The Bondboy

  CHAPTER XVI

  "SHE COMETH NOT," HE SAID

  Joe, his face as white as some plant that has sprung in a dungeon, benthis head toward his mother, and placed his free hand on hers where itlay on the arm of her chair.

  "It will soon be over with now, Mother," he encouraged, with the hope inhis heart that it would, indeed, be so.

  With an underling in his place at the door, Captain Taylor advanced totake charge of the marshaling of the jury panel. There ensued a greatbustling and tramping as the clerk called off the names of those drawn.

  While this was proceeding, Joe cast his eyes about the room, animated bya double hope: that Alice would be there to hear him tell his story;that Morgan had come and was in waiting to supply the facts which honorsealed upon his own tongue. He could see only the first few rows ofbenches with the certainty of individual identification; they werefilled with strangers. Beyond them it was conglomerate, that fused andmerged thing which seemed a thousand faces, yet one; that blended andcommingled mass which we call the public. Out of the mass Joe Newboltcould not sift the lean, shrewd face of Curtis Morgan, nor glean from itthe brown hair of Alice Price.

  The discovery that Alice was not there smote him with a feeling ofsudden hopelessness and abandonment; the reproaches which he had kindledagainst himself in his solitary days in jail rose up in redoubledtorture. He blamed the rashness of an unreasoning moment in which he hadforgotten time and circumstance. Her interest was gone from him now,where, if he had waited for vindication, he might have won her heart.

  But it was a dream, at the best, he confessed, turning away from hishungry search of the crowd, his head drooping forward in dejection. Whatdid it matter for the world's final exculpation, if Alice were not thereto hear?

  His mother nodded to somebody, and touched his hand. Ollie it was, whomshe greeted. She was seated near at hand, beside a fat woman with a redand greasy face, whose air of protection and large interest proclaimedher a relative. Joe thought that she filled pretty well the bill thatOllie had made out of her mother, on that day when she had scorned herfor having urged her into marriage with Isom.

  Ollie was very white in her black mourning dress, and thinner offeatures than when he had seen her last. She smiled, and nodded to him,with an air of timid questioning, as if doubtful whether he had expectedit, and uncertain how it would be received. Joe bowed his head,respectfully.

  What a wayside flower she seemed, thought he; how common beside Alice!Yet, she had been bright and refreshing in the dusty way where he hadfound her. He wondered why she was not within the rail also, nearHammer, if she was for him; or near the prosecutor, if she was on theother side.

  He was not alone in this speculation. Many others wondered over thatpoint also. It was the public expectation that she naturally wouldassist the state in the punishment of her husband's slayer; but SamLucas was not paying the slightest attention to her, and it was notknown whether he even had summoned her as a witness.

  And now Captain Taylor began to create a fresh commotion by clearing thespectators from the first row of benches to make seats for the jurypanel. Judge Maxwell was waiting the restoration of order, leaning backin his chair. Joe scanned his face.

  Judge Maxwell was tall and large of frame, from which the study andabstemiousness of his life had worn all superfluous flesh. His face,cleanly shaved, was expressive of the scholarly attainments which madehis decisions a national standard. The judge's eyes were bushed overwith great, gray brows, the one forbidding cast in his countenance; theylooked out upon those who came for judgment before him through a pair ofspring-clamp spectacles which seemed to ride precariously upon hislarge, bony nose. The glasses were tied to a slender black braid, whichhe wore looped about his neck.

  His hair was long, iron-gray, and thick; he wore it brushed straightback from his brow, without a parting or a break. It lay in place sosmoothly and persistently through all the labor of his long days, thatstrangers were sometimes misled into the belief that it was not his own.This peculiar fashion of dressing his hair, taken with the length andleanness of his jaw, gave the judge a cast of aquiline severeness whichhis gray eyes belied when they beamed over the tops of his glasses atfloundering young counsel or timid witness.

  Yet they could shoot darts of fire, as many a rash lawyer who had fallenunder their censure could bear witness. At such moments the judge had apeculiar habit of drawing up his long back and seemingly to distendhimself with all the dignity which his cumulative years and honors hadendured, and of bowing his neck to make the focus of his eyes moredirect as he peered above his rimless glasses. He did not find itnecessary to reprimand an attorney often, never more than once, butthese occasions never were forgotten. In his twenty-five years' serviceon the bench, he never had been reversed.

  Joe felt a revival of hope again under the influence of thesepreparations for the trial. Perhaps Alice was there, somewhere among thepeople back in the room, he thought. And the colonel, also, and maybeMorgan. Who could tell? There was no use in abandoning hope when he wasjust where he could see a little daylight.

  Joe sat up again, and lifted his head with new confidence. His mothersat beside him, watching everything with a sharpness which seemedespecially bent on seeing that Joe was given all his rights, and thatnothing was omitted nor slighted that might count in his favor.

  She watched Hammer, and Captain Taylor; she measured Sam Lucas, theprosecutor, and she weighed the judge. When Hammer did something thatpleased her, she nodded; when the prosecutor interposed, or seemed to beblocking the progress of the case, she shook her head in severecensure.

