The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eli, by Heman White Chaplin
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Title: Eli
First published in the "Century Magazine"
Author: Heman White Chaplin
Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23005]
Last Updated: March 8, 2018
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELI ***
Produced by David Widger
“When callow Blackstones soar too high,
Quit common-sense, and reckless fly,
Soon, Icarus-like, they headlong fall,
And down come client, case, and all.”
The district-attorney had not thought it worth while to expend much
strength upon his closing argument; but being a jovial stump-speaker, of a
wide reputation within narrow limits, he had not been able to refrain from
making merry over Wood's statement that the basket which he had been seen
bearing home, on the eventful night, was a basket of eels.
“Fine eels those, gentlemen! We have seen gold-fish and silver-fish, but
golden eels are first discovered by this defendant The apostle, in Holy
Writ, caught a fish with a coin in its mouth; but this man leaves the
apostle in the dim distance when he finds eels that are all money. No
storied fisherman of Bagdad, catching enchanted princes disguised as
fishes in the sea, ever hooked such a treasure as this defendant hooked
when he hooked that basket of eels! [Rustling appreciation of the jest
among the jury.] If a squirming, twisting, winding, wriggling eel,
gentlemen, can be said at any given moment to have a back, we may
distinguish this new-found species as the greenback eel. It is a common
saying that no man can hold an eel and remain a Christian. I should like
to have viewed the pious equanimity of this good man when he laid his
hands on that whole bed of eels. In happy, barefoot boyhood, gentlemen, we
used to find mud-turtles marked with initials or devices cut in their
shells; but what must have been our friend's surprise to find, in the
muddy bed of Harlow's Creek, eels marked with a steel-engraving of the
landing of Columbus and the signature of the Register of the Treasury! I
hear that a corporation is now being formed by the title of The Harlow's
Creek Greenback National Bank-bill Eel-fishing Company, to follow up, with
seines and spears, our worthy friend's discovery! I learn that the news of
this rich placer has spread to the golden mountains of the West, and that
the exhausted intellects which have been reduced to such names for their
mines as 'The Tombstone,' 'The Red Dog,' the 'Mrs. E. J. Parkhurst,' are
likely now to flood us with prospectuses of the 'Eel Mine,' 'The Flat
Eel,' 'The Double Eel,' and then, when they get ready to burst upon
confiding friends, 'The Consolidated Eels.'”
It takes but little to make a school or a court-room laugh, and the speech
had appeared to give a good deal of amusement to the listeners.
To all?
Did it amuse that man who sat, with folded arms, harsh and rigid, at the
dock? Did it divert that white-faced woman, cowering in a corner,
listening as in a dream?
The judge now charged the jury briefly. It was unnecessary for him, he
said, to recapitulate evidence of so simple a character. The chief
question for the jury was as to the credibility of the witnesses. If the
witnesses for the prosecution were truthful and were not mistaken, the
inference of guilt seemed inevitable; this the defendant's counsel had
conceded. The defendant had proved a good reputation; upon that point
there was only this to be said: that, while such evidence was entitled to
weight, yet, on the other hand, crimes involving a breach of trust could,
from their very nature, be committed only by persons whose good
reputations secured them positions of trust.
The jury-room had evidently not been furnished by a ring. It had a long
table for debate, twelve hard chairs for repose, twelve spittoons for
luxury, and a clock.
The jury sat in silence for a few moments, as old Captain Nourse, who had
them in his keeping, and eyed them as if he was afraid that he might lose
one of them in a crack and be held accountable on his bond, rattled away
at the unruly lock. Looking at them then, you would have seen faces all of
a New England cast but one. There was a tall, powerful negro called George
Washington, a man well known in this county town, to which he had come, as
driftwood from the storm of war, in '65. Some of the “boys” had heard him,
in a great prayer-meeting in Washington—a city which he always spoke
of as his “namesake”—at the time of the great review, say, in his
strong voice, with that pathetic quaver in it: “Like as de parched an'
weary traveller hangs his harp upon de winder, an' sighs for oysters in de
desert, so I longs to res' my soul an' my foot in Mass'-chusetts;” and
they were so delighted with him that they invited him on the spot to go
home with them, and took up a collection to pay his fare; and so he was a
public character. As for his occupation,—when the census-taker, with
a wink to the boys in the store, had asked him what it was, he had said,
in that same odd tone: “Putties up glass a little—whitewashes a
little—” and, when the man had made a show of writing all that down,
“preaches a little.” He might have said, “preaches a big,” for you could
hear him half a mile away.
