Every conceivable form of pressure to prevent the trial of Walter Banks
was brought to bear in the next few weeks; but Prosecutor Mathews had
pushed the case vigorously in spite of it all. He felt not only that
justice was at stake, but that his own moral fibre was in pawn, as
well. He held aloof from his social friends--who were in many cases the
friends of the accused, also--lest he lose sight of his duty through
some fresh or new form of attack upon his integrity of purpose.
It had come to his knowledge that even the Judge who was to sit in the
case had been approached by the friends of the defendant, and it was
felt that it would be difficult to impanel a jury that would or could be
fair and impartial.
If but one man was drawn from the "upper class," the jury would be sure
to hang. On the other hand, if all of the talesmen were chosen from that
social caste which feels that it is usually the victim, it would go hard
with Walter Banks even if he were able--as seemed wholly unlikely--to
show a reasonably clear case in his favor.
The day came. The court-room held an unusual audience. There were many
ladies present who had never before seen the inside of such a room. They
held their breath and were filled with awe and fear--of they knew not
what.
Perhaps few men can realize what it is to a woman to face for the first
time the embodiment of all that her strong faith and utter ignorance has
carried to mature years as an ideal of justice and dignity--of solemn
obligation and fearful responsibility. To her there has been no reverse
side to the picture. She believes in courts as courts of justice. She
knows nothing of quibble, of technicality, of precedent. Nothing here
is light or humorous to her. Next to a death chamber the criminal
court-room is fullest of the thoughts which reach beyond mere human
responsibility and import, and all that passes there is freighted for
her with a sense of finality that few men can comprehend. _They_ think
of reversal of judgment.
The fiat of the court is the closing knell to a woman; and although she
may know the judge in private life to be a fallible or--more incongruous
still--a jovial man, his presence _here_ is overpowering. Of the jury
she feels vaguely, dread. Of the judge, awe.
The mother of the prisoner sat near him. Her sad, pale, refined face
troubled the young prosecutor sorely and he tugged at his conscience and
spurred on his resolution after each glance at her.
The case was so plain, the evidence so clear, the defence so weak that
the whole tide of public sentiment swung rapidly from the side of the
prisoner to that of the people.
The indignation for him which had been felt by the society women who had
come to show themselves as his friends changed into scorn and contempt.
The whole mental atmosphere of the room underwent a revolution. When
court opened few besides the officers believed him guilty. As the
case drew near its close no one believed him innocent. He had not been
allowed by his counsel to take the stand in his own behalf, and this had
told strongly against him in the minds of both jury and spectators. The
prosecuting attorney had made a telling speech, and the charge of the
judge was plainly indicative of his opinion that there was but one
verdict to give.
The jury had taken but one ballot. They had needed no charge from the
judge at all.
"Guilty,"--came from the foreman's lips with a decided accent that
indicated a certain satisfaction in pronouncing it. The prisoner's face
grew a shade paler, but the puzzled light in his eyes lost nothing of
that weary, insistent questioning that had marked their depths all day.
Indeed, he seemed to be as much surprised, as the evidence had been
unfolded, as were the friends who were there to see him vindicated.
During the speech of the prosecutor and the charge of the judge young
Banks; mother had held her son's hand and tears had dropped unheeded
from her eyes.
The judge had spoken again, but no one moved. The attorney for the
prisoner bent forward and touched him on the shoulder.
"Stand up for sentence," he said. "The judge"--
"Sit still!" It was the woman beside him who spoke. She had dried her
tears. Every face in the room was turned toward her now. She staggered
to her feet. Her voice penetrated every corner of the room.
"_I_ am the thief, judge. Sentence me. I stole the cloak!"
"Mother, mother! Great God, it is not true! Mother, sit down! She never
saw the coat. Mother! Mother! Great God, what does it mean?"
The young fellow had sprung to his feet, but she eluded his grasp, and
before any one knew what she intended to do she passed onto the witness
stand.
There was a tense silence in the room. No one was prepared for the
scene. It had been so swiftly done--so wholly without warning--that
every one sat dumb.
She had caught up the Bible as she reached the stand and pressed it
to her lips. She was vaguely aware that this act was looked upon as
affecting the credibility of the witness. She also imagined that it gave
her a right to put in her evidence even at this stage of the trial. She
supposed that a trial was for the purpose of arriving at the facts and
that the Court sat with that object alone in view. She did not know that
it was too late. She was unaware that the case would have to be reopened
to admit her evidence. She did not know that it was possible for the
gate of justice to be swung shut in the face of truth. She supposed
that all trials were for the one purpose of getting at the bottom of the
case; so that it did not occur to her that her action was strange only
in so far as such a confession from such a woman must be so regarded by
all who knew her, and who was there in all the town who did not know and
respect her?
