“It was the English,” Kasper cried,
“Who put the French to rout;
But what they killed each other for,
I could not well make out.
But everybody said,” quoth he,
“That ’twas a famous victory.”
_Southey._
The following day, after an early breakfast, Dunscomb and his friend the
doctor were on their way back to town. The former had clients and
courts, and the latter patients, who were not to be neglected, to say
nothing of the claims of Sarah and Mrs. Updyke. John and Michael
remained at Biberry; the first being detained there by divers
commissions connected with the comforts and treatment of Mary Monson,
but still more by his own inclinations; and the last remaining, somewhat
against his wishes, as a companion to the brother of her who so strongly
drew him back to New York.
As the commitment was for offences so serious, crimes as grave as any
known to the law, bail would not have been accepted, could any have been
found. We ought not to speak with too much confidence, however, on this
last point; for Dr. McBrain, a man of very handsome estate, the result
of a liberal profession steadily and intelligently pursued, was more
than half disposed to offer himself for one of the sureties, and to go
and find a second among his friends. Nothing, indeed, prevented his
doing so; but Dunscomb’s repeated assurances that no bondsmen would be
received. Even charming young women, when they stand charged with murder
and arson, must submit to be incarcerated, until their innocence is
established in due form of law; or, what is the same thing in effect,
until the caprice, impulses, ignorance, or corruption of a jury acquits
them.
The friends did not entirely agree in their manner of viewing this
affair. The doctor was firmly impressed with the conviction of Mary
Monson’s innocence; while Dunscomb, more experienced in the ways of
crime and the infirmities of the human heart, had his misgivings. So
many grounds of suspicion had occurred, or been laid open to his
observation, during the hour of private communication, that it was not
easy for one who had seen so much of the worst side of human nature, to
cast them off under the mere influence of a graceful form, winning
manner, and bright countenance. Then, the secondary facts, well
established, and, in one important particular, admitted by the party
accused, were not of a character to be overlooked. It often happens, and
Dunscomb well knew it, that innocence appears under a repulsive
exterior, while guilt conceals itself in forms and aspects so fair, as
to deceive all but the wary and experienced.
“I hope that the comfort of Miss Monson has been properly attended to,
since she must be confined for a few days,” said McBrain, while he took
a last look at the little gaol, as the carriage passed the brow of a
hill. “Justice can ask no more than security.”
“It is a blot on the character of the times, and on this country in
particular,” answered Dunscomb, coldly, “that so little attention is
paid to the gaols. We are crammed with false philanthropy in connection
with convicted rogues, who ought to be made to feel the penalties of
their offences; while we are not even just in regard to those who are
only accused, many of whom are really innocent. But for my interference,
this delicate and friendless girl would, in all probability, have been
immured in a common dungeon.”
“What! before her guilt is established?”
“Relatively, her treatment after conviction, would be far more humane
than previously to that event. Comfortable, well-furnished, but secure
apartments, ought to be provided for the accused in every county in the
state, as acts of simple justice, before another word of mawkish
humanity is uttered on the subject of the treatment of recognised
criminals. It is wonderful what a disposition there is among men to run
into octaves, in everything they do, forgetting that your true melody is
to be found only in the simpler and more natural notes. There is as much
of the _falsetto_, now-a-days, in philanthropy, as in music.”
“And this poor girl is thrust into a dungeon?”
“No; it is not quite as bad as that. The gaol has one decent apartment,
that was fitted up for the comfort of a prize-fighter, who was confined
in it not long since; and as the room is sufficiently secure, I have
persuaded the gaoler’s wife to put Mary Monson in it. Apart from loss of
air and exercise, and the happiness of knowing herself respected and
beloved, the girl will not be very badly off there. I dare say, the room
is quite as good as that she occupied under the roof of those
unfortunate Goodwins.”
“How strange, that a female of her appearance should have been the
inmate of such a place! She does not seem to want money, either. You saw
the gold she had in her purse?”
“Ay; it were better had that gold not been there, or not seen. I
sincerely wish it had been nothing but silver.”
“You surely do not agree with that silly woman, the Widow Pope, as they
call her, in believing that she has got the money of those persons who
have been murdered?”
“On that subject, I choose to suspend my opinion—I may, or I may not; as
matters shall turn up. She has money; and in sufficient quantity to buy
herself out of jeopardy. At least, she offered me a fee of a hundred
dollars, in good city paper.”
“Which you did not take, Tom?”