The foreman was a retired sea-captain. “Good cap'n—Cap'n Thomas,”
one of his neighbors had said of him. “Allers gits good ships—never
hez to go huntin' 'round for a vessel. But it is astonishin' what
differences they is! Now there 's Cap'n A. K. P. Bassett, down to the West
Harbor. You let it git 'round that Cap'n A. K. P. is goin' off on a Chiny
voyage, and you 'll see half a dozen old shays to once-t, hitched all
along his fence of an arternoon, and wimmen inside the house, to git Cap'n
A. K. P. to take their boys. But you let Cap'n Thomas give out that he
wants boys, and he hez to glean 'em—from the poor-house, and from
step-mothers, and where he can: the women knows! Still,” he added, “Cap'n
Thomas 's a good cap'n. I've nothin' to say ag'in him. He's smart!”
“Gentlemen,” said the foreman, when the officer, at last, had securely
locked them in, “shall we go through the formality of a ballot? If the
case were a less serious one, we might have rendered a verdict in our
seats.”
“What's the use foolin' 'round ballotin'?” said a thick-set butcher.
“Ain't we all o' one mind?”
“It is for you to say, gentlemen,” said the foreman. “I should n't want to
have it go abroad that we had not acted formally, if there was any one
disposed to cavil.”
“Mr. Speaker,” said George Washington, rising and standing in the attitude
of Webster, “I rises to appoint to order. We took ballast in de prior
cases, and why make flesh of one man an' a fowl of another?”
“Very well,” said the foreman, a trifle sharply; “'the longest way round
is the shortest way home.'”
Twelve slips of paper were handed out, to be indorsed guilty, “for form.”
They were collected in a hat and the foreman told them over—“just
for form.” “'Guilty,' 'guilty,' 'guilty,' 'guilty,'—wait a minute,”
he said, “here is a mistake. Here is one 'not guilty'—whose is
this?”
There was a pause.
“Whose is it?” said the foreman, sharply.
Eli turned a little red.
“It's mine,” he said.
“Do you mean it?” said the foreman.
“Of course I mean it,” he answered.
“Whew!” whistled the foreman. “Very well, sir; we'll have an
understanding, then. This case is proved to the satisfaction of every man
who heard it, I may safely say, but one. Will that one please state the
grounds of his opinion?”
“I ain't no talker,” said Eli, “but I ain't satisfied he 's guilty—that's
all.”
“Don't you believe the witnesses?”
“Mostly.”
“Which one don't you believe?”
“I can't say. I don't believe he's guilty.”
“Is there one that you think lied?”
No answer.
“Now it seems to me—” said a third juryman.
“One thing at a time, gentlemen,” said the foreman. “Let us wait for an
answer from Mr. Smith. Is there any one that you think lied? We will wait,
gentlemen, for an answer.”
There was a long pause. The trial seemed to Eli Smith to have shifted from
the court to this shabby room, and he was now the culprit.
All waited for him; all eyes were fixed upon him.
The clock ticked loud! Eli counted the seconds. He knew the determination
of the foreman.
The silence became intense.
“I want to say my say,” said a short man in a pea-jacket,—a retired
San Francisco pilot, named Eldridge. “I entertain no doubt the man is
guilty. At the same time, I allow for differences of opinion. I don't know
this man that's voted 'not guilty,' but he seems to be a well-meaning man.
