Part 12

Kitty rose and descended the steps to the lawn, nothing loath; then she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Mr. Trench will be tried immediately,” she said; “the Grand Jury indicted him this morning.”

The colonel’s frown of perplexity deepened. “I call it indecent haste,” he said.

“Grandpa is to defend him,” said Kitty, “and we’re proud of him. I think Caleb Trench is a real hero, Colonel Royall.”

The colonel sighed. “I wish Jacob was,” he thought, but he did not speak.

XXII

JUDGE HOLLIS was writing in his office. He had been writing five hours and the green shade of his lamp was awry, while his briar-wood had just gone out for the ninety-ninth time. Some one knocked twice on the outer door before he noticed it. Then he shouted: “Come in!”

After some fumbling with the lock the door opened, and Zeb Bartlett’s shambling figure lurched into the room. He came in boldly, but cowered as he met the judge’s fierce expression. The old man swung around in his chair and faced him, his great overhanging brows drawn together over glowing eyes, and his lip thrust out.

The boy was stricken speechless, and stood hat in hand, feebly rubbing the back of his head. The judge, who hated interruption and loathed incompetence, scowled. “What d’ye want here?” he demanded.

Zeb wet his parched lips with his tongue. “I want the law on him,” he mumbled; “I want the law on him!”

“What in thunder are you mumbling about?” demanded the old man impatiently; “some one stole your wits?”

“It was him did my sister wrong,” Zeb said, his tongue loosed between fear and hate; “it’s him, and I want him punished--now they’ve got him!”

Judge Hollis threw the pen that he had been holding suspended into the ink-well. “See here, Zeb,” he said, “if you can tell us who ruined your poor crazed sister, why, by the Lord Harry, I’d like to punish him!”

Zeb looked cunning; he edged nearer to the desk. “I can tell you,” he said, “I can tell you right cl’ar off, but--I want him punished!”

“May be the worst we can do is to make him take care of the child,” said Judge Hollis.

“That won’t do,” said Zeb, “that ain’t enough; he left her to starve, and me to starve--she tole me who it was!”

Judge Hollis was not without curiosity, but he restrained it manfully. He even took his paper-cutter and folded the paper before him in little plaits. “Zeb,” he said, “it’s a rotten business, but the girl’s dead and Caleb Trench has taken the child and--”

“It’s him, curse him, it’s him!” Zeb cried, shaking his fist.

Judge Hollis dropped the paper-cutter and rose from his chair, his great figure, in the long dark blue coat, towering.

“How dare you say that?” he demanded, “you cur--you skunk!”

But Zeb was ugly; he set his teeth, and his crazy eyes flashed. “I tell you it’s him,” he cried; “ain’t I said she tole me?”

“Damn you, I don’t believe you,” the judge shouted; “it’s money you want, money!” He grabbed the shaking boy by the nape of the neck, as a dog takes a rat, and shook him. “You clear out,” he raged, “and you keep your damned lying, dirty tongue still!” and flung him out and locked the door.

Then, panting slightly, he went back to his seat, swung it to his desk again, rolled back his cuffs and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Then he pulled his pen out of the ink-well and shook the surplus ink over the floor and began to write; he wrote two pages and dropped his pen. His head sank, his big shoulders bowed over, he was lost in thought. He thought there for an hour, while nothing stirred except the mouse that was gnawing his old law-books and had persistently evaded Miss Sarah’s vigilance. Then the judge brought his great fist down on his desk, and the ink-well danced, and the pen rolled off.

“My God!” he exclaimed to himself, “I’ve loved him like a son, the girl was treated like hell--it can’t be true!”

He rose, jammed his hat down on his head and walked out; he walked the streets for hours.

It was very late when he was admitted to the old jail. It was past time to admit visitors, but the judge was a privileged person. The warden gave up his private room to him and sent for the prisoner. The lamp burnt low on the desk, and the old judge sat before it, heavy with thought. He looked up mechanically when Caleb came in with his quick firm step and faced him. The two greeted each other without words, and Caleb sat down, waiting. He knew his visitor had something on his mind.

