"Now, may it please the court," Lincoln went on, "I wish at this point to make a motion. I think the court will not regard it as out of order, as the case is very exceptional – a matter of life and death. This witness has solemnly sworn to a story that has manifestly not one word of truth in it. It is one unbroken falsehood. In order to take away the life of an innocent man he has invented this atrocious web of lies, to the falsity of which the very heavens above bear witness, as this almanac shows you. Now why does David Sovine go to all this trouble to perjure himself? Why does he wish to swear away the life of that young man who never did him any harm?" Lincoln stood still a moment, and looked at the witness, who had grown ghastly pale about the lips. Then he went on, very slowly. "Because that witness shot and killed George Lockwood himself. I move your Honor, that David Sovine be arrested at once for murder."
These words, spoken with extreme deliberation and careful emphasis, shook the audience like an explosion.
The prosecutor got to his feet, probably to suggest that the motion was not in order, since he had yet a right to a re-direct examination of Sovine, but, as the attorney for the State, his duty was now a divided one as regarded two men charged with the same crime. So he waved his hand irresolutely, stammered inarticulately, and sat down.
"This is at least a case of extraordinary perjury," said the judge. "Sheriff, arrest David Sovine! This matter will have to be looked into."
The sheriff came down from his seat, and went up to the now stunned and bewildered Sovine.
"I arrest you," he said, taking him by the arm.
The day-and-night fear of detection in which Dave had lived for all these weeks had wrecked his self-control at last.
"God!" he muttered, dropping his head with a sort of shudder. "'T ain't any use keepin' it back any longer. I – didn't mean to shoot him, an' I would n't 'a' come here ag'inst Tom if I could 'a' got away."
The words appeared to be wrung from him by some internal agony too strong for him to master; they were the involuntary result of the breaking down of his forces under prolonged suffering and terror, culminating in the slow torture inflicted by his cross-examination. A minute later, when his spasm of irresolution had passed off, he would have retracted his confession if he could. But the sheriff's deputy, with the assistance of a constable, was already leading him through the swaying crowd in the aisle, while many people got up and stood on the benches to watch the exit of the new prisoner. When at length Sovine had disappeared out of the door the spectators turned and looked at Tom, sitting yet in the dock, but with the certainty of speedy release before him. The whole result of Lincoln's masterful stroke was now for the first time realized, and the excitement bade fair to break over bounds. McCord doubled himself up once or twice in the effort to repress his feelings out of respect for the court, but his emotions were too much for him; his big fist, grasping his ragged hat, appeared above his head.
"Goshamity! Hooray!" he burst out with a stentorian voice, stamping his foot as he waved his hat.
At this the whole court-roomful of people burst into cheers, laughter, cries, and waving of hats and handkerchiefs, in spite of the sheriff's sharp rapping and shouts of "Order in court!" And when at length the people were quieted a little, Mrs. Grayson spoke up, with a choking voice:
"Jedge, ain't you a-goin' to let him go now?"
There was a new movement of feeling, and the judge called out, "Sheriff, order in court!" But his voice was husky and tremulous. He took off his spectacles to wipe them, and he looked out of the window behind him, and put his handkerchief first to one eye, then to the other, before he put his glasses back.
"May it please the court," said the tall lawyer, who had remained standing, waiting for the tempest to subside, and who now spoke in a subdued voice, "I move your Honor, that the jury be instructed to render a verdict of 'Not guilty.'" The judge turned to the prosecuting attorney.
"I don't think, your Honor," stammered Allen, "that I ought to object to the motion of my learned brother, under the peculiar circumstances of this case."
"I don't think you ought," said the judge, promptly, and he proceeded to give the jury instructions to render the desired verdict. As soon as the jury, nothing loath, had gone through the formality of a verdict, the sheriff came and opened the door of the box to allow Tom to come out.
"O Tom! they are letting you out," cried Janet, running forward to meet him as he came from the dock. She had not quite understood the drift of these last proceedings until this moment.
This greeting by little Janet induced another burst of excitement. It was no longer of any use for the judge to keep on saying "Sheriff, command order in court!" All the sheriff's rapping was in vain; it was impossible to arrest and fine everybody. The judge was compelled to avail himself of the only means of saving the court's dignity by adjourning for the day, while Mrs. Grayson was already embracing her Tommy under his very eyes.