I don't know his reasons; probably he don't understand the case. I should
like to have the foreman tell the evidence over, so as if he don't see it
clear, he can ask questions, and we can explain.”
“I second de motion,” said George Washington.
There was a general rustle of approval.
“I move it,” said the pilot, encouraged.
“Very well, Mr. Eldridge,” said the foreman. “If there is no objection, I
will state the evidence, and if there is any loop-hole, I will trouble Mr.
Smith to suggest it as I go along;” and he proceeded to give a summary of
the testimony, with homely force.
“Now, sir?” he said, when he had finished.
“I move for another ballot,” said Mr. Eldridge.
The result was the same. Eli had voted “not guilty.”
“Mr. Smith,” said the foreman, “this must be settled in some way. This is
no child's play. You can't keep eleven men here, trifling with them,
giving no pretence of a reason.”
“I have n't no reasons, only that I don't believe he 's guilty,” said Eli.
“I 'm not goin' to vote a man into State's-prison, when I don't believe he
done it,” and he rose and walked to the window and looked out. It was low
tide. There was a broad stretch of mud in the distance, covered with boats
lying over disconsolate. A driving storm had emptied the streets. He beat
upon the rain-dashed glass a moment with his fingers, and then he sat down
again.
“Well, sir,” said the foreman, “this is singular conduct. What do you
propose to do?”
Silence.
“I suppose you realize that the rest of us are pretty rapidly forming a
conclusion on this matter,” said the foreman.
“Come! come!” said Mr. Eldridge; “don't be quite so hard on him, Captain.
Now, Mr. Smith,” he said, standing up with his hands in his coat-pockets
and looking at Eli, “we know that there often is crooked sticks on juries,
that hold out alone—that's to be expected; but they always argue,
and stand to it the rest are fools, and all that. Now, all is, we don't
see why you don't sort of argue, if you 've got reasons satisfactory to
you. Come, now,” he added, walking up to Eli, and resting one foot on the
seat of his chair, “why don't you tell it over? and if we 're wrong, I 'm
ready to join you.”
Eli looked up at him.
“Did n't you ever know,” he said, “of a man's takin' a cat off, to lose,
that his little girl did n't want drownded, and leavin' him ashore, twenty
or thirty miles, bee-line, from home, and that cat's bein' back again the
next day, purrin' 'round 's if nothin' had happened?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Eldridge—“knew of just such a case.”
“Very well,” said Eli; “how does he find his way home?”
“Don't know,” said Mr. Eldridge; “always has been a standing mystery to
me.”
“Well,” said Eli, “mark my words. There's such a thing as arguin', and
there 's such a thing as knowin' outright; and when you 'll tell me how
that cat inquires his way home, I '11 tell you how I know John Wood ain't
guilty.”
This made a certain sensation, and Eli's stock went up.
An old, withered man rapped on the table.
“That's so!” he said; “and there's other sing'lar things! How is it that a
seafarin' man, that 's dyin' to home, will allers die on the ebbtide? It
never fails, but how does it happen? Tell me that! And there's more ways
than one of knowin' things, too!”
“I know that man ain't guilty,” said Eli.
“Hark ye!” said a dark old man with a troubled face, rising and pointing
his finger toward Eli. “Know, you say? I knew, wunst. I knew
that my girl, my only child, was good. One night she went off with a
married man that worked in my store, and stole my money—and where is
she now?” And then he added, “What I know is, that every man hes
his price. I hev mine, and you hev yourn!”
“'Xcuse me, Mr. Speaker,” said George Washington, rising with his hand in
his bosom; “as de question is befo' us, I wish to say that de las' bro'
mus' have spoken under 'xcitement. Every man don' have his price!