  And now Joe came in for his first taste of the musty and ancient savorof the law. He had hoped that morning to walk away free at evening, orat least to have met the worst that was to come, chancing it that Morganfailed to appear and give him a hand. But he saw the hours waste awaywith the most exasperating fiddling, fussing and scratching overunprofitable straw.

  What Hammer desired in a juryman, the prosecuting attorney was hotlyagainst, and what pleased the state's attorney seemed to give Hammer aspasmodic chill. Instead of selecting twelve intelligent men, the mostintelligent of the sixty empaneled, both Hammer and the prosecutorseemed determined to choose the most dense.

  That day's sweating labor resulted in the selection of four jurymen.Hammer seemed cheered. He said he had expected to exhaust the panel andget no more than two, at the best. Now it seemed as if they might securethe full complement without drawing another panel, and that would savethem at least four days. That must have been an exceedingly lucky haulof empty heads, indeed.

  Joe could not see any reason for elation. The prospect of freedom--orthe worst--had withdrawn so far that there was not even a pin-point ofdaylight in the gloom. Alice had not shown her face. If she had come atall, she had withheld herself from his hungry eyes. His heart was asbleak that night as the mind of the densest juryman agreed upon betweenHammer and the attorney for the state.

  Next day, to the surprise of everybody, the jury was completed. And thenthere followed, on the succeeding morning, a recital by the prosecutingattorney of what he proposed and expected to prove in substantiation ofthe charge that Joe Newbolt had shot and killed Isom Chase; and Hammer'sno shorter statement of what he was prepared to show to the contrary.

  Owing to the unprecedented interest, and the large number of people whohad driven in from the country, Judge Maxwell unbent from his hardconditions on that day. He instructed Captain Taylor to admit spectatorsto standing-room along the walls, but to keep the aisles between thebenches clear.

  This concession provided for at least a hundred more onlookers andlisteners, who stood forgetful of any ache in their shanks throughoutthe long and dragging proceedings well satisfied, believing that thecoming sensations would repay them for any pangs of inconvenience theymight suffer.

  It was on the afternoon of the third day of the trial that Sol Greening,first witness for the state, was called.

  Sol retailed again, in his gossipy way, and with im
mense enjoyment ofhis importance, the story of the tragedy as he had related it at theinquest. Sam Lucas gave him all the rope he wanted, even led him intogreater excursions than Sol had planned. Round-about excursions, to besure, and inconsequential in effect, but they all led back to the tragicpicture of Joe Newbolt standing beside the dead body of Isom Chase, hishat in his hand, as if he had been interrupted on the point of escape.

  Sol seemed a wonderfully acute man for the recollection of details, butthere was one thing that had escaped his memory. He said he did notremember whether, when he knocked on the kitchen door, anybody told himto come in or not. He was of the opinion, to the best of his knowledgeand belief--the words being supplied by the prosecutor--that he justknocked, and stood there blowing a second or two, like a horse that hadbeen put to a hard run, and then went in without being bidden. Solbelieved that was the way of it; he had no recollection of anybodytelling him to come in.

  When it came Hammer's turn to question the witness, he rose with an airof patronizing assurance. He called Sol by his first name, in easyfamiliarity, although he never had spoken to him before that day. Heproceeded as if he intended to establish himself in the man's confidenceby gentle handling, and in that manner cause him to confound, refute andentangle himself by admissions made in gratitude.

  But Sol was a suspicious customer. He hesitated and he hummed, backedand sidled, and didn't know anything more than he had related. The bagof money which had been found with Isom's body had been introduced bythe state for identification by Sol. Hammer took up the matter with asudden turn toward sharpness and belligerency.

  "You say that this is the same sack of money that was there on the floorwith Isom Chase's body when you entered the room?" he asked.

  "That's it," nodded Sol.

  "Tell this jury how you know it's the same one!" ordered Hammer, instern voice.

  "Well, I seen it," said Sol.

  "Oh, yes, you saw it. Well, did you go over to it and make a mark on itso you'd know it again?"

  "No, I never done that," admitted Sol.

  "Don't you know the banks are full of little sacks of money like that?"Hammer wanted to know.

  "I reckon maybe they air," Sol replied.

  "And this one might be any one of a thousand like it, mightn't it,Sol?"

  "Well, I don't reckon it could. That's the one Isom had."

  "Did you step over where the dead body was at and heft it?"

  "'Course I never," said Sol.

  "Did you open it and count the money in it, or tie a string or somethingonto it so you'd know it when you saw it again?"

  "No, I never," said Sol sulkily.

  "Then how do you know this is it?"

  "I tell you I seen it," persisted Sol.

  "Oh, you seen it!" repeated Hammer, sweeping the jury a cunning look asif to apprise them that he had found out just what he wanted to know,and that upon that simple admission he was about to turn the villainy ofSol Greening inside out for them to see with their own intelligenteyes.

  "Yes, I said I seen it," maintained Sol, bristling up a little.

  "Yes, I heard you say it, and now I want you to tell this jury how you_know_!"