As for Barbara, overcome by the reaction of feeling, she sat still in passive happiness which she did not care to show to this crowd, whose late unfriendly manifestations toward Tom she could not yet quite forgive. Hardly conscious of what was passing around her, she did not observe that her mother had presently let go her hold on Tom, and that Tom had come near and was standing in front of her. Her natural reserve made her wish to avoid a scene in public, but there are times when natural reserve is not a sufficient barrier. Tom gently put his hand on her shoulder and said "Barb," then all sense of the presence of others was obliterated in an instant. The only fact that she took note of was that her brother was there before her with unmanacled hands, free to go where he listed and forever delivered from the danger that had hung over him so imminently. Of what she did you must not expect a description; embraces and kisses of joy would seem hysterical if set down here in black and white for readers of our time, who like the color washed out of a human passion before it is offered to them. No! no! let us turn away – we do not like such things. But those hearty Illinois folk who looked on that scene between Barbara and Tom, and whose quick sympathies made them part of it, did not feel the slightest disapproval when they saw the faithful sister put her arms about Tom's neck; and every one of her kisses they seconded with clapping of hands and cheers, and some of the people were even foolish enough to weep for sympathy.
XXVIII
FREE
The lawyers presently congratulated Lincoln, Barbara tried to thank him, and Judge Watkins felt that Impartial Justice herself, as represented in his own person, could afford to praise the young man for his conduct of the case.
"Abr'am," said Mrs. Grayson, "d' yeh know I kind uv lost confidence in you when you sot there so long without doin' anything." Then, after a moment of pause: "Abr'am, I'm thinkin' I'd ort to deed you my farm. You've 'arned it, my son; the good Lord A'mighty knows you have."
"I'll never take one cent, Aunt Marthy – not a single red cent"; and the lawyer turned away to grasp Tom's hand. But the poor fellow who had so recently felt the halter about his neck could not yet speak his gratitude. "Tom here," said Lincoln, "will be a help in your old days, Aunt Marthy, and then I'll be paid a hundred times. You see it'll tickle me to think that when you talk about this you'll say: 'That's the same Abe Lincoln that I used to knit stockings for when he was a poor little fellow, with his bare toes sticking out of ragged shoes in the snow.'"
Mrs. Grayson tried to say something more, but she could not.
Tom got his speech at length, when he saw the gigantesque form and big laughing red face of Bob McCord approaching him.
"Bob!" he said, "you dear old Bob! God A'mighty bless you, old fellow."
"I'm that tickled," said Bob, rocking to and fro with amusement. "Tom, you'd orto 'a' seed Jake Hogan's face. I watched it closte. Go to thunder! How it did git mixed about the time you wuz let out! I'm a-goin' to find 'im un see how he feels agin this time"; and Bob let go of Tom's hand and moved off through the crowd to look for Jake.
Tom took mechanically all the congratulations offered to him. Rachel came with the rest; there were some traces of tears about her long lashes as she beamed on Tom the full effulgence of her beauty and friendliness. Tom gave a little start when he saw her; then he took her hand, as he did that of the others, in a half-unconscious way. He was everybody's hero in the reaction of feeling, but he had been so near to the gallows within an hour that he had difficulty yet in appreciating the change.
"You'll come back into the office again, won't you, Tom?" said Blackman, in a spurt of good feeling.
"I don't know, Mr. Blackman. I must go home and rest, and be sure I'm alive, before I know what I shall do."
Tom's uncle had been utterly surprised by the turn affairs had taken, for he had never really doubted Tom's guilt. Now he was, for the first time, almost effusive; he gave himself credit that he had stood by his nephew.
"We'd like to have you back, Tom," he said; "and you'd be a general favorite now."
"I want to go home first, Uncle Tom, and get the place out of debt, so mother and Barb'll be easy in their minds. Then I don't know what I shall do. I don't feel as if I could ever come to town again without fetching mother with me. But I can't tell; I want to get out of this town; I hate the very sight of it. Come, Barb; do let's get off. Where's the horse? I want to get home, where I won't see any more of this crowd, and where I can be alone with you and mother."
Before they had made their way to the front door of the court-house the multitude outside had got firm hold of the fact of Tom's acquittal and the manner of it, and when he appeared they set up a shout; then there were cheers and more cheers. But Tom only looked worried, and sought to extricate himself from the people who followed him. At length he managed to get away from the last of them.
