Part 7

"It was impossible to take offence at him, he was so good-natured. He would get out of his bed in the middle of the night, hitch up his horse and pull his bitterest enemy out of the mud. He had on an occasion ridden all night through a blizzard to get a doctor for the wife of a negro neighbor in a cabin near by who was suddenly taken ill. When someone expressed admiration for it, especially as it was known that the man had not long before been abusing Halloway to the provost-marshal, who at that time was in supreme command, he said,

"'Well, what's that got to do with it? Wa'n't the man's wife sick? I don't deserve no credit, though; if I hadn't gone, my wife wouldn' 'a' let me come in her house.' He was an outspoken man, too, not afraid of the devil, and when he believed a thing he spoke it, no matter whom it hit. In this way John had been in trouble several times while we were under 'gun-rule'; and this, together with his personal character, had given him great influence in the county, and made him a power. He was one of my most ardent friends and supporters, and to him, perhaps, more than to any other two men in the county, I owed my position.

"Absalom Turnell's rancorous speeches had stirred all the county, and the apprehension of the outbreak his violence was in danger of bringing might have caused trouble but for John Halloway's coolness and level-headedness. John offered to go around and follow Absalom up at his meetings. He could 'spike his guns,' he said. Some of his friends wanted to go with him. But he said no. The only condition on which he would go was that he should go alone.

"'You'd better not try that,' they argued. 'That fellow, Ab. Turnell's got it in for you.'

"'They ain't any of 'em going to trouble me,' said John. 'I know 'em all and I git along with 'em first rate. I don't know as I know this fellow Ab.; he's sort o' grown out o' my recollection; but I want to see. He knows me, I know. I got my hand on him once when he was a boy—about my age, and he ain't forgot that, I know. He was a blusterer; but he didn't have real grit. He won't say nothin' to my face. But I must go alone. You all are too flighty.'

"So Halloway went alone and followed Ab. up at his 'camp-fires,' and if report was true his mere presence served to curb Ab.'s fury, and take the fire out of his harangues. Even the negroes got to laughing and talking about it. Ab. was just like a dog when a man faced him, they said; he could not look him in the eye.

"The night before the election there was a meeting at one of the worst places in the county, a country store at a point known as Burley's Fork, and Halloway went there, alone—and for the first time in the canvass thought it necessary to interfere. Absalom, stung by the taunts of some of his friends, and having stimulated himself with mean whiskey, launched out in a furious tirade against the whites generally, and me in particular; and called on the negroes to go to the polls next day prepared to 'wade in blood to their lips.' For himself, he said, he had 'drunk blood' before, both of white men and women, and he meant to drink it again. He whipped out and flourished a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other. His language exceeded belief, and the negroes, excited by his violence, were showing the effect of his wild declamation on their emotions, and were beginning to respond with shouts and cries, when Halloway rose and walked forward. Absalom turned and started to meet him, yelling his fury and threats, and the audience were rising to their feet when they were stopped. It was described to me afterwards. Halloway was in the midst of a powder magazine, absolutely alone, a single spark would have blown him to atoms and might have caused a catastrophe which would have brought untold evil. But he was as calm as a May morning. He walked through them, the man who told me said, as if he did not know there was a soul in a hundred miles of him, and as if Absalom were only something to be swept aside.

"'He wa'n't exac'ly laughin', or even smilin,' he said, 'but he jest looked easy in his mine.'

"They were all waiting, he said, expecting Absalom to tear him to pieces on the spot; but as Halloway advanced, Absalom faltered and stopped. He could not stand his calm eye. 'It was jest like a dog givin' way before a man who ain't afraid of him,' my man said. 'He breshed Absalom aside as if he had been a fly, and began to talk to us, and I never heard such a Speech.'

* * * * *

"I got there just after it happened; for some report of what Absalom intended to do had reached me that night and I rode over hastily, fearing that I might arrive too late. When, however, I reached the place everything was quiet, Absalom had disappeared. Unable to face his downfall, he had gone off, taking old Joel with him. The tide of excitement had changed and the negroes, relieved at the relaxing of the tension, were laughing among themselves at their champion's defeat and disavowing any sympathy with his violence. They were all friendly with Halloway.

"'Dat man wa'n' nothin' but a' outside nigger, nohow,' they said. 'And he always was more mouth than anything else,' etc.

"'Good L—d! He say he want to drink _blood_!' declared one man to another, evidently for us to hear, as we mounted our horses.

"'Drink _whiskey_!' replied the other, dryly, and there was a laugh of derision.