An' I hope de bro' will recant—like as de Psalmist goes out o' his
way to say 'In my haste I said, All men are liars.' He was a very
busy man, de Psalmist—writin' down hymns all day, sharpen'n' his
lead-pencil, bossin' 'roun' de choir—callin' Selah! Well, bro'n an'
sisters “—both arms going out, and his voice going up—” one
day, seems like, he was in gre't haste—got to finish a psalm for a
monthly concert, or such—and some man in-corrupted him, and lied;
and bein' in gre't haste—and a little old Adam in him—he says,
right off, quick: 'All men are liars!' But see! When he gits a
little time to set back and meditate, he says: 'Dis won' do—dere's
Moses an' Job, an' Paul—dey ain't liars!' An' den he don' sneak out,
and 'low he said, 'All men is lions,' or such. No! de Psalmist ain't no
such man; but he owns up, 'an 'xplains. 'In my haste,' he says, 'I
said it.'”
The foreman rose and rapped.
“I await a motion,” said he, “if our friend will allow me the privilege of
speaking.”
Mr. Washington calmly bowed.
Then the foreman, when nobody seemed disposed to move, speaking slowly at
first, and piecemeal, alternating language with smoke, gradually edged
into the current of the evidence, and ended by going all over it again,
with fresh force and point. His cigar glowed and chilled in the darkening
room as he talked.
“Now,” he said, when he had drawn all the threads together to the point of
guilt, “what are we going to do upon this evidence?”
“I 'll tell you something,” said Eli. “I did n't want to say it because I
know what you 'll all think, but I 'll tell you, all the same.”
“Ah!” said the foreman.
Eli stood up and faced the others.
“'Most all o' you know what our Bar is in a southeast gale. They ain't a
man here that would dare to try and cross it when the sea's breakin' on
it. The man that says he would, lies!” And he looked at the foreman, and
waited a moment.
“When my wife took sick, and I stopped goin' to sea, two year ago, and
took up boat-fishin', I did n't know half as much about the coast as the
young boys do, and one afternoon it was blowin' a gale, and we was all
hands comin' in, and passin' along the Bar to go sheer 'round it to the
west'ard, and Captain Fred Cook—he's short-sighted—got on to
the Bar before he knew it, and then he hed to go ahead, whether or no; and
I was right after him, and I s'posed he knew, and I followed him. Well, he
was floated over, as luck was, all right; but when I 'd just got on the
Bar, a roller dropped back and let my bowsprit down into the sand, and
then come up quicker'n lightnin' and shouldered the boat over, t' other
end first, and slung me into the water; and when I come up, I see
somethin' black, and there was John Wood's boat runnin' by me before the
wind with a rush—and 'fore I knew an'thing, he had me by the hair by
one hand, and in his boat, and we was over the Bar. Now, I tell you, a man
that looks the way I saw him look when I come over the gunwale, face up,
don't go 'round breakin' in and hookin' things. He hed n't one chance in
five, and he was a married man, too, with small children. And what's
more,” he added incautiously, “he did n't stop there. When he found out,
this last spring, that I was goin' to lose my place, he lent me money
enough to pay the interest that was overdue on the mortgage, of his own
accord.”
And he stopped suddenly.
“You have certainly explained yourself,” said the foreman. “I think we
understand you distinctly.”
“There is n't one word of truth in that idea,” said Eli, flushing up, “and
you know it. I 've paid him back every cent. I know him better 'n any of
you, that's all, and when I know he ain't guilty, I won't say he is; and I
can set here as long as any other man.”
“Lively times some folks 'll hev, when they go home,” said a spare
tin-pedler, stroking his long yellow goatee. “Go into the store: nobody
speak to you; go to cattle-show: everybody follow you 'round; go to the
wharf: nobody weigh your fish; go to buy seed-cakes to the cart: baker
won't give no tick.”
“How much does it cost, Mr. Foreman,” said the butcher, “for a man 't 's
obliged to leave town, to move a family out West? I only ask for
information. I have known a case where a man had to leave—could n't
live there no longer—wa' n't wanted.”
There was a knock. An officer, sent by the judge, inquired whether the
jury were likely soon to agree.
“It rests with you, sir,” said the foreman, looking at Eli.
