Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

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.