“Why not? It is my trade, and I live by it. Why not take her fee, if you
please, sir? Does the Widow Updyke teach you such doctrines? Will you
drive about town for nothing? Why not take her fee, Master Ned?”
“Why not, sure enough! That girl has bewitched me, I believe; and that
is the solution.”
“I’ll tell you what, Ned, unless there is a stop put to this folly, I’ll
make Mrs. Updyke acquainted with the whole matter, and put an end to
nuptials No. 3. Jack is head and ears in love, already; and here you are
flying off at a tangent from all your engagements and professions, to
fall at the feet of an unknown girl of twenty, who appears before you,
on a first interview, in the amiable light of one accused of the highest
crimes.”
“And of which I no more believe her guilty, than I believe you to be
guilty of them.”
“Umph! ‘Time will show;’ which is the English, I suppose, of the ‘_nous
verrons_,’ that is flying about in the newspapers. Yes, she has money to
buy three or four journals, to get up a ‘sympathy’ in her behalf; when
her acquittal would be almost certain, if her trial were not a legal
impossibility. I am not sure it is not her safest course, in the actual
state of the facts.”
“Would you think, Dunscomb, of advising any one who looked up to you for
counsel, to take such a course?”
“Certainly not—and you know it, well enough, McBrain; but that does not
lessen, or increase, the chances of the expedient. The journals have
greatly weakened their own power, by the manner in which they have
abused it; but enough still remains to hoodwink, not to say to
overshadow, justice. The law is very explicit and far-sighted as to the
consequences of allowing any one to influence the public mind in matters
of its own administration; but in a country like this, in which the
virtue and intelligence of the people are said to be the _primum mobile_
in everything, there is no one to enforce the ordinances that the wisdom
of our ancestors has bequeathed to us. Any editor of a newspaper who
publishes a sentence reflecting on the character or rights of a party to
a pending suit, is guilty, at common law, of what the books call a
‘libel on the courts of justice,’ and can be punished for it, as for any
other misdemeanor; yet, you can see for yourself, how little such a
provision, healthful and most wise—nay, essential as it is to justice—is
looked down by the mania which exists, of putting everything into print.
When one remembers that very little of what he reads is true, it is
fearful to reflect that a system, of which the whole merit depends on
its power to extract facts, and to do justice on their warranty, should
be completely overshadowed by another contrivance which, when stripped
of its pretension, and regarded in its real colours, is nothing more
than one of the ten thousand schemes to make money that surround us,
with a little higher pretension than common to virtue.”
“‘Completely overshadowed’ are strong words, Dunscomb!”
“Perhaps they are, and they may need a little qualifying. Overshadowed
often—much too often, however, is not a particle stronger than I am
justified in using. Every one, who thinks at all, sees and feels the
truth of this; but here is the weak side of a popular government. The
laws are enforced by means of public virtue, and public virtue, like
private virtue, is very frail. We all are willing enough to admit the
last, as regards our neighbours at least, while there seems to exist, in
most minds, a species of idolatrous veneration for the common sentiment,
as sheer a quality of straw, as any image of a lover drawn by the most
heated imagination of sixteen.”
“You surely do not disregard public opinion, Tom, or set it down as
unworthy of all respect!”
“By no means; if you mean that opinion which is the result of deliberate
judgment, and has a direct connection with our religion, morals, and
manners. That is a public opinion to which we all ought to defer, when
it is fairly made up, and has been distinctly and independently
pronounced; most especially when it comes from high quarters, and not
from low. But the country is full of simulated public opinion, in the
first place, and it is not always easy to tell the false from the true.
Yes, the country is full of what I shall call an artificial public
opinion, that has been got up to effect a purpose, and to that no wise
man will defer, if he can help it. Now, look at our scheme of
administering justice. Twelve men taken out of the bosom of the
community, by a species of lottery, are set apart to pronounce on your
fortune, or mine—nay, to utter the fearful words of ‘guilty,’ or ‘not
guilty.’ All the accessories of this plan, as they exist here, make
against its success. In the first place, the jurors are paid, and that
just enough to induce the humblest on the list to serve, and not enough
to induce the educated and intelligent. It is a day-labourer’s wages,
and the day-labourer will be most likely to profit by it. Men who are
content to toil for seventy-five cents a day are very willing to serve
on juries for a dollar; while those whose qualifications enable them to
obtain enough to pay their fines, disregard the penalty, and stay away.”
“Why is not an evil as flagrant as this remedied? I should think the
whole bar would protest against it.”