Judge Hollis looked at him, studying him, studying the clear-cut lines, the hollowed cheeks, the clear gray eyes, the chiseled lips,--not a handsome face, but one of power. The sordid wretchedness of the story, like a foul weed springing up to choke a useful plant, struck him again with force and disgust.

“I’ve just seen Zeb Bartlett,” he said; “he’s raving to punish the man who wronged his sister. He says you did it!” The old man glared fiercely at the young one.

Caleb’s expression was slightly weary, distinctly disappointed: he had hoped for something of importance. The story of Jean Bartlett was utterly unimportant in his life. “I know it,” he said briefly; “it is easy to accuse, more difficult to prove the truth.”

The judge leaned forward, his clasped hands hanging between his knees, his head lowered. “Caleb,” he said, “maybe it’s not right to ask you, but, between man and man, I’d like to know God’s truth.”

Caleb Trench returned the old man’s look calmly. “Judge,” he said, “have you ever known me to steal?”

The judge shook his head.

“Or to lie?”

Again the judge dissented.

“Then why do you accuse me in your heart of wronging a half-witted girl?” he asked coldly.

The judge rose from his chair and walked twice across the room; then he stopped in front of the younger man. “Caleb,” he said, “by the Lord Harry, I’m plumb ashamed to ask you to forgive me.”

Caleb smiled a little sadly. “Judge,” he said, “there’s nothing to forgive. Without your friendship I should have been a lost man. I understand. Slander has a hundred tongues.”

“Zeb Bartlett is shouting the accusation to the four winds of heaven, I presume,” said the judge, “and there’s the child--you--”

“I’ve taken him,” said Caleb, “and I mean to keep him. I’ve known poverty, I’ve known homelessness, I’ve known slander; the kid has got to face it all, and he won’t do it without one friend.”

The judge looked at him a long time, then he went over and clapped his hand down on his shoulder. “By the Lord Harry!” he said, “you’re a man, and I respect you. Let them talk--to the devil!”

“Amen!” said Caleb Trench.

XXIII

WHEN the case of the Commonwealth versus Caleb Trench was called, it was found necessary to convene the court in the old criminal court-room in the northeast corner of the quadrangle. The room from which Yarnall had been shot, known as Criminal Court Number One, was too open to the square, and too conveniently located as a storm center. The old court-room facing northeast was smaller, and so poorly lighted that dull mornings it was necessary to burn lights on the judge’s desk and at the recorder’s table. It opened on the inner court, and the only thing seen from the window was the tree of heaven, which was turning a dingy yellow and dropping its frond-like leaves into the court below. During half the trial Aaron Todd’s son and another youngster sat in this tree and peered in the windows, the room being too crowded for admittance; but when Miss Royall testified even the windows were so stuffed with humanity that the two in the tree saw nothing, and roosted in disappointment.

In the quadrangle before the court-house, and in a hollow square around it, were the troops, through the whole trial, and after a while one got used to the rattle of their guns as they changed at noon. Men fought for places in the court-room, and the whole left-hand side was packed solid with young and pretty women. The figure of Caleb Trench, since his famous Cresset speech, had loomed large on the horizon, and the account of the frustrated lynching added a thrilling touch of romance. Besides, Jacob Eaton was to testify against him, and that alone would have drawn an audience. The thrill of danger, the clash of the sentry’s rifle in the quadrangle, the constant dread of riots, added a piquancy to the situation that was like a dash of fine old wine in a _ragout_. The room was packed to suffocation, and reporters for distant newspapers crowded the reporters’ table, for the case was likely to be of national interest. The doors and the corridors were thronged, and a long line waited admission on the staircase. Some failed to get in the first or the second day, and being desperate stayed all night outside, and so were admitted on the third day.

Judge Hollis had charge of the defense, and it was expected that he would ask a change of venue, but he did not. Instead he tried to get a jury, using all his privileges to challenge. It was almost impossible to get an unbiased juror and, at the end of a week, he had exhausted two panels and was on another. On the fifteenth day he got a jury and the public drew breath. Judge Ladd was on the bench,--a fair but choleric man, and known to be rather unfavorable to the prisoner. Bail had been absolutely refused, and Caleb Trench shared the fate of the other prisoners in the jail, except, indeed, that he was doubly watched, for the tide of men’s passions rose and fell. He had been almost a popular idol; he was, therefore, doubly likely to be a popular victim, and Aylett went far and wide declaring that he believed the shot was intended for him, and that Yarnall had suddenly passed between him and the window at the fateful moment.