"I rode home with Halloway. I shall never forget his serenity. As we passed along, the negroes were lining the roads on their way homeward, and were shouting and laughing among themselves; and the greetings they gave us as we passed were as civil and good-humored as if no unpleasantness had ever existed. A little after we set out, one man, who had been walking very fast just ahead of us, and had been keeping in advance all the time, slackened his gait and, as we rode by him, came close to Halloway's stirrup and said something to him in an undertone. All I caught was that somebody was 'layin' up something against him.'

"'That's all right, Dick; let him lay it up, and keep it laid up,' Halloway laughed.

"'Dat's a bad feller!' the negro insisted, uneasily, his voice kept in an undertone. 'You got to watch him. I'se knowed him from a boy.' He added something else in a whisper which I did not catch.

"'All right; certainly not! Much obliged to you, Dick. I'll keep my eyes open. Good-night.'

"'Good-night, gent'men;' and the negro fell back and began to talk with the nearest of his companions effusively.

"'Who is that?' I asked, for the man had kept his hat over his eyes.

"'That's Dick Winchester. You remember that old fellow 't used to belong to old Mr. Eaton—lived down in the pines back o' me, on the creek 't runs near my place. His wife died the year of the big snow.' It was not necessary to explain further. I remembered the negro for whom Halloway had ridden through the storm that night.

"I asked him, somewhat irrelevantly, if he carried a pistol. He said no, he had never done so.

"'Fact is, I'm afraid of killin' somebody. And I don't want to do that, I know. Never could bear to shoot my gun even durin' o' the war, though I shot her 'bout as often as any of 'em, I reckon—always used to shut my eyes right tight whenever I pulled the trigger. I reckon I was a mighty pore soldier,' he laughed. (I had heard that he was one of the best in the army.)

"'Besides, I always feel sort o' cowardly if I've got a pistol on. Looks like I was afraid of somebody—an' I ain't. I've noticed if two fellows has pistols on and git to fightin', mighty apt to one git hurt, maybe both. Sort o' like two dogs growling—long as don't but one of 'em growl it's all right. If don't but one have a pistol, t'other feller always has the advantage and sort o' comes out top, while the man with the pistol looks mean.'

"I remember how he looked in the dim moonlight as he drawled his quaint philosophy.

"'I'm a man o' peace, Mr. Johnny, and I learnt that from your mother—I learnt a heap o' things from her,' he added, presently, after a little period of reflection. 'She was the lady as used always to have a kind word for me when I was a boy. That's a heap to a boy. I used to think she was an angel. You think it's _you_ I'm a fightin' for in this canvass? 'Tain't. I likes you well enough, but I ain't never forgot your mother, and her kindness to my old people durin' the war when I was away. She give me this handkerchief for a weddin' present when I was married after the war—said 'twas all she had to give, and my wife thinks the world and all of it; won't let me have it 'cept as a favor; but this mornin' she told me to take it—said 'twould bring me luck.' He took a big bandanna out of his pocket and held it up in the moonlight. I remembered it as one of my father's.

"'She'll make me give it up to-morrow night when I git home,' he chuckled.

"We had turned into the road through the plantations, and had just come to the fork where Halloway's road turned off toward his place.

"'I lays a heap to your mother's door—purty much all this, I reckon.' His eye swept the moon-bathed scene before him. 'But for her I mightn't 'a got _her_. And ain't a man in the world got a happier home, or as good a wife.' He waved his hand toward the little homestead that was sleeping in the moonlight on the slope the other side of the stream, a picture of peace.

"His path went down a little slope, and mine kept along the side of the hill until it entered the woods. A great sycamore tree grew right in the fork, with its long, hoary arms extending over both roads, making a broad mass of shadow in the white moonlight.

"The next day was the day of the election. Halloway was at one poll and I was at another; so I did not see him that day. But he sent me word that evening that he had carried his poll, and I rode home knowing that we should have peace.

* * * * *

"I was awakened next morning by the news that Halloway and his wife had both been murdered the night before. I at once galloped over to his place, and was one of the first to get there. It was a horrible sight. Halloway had evidently been waylaid and killed by a blow of an axe just as he was entering his yard gate, and then the door of the house had been broken open and his wife had been killed, after which Halloway's body had been dragged into the house, and the house had been fired with the intention of making it appear that the house had burned by accident. But the house had not burned down. By one of those inexplicable fatalities, the fire, after catching and burning half of two walls, had gone out. It was a terrible sight, and the room looked like a shambles. Halloway had evidently been caught unawares while leaning over his gate. The back of his head had been crushed in with the eye of an axe, and he had died instantly. The pleasant thought which was in his mind at the instant—perhaps of the greeting that always awaited him on the click of his latch; perhaps of his success that day; perhaps of my mother's kindness to him when he was a boy—was yet on his face, stamped there indelibly by the blow that killed him. There he lay, face upward, as the murderer had thrown him after bringing him in, stretched out his full length on the floor, with his quiet face upturned, looking in that throng of excited, awe-stricken men, just what he had said he was: a man of peace. His wife, on the other hand, wore a terrified look on her face. There had been a terrible struggle. She had lived to taste the bitterness of death, before it took her." He put his hand over his eyes as though to shut out the vision that recurred to him.