The young prosecutor sat mute. The eyes of the judge widened in
astonishment. For the moment he was the man and neighbor only. He forgot
his office. She was talking rapidly, and all were listening.
"I am the thief, judge. Let me tell you. It is not right that he should
suffer for my crime. Poor boy, his life has been a hell on earth for
_me--for me!_ And he has never understood. I could not tell him. I shall
now. He shall understand. _You_ shall, judge. Oh, God, if only a woman
sat where you do--a mother! But let me tell you; I can. I thought I
could not; but I can--even to _these_ gentlemen." She waved her hand
toward the jury and there was a widening of her nostrils as if her
breath and courage were leaving her. "Rather than have him punished,
disgraced, ruined, I can tell it all. He is _not_ guilty. It is I! It is
I!" She put her trembling hands to her temples and her eyes were those
of a hunted creature at bay.
"Before he came into the world--you'll let me tell you frankly, judge?
_I must_. Before he came into the world I made him what he is--a thief.
Did I or did his father? It was like this. I am ashamed to tell it, but,
oh, judge, I _loved_ him, and I longed to make the pretty things and
buy the dainty ones that would make his soft, white, dimpled flesh
look sweeter when he should lie before me. His father was--you knew his
father, judge. He was a good man, but-- You know how he loved money--and
power. He-- I-- I was the pauper most young wives are. I was too proud
to ask for money, and if I _had_ asked often-- But I was too proud, so,
perhaps, I need not tell about the if. Most women know it, and-- You
could not understand."
She paused. A panic had overtaken her nerves. She was becoming vaguely
conscious of her position. Her eyes wandered over the room; but when
they fell upon her son, sitting with his wretched face pinched and
startled, with his deep eyes staring at her, her courage came again.
"At first I had no thought of theft. I used to go each night after my
husband fell asleep and take a little money from his pocket. Only
a little. He never missed it--never. So he used to whip the boy for
stealing afterward and said he would disgrace us and-- I never told
him even then. Life was horrible. The growing certainty maddened me. He
would steal anything, everything about the house, even his own things.
He did not understand himself and he could not help it; but I did not
think it would ever come to _this_--through me--_through me!_"
She calmed herself again suddenly by a glance at her son.
"Every night I took only a little money. My motive was a good one.
I knew my husband did not understand how I longed to get the pretty
things. How-- Of course in one sense I had a right to the money. He was
rich even then, but--I _felt_ myself a--pauper--and a thief.
"I-- Do you think young mothers should be young paupers, judge? I've
sometimes thought that if they were not there might be less use for
courts like this--and prisons.
"I've sometimes thought if mothers sat on juries they'd know the reasons
why for crime and wrong and, maybe, work to cure the causes of
the crimes rather than simply punish those who have committed them
blindly--_often blindly_.
"I've sometimes thought the cost--in money--would be less; and then the
cost in love and sorrow! Oh, judge, be patient just a little longer.
Do not let them stop me. It means so much to _us!_ I'll go back to
the point. I'll tell the truth--all of it--all. But it is hard to do
it--here.
"I bought the little wardrobe; but remember, judge, the months and
months of daily building, bone on bone, fibre within fibre, thought on
thought that is moulded into shape for human beings!
"I knew your father, judge. Your eyes are like his, but all your mental
life--your temperament--you got from other blood than filled his veins.
"Your father's mother gave you your character. Your gentle heart is
hers--your patient thoughtfulness. I knew her well. I knew your mother,
too. She was the teacher of my motherhood. It was to her I told the
truth in my boy's childhood--when I first began to realize or fear
what I had done. You owe it all to her that you are strong and true. She
understood in time--and now you sit in judgment on my boy, whose mother
learned from yours too late the meaning and the danger of it all.
She saved my other children. I killed my pride for them. _I asked
for money_. The others may be _beggars_ some day--they never will be
thieves.
"That boy has never asked a favor. He simply cannot. His pride was
always stronger than anything--anything except his love for me.
"I knit that in his blood too. I loved him so I made myself a thief for
him. Of course I did not know--I did not understand the awful danger
then; but-- A young mother--I--it is hard to tell it here. You will not
understand--you cannot. Oh, God, for a mother on the jury! A mother on
the bench!"