On the other hand Jacob Eaton spoke freely of Jean Bartlett and her child. The scandal traveled like a fire in prairie grass, and Jean, who had been in life the Shameful Thing of Paradise Ridge, became now a persecuted martyr, and Trench the monster who had ruined her life. The fact that he had taken the child, instead of being in his favor, recoiled strongly against him. He was watched as he sat in the prisoners’ dock, and every expression of his stern and homely face was noted; the slight awkwardness of his tall figure seemed more visible, and men were even startled by his eyes. It may be added that the women found them most interesting, especially when that sudden light flashed into them that had cowed so many of the weaker brethren. Like all strong, blunt men, Caleb had made his enemies, and now, in the hour of his need, they multiplied like flies. Misfortune breeds such insects as readily as swamplands breed mosquitoes.

“I’d be ashamed to say I knew that shyster,” one of the Eaton faction said in the crowded court-room at noon recess, and Dr. Cheyney heard him.

The old man snorted. “I’m almighty glad he don’t know you,” he said dryly.

The next day they began to take testimony. Juniper, the one person who had been in the court-room at the time of the assassination, could not be called at once, as he was still in the hospital, but he had made a deposition that he did not know who fired the shots, that his back was turned and that when he heard the reports he ran. This impossible statement could not be shaken even by threats. Later, he would go on the stand, but Judge Hollis had given up hope of the truth; he believed, at heart, that Juniper was crazed with fright. Had he been hired to fire the shots? The judge could not believe it, for he felt tolerably certain that Juniper would have hit nothing.

The general belief outside, however, was that Caleb had used his opportunity well and threatened or bribed the negro into making his remarkable affidavit. In fact, Caleb was himself profoundly puzzled, yet the testimony of Eaton, given clearly and apparently dispassionately, was damaging. He had been in Colonel Coad’s office, he was coming along the upper corridor, heard the shots and ran to the court-room, reaching the door immediately before Sergeant O’More of the police; both men met Caleb Trench coming out of the room, and on the floor, by the window, was the revolver. No one else was in sight. Juniper’s flight had been made at the first shot, and seven minutes only had elapsed before any one could reach the court-room. Caleb Trench had been seen to enter the building at twenty-five minutes to one o’clock, and his time up to the assassination was unaccounted for. He said that he had been in the basement of the building, but his statement did not give any legitimate reason for the length of time between his entrance and his appearance in the court-room. It took, in reality, just two minutes to reach the court-room from the lower door by the staircase. Trench made no explanation of the use of that twenty-five minutes, even to his counsel. Judge Hollis stormed and grew angry, but Caleb pointed out the fact that the pistol was not his, and he could prove it; this made the judge’s language absolutely profane. The obstinacy of the prisoner resulted in a distinct collapse at that point in the trial; it was evident that the time must be accounted for, since the circumstantial evidence was strong.

The public prosecutor, Colonel Coad, was pressing in, scoring point by point, and Judge Hollis fought and sparred and gave way, inwardly swearing because he had to do so. Meanwhile, the prisoner was serene; he took notes and tried to help his counsel, but he showed no signs of trepidation and he would not admit any use for that time in the basement of the court-house. Judge Hollis could not, therefore, put him on the stand on his own behalf, and the old man grew purple with wrath.

“Look here, Mr. Trench,” he said, with bitter formality, “what damned crotchet have you got in your head? What fool thing were you doing? Working a penny-in-the-slot machine in the basement? Out with it, or I walk out of this case.”

“And leave me to the tender mercies of my enemies,” said Caleb quietly; “no, Judge, not yet! I can’t see my way clear to tell you.”

“Then I’m darned if I see mine to defend you!” snapped the judge.

They were in the prisoner’s cell at the jail, and Caleb got up and went to the little barred window which overlooked the dreary courtyard where the prisoners were exercising. After a moment, when he seemed to mechanically count the blades of grass between the flagstones, he turned. The judge was watching him, his hat on like a snuffer, as usual, and his hands in pockets.