But Eli sat doggedly with his hands in his pockets, and did not look up or
speak.
“Say to the judge that I cannot tell,” said the foreman.
It was eight o'clock when the officer returned, with orders to take the
jury across the street to the hotel, to supper. They went out in pairs,
except that the juryman who was left to fall in with Eli made three with
the file ahead, and left Eli to walk alone. This was noticed by the
bystanders. At the hotel, Eli could not eat a mouthful. He was seated at
one end of the table, and was left entirely out of the conversation. When
the jury were escorted back to the courthouse, rumors had evidently begun
to arise from his having walked alone, for there was quite a little crowd
at the hotel door, to see them. They went as before: four pairs, a file of
three, and Eli alone. Then the spectators understood it.
When the jury were locked into their room again for the night, Mr.
Eldridge sat down by Eli and lit his pipe.
“I understand,” he said, “just how you feel. Now, between you and me,
there was a good-hearted fellow that kept me out of a bad mess once. I 've
never told anybody just what it was, and I don't mean to tell you now, but
it brought my blood up standing, to find how near I 'd come to putting a
fine steamer and two hundred and forty passengers under water. Well, one
day, a year or so after that, this man had a chance to get a good ship,
only there was some talk against him, that he drank a little. Well, the
owners told him they wanted to see me, and he come to me, and says he,
'Mr. Eldridge, I hope you 'll speak a good word for me; if you do, I 'll
get the ship, but if they refuse me this one, I 'm dished everywhere.'
Well, the owners put me the square question, and I had to tell 'em. Well,
I met him that afternoon on Sacramento Street, as white as a sheet, and he
would n't speak to me, but passed right by, and that night he went and
shipped before the mast. That's the last I ever heard of him; but I had to
do it. Now,” he added, “this man 's been good to you; but the case is
proved, and you ought to vote with the rest of us.”
“It ain't proved,” said Eli. “The judge said that if any man had a
reasonable doubt, he ought to hold out. Now, I ain't convinced.”
“Well, that 's easy said,” replied Mr. Eldridge, a little hotly, and he
arose, and left him.
The jurymen broke up into little knots, tilted their chairs back, and
settled into the easiest positions that their cramped quarters allowed.
Most of them lit their pipes; the captain, and one or two whom he honored,
smoked fragrant cigars, and the room was soon filled with a dense cloud.
Eli sat alone by the window.
“Sometimes sell two at one house,” said a lank book-agent, arousing
himself from a reverie; “once sold three.”
“I think the Early Rose is about as profitable as any,” said a little
farmer, with a large circular beard. “I used to favor Jacobs's Seedling,
but they have n't done so well with me of late years.”
“Sometimes,” said the book-agent, picking his teeth with a quill, “you 'll
go to a house, and they 'll say they can't be induced to buy a book of any
kind, historical, fictitious, or religious; but you just keep on talking,
and show the pictures—'Grant in Boyhood,' 'Grant a Tanner,' Grant at
Head-quarters,' 'Grant in the White House,' 'Grant before Queen Victoria,'
and they warm up, I tell you, and not infrequently buy.”
“Do you sell de 'Illustrated Bible',” asked Washington, “wid de
Hypocrypha?”
“No; I have a more popular treatise—the 'Illustrated History of the
Bible.' Greater variety. Brings in the surrounding nations, in costume.
Cloth, three dollars; sheep, three-fifty; half calf, five-seventy-five;
full morocco, gilt edges, seven-fifty. Six hundred and seven illustrations
on wood and steel. Three different engravings of Abraham alone. Four of
Noah,—'Noah before the Flood,' 'Noah Building the Ark,' 'Noah
Welcoming the Dove,' 'Noah on Ararat,' Steel engraving of Ezekiel's Wheel,
explaining prophecy. Jonah under the gourd, Nineveh in the distance.”