“With what result? Who cares for the bar? Legislators alone can change
this system, and men very different from those who are now sent must go
to the legislature, before one is found, honest enough, or bold enough,
to get up and tell the people they are not all fit to be trusted. No,
no; this is not the way of the hour. We have a cycle in opinion to make,
and it may be that when the round is fairly made, men may come back to
their senses, and perceive the necessity of fencing in justice by some
of the useful provisions that we are now so liberally throwing away. To
tell you the truth, Ned, the state is submitting to the influence of two
of the silliest motives that can govern men—ultra conservatism, and
ultra progress; the one holding back, often, to preserve that which is
not worth keeping; and the other ‘going ahead,’ as it is termed, merely
for the sake of boasting of their onward tendencies. Neither course is
in the least suited to the actual wants of society, and each is
pernicious in its way.”
“It is thought, however, that when opinion thus struggles with opinion,
a healthful compromise is made, in which society finds its advantage.”
“The cant of mediocrity, depend on it, Ned. In the first place, there is
no compromise about it; one side or the other gains the victory; and as
success is sustained by numbers, the conquerors push their advantages to
the utmost. They think of their own grosser interests, their passions
and prejudices, rather than of any ‘healthful compromise,’ as you term
it. What compromise is there in this infernal code?”—Dunscomb was an
ultra himself, in opposition to a system that has a good deal of that
which is useful, diluted by more that is not quite so good—“or what in
this matter of the election of judges by the people? As respects the
last, for instance, had the tenure of office been made ‘good behaviour,’
there would have been something like a compromise; but, no—the
conquerors took all; and what is worse, the conquerors were actually a
minority of the voters, so easy is it to cow even numbers by political
chicanery. In this respect, democracy is no more infallible, than any
other form of government.”
“I confess, I do not see how this is shown, since the polls were free to
every citizen.”
“The result fairly proves it. Less than half of the known number of the
electors voted for the change. Now, it is absurd to suppose that men who
really and affirmatively wished a new constitution would stay away from
the polls.”
“More so, than to suppose that they who did not wish it, would stay
away, too?”
“More so; and for this reason. Thousands fancied it useless to stem the
current of what they fancied a popular movement, and were passive in the
matter. Any man, of an extensive acquaintance, may easily count a
hundred such idlers. Then a good many stood on their legal rights, and
refused to vote, because the manner of producing the change was a
palpable violation of a previous contract; the old constitution pointing
out the manner in which the instrument could be altered, which was not
the mode adopted. Then tens of thousands voted for the new constitution,
who did not know anything about it. They loved change, and voted for
change’s sake; and, possibly, with some vague notion that they were to
be benefited by making the institutions as popular as possible.”
“And is not this the truth? Will not the mass be all the better off, by
exercising as much power as they can?”
“No; and for the simple reason that masses cannot, in the nature of
things, exercise more than a very limited power. You, yourself, for
instance, one of the mass, cannot exercise this very power of choosing a
judge, as it ought to be exercised, and of course are liable to do more
harm than good.”
“The deuce I cannot! Why is not my vote as good as your own? or that of
any other man?”
“For the simple reason, that you are ignorant of the whole matter. Ask
yourself the question, and answer it like an honest man: would
you—_could_ you, with the knowledge you possess, lay your finger on any
man in this community, and say, ‘I make you a judge?’”
“Yes; my finger would be laid on you, in a minute.”
“Ah, Ned, that will do, as a friend; but how would it do as a judicious
selection of a judge you do not know? You are ignorant of the law, and
must necessarily be ignorant of the qualifications of any particular
person to be an interpreter of it. What is true of you, is equally true
of a vast majority of those who are now the electors of our judges.”
“I am not a little surprised, Tom, to hear _you_ talk in this way; for
you profess to be a democrat!”
“To the extent of giving the people all power, in the last resort—all
power that they can intelligently and usefully use; but not to the
extent of permitting them to make the laws, to execute the laws, and to
interpret the laws. All that the people want, is sufficient power to
secure their liberties, which is simply such a state of things as shall
secure what is right between man and man. Now, it is the want of this
all-important security, in a practical point of view, of which I
complain. Rely on it, Ned, the people gain nothing by exercising an
authority that they do not know how to turn to good account. It were far
better for them, and for the state, to confine themselves to the choice
of general agents, of whose characters they may know something, and then
confide all other powers to servants appointed by those named by these
agents, holding all alike to a rigid responsibility. As for the judges,
they will soon take decided party characters; and men will as blindly
accuse, and as blindly defend them, as they now do their other leading
partisans. What between the bench and the jury-box, we shall shortly
enjoy a legal pandemonium.”