“Judge Hollis,” said Caleb quietly, “if I told you where I was, another witness would have to be called, and neither you nor I would wish to call that witness.”

The judge looked at him steadily; Caleb returned the look as steadily, and there was a heavy silence.

“By the Lord Harry!” said the judge at last, “I believe you’d let ’em hang you rather than give in a hair’s breadth.”

Then Caleb smiled his rare sweet smile.

The second long week of the trial wore to its close, and the web of circumstantial evidence was clinging fast about the prisoner. Witnesses had testified to his character and against it. The name of Jean Bartlett ran around the court, and some men testified to a belief that Caleb was the father of the child he had befriended. Judge Hollis did not attempt to have the testimony ruled out; he let it go in, sitting back with folded arms and a grim smile. He cross-examined Jacob Eaton twice, but made nothing of it. Jacob was an excellent witness, and he showed no passion, even when witnesses described the duel and his conduct to show his motive in attacking Trench.

Sunday night Judge Hollis received a telephone message from Colonel Royall, and, after his early supper, the judge ordered around his rockaway and drove over, with Lysander beside him to hold the reins. He found Mrs. Eaton in the drawing-room with Diana, and was coldly received by Jacob’s mother; she resented any attempt to line up forces against her son, and she regarded the defender of Caleb Trench as an enemy to society. The judge bowed before her grimly.

“I thought you were in the city, madam,” he remarked.

Mrs. Eaton threw up her hands. “With that mob loose, and the soldiers? My dear Judge! I wouldn’t stay for a million, and I’m a poor woman. Good gracious, think of it! It’s just as I’ve always said,--you go on letting in the shiploads of anarchists and we’ll all be murdered in our beds.”

“Madam,” said the judge grimly, “the only thing I ever let in is the cat. Sarah and the niggers look after the front door.”

Mrs. Eaton raised her eyebrows. “I can’t understand you,” she said, with distant politeness; “I refer to immigration.”

“And I refer to immoderation, madam,” snapped the judge.

Diana intervened. “Pa wants you,” she said sweetly, and went with him across the hall to the library. At the door she paused. “Judge Hollis,” she said, “does the trial hinge on the question of the time in the basement--before--before Mr. Trench went up-stairs?”

The judge scowled. “It does,” said he flatly, “and Caleb’s a fool.”

Diana smiled faintly; she looked unusually lovely and very grave. “Judge,” she said, “no matter what pa says, I’ll do it all; he’s demurred,” and with this enigmatical sentence she thrust the judge inside the door and closed it.

Monday the court met at noon and the throng was greater than ever. Report had it that the case was going to the jury, and men had slept on benches in the square. The morning papers reprinted Caleb’s famous speech at Cresset’s and the account of the stand he had made in the face of the would-be lynching party. Fed with this fuel, party feeling ran high; besides, the Yarnall faction was deeply stirred. It seemed as if this change in events had swept away the chance of punishment for Jacob Eaton, who was figuring largely and conspicuously in this trial and who had caught the public eye. Moreover, he had been industrious in circulating the scandalous tale of Jean Bartlett. The court-room buzzed. Three times Judge Ladd rapped for order and finally threatened to clear the court-room. This was the day that the crowd in the windows shut off all view for those in the tree of heaven. It was a hot autumn day and the air was heavy. Stout men like Judge Hollis looked purple, and even Caleb flushed under the strain.

Colonel Coad cross-examined two witnesses in a lengthy fashion that threatened to exhaust even the patience of the court, and Judge Hollis was on his feet every few minutes with objections. The judge was out of temper, nervous and snappy, yet triumph glowed in his eyes, for he scented battle and victory at last.

The dreary day wore to an uneventful end, and there was almost a sob of disappointment in the packed and sweltering mass of humanity. One woman fainted and the bailiffs had to bring ice-water. Outside, the rifles rattled as the guards changed.

At five o’clock, just before the belated adjournment hour, Judge Hollis rose and asked the clerk to call a new witness for the defense. There was a languid stir of interest, the judge looked irate, the jurors shifted wearily in their chairs. The clerk called the witness.