She caught at her escaping courage again. The officer whose duty it
was to take her away moved forward a second time, and a second time the
judge motioned him back. She had been his mother's friend ever since
he could remember, and the ordinary discipline of the court was not for
her. He would do his duty, he said to himself, but surely there was no
haste. All this was irregular, of course, but if something should come
of it that gave excuse for a new trial no one would be more thankful
than he.
"Young mothers are so ignorant. They know so little of all the things of
which they should know much. They are so helpless. Judge, there will
be criminal courts and prisons--oh, so many of both--just as long as
motherhood is ignorant and helpless and swayed by feeling only. Don't
you know it is ignorance and feeling that leads to crime? If people only
understood! If only they were able to think it out to what it means,
crimes would not be--but they cannot, they cannot! Those trembling
lips you see before you are no more truly a copy of mine--the boy is
as responsible for the set and curve of those lips--as he is for his
hopeless fault. He has stolen from his infancy; but I, not he, am the
thief. Now sentence the real criminal, judge. Courts are to punish the
guilty--not to further curse the helpless victims. I am the criminal
here. Sentence me!"
"Mother! Mother! I never understood my-self before! Oh, mother, mother!"
It was a wild cry from Walter Banks as his mother had risen asking for
sentence on herself. He sprang forward, forgetting everything and took
her in his arms. There was a great stir in the room.
"Silence in the court!"
Mrs. Banks had fainted. Her son helped to carry her into another room.
No one attempted to prevent him. The young prosecutor returned with him
and stood dumb before the court.
"I am ready for sentence, your Honor. I committed the burglary." It was
the voice of the prisoner. He was standing with his arms folded and his
eyes cast down. Silence fell in the room. The women ceased to sob. There
was an uneasy movement in the jury box.
"In view of the new evidence--" began the foreman but the voice of the
judge, slow and steady, filled the room.
"It is the sentence of this court that you, Walter Banks, be confined at
hard labor in the state penitentiary for the term of four years."
The prisoner bowed and turned a shade paler.
"Do not tell mother that until she is better," he said to his attorney
and passed out in the custody of the sheriff.
"And at the end of four years, what!" a lady was saying to the young
prosecutor as the room slowly emptied.
"The brute!" was hurled after the judge by another, as his form vanished
through the door.
"Shows that law is not for the poor alone--"
"Good things for social order and--"
"Well, yes, I'm rather disappointed; but of course a judge can't go
behind the returns."
"Evidence all one way if--"
"Heavens, what a scene!"
"--my opinion no woman should ever be admitted to a court room except as
a prisoner. It--"
"Feather in the cap of the prosecutor."
"--re-election sure enough now."
"Whole thing in a nutshell--"
"Simple question. _Did_ he commit the burglary? If so--"
The young prosecutor hurried away from the sound of these voices and
the congratulations of his political friends. He was mentally sore and
perplexed because he had won his case.
That night he called upon the prisoner for the second time.
"I have made up' my mind to resign my office," he said, not looking at
the convict, who had risen to receive him.
Walter Banks was by far the calmer of the two, but he did not speak.
"I shall never be able to act for the prosecution again. I thought
this case was so clear. My duty seemed so plain--too plain to admit of
anything but the most vigorous course of action; but--"
"You did nothing but your duty, Mathews. We are all victims I
suppose--one way or another. You are going to be the victim of your
sensitive conscience. The result will be a course of vacillation that
will ruin your chances of success. I am sorry. You've got all the
elements for a leader--only you've got a conscience. That settles it. A
bit of heredity like that is as fatal as--as mine." He bit his lips.
"Don't let your part in my case worry you. The game of life has gone
against me. That is all. The dice were loaded before I ever got hold of
them. I did what I could to out-live--out-fight my awful--inheritance.
I wasn't strong enough. It got the best of me. Nature is a terrible
antagonist. Perhaps now that I understand myself better I shall be able
to keep a firmer hold. You did your duty, Mathews; good-by. Be-- Can't
you be a little kind to mother? She suffers so. Her punishment is
double--and her crime was ignorance!"
This time he took the hand that was held out to him.
"Only ignorance," he added. "It seems an awful punishment for that."
"Ignorance--and poverty and love," said the young prosecutor as the
door closed behind him, "and Nature did the rest! What a grip is at
our throats! And how we help blind Nature in her cruel work by laws and
customs and conditions! What a little way we've come from barbarism
yet! How slow we travel. But we are moving," he added with a deep sigh.
"Moving a little. There is light ahead. If not for us, then for those
who come after."
He heard the bolt slip behind him and shuddered.
"It might as easily have been I," he mused as he went down the steps,
and shuddered again.
"I doubt if it was fault of his or virtue of mine that determined which
of us two should be the prosecutor."