Dark Hollow

  XXI

  IN THE COURT ROOM

  About this time, the restless pacing of the judge in his study at nightsbecame more frequent and lasted longer. In vain Reuther played her mostcheerful airs and sang her sweetest songs, the monotonous tramp kept upwith a regularity nothing could break.

  "He's worried by the big case now being tried before him," Deborah wouldsay, when Reuther's eyes grew wide and misty in her sympathetic trouble.And there was no improbability in the plea, for it was a case of muchmoment, and of great local interest. A man was on trial for his life andthe circumstances of the case were such that the feeling called forthwas unusually bitter; so much so, indeed, that every word uttered by thecounsel and every decision made by the judge were discussed from one endof the county to the other, and in Shelby, if nowhere else, tookprecedence of all other topics, though it was a Presidential year andparty sympathies ran high.

  The more thoughtful spirits were inclined to believe in the innocence ofthe prisoner; but the lower elements of the town, moved by classprejudice, were bitterly antagonistic to his cause and loud for hisconviction.

  Did the judge realise his position and the effect made upon the populaceby his very evident leaning towards this dissipated but well-connectedyoung man accused of a crime so brutal, that he must either have beenthe sport of most malicious circumstances, or a degenerate of the worsttype. The time of Judge Ostrander's office was nearly up, and his futurecontinuance on the bench might very easily depend upon his attitude atthe present hearing. Yet HE, without apparent recognition of this fact,showed without any hesitancy or possibly without self-consciousness, thesympathy he felt for the man at the bar, and ruled accordingly almostwithout variation.

  No wonder he paced the floor as the proceedings drew towards its closeand the inevitable hour approached when a verdict must be rendered. Mrs.Scoville, reading his heart by the light of her recent discoveries,understood as nobody else, the workings of his conscience and thepassion of sympathy which this unhappy father must have for misguidedyouth. She began to fear for his health and count the days till thisordeal was over.

  In other regards, quiet had come to them all and less tempestuous fears.Could the judge but weather the possible conviction of this man andrestrain himself from a disclosure of his own suffering, more cheerfuldays might be in store for them, for no further missives were to be seenon the lawn, nor had anything occurred for days to recall to Deborah'smind the move she had made towards re-establishing her husband'sinnocence.

  A week passed, and the community was all agog, in anticipation of thejudge's charge in the case just mentioned. It was to be given at noon,and Mrs. Scoville, conscious that he had not slept an hour the nightbefore (having crept down more than once to listen if his step hadceased), approached him as he prepared to leave the house for the courtroom, and anxiously asked if he were quite well.

  "Oh, yes, I'm well," he responded sharply, looking about for Reuther.

  The young girl was standing a little behind him, with his gloves in herhand--a custom she had fallen into in her desire to have his last lookand fond good morning.

  "Come here, child," said he, in a way to make her heart beat; and, as hetook the gloves from her hand, he stooped and kissed her on theforehead--something he had never done before. "Let me see you smile,"said he. "It's a memory I like to take with me into the court room."

  But when in her pure delight at his caress and the fatherly feelingwhich gave a tremor to his simple request, she lifted her face with thatangelic look of hers which was far sweeter and far more moving than anysmile, he turned away abruptly as though he had been more hurt thancomforted, and strode out of the house without another word.

  Deborah's hand went to her heart, in the dark corner whither she hadwithdrawn herself, and when she turned again towards the spot whereReuther had stood, it was in some fear lest she had betrayed herunderstanding of this deeply tried father's passionate pain. But Reutherwas no longer there. She had fled quickly away with the memory of whatwas to make this day a less dreary one for her.

  Morning passed and the noon came, bringing Deborah an increaseduneasiness. When lunch was over and Reuther sat down to her piano, thefeeling had grown into an obsession, which soon resolved itself into adefinite fear.

  "What if an attack, such as I once saw, should come upon him while hesits upon the bench! Why have I not thought of this before? O God! theseevil days! When will they be over!"

  She found herself so restless that she decided upon going out. Donningher quietest gown and veil, she looked in on Reuther and expressed herintention; then slipped out of the front door, hardly knowing whitherher feet would carry her.