“Yet there are those who think the trial by jury is the palladium of our
liberties.”
Dunscomb laughed outright, for he recollected his conversation with the
young men, which we have already related. Then suppressing his risible
propensity, he continued gravely—
“Yes, one or two papers, well fee’d by this young woman’s spare cash,
might do her more good than any service I can render her. I dare say the
accounts now published, or soon to be published, will leave a strong
bias against her.”
“Why not fee a reporter as well as a lawyer, eh, Tom? There is no great
difference, as I can see.”
“Yes you can, and will, too, as soon as you look into the matter. A
lawyer is paid for a known and authorized assistance, and the public
recognises in him one engaged in the interests of his client, and
accepts his statements and efforts accordingly. But the conductor of a
public journal sets up a claim to strict impartiality, in his very
profession, and should tell nothing but what he believes to be true,
neither inventing nor suppressing. In his facts, he is merely the
publisher of a record; in his reasoning, a judge; not an advocate.”
The doctor now laughed, in his turn, and well he might; few men being so
ignorant as not to understand how far removed from all this are most of
those who control the public journals.
“After all, it is a tremendous power to confide to irresponsible men!”
he exclaimed.
“That it is, and there is nothing among us that so completely
demonstrates how far, very far, the public mind is in the rear of the
facts of the country, than the blind, reckless manner in which the press
is permitted to tyrannize over the community, in the midst of all our
hosannas to the Goddess of Liberty. Because, forsooth, what is termed a
free press is useful, and has been useful in curbing an irresponsible,
hereditary power, in other lands, we are just stupid enough to think it
is of equal importance here, where no such power exists, and where all
that remains to be done, is to strictly maintain the equal rights of all
classes of citizens. Did we understand ourselves, and our own real
wants, not a paper should be printed in the state, that did not make a
deposit to meet the legal penalties it might incur by the abuse of its
trust. This is or was done in France, the country of all others that
best respects equality of rights in theory, if not in practice!”
“You surely would not place restrictions on the press!”
“I would though, and very severe restrictions, as salutary checks on the
immense power it wields. I would, for instance, forbid the publication
of any statement whatever, touching parties in the courts, whether in
civil or criminal cases, pending the actions, that the public mind might
not be tainted, by design. Give the right to publish, and it will be,
and is abused, and that most flagrantly, to meet the wishes of
corruption. I tell you, Ned, as soon as you make a trade of news, you
create a stock market that will have its rise and fall, under the
impulses of fear, falsehood, and favour, just like your money
transactions. It is a perversion of the nature of things, to make of
news more than a simple statement of what has actually occurred.”
“It is surely natural to lie!”
“That is it, and this is the very reason we should not throw
extraordinary protection around a thousand tongues which speak by means
of types, that we do not give to the natural member. The lie that is
told by the press is ten thousand times a lie, in comparison with that
which issues from the mouth of man.”
“By George, Tom, if I had your views, I would see that some of this
strange young woman’s money should be used in sustaining her, by means
of the agents you mention!”
“That would never do. This is one of the cases in which ‘want of
principle’ has an ascendancy over ‘principle.’ The upright man cannot
consent to use improper instruments, while the dishonest fellows seize
on them with avidity. So much the greater, therefore, is the necessity
for the law’s watching the interests of the first with the utmost
jealousy. But, unfortunately, we run away with the sound, and overlook
the sense of things.”
We have related this conversation at a length which a certain class of
our readers will probably find tedious, but it is necessary to a right
comprehension of various features in the picture we are about to draw.
At the Stag’s Head the friends stopped to let the horses blow, and,
while the animals were cooling themselves under the care of Stephen
Hoof, McBrain’s coachman, the gentlemen took a short walk in the hamlet.
At several points, as they moved along, they overheard the subject of
the murders alluded to, and saw divers newspapers, in the hands of
sundry individuals, who were eagerly perusing accounts of the same
events; sometimes by themselves, but oftener to groups of attentive
listeners. The travellers were now so near town as to be completely
within its moral, not to say physical, atmosphere—being little more than
a suburb of New York. On their return to the inn, the doctor stopped
under the shed to look at his horses, before Stephen checked them up
again, previously to a fresh start. Stephen was neither an Irishman nor
a black; but a regular, old-fashioned, Manhattannese coachman; a class
apart, and of whom, in the confusion of tongues that pervades that
modern Babel, a few still remain, like monuments of the past, scattered
along the Appian Way.