"In a short time there was a great crowd there, white and black. The general mind flew at once to Absalom Turnell. The negroes present were as earnest in their denunciation as the whites; perhaps more so, for the whites were past threatening. I knew from the grimness that trouble was brewing, and I felt that if Absalom were caught and any evidence were found on him, no power on earth could save him. A party rode off in search of him, and went to old Joel's house. Neither Absalom nor Joel were there; they had not been home since the election, one of the women said.

"As a law officer of the county I was to a certain extent in charge at Halloway's, and in looking around for all the clews to be found, I came on a small piece of 'light-wood,' as it is called, stuck in a crack in the floor near the bed: a piece of a stick of 'fat-pine,' such as negroes often carry about, and use as tapers—not as large or as long as one's little finger. One end had been burned; but the other end was clean and was jagged just as it had been broken off. There was a small scorched place on the planks on either side, and it was evident that this was one of the splinters that had been used in firing the house. I called a couple of the coolest, most level-headed men present and quietly showed them the spot, and they took the splinter out and preserved it.

"By one of those fortuitous chances which so often happen in every lawyer's experience, and appear inexplicable, Old Joel Turnell came up to the house just as we came out. He was as sympathetic as possible, appeared outraged at the crime, and professed the highest regard for Halloway, and the deepest sorrow at his death. The sentiment of the crowd was rather one of sympathy with him, that he should have such a son as Absalom.

"I took the old man aside to have a talk with him, to find out where his son was and where he had been the night before. He was equally vehement in his declarations of his son's innocence, and of professions of regard for Halloway. He was indeed so profuse as to these that he aroused my suspicion and I questioned him further; when to my astonishment he declared that his son had spent the night with him and had gone away after sunrise.

"Then happened one of those fatuous things that have led to the detection of so many negroes and can almost be counted on in their prosecution. Joel took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face, and as he did so I recognized the very handkerchief Halloway had shown me the night before. As he pulled out the handkerchief, Joel drew with it several splinters of light-wood, one of which had been broken off from a longer piece and looked exactly as if it might fit into the piece that had been stuck in the crack in the floor. At first, I could scarcely believe my own senses. But it was the same handkerchief. Of course, it became my duty to have Joel arrested immediately. But I was afraid to have it done there, the crowd was so deeply incensed. So I called the two men to whom I had shown the light-wood splinter, told them the story, and they promised to get him away and arrest him quietly and take him safely to jail, which they did.

"Even then we did not exactly believe that the old man had any active complicity in the crime, and I was blamed for arresting the innocent old father and letting the guilty son escape. The son, however, was arrested shortly afterward.

"The circumstances from which the crime arose gave the case something of a political aspect, and the prisoners had the best counsel to be procured, both at our local bar and in the capital. Thus the case became a somewhat celebrated one. The evidence was almost entirely circumstantial, and when I came to work it up, I found, as often occurs, that although the case was plain enough on the outside, there were many difficulties in the way of fitting all the circumstances to prove the guilt of the accused and to make out every link in the chain. Particularly was this so in the prosecution of the young man, who was supposed to be the chief criminal, and in whose case there was a strong effort to prove an alibi.

"As I worked, I found to my surprise that the guilt of the old man, though based wholly on circumstantial evidence, was established more clearly than that of his son—not indeed, as to the murders, but as to the arson, which served just as well to convict on. The handkerchief, which Joel had not been able to resist the temptation to steal, and the splinter of light-wood in his pocket, which fitted exactly into that found in the house, together with other circumstances, proved his guilt conclusively. But although there was an equal moral certainty of the guilt of the young man, it was not so easy to establish it by law.

"Old Dick Winchester was found dead one morning and the alibi was almost completely proved, and only failed by the incredibility of the witnesses for the defence. Old Joel persistently declared that Absalom was innocent, and but for a confession by Absalom of certain facts intended to shift the suspicion from himself to his father, I do not know how his case might have turned out.

"I believed him to be the instigator as well as the perpetrator of the crime.

"I threw myself into the contest, and prosecuted with all the vigor I was capable of. And I finally secured the conviction of both men. But it was after a hard fight. They were the only instances in which, representing the Commonwealth, I was ever conscious of strong personal feeling, and of a sense of personal triumph. The memory of my last ride with Halloway, and of the things he said to me; the circumstances under which he and his wife were killed; the knowledge that in some sort it was on my account; and the bitter attacks made on me personally (for in some quarters I was depicted as a bloodthirsty ruffian, and it was charged that I was for political reasons prosecuting men whom I personally knew to be innocent), all combined to spur me to my utmost effort. And when the verdicts were rendered, I was conscious of a sense of personal triumph so fierce as to shock me.

