Was it for this we sent out
Liberty’s cry from our shore?
Was it for this that her shout
Thrill’d to the world’s very core?
_Moore’s National Airs._
The third day after the interviews just related, the whole party left
Rattletrap for Timbully, where their arrival was expected by the bride
and bridegroom, if such terms can be applied to a woman of forty-five
and a man of sixty. The Duke’s county circuit and oyer and terminer were
about to be held, and it was believed that Mary Monson was to be tried.
By this time so lively an interest prevailed among the ladies of the
McBrain and Dunscomb connections in behalf of the accused, that they had
all come to a determination to be present in court. Curiosity was not so
much at the bottom of this movement as womanly kindness and sympathy.
There seemed a bitterness of misery in the condition of Mary Monson,
that appealed directly to the heart; and that silent but eloquent appeal
was answered, as has just been stated, generously and with warmth by the
whole party from town. With Anna Updyke the feeling went materially
farther than with any of her friends. Strange as it may seem, her
interest in John increased that which she felt for his mysterious
client; and her feelings became enlisted in the stranger’s behalf, so
much the more, in consequence of this triangular sort of passion.
The morning of the day on which the party crossed the country from
Rattletrap to Timbully, Timms arrived at the latter place. He was
expected, and was soon after closeted with the senior counsel in the
pending and most important cause.
“Does the District Attorney intend to move for the trial?” demanded
Dunscomb, the instant the two were alone.
“He tells me he does, sir; and that early in the week, too. It is my
opinion we should go for postponement. We are hardly ready, while the
State is too much so.”
“I do not comprehend this, Timms. The law-officers of the public would
hardly undertake to run down a victim, and she a solitary and
unprotected woman!”
“That’s not it. The law-officers of the State don’t care a straw whether
Mary Monson is found guilty or is acquitted. That is, they care nothing
about it _at present_. The case may be different when they are warmed up
by a trial and opposition. Our danger comes from Jesse Davis, who is a
nephew of Peter Goodwin, his next of kin and heir, and who thinks a
great deal of money was hoarded by the old people; much more than the
stocking ever held or could hold, and who has taken it into his wise
head that the prisoner has laid hands on this treasure, and is carrying
on her defence with his cash. This has roused him completely, and he has
retained two of the sharpest counsel on our circuit, who are beginning
to work as if the bargain has been clenched in the hard metal. Williams
has given me a great deal of trouble already. I know him; he will not
work without pay; but pay him liberally, and he is up to anything.”
“Ay, you are diamond cut diamond, Timms—outsiders in the profession. You
understand that I work only in the open court, and will know nothing of
this out-door management.”
“We do not mean to let you know anything about it, ’Squire,” returned
Timms, drily. “Each man to his own manner of getting along. I ought to
tell you, however, it has got out that you are working without a fee,
while I am paid in the most liberal manner.”
“I am sorry for that. There is no great harm in the thing itself; but I
dislike the parade of seeming to be unusually generous. I do not
remember to have spoken of this circumstance where it would be likely to
be repeated; and I beg you will be equally discreet.”
“The fact has not come from me, I can assure you, sir. It puts me in too
awkward a position to delight me; and I make it a point to say as little
as possible of what is disagreeable. I do not relish the idea of being
thought selfish by my future constituents. Giniros’ty is my cue before
_them_. But they say you work for love, sir.”
“Love!” answered Dunscomb, quickly—“Love of what?—or of _whom_?”
“Of your client—that’s the story now. It is said that you admire Miss
Monson; that she is young, and handsome, and rich; and she is to marry
you, if acquitted. If found guilty and hanged, the bargain is off, of
course. You may look displeased, ’Squire; but I give you my word such is
the rumour.”
Dunscomb was extremely vexed; but he was too proud to make any answer.
He knew that he had done that which, among the mass of this nation, is a
very capital mistake, in not placing before its observation an
intelligible _motive_—one on the level of the popular mind—to prevent
these freaks of the fancy dealing with his affairs. It is true, that the
natural supposition would be that he worked for his fee, as did Timms,
had not the contrary got out; when he became subject to all the crude
conjectures of those who ever look for the worst motives for everything.