“How do your horses stand the heat, Stephen?” the doctor kindly
enquired, always speaking of the beasts as if they were the property of
the coachman, and not of himself. “Pill looks as if he had been well
warmed this morning.”
“Yes, sir, he takes it somewhat hotter than Poleus, in the spring of the
year, as a gineral thing. Pill vill vork famously, if a body vill only
give him his feed in vhat I calls a genteel vay; but them ’ere country
taverns has nothing nice about ’em, not even a clean manger; and a town
horse that is accustomed to a sweet stable and proper company, won’t
stand up to the rack as he should do, in one of their holes. Now, Poleus
I calls a gineral feeder; it makes no matter vith him vhether he is at
home, or out on a farm—he finishes his oats, but it isn’t so vith Pill,
sir—his stomach is delicate, and the horse that don’t get his proper
food vill sweat, summer or vinter.”
“I sometimes think, Stephen, it might be better to take them both off
their oats for a few days, and let blood, perhaps; they say that the
fleam is as good for a horse as the lancet is for a man.”
“Do n’t think on’t, sir, I beg of you! I’m sure they has doctor-stuff in
their names, not to crowd ’em down vith any more, jist as varm veather
is a settin’ in. Oats is physic enough for a horse, and vhen the
creaturs vants anything more, sir, jist leave ’em to me. I knows as
peculiar a drench as ever vas poured down a vheeler’s throat, vithout
troublin’ that academy in Barclay street, vhere so many gentlemen goes
two or three times a veek, and vhere they do say, so many goes in as
never comes out whole.”
“Well, Stephen, I’ll not interfere with your treatment, for I confess to
very little knowledge of the diseases of horses. What have you got in
the paper there, that I see you have been reading?”
“Vhy, sir,” answered Stephen, scratching his head, “it’s all about our
affair, up yonder.”
“Our affair! Oh! you mean the inquest, and the murder. Well, what does
the paper say about it, Hoof?”
“It says it’s a most ‘thrilling a’count,’ sir, and an ‘awful tragedy’;
and it vonders vhat young vomen is a coming to, next. I am pretty much
of the same vay of thinking, sir, myself.”
“You are in the habit of thinking very much as the newspapers do, are
you not, Stephen?” asked Dunscomb.
“Vell, ’Squire Dunscomb, you’ve hit it! There is an onaccountable
resemblance, like, in our thoughts. I hardly ever set down to read a
paper, that, afore I’ve got half vay through it, I find it thinking just
as I do! It puzzles me to know how them that writes for these papers
finds out a body’s thoughts so vell!”
“They have a way of doing it; but it is too long a story to go over now.
So this paper has something to say about our young woman, has it,
Stephen? and it mentions the Biberry business?”
“A good deal, ’Squire; and vhat I calls good sense, too Vhy, gentlemen,
vhat shall we all come to, if young gals of fifteen can knock us in the
head, matched, like, or in pairs, killing a whole team at one blow, and
then set fire to the stables, and burn us up to our anatomies?”
“Fifteen! Does your account say that Miss Monson is only fifteen, Hoof?”
“‘She appears to be of the tender age of fifteen, and is of extr’ornary
personal attractions.’ Them’s the werry vords, sir; but perhaps you’d
like to read it yourselves, gentlemen?”
As Stephen made this remark, he very civilly offered the journal to
Dunscomb, who took it; but was not disposed to drop the conversation
just then to read it, though his eye did glance at the article, as he
continued the subject. This was a habit with him; his clerks often
saying, he could carry the chains of arguments of two subjects in his
mind at the same moment. His present object, was to ascertain from this
man what might be the popular feeling in regard to his client, at the
place they had just left, and the scene of the events themselves.
“What is thought and said, at Biberry, among those with whom you talked,
Stephen, concerning this matter?”
“That it’s a most awful ewent, ’Squire! One of the werry vorst that has
happened in these werry vicked times, sir. I heard one gentleman go over
all the murders that has taken place about York during these last ten
years, and a perdigious sight on ’em there vas; so many, that I began to
vonder I vasn’t one of the wictims myself; but he counted ’em off on his
fingers, and made this out to be one of the werry vorst of ’em all, sir.
He did, indeed, sir.”
“Was he a reporter, Stephen? one of the persons who are sent out by the
papers to collect news?”
“I believe he vas, sir. Quite a gentleman; and vith something to say to
all he met. He often came out to the stables, and had a long
conwersation vith as poor a feller as I be.”
“Pray, what could he have to say to you, Stephen?” demanded the doctor,
a little gravely.