  They did not carry her far,--not at this moment at least. On the walkoutside she met Miss Weeks hurrying towards her from the corner,stumbling in her excitement and so weakened in body or spirit that shecaught at the unresponsive fence for the support which its smoothsurface refused to give her.

  At sight of Deborah's figure, she paused and threw up her hands.

  "Oh, Mrs. Scoville, such a dreadful thing!" she cried. "Look here!" And,opening one of her hands, she showed a few torn scraps of paper whosefamiliarity made Deborah's blood run cold.

  "On the bridge," gasped the little lady, leaning against the fence forsupport. "Pasted on the railing of the bridge. I should never have seenit, nor looked at it, if it hadn't been that I--"

  "Don't tell me here," urged Deborah. "Let's go over to your house. See,there are people coming."

  The little lady yielded to the other's constraining hand and togetherthey crossed the street. Once in the house, Deborah allowed her fullapprehension to show itself.

  "What were the words? What was on the paper? Anything about--"

  The little woman's look of horror stopped her.

  "It's a lie, an awful, abominable lie. But think of such a lie beingpasted up on that dreadful bridge for any one to see. After twelveyears, Mrs. Scoville! After--" But here indignation changed suddenlyinto suspicion, and eyeing her visitor with sudden disfavour she cried:"This is your work, madam. Your inquiries and your talk of JohnScoville's innocence has set wagging all the villainous tongues in town.And I remember something else. How you came smirking into this very roomone day, with your talk about caps and Oliver Ostrander's doings on theday when Algernon Etheridge was murdered. You were in search ofinformation, I see; information against the best, the brightest--Well,why don't you speak? I'll give you the chance if you want it. Don'tstand looking at me like that. I'm not used to it, Mrs. Scoville. I'm apeaceable woman and I'm not used to it."

  "Miss Weeks--" Ah, the oil of that golden speech on troubled waters!What was its charm? What message did it carry from Deborah's warm, trueheart that its influence should be so miraculous? "Miss Weeks, you haveforgotten my interest in Oliver Ostrander. He was my daughter's lover.He was my own ideal of a gifted, kind-hearted, if somewhat mysterious,young man. No calumny uttered against him can awaken in you half thesorrow and indignation it does in me. Let me see those lines or whatthere is left of them so that I may share your feelings. They must bedreadful--"

  "They are more than dreadful. I don't know how I had strength to pullthese pieces off. I couldn't have done it if they had been quite dry.But what do you want to see them for? I'd have left them there if I hadbeen willing to have them seen. They are for the kitchen fire. Wait amoment and then we will talk."

  But Deborah had no mind to let these pieces escape her eye. Sick as shefelt at heart, she exerted herself to win the little woman's confidence;and when Deborah exerted herself, even under such adverse conditions asthese, she seldom failed to succeed.

  Nor did she fail now. At the end of fifteen minutes she had the tornbits of paper arranged in their proper position and was reading thesewords:

  The scene of Oliv der's crime.

  Nothing could be more explicit nothing more damaging. As the glances ofthe two women met, it would be difficult to tell on which face Distresshung out the whiter flag.

  "The beginn
ing of the end!" was Deborah's thought. "If after Mr. Black'sefforts, a charge like this is found posted up in the public ways, theruin of the Ostranders is determined upon, and nothing we can do canstop it."

  In five minutes more she had said good-bye to Miss Weeks and was on herway to the courthouse.

  This building occupied one end of a large paved square in the busiestpart of the town. As Deborah approached it, she was still furtheralarmed by finding this square full of people, standing in groups orwalking impatiently up and down with their eyes fixed on the courthousedoors. The case which had agitated the whole country for days was now inthe hands of the jury and a verdict was momentarily expected.

  So much for appearances outside. Within, there was the uneasy hum, theanxious look, the subdued movement which marks an universal suspense.Announcement had been made that the jury had reached their verdict, andcounsel were resuming their places and the judge his seat.

  Those who had eyes only for the latter--and these were many--noticed achange in him. He looked older by years than when he delivered hischarge. Not the prisoner himself gave greater evidence of the effectwhich this hour of waiting had had upon a heart whose covered griefswere, consciously or unconsciously, revealing themselves to the publiceye. He did not wish this man sentenced. This was shown by hischarge--the most one-sided one he had given in all his career. Yet theman awaiting verdict had small claim to his consideration--none, infact, save that he was young and well connected; facts in his favourwith which the people who packed the courthouse that day had littlesympathy, as their cold looks proved.