Had he been what is termed a favourite public servant, the very reverse
would have been the case, and there was little that he might not have
done with impunity; but, having no such claims on the minds of the mass,
he came under the common law which somewhat distinguishes their control.
Too much disgusted, however, to continue this branch of the subject, the
worthy counsellor at once adverted to another.
“Have you looked over the list of the jurors, Timms?” he demanded,
continuing to sort his papers.
“That I never fail to do, sir, the first thing. It’s my brief, you know,
’Squire Dunscomb. All _safe_ York law, now-a-days, is to be found in
that learned body; especially in criminal cases. There is but one sort
of suit in which the jury counts for nothing, and might as well be
dispensed with.”
“Which is——?”
“An ejectment cause. It’s not one time in ten that they understand
anything about the matter, or care anything about it; and the court
usually leads in those actions—but our Duke’s county juries are
beginning to understand their powers in all others.”
“What do you make of the list?”
“It’s what I call reasonable, ’Squire. There are two men on it who would
not hang Cain, were he indicted for the murder of Abel.”
“Quakers, of course?”
“Not they. The time was when we were reduced to the ‘thee’s’ and the
‘thou’s’ for this sort of support; but philanthropy is abroad, sir,
covering the land. Talk of the schoolmaster!—Why, ’Squire, a new
philanthropical idee will go two feet to the schoolmaster’s one.
Pro-nigger, anti-gallows, eternal peace, woman’s rights, the people’s
power, and anything of that sort, sweeps like a tornado through the
land. Get a juror who has just come into the anti-gallows notion, and I
would defy the State to hang a body-snatcher who lived by murdering his
subjects.”
“And you count on two of these partisans for our case?”
“Lord no, sir. The District Attorney himself knows them both; and
Davis’s counsel have been studying that list for the last week, as if it
were Blackstone in the hands of a new beginner. I can tell you, ’Squire
Dunscomb, that the jury-list is a most important part of a case out here
in the country!”
“I am much afraid it is, Timms; though I never examined one in my life.”
“I can believe you, sir, from what I have seen of your practice. But
principles and facts won’t answer in an age of the world when men are
ruled by talk and prejudice. There is not a case of any magnitude tried,
now-a-days, without paying proper attention to the jury. We are pretty
well off, on the whole; and I am tolerably sanguine of a disagreement,
though I fear an acquittal is quite out of the question.”
“You rely on one or two particularly intelligent and disinterested men,
ha! Timms?”
“I rely on five or six particularly ignorant and heated partisans, on
the contrary;—men who have been reading about the abolishing of capital
punishments, and who in gin’ral, because they’ve got hold of some
notions that have been worn out as far back as the times of the Cæsars,
fancy themselves philosophers and the children of progress. The country
is getting to be full of what I call donkeys and racers; the donkey is
obstinate, and backs going up hill; while the racers will not only break
their own necks, but those of their riders too, unless they hold up long
before they reach their goal.”
“I did not know, Timms, that you think so much on such subjects. To me,
you have always appeared to be a purely working-man—no theorist.”
“It is precisely because I am a man of action, and live in the world,
and see things as they were meant to be seen, that I laugh at your
theorists. Why, sir, this country, in my judgment, for the time being,
could much better get along without preaching, than without hanging. I
don’t say always; for there is no telling yet what is to be the upshot
of preaching. It may turn out as many think; in which case human natur’
will undergo a change that will pretty much destroy our business. Such a
state of things would be worse for the bar, ’Squire, than the Code, or
the last fee-bill.”
“I’m not so sure of that, Timms; there are few things worse than this
infernal Code.”
“Well, to my taste, the fee-bill is the most disagreeable of the two. A
man can stand any sort of law, and any sort of practice; but he can’t
stand any sort of pay. I hear the circuit is to be held by one of the
new judges—a people’s man, altogether.”
“You mean by that, I suppose, Timms, one of those who did not hold
office under the old system? It is said that the new broom sweeps
clean—it is fortunate ours has not brushed away all the old incumbents.”
