The good people of Aberdeen--yclept the Granite City--are as fond of
display and show as even the Londoners, and the coming of the lords, who
are the judges that try the principal cases, is quite an event of the
year, and looked forward to with longing, especially by the young
people.
Ah! little they think of or care for the poor wretches that, in charge
of warders or policemen, or both, are brought up from their cells, to
stand pale and trembling before the judge.
The three weeks that intervened between the departure of poor, unhappy
Annie from his cell and the coming of the lords were the longest that
Reginald ever spent in life--or appeared to be, for every hour was like
a day, every day seemed like a month.
The gaoler was still kind to him. He had children of his own, and in
his heart he pitied the poor young fellow, around whose neck the halter
would apparently soon be placed. He had even--although I believe this
was against the rules--given Reginald some idea as to the day his trial
would commence.
"God grant," said Reginald, "they may not keep me long. Death itself is
preferable to the anxiety and awful suspense of a trial."
But the three weeks passed away at last, and some days to that, and
still the lords came not. The prisoner's barred window was so
positioned that he could see down Union Street with some craning of the
neck.
One morning, shortly after he had sent away his untouched breakfast, he
was startled by hearing a great commotion in the street, and the hum of
many voices. The pavements were lined with a sea of human beings.
Shortly after this he heard martial music, and saw men on the march with
nodding plumes and fixed bayonets. Among them, guarded on each side,
walked lords in their wigs and gowns. Reginald was brave, but his heart
sank to zero now with terror and dread. He felt that his hour had come.
Shortly the gaoler entered.
"Your case is to be the first," he said. "Prepare yourself. It will
come off almost immediately."
He went away, and the prisoner sank on his knees and prayed as surely he
never prayed before. The perspiration stood in great drops on his
forehead.
Another weary hour passed by, and this time the door was opened to his
advocate. His last words were these:
"All you have got to do is to plead `Not guilty'; then keep silent. If
a question is put to you, glance at me before you answer. I will nod if
you must answer, and shake my head if you need not."
"A thousand thanks for all your kindness, sir. I'm sure you will do
your best."
"I will."
Once more the gaoler entered.
"The doctor sends you this," he said. "And drink it you must, or you
may faint in the dock, and the case be delayed."
At last the move was made. Dazed and dizzy, Reginald hardly knew
whither he was being led, until he found himself in the dock confronting
the solemn and sorrowful-looking judge. He looked just once around the
court, which was crowded to excess. He half-expected, I think, to see
Annie there, and was relieved to find she was not in court. But yonder
was Captain Dickson and the four sailors who had remained behind to
prosecute the gold digging. Dickson smiled cheerfully and nodded. Then
one of the policemen whispered attention, and the unhappy prisoner at
once confronted the judge.
"Reginald Grahame," said the latter after some legal formalities were
gone through, "you are accused of the wilful murder of Craig Nicol,
farmer on Deeside, by stabbing him to the heart with a dirk or _skean
dhu_. Are you guilty or not guilty?"
"Not guilty, my lord." This in a firm voice, without shake or tremolo.
"Call the witnesses."
The first to be examined was Craig's old housekeeper. She shed tears
profusely, and in a faint tone testified to the departure of her master
for Aberdeen with the avowed intention of drawing money to purchase
stock withal. She was speedily allowed to stand down.
The little boys who had found the body beneath the dark spruce-fir in
the lonely plantation were next interrogated, and answered plainly
enough in their shrill treble.
Then came the police who had been called, and the detective, who all
gave their evidence in succinct but straightforward sentences.
All this time there was not a sound in the court, only that sea of faces
was bent eagerly forward, so that not a word might escape them. The
excitement was intense.
Now came the chief witness against Reginald; and the bloodstained dirk
was handed to Shufflin' Sandie.
"Look at that, and say if you have seen it before?" said the judge.
"As plain as the nose on your lordship's face!" said Sandie, smiling.
That particular nose was big, bulbous, and red. Sandie's reply,
therefore, caused a titter to run through the court. The judge frowned,
and the prosecution proceeded.
"Where did you last see it?"
"Stained with blood, sir; it was found beneath the dead man's body."
On being questioned, Sandie also repeated his evidence as given at the
coroner's inquest, and presently was allowed to stand down.
Then the prisoner was hissed by the people. The judge lost his temper.
He had not quite got over Sandie's allusion to his nose.
"If," he cried, "there is the slightest approach to a repetition of that
unseemly noise, I will instantly clear the court?"
The doctor who had examined the body was examined.
"Might not the farmer have committed suicide?" he was asked.