Mr. Eldridge and Captain Thomas had drifted into a discussion of harbors,
and the captain had drawn his chair up to the table, and, with a cigar in
his mouth, was explaining an ingeniously constructed foreign harbor. He
was making a rough sketch, with a pen.
“Here is north,” he said; “here is the coastline; here are the flats; here
are the sluicegates; they store the water here, in—”
Some of the younger men had their heads together, in a corner, about the
tin-pedler, who was telling stories of people he had met in his journeys,
which brought out repeated bursts of laughter.
In the corner farthest from Eli, a delicate-looking man began to tell the
butcher about Eli's wife.
“Twelve years ago this fall,” he said, “I taught district-school in the
parish where she lived. She was about fourteen then. Her father was a poor
farmer, without any faculty. Her mother was dead, and she kept house. I
stayed there one week, boarding 'round.”
“Prob'ly did n't git not much of any fresh meat that week,” suggested the
butcher.
“She never said much, but it used to divert me to see her order around her
big brothers, just as if she was their mother. She and I got to be great
friends; but she was a queer piece. One day at school the girls in her row
were communicating, and annoying me, while the third class was reciting in
'First Steps in Numbers,' and I was so incensed that I called Lizzie—that's
her name—right out, and had her stand up for twenty minutes. She was
a shy little thing, and set great store by perfect marks. I saw that she
was troubled a good deal, to have all of them looking and laughing at her.
But she stood there, with her hands folded behind her, and not a smile or
a word.”
“Look out for a sullen cow,” said the butcher.
“I felt afraid I had been too hasty with her, and I was rather sorry I had
been so decided—although, to be sure, she did n't pretend to deny
that she had been communicating.”
“Of course,” said the butcher: “no use lyin' when you 're caught in the
act.”
“Well, after school, she stayed at her desk, fixing her dinner-pail, and
putting her books in a strap, and all that, till all the rest had gone,
and then she came up to my desk, where I was correcting compositions.”
“Now for music!” said the butcher.
“She had been crying a little. Well, she looked straight in my face, and
said she, 'Mr. Pollard, I just wanted to say to you that I was n't doing
anything at all when you called me up;' and off she went. Now, that was
just like her,—too proud to say a word before the school.”
But here his listener's attention was diverted by the voice of the
book-agent.
“The very best Bible for teachers, of course, is the limp-cover, protected
edges, full Levant morocco, Oxford, silk-sewed, kid-lined, Bishop's
Divinity Circuit, with concordance, maps of the Holy Land, weights,
measures, and money-tables of the Jews. Nothing like having a really—”
“And so,” said the captain, moving back his chair, “they let on the whole
head of water, and scour out the channel to a T.”
And then he rapped upon the table.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “please draw your chairs up, and let us take another
ballot.”
The count resulted as before.
The foreman muttered something which had a scriptural sound. In a few
moments he drew Mr. Eldridge and two others aside. “Gentlemen,” he said to
them, “I shall quietly divide the jury into watches, under your charge:
ten can sleep, while one wakes to keep Mr. Smith discussing the question.
I don't propose to have the night wasted.”
And, by one man or another, Eli was kept awake.
“I don't see,” said the book-agent, “why you should feel obliged to stick
it out any longer. Of course, you are under obligations. But you 've done
more than enough already, so as that he can't complain of you, and if you
give in now, everybody 'll give you credit for trying to save your friend,
on the one hand, and, on the other hand, for giving in to the evidence. So
you 'll get credit both ways.”
An hour later, the tin-pedler came on duty. He had not followed closely
the story about John Wood's loan, and had got it a little awry.
“Now, how foolish you be,” he said, in a confidential tone. “Can't you see
that if you cave in now, after stan'n' out nine hours”—and he looked
at a silver watch with a brass chain, and stroked his goatee—“nine
hours and twenty-seven minutes—that you 've made jest rumpus enough
so as't he won't dare to foreclose on you, for fear they 'll say you went
back on a trade. On t' other hand, if you hold clear out, he'll turn you
out-o'-doors to-morrow, for a blind, so 's to look as if there wa' n't no
trade between you. Once he gits off, he won't know Joseph, you bet! That's
what I 'd do,” he added, with a sly laugh. “Take your uncle's advice.”