“No, that is to come; and come it will, as sure as the sun rises. We
must have rotation on the bench, as well as in all other matters. You
see, ’Squire, rotation is a sort of _claim_ with many men, who have no
other. They fancy the earth to have been created on a sort of Jim Crow
principle, because it turns round.”
“That is it; and it explains the clamour that is made about it. But to
return to this jury, Timms; on the whole, you like it, I should infer?”
“Not too well, by any means. There are six or eight names on the list
that I’m always glad to see; for they belong to men who are friendly to
me——”
“Good God, man—it cannot be possible that you count on such assistants
in a trial for a human life!”
“Not count on it, ’Squire Dunscomb! I count on it from an action of
trespass on the case, to this indictment—count on it, quite as much, and
a good deal more rationally, than you count on your law and evidence.
Didn’t I carry that heavy case _for_ the railroad company on that
principle altogether? The law was lead against us they say, and the
facts were against us; but the verdict was in our favour. That’s what I
call practising law!”
“Yes; I remember to have heard of that case, and it was always a wonder
with the bar how you got along with it. Had it been a verdict _against_
a corporation, no one would have thought anything of it—but to carry a
bad case _for_ a company, now-a-days, is almost an unheard-of thing.”
“You are quite right, sir. I can beat any railroad in the State, with a
jury of a neighbourhood, let the question or facts be what they may;
but, in this instance, I beat the neighbourhood, and all through the
faith the jury had in _me_. It’s a blessed institution, this of the
jury, ’Squire Dunscomb!—no doubt it makes us the great, glorious, and
free people that we are!”
“If the bench continue to lose its influence as it has done, the next
twenty years will see it a curse of the worst character. It is now
little more than a popular cabal in all cases in the least calculated to
awaken popular feeling or prejudice.”
“There’s the rub in this capital case of ours. Mary Monson has neglected
popularity altogether; and she is likely to suffer for it.”
“Popularity!” exclaimed Dunscomb, in a tone of horror—“and this in a
matter of life and death! What are we coming to in the law, as well as
in politics! No public man is to be found of sufficient moral courage,
or intellectual force, to stem this torrent; which is sweeping away
everything before it. But in what has our client failed, Timms?”
“In almost everything connected with this one great point; and what
vexes me is her wonderful power of pleasing, which is completely thrown
away. ’Squire Dunscomb, I would carry this county for Free Sile or ag’in
it, with that lady to back me, as a wife.”
“What, if she should refuse to resort to popular airs and graces?”
“I mean, of course, she aiding and abetting. I would give the world,
now, could we get the judge into her company for half an hour. It would
make a friend of him; and it is still something to have a friend in the
judge in a criminal case.”
“You may well say ‘_still_,’ Timms; how much longer it will be so, is
another matter. Under the old system it would be hopeless to expect so
much complaisance in a judge; but I will not take it on myself to say
what a people’s judge will not do.”
“If I thought the thing could be managed, by George I would attempt it!
The grand jurors visit the gaols, and why not the judges? What do you
think, sir, of an anonymous letter hinting to his honour that a visit to
Mrs. Gott—who is an excellent creature in her way—might serve the ends
of justice!”
“As I think of all underhanded movements and trickery. No, no, Timms;
you had better let our client remain unpopular, than undertake anything
of this nature.”
“Perhaps you are right, sir. Unpopular she is, and will be, as long as
she pursues her present course; whereas she might carry all classes of
men with her. For my part, ’Squire Dunscomb, I’ve found this young
lady”—here Timms paused, hemmed, and concluded by looking a little
foolish—a character of countenance by no means common with one of his
shrewdness and sagacity.
“So, so, Master Timms,” said the senior counsel, regarding the junior
with a sort of sneer—“you are as great a fool as my nephew, Jack
Wilmeter; and have fallen in love with a pretty face, in spite of the
grand jury and the gallows!”
Timms gave a gulp, seemed to catch his breath, and regained enough of
his self-command to be able to answer.