“Oh! lots of things, sir. He began by praising the horses, and asking
their names. I give him _my_ names, sir, not _yourn_; for I thought he
might get it into print, somehow, that Dr. McBrain calls his
coach-horses after his physic, Pill and Poleus”—“Bolus,” was the real
appellation that the owner had been pleased to give this beast; but as
Stephen fancied the word had some connection with “pole-horse,” he chose
to pronounce it as written—“Yes, I didn’t vish _your_ names to get into
the papers, sir; and so I told him ‘Pill’ vas called ‘Marygoold,’ and
‘Poleus,’ ‘Dandelion.’ He promised an article about ’em, sir; and I give
him the ages, blood, sires, and dams, of both the beauties. He told me
he thought the names delightful; and I’m in hopes, sir, you’ll give up
_yourn_, arter all, and take to _mine_, altogether.”
“We shall see. And he promised an article, did he?”
“Yes, sir, quite woluntary. I know’d that the horses couldn’t be
outdone, and told him as much as that; for I thought, as the subject vas
up, it might be as vell to do ’em all the credit I could. Perhaps, vhen
they gets to be too old for vork, you might vish to part vith ’em, sir,
and then a good newspaper character could do ’em no great harm.”
Stephen was a particularly honest fellow, as to things in general; but
he had the infirmity which seems to be so general among men, that of a
propensity to cheat in a transfer of horse-flesh. Dunscomb was amused at
this exhibition of character, of which he had seen so much in his day,
and felt disposed to follow it up.
“I believe you had some difficulty in choosing one of the horses,
Stephen”—McBrain commissioned his coachman to do all the bargaining of
this sort, and had never lost a cent by his confidence—“Pill, I think it
was, that didn’t bring as good a character as he might have done?”
“Beg your pardon, ’Squire, ’twas n’t he, but Marygoold. Vhy, the thing
vas this: a gentleman of the church had bought Marygoold to go in a
buggy; but soon vanted to part vith him, ’cause of his shyin’ in single
harness, vhich frightened his vife, _as he said_. Now, all the
difficulty vas in this one thing: not that I cared at all about the
creatur’s shyin’, vhich vas no great matter in double harness, you know,
sir, and a body could soon coax him out of the notion on it, by
judgematical drivin’; but the difficulty vas here—if the owner of a
horse owned so much ag’in his character, there must be a great deal
behind, that a feller must find out as vell as he could. I’ve know’d a
foundered animal put off under a character for shyin’.”
“And the owner a clergyman, Stephen?”
“Perhaps not, sir. But it makes no great matter in tradin’ horses;
church and the vorld is much of a muchness.”
“Did that reporting gentleman ask any questions concerning the owner, as
well as concerning the horses?”
“Vhy, yes, sir; vhen he vas done vith the animals, he did make a few
obserwations about the doctor. He vanted to know if he vas married yet,
and vhen it vas to happen; and how much I thought he might be vorth, and
how much Mrs. Updyke vas counted for; and if there vas children; and
vhich house the family vas to live in; and vhere he should keep the
slate, arter the veddin’ had come off; and how much the doctor’s
practice vas vorth; and vhether he vas vhig or locy; and, most of all,
he vanted to know vhy he and you, sir, should go to Biberry about this
murder.”
“What did you tell him, Stephen, in reference to the last?”
“Vhat could I, sir? I don’t know, myself. I’ve druv’ the doctor often
and often to see them that has died soon arter our wisit; but I never
druv’ him, afore, to wisit the dead. That gentleman seemed to think he
vas much mistaken about the skeletons; but it’s all in the paper, sir.”
On hearing this, Dunscomb quickly turned to the columns of the journal
again, and was soon reading their contents aloud to his friend; in the
meantime, Stephen set Marygoold and Dandelion in motion once more.
The account was much as Dunscomb expected to find it; so written as to
do no possible good, while it might do a great deal of harm. The
intention was to feed a morbid feeling in the vulgar for exaggerated
accounts of the shocking—the motive being gain. Anything that would
sell, was grist for this mill; and the more marvellous and terrible the
history of the event could be made, the greater was the success likely
to be. The allusions to Mary Monson were managed with a good deal of
address; for, while there was a seeming respect for her rights, the
reader was left to infer that her guilt was not only beyond a question,
but of the darkest dye. It was while reading and commenting on these
articles, that the carriage entered Broadway, and soon set Dunscomb down
at his own door. There the doctor left it; choosing to walk as far as
Mrs. Updyke’s, rather than give Stephen more materials for the reporter.