"You haven't ate anything to-day," said Janet, who clung to his hand and danced along by his side. "Come to our house to supper. I expect we'll have warm biscuits and honey."
"You dear little body!" said Tom. "I can't stop for supper to-night, Janet; I must go home with mother. I want to get out of the ugly town. I'll come and see you sometimes, and I'll have you out at the farm lots of times." He stopped to put his pale, trembling hand under her pretty chin; he turned her face up to his, he stooped and kissed her. But no entreaty could prevail on him to delay his departure. Not even the biscuits and honey on which Janet insisted. Hiram Mason helped him to hitch up old Blaze-face to the wagon. Then Tom turned to Hiram and grasped both his arms.
"You're going with us," he said abruptly.
"Not to-night, Tom. I'll come in a few days, when I've finished my writing in the clerk's office. I'll stop on my way home."
"I want to thank you, but I can't; confound it," said Tom.
"Never mind, Tom; I'm almost happier than you are."
"I'm not exactly happy, Mason," said Tom; "I've got that plaguey feeling of a rope around my neck yet. I can't get rid of it here in Moscow. Maybe out at the farm I shall be able to shake it off. Janet, won't you run into the house and tell mother and Barbara to come out quick – I want to get away."
Tom had expected that Bob McCord would take a place in the wagon, but Bob was not so modest as to forego a public triumph. He first went and recovered the wagon-spoke from beneath the court-house steps, where he had hidden it the night before. This he put into the baggy part of his "wamus," or hunting-jacket – the part above the belt into which he had often thrust prairie-chickens when he had no game-bag. Then he contrived to encounter Jake Hogan in the very thick of the crowd.
"O Jake!" he called, "what's the price uh rope? How's the hangin' business a-gittin' along these days? Doin' well at it, ain't yeh?"
"Wha' joo mean?" asked Jake, as he half turned about and regarded Bob with big eyes.
"Seems like's ef you'd ort to be'n ole han' by this time, Jake. You sot the time fer Tom's funeral three deffer'nt nights: wunst you wuz a-goin' to have it over't Perrysburg, un wunst the Sunday night that Pete Markham throwed you off the track weth that air yarn about a wall-eyed man weth red whiskers, un wunst ag'in las' night. Ev'ry time you sot it they wuz some sort uv a hitch; it didn't seem to come off rightly. S'pose un you try yer hand on Dave Sovine awhile. They's luck in a change."
"I hain't had no han' in no hangin's nor nuthin' uh that sort," snarled Jake.
"You hain't? Jest you go un tell that out on Broad Run, sonny. Looky h-yer, Jake. I've got the evidence agin you, un ef you dare me I'll go afore the gran' jury weth it. I jest dare you to dare me, ef you dare."
But Jake did not dare to dare him. He only moved slowly away toward his horse, the excited crowd surging after him, to his disgust.
"Looky h-yer, Jake," Bob went on, following his retreat. "I want to gin you some advice as a well-wishin' friend un feller-citizen. Barb'ry knowed your v'ice las' night, un Barb'ry Grayson hain't the sort uv a gal to stan' the sort uv foolin' 't you've been a-doin' about Tom."
"Aw, you shet up yer jaw, now wonchoo?" said Jake.
"I say, Jake," said McCord, still pursuing the crest-fallen leader of Broad Run, while the crowd moved about Big Bob as a storm center. "I say there, Jake; liker 'n not Barb'ry'll stay in town to-night un go afore the gran' jury to-morry. Now ef I wuz you I'd cl'ar the county this very identical night. Your ornery lantern-jawed face wouldn' look half's han'some as Tom's in that air box in front uv the sher'f."
"You shet up!" said Jake.
"Come un shet me up, wonch you?" said Bob, rubbing his hands and laughing.
Jake had reached his horse now, and without another word he mounted and rode away. But Bob kept walking about with his fists in his pockets, his big elbows protruding, and his face radiant with mischief until Sheriff Plunkett came out of the court-house.
"I say, Sher'f," he called, "how many men'd you say they wuz in that air fust mob?"
"Nigh onto forty, I should think," said Plunkett; "but of course I can't just exactly say." And he walked away, not liking to be catechised. There was something mysterious about that mob, and he was afraid there might be something that would count in the next election.