“I’m in hopes that Mr. Wilmeter will think better of this, sir,” he
said, “and turn his views to a quarter where they will be particularly
acceptable. It would hardly do for a young gentleman of his expectations
to take a wife out of a gaol.”
“Enough of this foolery, Timms, and come to the point. Your remarks
about popularity may have some sense in them, if matters have been
pushed too far in a contrary direction. Of what do you complain?”
“In the first place, she will not show herself at the windows; and that
offends a great many persons, who think it proud and aristocratic in her
not to act as other criminals act. Then, she has made a capital mistake
with a leading reporter, who sent in his name, and desired an interview;
which she declined granting. She will hear from that man, depend on it,
sir.”
“I shall look to him, then—for, though this class of men is fast putting
the law under foot, it may be made to turn on them, by one who
understands it, and has the courage to use it. I shall not allow the
rights of Mary Monson to be invaded by such a fungus of letters.”
“Fungus of letters! Ahem—if it was anybody but yourself, ’Squire, that I
was talking to, I might remind you that these funguses flourish on the
dunghill of the common mind.”
“No matter; the law _can_ be made to touch them, when in good hands; and
mine have now some experience. Has this reporter resented the refusal of
the prisoner to see him?”
“He is squinting that way, and has got himself sent to Biberry by two or
three journals, to report the progress of the trial. I know the man; he
is vindictive, impudent, and always uses his craft to indulge his
resentments.”
“Ay, many of those gentry are up to that. Is it not surprising, Timms,
that in a country for ever boasting of its freedom, men do not see how
much abuse there is of a very important interest, in suffering these
irresponsible tyrants to ride rough-shod over the community?”
“Lord, ’Squire, it is not with the reporters only, that abuses are to be
found. I was present, the other day, at a conversation between a judge
and a great town lawyer, when the last deplored the state of the juries!
‘What would you have?’ says his Honour; ‘angels sent down from Heaven to
fill the jury-boxes?’ Waal”—Timms never could get over the defects of
his early associations—“Waal, ’Squire,” he continued, with a shrewd leer
of the eyes, “I thought a few saints might be squeezed in between the
lowest angel in Heaven and the average of our Duke’s county pannels.
This is a great fashion of talking that is growing up among us to meet
an objection by crying out, ‘men are not angels;’ as if some men are not
better than others.”
“The institutions clearly maintain that some men are better than others,
Timms!”
“That’s news to me, I will own. I thought the institutions declared all
men alike—that is, all white men; I know that the niggers are
non-suited.”
“They are unsuited, at least, according to the spirit of the
institutions. If all men are supposed to be alike, what use is there in
the elections? Why not draw lots for office, as we draw lots for juries?
Choice infers inequalities, or the practice is an absurdity. But here
comes McBrain, with a face so full of meaning, he must have something to
tell us.”
Sure enough, the bridegroom-physician came into the room at that
instant; and without circumlocution he entered at once on the topic that
was then uppermost in his mind. It was the custom of the neighbourhood
to profit by the visits of this able practitioner to his country place,
by calling on him for advice in such difficult cases as existed anywhere
in the vicinity of Timbully. Even his recent marriage did not entirely
protect him from these appeals, which brought so little pecuniary
advantage as to be gratuitous; and he had passed much of the last two
days in making professional visits in a circle around his residence that
included Biberry. Such were the means by which he had obtained the
information that now escaped from him, as it might be, involuntarily.
“I have never known so excited a state of the public mind,” he cried,
“as now exists all around Biberry, on the subject of your client, Tom,
and this approaching trial. Go where I may, see whom I will, let the
disease be as serious as possible, all, patients, parents, friends and
nurses, commence business with asking me what I think of Mary Monson,
and of her guilt or innocence.”
“That’s because you are married, Ned,”—Dunscomb coolly answered—“Now, no
one thinks of putting such a question to _me_. I see lots of people, as
well as yourself; but not a soul has asked me whether I thought Mary
Monson guilty or innocent.”
“Poh! You are her counsel, and no one could take the liberty. I dare say
that even Mr. Timms, here, your associate, has never compared notes with
you on that particular point.”