“The only trouble with that,” said Eli, shortly, “is that I don't owe him
anything.”
“Oh,” said the pedler; “that makes a difference. I understood you did.”
Three o'clock came, and brought Mr. El-dridge. He found Eli worn out with
excitement.
“Now, I don't judge you the way the others do,” said Mr. Eldridge, in a
low tone, with his hand on Eli's knee. “I know, as I told you, just the
way you feel. But we can't help such things. Suppose, now, that I had kept
dark, and allowed to the owners that that man was always sober, and I had
heard, six months after, of thirty or forty men going to the bottom
because the captain was a little off his base; and then to think of their
wives and children at home. We have to do some hard things; but I say, do
the square thing, and let her slide.”
“But I can't believe he 's guilty,” said Eli.
“But don't you allow,” said Mr. Eldridge, “that eleven men are more sure
to hit it right than one man?”
“Yes,” said Eli, reluctantly, “as a general thing.”
“Well, there's always got to be some give to a jury, just as in everything
else, and you ought to lay right down on the rest of us. It is n't as if
we were at all squirmish. Now, you know that if you hold out, he 'll be
tried again.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Got to be—no other way,” said Mr. Eldridge. “Now, the next time,
there won't be anybody like you to stand out, and the judge 'll know of
this scrape, and he'll just sock it to him.”
Eli turned uneasily in his chair.
“And then it won't be understood in your place, and folks 'll turn against
you every way, and, what's worse, let you alone.”
“I can stand it,” said Eli, angrily. “Let 'em do as they like. They can't
kill me.”
“They can kill your wife and break down your children,” said Mr. Eldridge.
“Women and children can't stand it. Now, there's that man they were
speaking of; he lived down my way. He sued a poor, shiftless fellow that
had come from Pennsylvania to his daughter's funeral, and had him arrested
and taken off, crying, just before the funeral begun—after they 'd
even set the flowers on the coffin; and nobody'd speak to him after that—they
just let him alone; and after a while his wife took sick of it—she
was a nice, kindly woman—and she had sort of hysterics, and finally
he moved off West. And 't was n't long before the woman died. Now, you
can't undertake to do different from everybody else.”
“Well,” said Eli, “I know I wish it was done with.”
Mr. Eldridge stretched his arms and yawned. Then he began to walk up and
down, and hum, out of tune. Then he stopped at Captain Thomas's chair.
“Suppose we try a ballot,” he said. “He seems to give a little.”
In a moment the foreman rapped.
“It is time we were taking another ballot, gentlemen,” he said.
The sleepers rose, grumbling, from uneasy dreams.
“I will write 'guilty' on twelve ballots,” said the foreman, “and if any
one desires to write in 'not,' of course he can.”
When the hat came to Eli, he took one of the ballots and held it in his
hand a moment, and then he laid it on the table. There was a general
murmur. The picture which Mr. El-dridge had drawn loomed up before him.
But with a hasty hand he wrote in “not,” dropped in the ballot, and going
back to his chair by the window, sat down.
There was a cold wave of silence.
Then Eli suddenly walked up to the foreman and faced him.
“Now,” he said, “we 'll stop. The very next turn breaks ground. If you, or
any other man that you set on, tries to talk to me when I don't want to
hear, to worry me to death—look out!”
How the long hours wore on! How easy, sometimes, to resist an open
pressure, and how hard, with the resistance gone, to fight, as one that
beats the air! How the prospect of a whole hostile town loomed up, in a
mirage, before Eli! And then the picture rose before him of a long,
stately bark, now building, whose owner had asked him yesterday to be
first mate. And if his wife were only well, and he were only free from
this night's trouble, how soon, upon the long, green waves, he could begin
to redeem his little home!
And then came Mr. Eldridge, kind and friendly, to have another little
chat.