"They had pistols, didn't they?" Bob continued, following him.
"Yes, to be sure," said Plunkett, pausing irresolutely.
"Now looky h-yer, Sher'f; I know sumpin about that air mob. They wuzn't but jest on'y two men in the whole thing. I don't say who they wuz"; and here Bob looked about on the crowd, which showed unmistakable signs of its relish for this revelation.
"Un as fer pistols, they did have 'em. I've got one of 'em h-yer." Bob here pulled the wagon-spoke from the depths of his hunting-shirt. "That's one of the identical hoss-pistols that wuz p'inted at your head las' night. Felt kind-uh cold un creepy like, didn't it now, Hank Plunkett, when its muzzle was agin yer head, un it cocked, besides? Ha-a! ha!"
The crowd jeered and joined in Bob's wild merriment.
"I'll have you arrested," said the sheriff severely. "You've confessed enough now to make the grand jury indict you."
"Fer what? Fer savin' the life uv a innercent man? That'd be a purty howdy-do, now wouldn't it? Un it would be a lovely story to tell at my trial, that the sher'f uv this yere county gin up his keys to two men, two lonesome men weth on'y wagon-spokes! He-e! An' the wagon-spokes cocked! A wagon-spoke's a mighty bad thing when it does go off, especially ef it's loadened with buckshot."
Plunkett came close to McCord, and said in an undertone loud enough to be heard by others: "Ah, Bob, I knowed it wuz your voice, un I knowed your grip. They ain't any other man in this county that can put me down the way you did las' night. But don't you tell Jake ur any of his crowd about it"; and he winked knowingly at Bob.
"Aw, go to thunder, now!" said Bob, speaking loudly and not to be cajoled into giving up his fun. "Sher'f, you can't come no gum games on me. By jeementley crickets, you wuz skeered, un that's all they is about it. You wilted so 't I wuz afeerd you'd clean faint away afore I could git out uv yeh where the keys wuz. Why didn't you hide Tom summers? You wuz afeerd Broad Run'd vote agin you, un you as good as tole Jake Hogan ut you wouldn' make no trouble when he come to lynch Tom."
"No, I didn't; I didn't have anything to say to Jake."
"Ef you take my case afore the gran' jury un I'm tried, I'll prove it on yeh. Now, Hank Plunkett, they's two things that'll never happen." Here Bob smote his right fist into his left palm. "One is 't you'll ever fetch my case afore the gran' jury. That's as shore's you're born. T' other is that you'll ever be elected ag'in! Wha'd joo turn off Pete Markham fer? Fer tryin' to save Tom, un to please Broad Run. Now you're come up weth, ole hoss. Markham'll be the nex' sher'f. You jest cut a notch in a stick to remember't Big Bob McCord tole you so. Ef 't hadn' been fer me 'n' Abe Lincoln you 'n' Jake, 'twext and 'tween yeh, 'd 'a' hung the wrong feller. Now I jest want to see you fetch me afore the court wunst. Ef you pester me too much, I'm derned 'f I don't go thar on m' own hook."
"You've been drinking, Bob," said Plunkett, as he hurried away; but the people evidently sided with McCord, whose exploit of mobbing the sheriff almost single-handed had made him more than ever the champion of the county.
That night Jake Hogan, afraid of arrest, succeeded in trading his cabin, with the front door still unhinged, and his little patch of rugged ground for a one-horse wagon and some provisions. Over the wagon he stretched his only two bed-sheets of unbleached domestic for covering. Before noon the next day, he had passed safely out of the county. The raw-boned horse, the rickety wagon, the impoverished and unwilling cow tied behind, the two yellow mongrel pups between the wagon-wheels, and the frowsy-headed wife alongside of him were token enough to every experienced eye that here was a poor whitey on his travels. To all inquiries regarding his destination, Jake returned:
"I'm boun' fer Messouri. Yeh see they hain't no kind of a chance fer a poor man in this yer daudrautted Eelinoys country."
Once an example of migration had been set, his neighbors grew restless also, and in a year or two nearly all of them had obeyed their hereditary instinct and followed him to Pike County in Missouri. The most of the Broad Run neighborhood is now included in a great grazing farm; here a few logs, there some tumble-down ruins of a stick-chimney, and in another place a rough stone hearth, only remain to indicate the resting-place for a few years of a half-nomadic clan, whose members or their descendants are by this time engaged, probably, in helping to rid the Pacific coast of its unchristian Chinese.