“Diana Royall.”

The sensation was immense; the court-room hummed, the weariest juror turned and looked down the crowded room. Very slowly a way was made to the witness-stand, and a tall slight figure in white, with a broad straw hat and a light veil, came quietly forward.

Caleb Trench turned deadly white.

In a stillness so intense that every man seemed to hear only his own heart beat, the clerk administered the oath and the new witness went on the stand.

XXIV

JUDGE HOLLIS, standing before the witness-stand, looked at Diana with fatherly eyes; his manner lost its brusqueness and became that of the old-fashioned gentleman of gallantry. Diana herself looked across the court-room with a composure and dignity of pose that became her. Every eye was riveted upon her. For days the papers had reeked with the story of Jean Bartlett and her child, yet here--on the stand for the prisoner--was one of the first young ladies in the State.

Judge Hollis had been taking notes, and he closed his notebook on his finger and took off his gold-rimmed spectacles.

“Where were you on the afternoon of Tuesday, August eighteenth, about one o’clock, Miss Diana?”

Diana answered at once, and in a clear low voice. “In this building, Judge, in a small room on the lower floor.”

“A small room on the lower floor? Let us see, Miss Diana,”--the judge tapped his book with his spectacles,--“the room to the right, was it, at the end of the west corridor?”

Diana explained the position of the room and the vicinity of the staircase.

“Ah,” said the old lawyer, with the air of having made a discovery, “to be sure; it’s the room we call ‘the cage’--on the basement floor. Rather a dreary place to wait, Miss Diana: how long were you there?”

“I am not sure,” she replied, coloring suddenly, “but certainly an hour. It was a little after twelve when we reached the building, and I heard the clock strike one just before the shots were fired.”

“Ah! You heard the shots?”

“I did.”

“How many did you hear, Miss Diana?” the judge asked in his easiest, most conversational tone.

“Two, Judge, two reports in quick succession.”

“And you heard only two?” his tone was sharp, incisive; it cut like a knife.

Diana threw him a startled glance, but she was still composed, though the breathless silence in the room was deeply affecting.

“I heard but two,” she said firmly.

“How soon after one o’clock?” he demanded, his bony forefinger following her testimony, as it seemed, across the cover of the book he held.

“The clock in the hall had just struck.” Diana was holding every instinct, every thought, in hand. Her eyes never left his rugged face, yet, all the while, she was conscious of the court-room, growing dim in the early twilight, of the rows of upturned eager faces, but more conscious still of the pale face of Caleb Trench.

Judge Hollis made some notes, then he looked up suddenly. “Miss Royall,” he said formally, “do you know the prisoner at the bar?”

Diana drew a deep breath; she was aware of a hundred pairs of curious eyes. The awful silence of the room seemed to leap upon her and bear her down. She turned her head with an effort and met Caleb’s eyes. For a single second they looked at each other, with the shock of mutual feeling, then she answered, and her low voice reached the farthest corner of the crowded room.

“I do.”

Judge Hollis waited an instant; he let every word she said have its full effect and weight. “Did you see him upon the morning of the assassination?”

“I did.”

“In the basement of the court-house?”

“In the room which you call the cage, Judge Hollis,” she replied quietly, though she colored again; “I saw him there twice.”

“At what time?” the old man’s harsh voice rang, like the blow of a sledge-hammer.

“He was with me in that room when the clock struck one, and we both heard the shots fired.” Diana spoke gently, but her voice thrilled; she knew that, in the face of the scurrilous attacks upon Caleb Trench, her position was at once courageous and perilous.

“He was in the room in the basement with you then, when Yarnall was shot,” said Judge Hollis, his eyes kindling with triumph.

“He was.”

She had scarcely uttered the words, and Caleb Trench’s white face had flushed deeply, when some one cheered. In an instant there was a wave of applause. It swept through the room, it reached the corridors and descended the stairs; the sentries heard it in the quadrangle. Men stood up on the rear benches and shouted. Then Judge Ladd enforced silence; he even threatened to clear the court by force and lock the doors, and like a wave of the sea, the wild enthusiasm receded, only to gain force and roll back at the first opportunity.