  To Deborah, who had succeeded in getting a seat in a remote andinconspicuous corner, these looks conveyed a spirit of so much threatthat she gazed about her in wonder that so few saw where the realtragedy in this room lay.

  But the jury is now seated, and the clatter of moving feet which but amoment before filled the great room, sinks as if under a charm, andsilence, that awesome precursor of doom, lay in all its weight uponevery ear and heart, as the clerk advancing with the cry, "Order in thecourt," put his momentous question:

  "Gentlemen of the jury, are you ready with your verdict?"

  A hush!--then, the clear voice of the foreman:

  "We are."

  "How do you find? Guilty or not guilty?"

  Another hesitation. Did the foreman feel the threat lurking in the airabout him? If so, he failed to show it in his tones as he uttered thewords which released the prisoner:

  "NOT GUILTY."

  A growl from the crowd, almost like that of a beast stirring its lair,then a quick cessation of all hubbub as every one turned to the judge towhose one-sided charge they attributed this release.

  Again he was a changed man. With the delivery of this verdict he hadregained his natural poise, and never had he looked more authoritativeor more pre-eminently the dominating spirit of the court than in the fewfollowing moments in which he expressed the thanks of the court to thejury and dismissed the prisoner. And yet, though each person there, fromthe disappointed prosecutor to the least aggressive spectator, appearedto feel the influence of a presence and voice difficult to duplicate onthe bench of this country, Deborah experienced in her quiet corner noalleviation of the fear which had brought her into this forbidding spotand held her breathless through all these formalities.

  For the end was not yet. Through all the turmoil of noisy departure andthe drifting out into the square of a vast, dissatisfied throng, she hadcaught the flash of a bit of paper (how introduced into this moving massof people no one ever knew) passing from hand to hand, towards thesolitary figure of the judge who had not as yet left his seat.

  She knew--no one better--what this meant, and instinct bade her cry outand bid those thoughtless hands to cease their work and let this letterdrop. But her discretion still held, and, subduing the mad impulse, shewatched with dilating eyes and heaving breast the slow passage of thisfatal note through the now rapidly thinning crowd, its delay as itreached the open space between the last row of seats and the judge'sbench and its final delivery by some officious hand, who thrust it uponhis notice just as he was rising to leave.

  The picture he made in that instant of hesitation never left her mind.To the end of her days she will carry a vision of his tall form,imposing in his judicial robes and with the majesty of his office stillupon him, fingering this envelope in sight of such persons as stilllingered in his part of the room. Nemesis was lowering its black wingsover his devoted head, and, with feelings which left her dazed andtransfixed in silent terror, Deborah saw his finger tear its way throughthe envelope and his eyes fall frowningly on the paper he drew out.

  Then the People's counsel and the counsel for the Defence and suchclerks and hangers-on as still lingered in the upper end of the roomexperienced a decided sensation.

  The judge, who a moment before had towered above them all in melancholybut impressive dignity, shrunk with one gasp into feebleness and sankback stricken, if not unconscious, into his chair.

  Was it a stroke, or just one of his attacks of which all had heard? Washe aware of his own condition and the disturbance it caused or was he,on the contrary, dead to his own misery and oblivious of the rush whichwas made from all sides to his assistance? Even Deborah could not tell,and was forced to sit quiet in her corner, waiting for the parting ofthe group which hid the judge from her sight.

  It happened suddenly and showed her the same figure she had seen oncebefore--a man with faculties suspended, but not impaired, facing themall with open gaze but absolutely dead for the moment to his owncondition and to the world about.

  But, horrible as this was, what she saw going on behind him wasinfinitely worse. A man had caught up the bit of paper Judge Ostranderhad let fall from his hand and was opening his lips to read it to thecurious people surrounding him.

  She tried to stop him. She forced a cry to her lips which should haverung through the room, but which died away on the air unheard. Theterror which had paralysed her limbs had choked her voice.

  But her ears remained true. Low as he spoke, no trumpet-call could havemade its meaning clearer to Deborah Scoville than did these words:

  "We know why you favour criminals. Twelve years is a long time, but notlong enough to make wise men forget."