Timms was clearly not quite himself; and he did not look as shrewd as he
once would have done at such a remark. He kept in the back-ground, and
was content to listen.
“I do suppose association with a brother in the law, and in a case of
life and death, is something like matrimony, Dr. McBrain. A good deal
must be taken for granted, and not a little on credit. As a man is bound
to believe his wife the most excellent, virtuous, most amiable and best
creature on earth, so is a counsel bound to consider his client
innocent. The relation, in each case, is confidential, however; and I
shall not pry into your secrets, any more than I shall betray one of my
own.”
“I asked for none, and wish none; but one may express surprise at the
intense degree of excitement that prevails all through Duke’s, and even
in the adjacent counties.”
“The murder of a man and his wife in cold blood, accompanied by robbery
and arson, are enough to arouse the community. In this particular case
the feeling of interest is increased, I make no doubt, by the
extraordinary character, as well as by the singular mystery, of the
party accused. I have had many clients, Ned, but never one like this
before; as you have had many wives, but no one so remarkable as the
present Mrs. McBrain.”
“Your time will come yet, Master Dunscomb—recollect I have always
prognosticated that.”
“You forget that I am approaching sixty. A man’s heart is as hard and
dry as a bill in chancery at that age—but, I beg your pardon, Ned; _you_
are an exception.”
“I certainly believe that a man can have affections, even at
four-score—and what is more, I believe that when the reason and judgment
come in aid of the passions——”
Dunscomb laughed outright; nay, he even gave a little shout, his
bachelor habits having rendered him more exuberant in manner than might
otherwise have been the case.
“Passions!” he cried, rubbing his hands, and looking round for Timms,
that he might have some one to share in what he regarded as a capital
joke. “The passions of a fellow of three-score! Ned, you do not flatter
yourself that you have been marrying the Widow Updyke in consequence of
any _passion_ you feel for her?”
“I do, indeed,” returned the Doctor, with spirit; mustering resolution
to carry the war into the enemy’s country—“Let me tell you, Tom
Dunscomb, that a warm-hearted fellow can love a woman dearly, long after
the age you have mentioned—that is, provided he has not let all feeling
die within him, for want of watering a plant that is the most precious
boon of a most gracious Providence.”
“Ay, if he begin at twenty, and keep even pace with his beloved down the
descent of time.”
“That may all be true; but, if it has been his misfortune to lose one
partner, a second——”
“And a third, Ned, a third—why not foot the bill at once, as they say in
the market?”
“Well, a third, too, if circumstances make that demand on him. Anything
is better than leaving the affections to stagnate for want of
cultivation.”
“Adam in Paradise, by Jove!—But, I’ll not reproach you again, since you
have got so gentle and kind a creature, and one who is twenty years your
junior——”
“Only eighteen, if you please, Mr. Dunscomb.”
“Now, I should be glad to know whether you have added those two years to
the bride’s age, or subtracted them from that of the bridegroom! I
suppose the last, however, as a matter of course.”
“I do not well see how you can suppose any such thing, knowing my age as
well as you do. Mrs. McBrain is forty-two, an age when a woman can be as
loveable as at nineteen—more so, if her admirer happens to be a man of
sense.”
“And sixty-two. Well, Ned, you are incorrigible; and, for the sake of
the excellent woman who has consented to have you, I only hope this will
be the last exhibition of your weakness. So they talk a good deal of
Mary Monson, up and down the country, do they?”
“Of little else, I can assure you. I am sorry to say, the tide seems to
be setting strongly against her.”
“That is bad news; as few jurors, now-a-days, are superior to such an
influence. What is said, in particular, Dr. McBrain?—In the way of
facts, I mean?”
“One report is that the accused is full of money; and that a good deal
of that which she is scattering broad-cast has been seen by different
persons, at different times, in the possession of the deceased Mrs.
Goodwin.”
“Let them retail that lie, far and near, ’Squire, and we’ll turn it to
good account,” said Timms, taking out his note-book, and writing down
what he had just heard. “I have reason to think that every dollar Miss
Monson has uttered since her confinement——”
“Imprisonment would be a better word, Mr. Timms,” interrupted the
Doctor.