"Not that I did not absolutely believe in the guilt of both prisoners; for I considered that I had demonstrated it, and so did the jurors who tried them.

"The day of execution was set. An appeal was at once taken in both cases and a stay was granted, and I had to sustain the verdicts in the upper court. The fact that the evidence was entirely circumstantial had aroused great interest, and every lawyer in the State had his theory. The upper court affirmed in both cases and appeals were taken to the next highest court, and again stay of execution was granted.

"The prisoners' counsel had moved to have the prisoners transferred to another county, which I opposed. I was sure that the people of my county would observe the law. They had resisted the first fierce impulse, and were now waiting patiently for Justice to take its course. Months passed, and the stay of execution had to be renewed. The road to Halloway's grew up and I understood that the house had fallen in, though I never went that way again. Still the court hung fire as to its conclusion.

"The day set for the execution approached for the third time without the court having rendered its decision. On the day before that set for the execution, the court gave its decision. It refused to interfere in the case of old Joel, but reversed, and set aside the verdict in that of the younger man. Of a series of over one hundred bills of exception taken by his counsel as a "drag-net," one held; and owing to the admission of a single question by a juror, the judgment was set aside in Absalom's case and a new trial ordered.

"The decision of the court was not as great a surprise to me as it was to the people generally; still even I was somewhat surprised, for I had supposed that both judgments would go together. The court came in for a good deal of abuse, and it was declared by many that they had hanged the wrong man.

"Being anxious lest the excitement might increase, I felt it my duty to stay at the county-seat that night, and as I could not sleep I spent the time going over the records of the two cases; which, like most causes, developed new points every time they were read. I found myself fascinated by them.

"Everything was perfectly quiet all night, though the village was filling up with people from the country to see the execution, which at that time was still public. I determined next morning to go to my home in the country and get a good rest, of which I began to feel the need. I was detained, however, and it was well along in the forenoon before I mounted my horse and rode slowly out of town through a back street. The lane kept away from the main road except at one point just outside of town, where it crossed it at right angles.

"It was a beautiful spring day—a day in which it is a pleasure merely to live, and as I rode along through the quiet lane under the leafy trees I could not help my mind wandering and dwelling on the things that were happening. I am not sure, indeed, that I was not dozing; for I reached the highway without knowing just where I was.

"I was recalled to myself by a rush of boys up the street before me, and a crowd behind them. And there at that moment, coming slowly along before me, was the head of the procession, the sheriff and his men riding, with set faces, in front and on both sides of a slowly moving vehicle, and in a common horse-cart in the midst of his guards, dressed in his Sunday clothes, with a clean white shirt on, seated on his pine coffin, was old Joel. I unconsciously gazed at him, and at the instant he looked up and saw me. Our eyes met as naturally as if he had expected to find me there, and he gave me as natural and as friendly a bow, not a particle reproachful; but a little timid, as though he did not quite know whether I would speak to him.

"It gave me a tremendous shock. I had a sudden sinking of the heart, and nearly fell from my horse. I turned and rode away; but I could not shake off the feeling. I tried to reassure myself with the reflection that he had committed a terrible crime. It did not compose me. What insisted on coming to my mind was the eagerness with which I had prosecuted him and the joy I had felt at my success.

"Of course, I know now it was simply that I was overworked and needed rest; but at that time the trouble was serious.

"It haunted me all day, and that night I could not sleep; and for many days after, it clung to me, and I found myself unable to forget it, or to sleep as I had been used to do.

"The new trial of Absalom came on in time, and the fight was had all over again. It was longer than before, as every man in our county had an opinion, and a jury had to be brought from another county. But again the verdict was the same. And again an appeal was taken; was refused by the next higher court; and allowed by the highest; this time because a talesman said he had expressed an opinion, but had not formed one. And in time the appeal was heard once more, and after much delay, due to the number of cases on the docket and the immense labor of studying carefully so huge a record it was decided. It was again reversed, on the technicality mentioned, and a new trial ordered.

"That same day the court adjourned for its term.

"Sentiment is a curious thing. The apparent injustice of the fact that old Joel was sentenced to be hanged, while his son, who was universally believed to be the instigator of the crime, was given another chance for his life, affected many people, and a strong effort was made to get his sentence commuted; some, even of those who had been most earnest in their denunciation of him, turned, and petitions were got up recommending him for executive clemency. One was brought to me, and every argument was used to induce me to sign it. I was satisfied of his guilt, and refused.