found relief, only that moment, from the spell which bound them. Oh! how
I longed that the verdict might then be taken. The sweet wife of the
prisoner felt a hope which hitherto she had scarcely ventured to
cherish, and clasping her husband’s hand, looked up into his face with a
love no language can express, while the tears rolled fast and thick down
her cheeks.
At length the attorney general rose to reply. Guarding the jury against
being led away by their feelings, he plunged as soon as possible into
the argument, and keeping constantly before their minds the fact of the
possession of Mr. Howard’s purse by the accused, and the exclamation
used by the murderer at the moment of committing the deed, he soon
succeeded in removing from their minds at least, the impression of the
prisoner’s innocence. How my heart sickened as I saw them turn from one
to the other, with those significant glances. And when the prosecuting
officer sat down, after his adroit and effective harangue, I felt almost
as if my own doom was at hand.
The judge proceeded to charge the jury. Long afterward that judicial
effort was talked of as a model of clear and comprehensive logic. It was
as I feared. He bore terribly upon the prisoner, treated the story of
the accused as of no credibility, and concluded by a powerful appeal to
the jury not to be misled by the eloquence of counsel. Yet, even when
thus performing what he deemed his duty, his eye happened to fall upon
the prisoner’s wife, and I noticed that his lip quivered.
The jury arose and retired. The anxiety, not to say excitement of the
spectators, was wound up to an unusual pitch, and increased momentarily.
Whatever might be the sentiment of those who were the arbiters of the
prisoner’s fate, but one feeling seemed to pervade that vast
assembly—and a deep, intense sympathy for the accused, had supplanted
the almost universal opinion of his guilt with which the trial had
opened. Men eagerly leaned forward to catch a sight of the proud bearing
of Stanhope, or the touching demeanor of his wife, and more than one
hand brushed away a tear as its owner beheld that melancholy group,
awaiting the decision of its fate. As time passed on, the audience grew
restless with impatience, glancing now at the clock and now at the door
where the jury were expected to enter,—and when at length the bearers
of the prisoner’s fate entered, one by one, with slow and solemn steps,
like mourners on the shores of Styx, a deep-drawn breath of mingled
dread and curiosity, was heard throughout the room. It was an ominous
sign to me that every man of the jury avoided looking at the prisoner.
As the accused was ordered, according to the usual form, to stand up and
look upon the jury, I glanced at the face of his wife. It was pale and
red by turns. She seemed fainting. But the bearing of my client was as
calm and collected as a Roman martyr’s. Save a slight flushing of the
face, he betrayed no emotion. The audience, however, was lost in the
most intense curiosity. Judge, officers, attorney general—all gazed
anxiously at the foreman. Bending eagerly forward, they breathlessly
awaited the verdict. The silence of the dead reigned in the room.
“How say you, gentlemen of the jury,” said the clerk, “is James
Stanhope, the prisoner at the bar, guilty or not guilty, in manner and
form as he stands indicted?”
There was a thrilling suspense of a moment, which seemed protracted into
an age. Then came, in a low but fearfully distinct voice, the answer of
the foreman, as, laying his hand upon his heart, he said,—
“Guilty of murder in the first degree!”
A half-suppressed cry shot wildly throughout the apartment, and then
followed a heavy sob at my side. It was the prisoner’s wife who had
fainted, and would have fallen, had I not caught her.
“And so say you all?” asked the clerk.
The jury nodded, and while the foreman handed in the verdict, prepared
to take their seats, when suddenly, in one corner of the apartment, a
commotion arose, as if some person was endeavoring to make way through
the crowd, but was resisted. The opposition, however, was only
momentary, for after a murmured altercation, cries arose of “pass her
on—make way,” ending at length in a prolonged huzza, and before the
astonished officers of the court could move toward the scene of the
uproar, or be heard commanding silence in the din, the form of a woman
was seen hurried through an opening in the crowd, and in an instant she
stood within the bar. She was evidently highly excited.
“Stop!” she said, turning to the foreman, “in God’s name stop—don’t
hand in your verdict—the prisoner is innocent—I can point out the
murderer.”
If I could live, throughout an eternity, I should never forget that
moment. Every man started to his feet. Without waiting for an
explanation, the crowd caught at her assertion, with an eagerness which
could not have been surpassed had their own fate depended on its truth.
A universal frenzy seized on the spectators, which showed itself in long
and reiterated shouts, lasting for several minutes. Even the officers
caught the excitement. The judge himself was visibly agitated. The
prisoner, for the first time, turned pale as death, and gasped
convulsively, while his poor wife, recovered from her momentary shock,
grasped my hand as if in a vice, and trembled violently.
“Mr. Clerk—don’t record the verdict yet!” said the judge, with an
excited voice. “Let us hear the woman first. Swear her!”
As soon as silence could be procured, the woman was sworn. She proved to
be the mistress of the real murderer, and had intended preserving
silence, but her conscience, not yet altogether seared, would not suffer
her to stand by, and see an innocent man convicted, when a word from her
might save him. She was cognizant of both the robbery and murder, and
now offered to turn state’s evidence. The murderer had confessed to her
his meeting with Stanhope, and exulted in having given him the purse of
the murdered man.
The exclamation of the criminal on discharging his pistol was accounted
for by his having formerly been a clerk in the employment of Mr. Howard,
who had turned him off on suspicion of a robbery of which he averred he
was innocent. But the imputation could not be shaken off, and he was
eventually driven in reality to crime. On thus suddenly discovering his
old master, he had yielded to a long-cherished thirst for revenge, and
murdered him in the impulse of the moment.
“All this will be clear,” said the judge, “if you produce the real
criminal. I cannot suffer the jury again to retire until you have thus
corroborated your story.”