"Everything is against that theory," the doctor replied, "for the knife
belonged to Grahame; besides, the deed was done on the road, and from
the appearance of the deceased's coat, he had evidently been hauled
through the gateway on his back, bleeding all the while, and so hidden
under the darkling spruce pine."
"So that _felo de se_ is quite out of the question?"
"Utterly so, my lord."
"Stand down, doctor."
I am giving the evidence only in the briefest epitome, for it occupied
hours. The advocate for the prosecution made a telling speech, to which
the prisoner's solicitor replied in one quite as good. He spoke almost
ironically, and laughed as he did so, especially when he came to the
evidence of the knife. His client at the time of the murder was lying
sound asleep at a hedge-foot. What could hinder a tramp, one of the
many who swarm on the Deeside road, to have stolen the knife, followed
Craig Nicol, stabbed him, robbed and hidden the body, and left the knife
there to turn suspicion on the sleeping man? "Is it likely," he added,
"that Reginald--had he indeed murdered his quondam friend--would have
been so great a fool as to have left the knife there?" He ended by
saying that there was not a jot of trustworthy evidence on which the
jury could bring in a verdict of guilty.
But, alas! for Reginald. The judge in his summing up--and a long and
eloquent speech it was--destroyed all the good effects of the
solicitor's speech. "He could not help," he said, "pointing out to the
jury that guilt or suspicion could rest on no one else save Grahame. As
testified by a witness, he had quarrelled with Nicol, and had made use
of the remarkable expression that `the quarrel would end in blood.' The
night of the murder Grahame was not sober, but lying where he was, in
the shade of the hedge, Nicol must have passed him without seeing him,
and then no doubt Grahame had followed and done that awful deed which in
cool blood he might not even have thought about Again, Grahame was poor,
and was engaged to be married. The gold and notes would be an incentive
undoubtedly to the crime, and when he sailed away in the _Wolverine_ he
was undoubtedly a fugitive from justice, and in his opinion the jury had
but one course. They might now retire."
They were about to rise, and his lordship was about to withdraw, when a
loud voice exclaimed:
"Hold! I desire to give evidence."
A tall, bold-looking seafarer stepped up, and was sworn.
"I have but this moment returned from a cruise around Africa," he said.
"I am bo's'n's mate in H.M.S. _Hurricane_. We have been out for three
years. But, my lord, I have some of the notes here that the Bank of
Scotland can prove were paid to Craig Nicol, and on the very day after
the murder must have taken place I received these notes, for value
given, from the hands of Sandie yonder, usually called Shufflin' Sandie.
I knew nothing about the murder then, nor until the ship was paid off;
but being hurried away, I had no time to cash the paper, and here are
three of them now, my lord." They were handed to the jury. "They were
smeared with blood when I got them. Sandie laughed when I pointed this
out to him. He said that he had cut his finger, but that the blood
would bring me luck." (Great sensation in court.)
Sandie was at once recalled to the witness-box. His knees trembled so
that he had to be supported. His voice shook, and his face was pale to
ghastliness.
"Where did you obtain those notes?" said the judge sternly.
For a moment emotion choked the wretch's utterance. But he found words
at last.
"Oh, my lord my lord, I alone am the murderer! I killed one man--Craig
Nicol--I cannot let another die for my crime! I wanted money, my lord,
to help to pay for my new house, and set me up in life, and I dodged
Nicol for miles. I found Mr Grahame asleep under a hedge, and I stole
the stocking knife and left it near the man I had murdered. When I
returned to the sleeping man, I had with me--oh, awful!--some of the
blood of my victim that I had caught in a tiny bottle as it flowed from
his side,"--murmurs of horror--"and with this I smeared Grahame's
hands."
Here Sandie collapsed in a dead faint, and was borne from the court.
"Gentlemen of the jury," said the judge, "this evidence and confession
puts an entirely new complexion on this terrible case. The man who has
just fainted is undoubtedly the murderer." The jury agreed. "The
present prisoner is discharged, but must appear to-morrow, when the
wretched dwarf shall take his place in the dock."
And so it was. Even the bloodstained clothes that Sandie had worn on
the night of the murder had been found. The jury returned a verdict of
guilty against him without even leaving the box. The judge assumed the
black cap, and amidst a silence that could be felt, condemned him to
death.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reginald Grahame was a free man, and once more happy. The court even
apologised to him, and wished him all the future joys that life could
give.
But the wretched culprit forestalled justice, and managed to strangle
himself in his cell. And thus the awful tragedy ended.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I knew it, I knew it!" cried Annie, as a morning or two after his
exculpation Reginald presented himself at McLeod Cottage. And the
welcome he received left nothing to be desired.