Morning came, cold and drizzly. An officer knocked at the door, and called
out, “Breakfast!” And in a moment, unwashed, and all uncombed, except the
tin-pedler, who always carried a beard-comb in his pocket, they were
marched across the street to the hotel.
There were a number of men on the piazza waiting to see them,—jurymen,
witnesses, and the accused himself, for he was on bail. He had seen the
procession the night before, and, like the others, had read its meaning.
“Eli knows I would n't do it,” he had said to himself, “and he's going to
hang out, sure.”
The jury began to turn from the court-house door. Everybody looked. A file
of two men, another file, another, another; would there come three men,
and then one? No; Eli no longer walked alone.
Everybody looked at Wood; he turned sharply away.
But this time the order of march in fact showed nothing, one way or the
other. It only meant that the judge, who had happened to see the jury the
night before returning from their supper, had sent for the high sheriff in
some temper,—for judges are human,—and had vigorously
intimated that if that statesman did not look after his fool of a deputy,
who let a jury parade secrets to the public view, he would!
The jury were in their room again. At nine o'clock came a rap, and a
summons from the court. The prosecuting attorney was speaking with the
judge when they went in. In a moment he took his seat.
“John Wood!” called out the clerk, and the defendant arose. His attorney
was not there.
“Mr. Foreman!” said the judge, rising. The jury arose. The silence of the
crowded courtroom was intense.
“Before the clerk asks you for a verdict, gentlemen,” said the judge, “I
have something of the first importance to say to you, which has but this
moment come to my knowledge.”
Eli changed color, and the whole court-room looked at him.
“There were some most singular rumors, after the case was given to you,
gentlemen, to the effect that there had been in this cause a criminal
abuse of justice. It is painful to suspect, and shocking to know, that
courts and juries are liable ever to suffer by such unprincipled
practices. After ten years upon the bench, I never witness a conviction of
crime without pain; but that pain is light, compared with the distress of
knowing of a wilful perversion of justice. It is a relief to me to be able
to say to you that such instances are, in my judgment, exceedingly rare,
and—so keen is the awful searching power of truth—are almost
invariably discovered.”
The foreman touched his neighbor with his elbow. Eli folded his arms.
“As I said,” continued the judge, “there were most singular rumors. During
the evening and the night, rumor, as is often the case, led to evidence,
and evidence has led to confession and to certainty. And the district
attorney now desires me to say to you that the chief officer of the bank—who
held the second key to the safe—is now under arrest for a heavy
defalcation, which a sham robbery was to conceal, and that you may find
the prisoner at the bar—not guilty. I congratulate you, gentlemen,
that you had not rendered an adverse verdict.”
“Your Honor!” said Eli, and he cleared his throat, “I desire it to be
known that, even as the case stood last night, this jury had not agreed to
convict, and never would have!”
There was a hush, while a loud scratching pen indorsed the record of
acquittal. Then Wood walked down to the jury-box and took Eli's hand.
“Just what I told my wife all through,” he said. “I knew you 'd hang out!”
Eli's jury was excused for the rest the of day, and by noon he was in his
own village, relieved, too, of his most pressing burden: for George Cahoon
had met him on the road, and told him that he was not going to the West,
after all, for the present, and should not need his money. But, as he
turned the bend of the road and neared his house, he felt a rising fear
that some disturbing rumor might have reached his wife about his action on
the jury. And, to his distress and amazement, there she was, sitting in a
chair at the door.
“Lizzie!” he said, “what does this mean? Are you crazy?”
“I'll tell you what it means,” she said, as she stood up with a little
smile and clasped her hands behind her. “This morning it got around and
came to me that you was standing out all alone for John Wood, and that the
talk was that they 'd be down on you, and drive you out of town, and that
everybody pitied me,—pitied me! And when I heard that,
I thought I 'd see! And my strength seemed to come all back, and I got
right up and dressed myself. And what's more, I 'm going to get well now!”
And she did.
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