  Hammer threw the last word into Sol's face with a slam that made himjump. Sol turned red under the whiskers, around the whiskers, and allover the uncovered part of him. He shifted in his chair; he swallowed.

  "Well, I don't just know," said he.

  "No, you don't--just--know!" sneered Hammer, glowing in oily triumph. Helooked at the jury confidentially, as on the footing of a shrewd manwith his equally shrewd audience.

  Then he took up the old rifle, and Isom's bloody coat and shirt, whichwere also there as exhibits, and dressed Sol down on all of them,working hard to create the impression in the minds of the jurors thatSol Greening was a born liar, and not to be depended on in the mosttrivial particular.

  Hammer worked himself up into a sweat and emitted a great deal ofperfume of barberish--and barbarous--character, and glanced around thecourt-room with triumph in his eyes and satisfaction at the corners ofhis mouth.

  He came now to the uncertainty of Sol's memory on the matter of beingbidden to enter the kitchen when he knocked. Sol had now passed fromdoubt to certainty. Come to think it over, said he, nobody had said aword when he knocked at that door. He remembered now that it was asstill inside the house as if everybody was away.

  Mrs. Greening was standing against the wall, having that moment returnedto the room from ministering to her daughter's baby. She held the infantin her arms, waiting Sol's descent from the witness-chair so she mightsettle down in her place without disturbing the proceedings. When sheheard her husband make this positive declaration, her mouth fell openand her eyes widened in surprise.

  "Why Sol," she spoke up reprovingly, "you told me Joe----"

  It had taken the prosecuting attorney that long to glance around andspring to his feet. There his voice, in a loud appeal to the court forthe protection of his sacred rights, drowned that of mild Mrs. Greening.The judge rapped, the sheriff rapped; Captain Taylor, from his post atthe door, echoed the authoritative sound.

  Hammer abruptly ceased his questioning of Sol, after the judge hadspoken a few crisp words of admonishment, not directed in particular atMrs. Greening, but more to the public at large, regarding the decorum ofthe court. Sam Lucas thereupon took Sol in hand again, and drew him onto replace his former doubtful statement by his later conclusion. As Solleft the witness-chair Hammer smiled. He handed Mrs. Greening's name tothe clerk, and requested a subpoena for her as a witness for thedefense.

  Sol's son Dan was the next witness, and Hammer put him through a similarcourse of sprouts. Judge Maxwell allowed Hammer to disport uncurbeduntil it became evident that, if given his way, the barber-lawyer woulddrag the trial out until Joe was well along in middle life. He thenadmonished Hammer that there were bounds fixed for human existence, andthat the case must get on.

  Hammer was a bit uppish and resentful. He stood on his rights; heinvoked the sacred constitution; he referred to the revised statutes; heput his hand into his coat and spread his legs to make a memorableprotest.

  Judge Maxwell took him in hand very kindly and led safely past the pointof explosion with a smile of indulgence. With that done, the state cameto Constable Bill Frost and his branching mustaches, which he hadtrimmed up and soaped back quite handsomely.

  To his own credit and the surprise of the lawyers who were watching thecase, Hammer made a great deal of the point of Joe having gone to Frost,voluntarily and alone, to summon him to the scene of the tragedy. Frostadmitted that he had believed Joe's story until Sol Greening had pointedout to him the suspicious circumstances.

  "So you have to have somebody else to do your thinkin' for you, do you?"said Hammer. "Well, you're a fine officer of the law and a credit tothis state!"

  "I object!" said the prosecuting attorney, standing up in his place,very red around the eyes.

  The judge smiled, and the court-room tittered. The sheriff looked backover his shoulder and rapped the table for order.

  "Comment is unnecessary, Mr. Hammer," said the judge. "Proceed with thecase."

  And so that weary day passed in trivial questioning on both sides,trivial bickerings, and waste of time, to the great edifications ofeverybody but Joe and his mother, and probably the judge. Ten of thestate's forty witnesses were disposed of, and Hammer was as moist as ajug of cold water in a shock of wheat.

  When the sheriff started to take Joe back to jail, the lad stood for amoment searching the breaking-up and moving assembly with longing eyes.All day he had sat with his back to the people, not having the heart tolook around with that shameful handcuff and chain binding his arm to thechair. If Alice had been there, or Colonel Price, neither had comeforward to wish him well.

  There were Ollie and her mother, standing as they had risen from theirbench, waiting for the crowd ahead of them to set in motion toward thedoor, and here and there a face from his own neighborhood. But Alice wasnot among them. Sh
e had withdrawn her friendship from him in his darkesthour.

  Neither had Morgan appeared to put his shoulder under the hard-pressingload and relieve him of its weight. Day by day it was growing heavier;but a little while remained until it must crush out his hope forever.Certainly, there was a way out without Morgan; there was a way open tohim leading back into the freedom of the world, where he might walkagain with the sunlight on his face. A word would make it clear.

  But the sun would never strike again into his heart if he should go backto it under that coward's reprieve, and Alice--Alice would scorn hismemory.