XXIX
THE CLOSE OF A CAREER
Dave Sovine's partial confession, which had served to acquit Tom, was sufficient at the next term of the court to condemn him, for no plea of accidental shooting could save him after he had tried to escape at the expense of another man's life. During his trial the motive for shooting Lockwood remained an inexplicable mystery. But when once Dave was convinced that his execution was inevitable and there was an end to all the delights of deviltry, he proceeded to play the only card remaining in his hand, and to euchre Justice on her own deal. Like other murderers of his kind he became religious, and nothing could be more encouraging to criminals than the clearness and fervor of his religious experience, and his absolute certainty of the rewards of paradise. His superiority in wickedness had made him the hero of all the green goslings of the village; his tardy conversion and shining professions made him an object of philanthropic interest to sentimental people and gave him the consolations of conspicuity to the last.
It was during this lurid sunset period of his unnecessary existence that Dave made confessions. These were not always consistent one with another; the capacity for simple and direct truth-telling is a talent denied to men of Sovine's stamp, nor can it be developed in a brief season of penitence. It is quite probable that Sovine failed to state the exact truth even when narrating his religious experiences. But by a comparison of his stories, with some elimination of contradictory elements, the main facts regarding the death of George Lockwood were made out with passable clearness. Being of a thrifty turn of mind, Lockwood had, by a series of careful observations, detected one of the principal tricks employed by Dave to win the money of the unwary. It had been Lockwood's purpose to play the trick back on Dave at some favorable opportunity, but this he found quite impossible. To bring himself to Dave's proficiency in manipulation no end of assiduous practice would be needful. There remained one other way in which he might utilize his discovery. It was an established rule in that part of the country that he who detected his opponent in the very act of cheating at cards might carry off the stakes.
When Lockwood went to the camp-meeting he put into his pocket a bit of candle, in order to have a game with Dave; and when on encountering him Dave proposed the game, the two went out into the woods, remote from the meeting, Lockwood lighted his candle and they sat down on a log to play. Lockwood won at first and doubled the stakes at every game, until Dave, seeing that his pocket-money was running short, and the candle fast wasting in the breezes, concluded to sweep in the stakes with his favorite trick. George Lockwood exposed the cheat at the very instant, and put the stakes in his pocket. But Dave had received his education in its higher branches in the South-west of half a century ago, and he had no notion of suffering himself to be bankrupted so easily. He drew his pistol and demanded the stakes, following Lockwood with reiterated threats, until, in a moment of exasperation, he shot him. A crowd came quickly at the sound of the pistol, and Dave had the shrewdness not to run away and not to attempt to take any money from George Lockwood's person. Remembering Tom Grayson's threats, he declared, with his usual alertness in mendacity, that he had seen Grayson do the shooting, and thus diverted attention from himself.
He had no further thought at the time than to get out of a present difficulty; it was his purpose to leave the country before the trial should come on. But he found himself watched, and he imagined that he was suspected. He saw no chance to move without making sure of his own arrest; he became alarmed and unfitted for decision by the sense of his peril; as the trial approached, his nerves, shaken by dissipations, were unstrung by the debate within him. He saw ghosts at night and his sleep almost entirely forsook him. This horror of a doom that seemed perpetually to hang over him was greatly enhanced by the cross-examination to which he was subjected; from the first he misdoubted that Lincoln had penetrated his whole secret and possessed the means of making it known. And when he heard himself charged publicly with the murder and as publicly arrested, he believed that some evidence against him had been found; he did not draw the line between the charge and the proof, and the half confession escaped him in the first breakdown produced by sudden despair.
But at the last he spoke edifyingly from the scaffold, and died with as much composure and more self-complacency than Tom would have shown had he fallen a victim to Dave's rascality. What becomes of such men in another world is none of my business. But I am rather pleased to have them depart, be it to paradise, or purgatory, or limbo, or any other compartment of the world of spirits. In some moods I could even wish them a prosperous voyage to the Gehenna of our forefathers, now somewhat obsolescent, if only they would begone and cease to vex this rogue-ridden little world of ours.