“I see no great difference,” replied the literal attorney—“but
imprisonment, if you prefer it. I have reason to think that every dollar
Mary Monson has put in circulation since she entered the gaol at
Biberry, has come from either young Mr. Wilmeter or myself, in exchange
for hundred-dollar notes—and, in one instance, for a note of five
hundred dollars. She is well off, I can tell you, gentlemen; and if she
is to be executed, her executor will have something to do when all is
over.”
“You do not intend to allow her to be hanged, Timms?” demanded McBrain,
aghast.
“Not if I can help it, Doctor; and this lie about the money, when
clearly disproved, will be of capital service to her. Let them circulate
it as much as they please, the rebound will be in proportion to the
blow. The more they circulate that foolish rumour, the better it will be
for our client when we come to trial.”
“I suppose you are right, Timms; though I could prefer plainer dealings.
A cause in which you are employed, however, must have more or less of
management.”
“Which is better, ’Squire, than your law and evidence. But what else has
Dr. McBrain to tell us?”
“I hear that Peter Goodwin’s nephew, who it seems had some expectations
from the old people, is particularly savage, and leaves no stone
unturned to get up a popular feeling against the accused.”
“He had best beware,” said Dunscomb, his usually colourless but handsome
face flushing as he spoke. “I shall not trifle in a matter of this
sort—ha! Timms?”
“Lord bless you, ’Squire, Duke’s county folks wouldn’t understand a
denial of the privilege to say what they please in a case of this sort.
They fancy this is liberty; and ‘touch my honour, take your poker,’ is
not more sensitive than the feelin’ of liberty in these parts. I’m
afraid that not only this Joe Davis, but the reporters, will say just
what they please; and Mary Monson’s rights will whistle for it. You will
remember that our judge is not only a bran-new one, but he drew the two
years’ term into the bargain. No, I think it will be wisest to let the
law, and old principles, and the right, and _true_ liberty, quite alone;
and to bow the knee to things as they are. A good deal is said about our
fathers, and their wisdom, and patriotism, and sacrifices; but nobody
dreams of doing as they _did_, or of reasoning as they _reasoned_. Life
is made up, in reality, of these little matters in a corner; while the
great principles strut about in buckram, for men to admire them, and
talk about them. I do take considerable delight, ’Squire Dunscomb, in
hearing you enlarge on a principle, whether it be in law, morals, or
politics; but I should no more think of prac_ty_sing on ’em, than I
should think of refusing a thousand dollar fee.”
“Is that your price?” demanded McBrain, with curiosity—“Do you work for
as large a sum as that, in this case, Timms?”
“I’m paid, Doctor; just as you was”—the attorney never stuck at
grammar—“just as you was for that great operation on the Wall-Street
Millenary’ian——”
“Millionaire, you mean, Timms,” said Dunscomb, coolly—“it means one
worth a million.”
“I never attempt a foreign tongue but I stumble,” said the attorney,
simply; for he knew that both his friends were familiar with his origin,
education, and advancement in life, and that it was wisest to deny
nothing to _them_; “but since I have been so much with Mary Monson and
her woman, I do own a desire to speak the language they use.”
Again Dunscomb regarded his associate intently; something comical
gleaming in his eye.
“Timms, you have fallen in love with our handsome client,” he quietly
remarked.
“No, sir; not quite as bad as that, _yet_; though I will acknowledge
that the lady is very interesting. Should she be acquitted, and could we
only get some knowledge of her early history—why, that _might_ put a new
face on matters.”
“I must drive over to Biberry in the morning, and have another interview
with the lady myself. And now, Ned, I will join your wife, and read an
epithalamium prepared for this great occasion. You need not trouble
yourself to follow, the song being no novelty; for I have read it twice
before on your account.”
A hearty laugh at his own wit concluded the discourse on the part of the
great York counsellor; though Timms remained some time longer with the
Doctor, questioning the latter touching opinions and facts gleaned by
the physician in the course of his circuit.