“Let your honor send a couple of officers to my house. Nat Powers, whom
every one knows, is the man.”
In less than a minute a posse had set forth, every one wondering that
suspicion had passed ever the most notorious character in the
neighborhood, and who had not left the penitentiary a twelvemonth.
Before an hour the guilty man was produced in court. He maintained his
dare-devil expression of countenance until he saw by whom he was
accused, when he turned pale as death, and muttered a curse on her
treachery.
The real murderer was subsequently tried, found guilty, and hung. The
disclosures he made after sentence led to the arrest of one of the mail
robbers, who suffered also. Yet no one would ever have suspected them,
if the murderer’s leman had kept silence. Thus closely allied in
appearance are often innocence and guilt.
Need I say that a verdict was returned unanimously acquitting the
prisoner—or that the joy of that sweet wife was past utterance?
Stanhope, who had stood all till now, wept like a child. God knows their
after felicity was dearly purchased by the agony of that day.
D.
* * * * *
I CLING TO THEE.
BY T. G. SPEAR.
’Tis sweet, belov’d, to have thee nigh,
In pleasant converse thus with me,
For while these social moments fly,
I feel my heart-strings cling to thee—
Yes, cling to thee with stronger ties
Than e’er I felt or knew before,
As day by day some charm supplies,
That makes me bless thee more and more.
Though love may be a troubled stream,
And oftimes seek a troubled sea,
I find the passage like a dream,
In sailing down its tide with thee;
And feel resigned amidst the roar
That would against our barque prevail,
Till every idle gust is o’er
That hangs around its bridal sail.
I cling to thee, by night by day—
With all a wife’s affection tried,
And bless thee fondly when away,
And when reclining at my side.
I think of thee where’er thou art,
Nor can forget thee though unseen—
Thou beacon of my trusting heart!
That cheer’st it through each passing scene.
In doubt—in transport—or distress,
My soul reclines itself on thee,
Whose words are ever quick to bless—
And being bless’d it clings to thee.
It clings around the cherished name
It first rejoic’d to know was thine—
In bliss or sorrow—wrong or shame,
For ever yours—for ever mine.
I cling to thee as guide and friend—
The plighted guardian of my heart—
Whose presence doth a brightness lend,
That leaves a sadness when apart.
The love I know, the joy I feel,
As closely with thy Fate entwin’d—
And time cannot thy memory steal,
From out the chambers of my mind.
I cling to thee in calm or storm—
In terror—torture—bond or free,
My love from out its fountain warm,
Still rolls in tranquil rills to thee.
For thee it pours the fervent prayer—
The morning hymn—the evening lay—
That thou mayst never know despair,
Nor fell Misfortune’s friendless sway.
I cling to thee as clings the vine
Around some noble forest tree—
And when thou shalt thy strength resign,
I too would fall and sleep with thee
Yes, ’neath yon bright and flaming sun,
And this our own dear native sky,
We long have liv’d and lov’d as one,
And would as one together die.
Thou’rt dear to me through all of time—
And in that hour when life takes wing,
The thought serene—the hope sublime—
Departing still to thee shall cling.
But shouldst thou, love, first sink to sleep,
And light my worldly path no more,
My soul shall wait, and watch, and weep,
And cling to thee, though gone before.
* * * * *
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTRÖM.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the
old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.
“Not long ago,” said he, at length, “and I could have guided you on this
route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about three years past,
there happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal
man—or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of—and the six
hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and
soul. You suppose me a _very_ old man—but I am not. It took less than a
single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken
my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least
exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look
over this little cliff without getting giddy?”
The “little cliff,” upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown himself
down to rest, that the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while
he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on its extreme
and slippery edge—this “little cliff” arose, a sheer unobstructed
precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet
from the world of crags beneath us. No consideration would have tempted
me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth so deeply was I
excited by the perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full
length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not
even glance upward at the sky—while I struggled in vain to divest
myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in
danger from the fury of the winds. It was long before I could reason
myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into the distance.
“You must get over these fancies,” said the guide, “for I have brought
you here that you might have the best possible view of the scene of that
event I mentioned—and to tell you the whole story with the spot just
under your eye.”
“We are now,” he continued, in that particularising manner which
distinguished him—“we are now close upon the Norwegian coast—in the
sixty-eighth degree of latitude—in the great province of Nordland—and
in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon whose top we sit is
Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher—hold on to
the grass if you feel giddy—so—and look out beyond the belt of vapor
beneath us into the sea.”
I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose waters wore
so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian Geographer’s
account of the _Mare Tenebrarum_. A panorama more deplorably desolate no
human imagination can conceive. To the right and left, as far as the eye
could reach, there lay outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines
of horridly black and beetling cliff, whose character of irredeemable
gloom was but the more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared
high up against it its white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking
forever. Just opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed,
and at the distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was
visible a small, bleak-looking island; or, more properly, its position
was discernible through the wilderness of surge in which it was
enveloped. About two miles nearer the land, arose another of smaller
size, hideously craggy and barren, and encompassed at various intervals
by a cluster of dark rocks.
The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more distant
island and the shore, had something very unusual about it. Although, at
the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the
remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly
plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a
regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross-dashing of water in
every direction—as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam
there was little, except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks.
“The island in the distance,” resumed the old man, “is called by the
Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the
northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Kieldhelm, Suarven,
and Buckholm. Farther off—between Moskoe and Vurrgh—are Otterholm,
Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true names of the
places—but why it has been thought necessary to name them at all, is
more than either you or I can understand. Do you hear any thing? Do you
see any change in the water?”