The Bondboy

  CHAPTER XXI

  OLLIE SPEAKS

  Ollie's voice, low and steady in earnest determination, broke thecurrent of his denunciation as a knife severs a straining cord. Thesuddenness of her declaration almost made the prosecutor reel. She wassitting up, straight and outwardly calm, pushing her cloak and otherdetached belongings away from her with an unconscious movement ofdisencumbering herself for some desperate leap.

  "I'll tell everything--if you'll let me--now," said she, rising to herfeet.

  She was white and cold, but steady, and sternly resolute. The prosecutorhad not expected that; his challenge had been only a spectacular playfor effect. Her offer to speak left him mentally groping behind himselffor a support. It would have been different if he had been certain ofwhat she desired to say. As she stood before him there, bloodless, andin such calm of outward aspect that it was almost hysterical, he did notknow whether she was friend or foe.

  Joe had not expected it; the hundreds of spectators had not looked forthat, and Hammer was as much surprised as a ponderous, barber-minded mancould be. Yet he was the first, of all of them there, to get his wits inhand. The prosecutor had challenged her, and, he argued, what she had tosay must be in justification of both herself and Joe. He stood upquickly, and demanded that Ollie Chase be put under oath and brought tothe witness-stand.

  Ollie's mother had hold of her hand, looking up into her face in greatconsternation, begging her to sit down and keep still. In general,people were standing, and Uncle Posen Spratt was worming the big end ofhis steer-horn trumpet between shoulders of men and headgear of women tohear what he could not see.

  Judge Maxwell commanded order. The prosecuting attorney began to protestagainst the fulfilment of the very thing that, with so much feeling andearnestness, he had demanded but a minute before.

  "Considering this late hour in the proceedings, your honor----" hebegan.

  Judge Maxwell silenced him with a stern and reproving look.

  "It is never too late for justice, Mr. Prosecutor," said he. "Let thatwoman come forward and be sworn."

  Hammer went eagerly to the assistance of Ollie, opening the little gatein the railing for her officiously, putting his palm under her elbow inhis sustaining fashion. The clerk administered the oath; Ollie droppedher hand wearily at her side.

  "I lied the other day," said she, as one surrendering at the end of ahopeless defense, "and I'm tired of hiding the truth any more."

  Joe Newbolt was moved by a strange feeling of mingled thankfulness andregret. Tears had started to his eyes, and were coursing down his face,unheeded and unchecked. The torture of the past days and weeks, thechallenge of his honor, the doubt of his sincerity; the rough assaultsof the prosecuting attorney, the palpable unfriendliness of thepeople--none of these things ever had drawn from him a tear. But thissimple act of justice on the part of Ollie Chase moved the deep watersof his soul.

  His mother had taken his hand between her rough palms, and was chafingit, as if to call back its warmth and life. She was not looking at herson, for her faith had not departed from him for one moment, and wouldnot have diminished if they had condemned him under the accusation. Hereyes were on Ollie's face, her lips were murmuring beneath her breath:

  "Thank the Lord for His justice and mercy! Thank the Lord, thank theLord!"

  Ollie had settled in the witness-chair again, in the midst of herwide-skirted mourning habit, as on that other day. Joe Newbolt prayed inhis heart for the mitigation of public censure, and for strength tosustain her in her hour of sacrifice.

  That Ollie had come forward to save him--unasked, unexpected--was likethe comfort of a cloak against the wintry wind. The public believed thatshe was going to "own up" to it now, and to clinch the case against Joe.Some of them began to make mental calculations on the capacity of thejail yard, and to lay plans for securing passes to the hanging.

  Hammer stepped forward to question the witness, and the prosecutingattorney sat down, alert and ready to interpose in case things shouldstart the wrong way. He had lost sight of justice completely, after thefixed habit of his kind, in his eagerness to advance his own prospectsby securing the conviction of the accused.

  Ollie sat facing Judge Maxwell, who had turned in his swivel-chair;moved out of his bearing of studious concentration, which was his usualcharacteristic on the bench.

  "Now, Mrs. Chase, tell your story in your own way, and take your owntime for it," said Hammer, kindly patronizing.

  "I don't want Joe to suffer for me," she said, letting her sad eyes reston him for a moment. "What he kept back wasn't for his own sake. It wasfor mine."

  "Yes; go on, Mrs. Chase," said Hammer as she hesitated there.

  "Joe didn't shoot Isom. That happened just the way he's said. I know allabout it, for I was there. Joe didn't know anything about that money.I'll tell you about that, too."

  "Now, your honor," began the prosecutor complainingly, "it seems to methat the time and place for evidence of this nature has gone by. Thiswitness has testified already, and to an entirely different set offacts. I don't know what influences have been at work to induce her toframe up a new story, but----"

  "Your zeal is commendable, Mr. Prosecutor," said the judge, "but it mustnot be allowed to obscure the human rights at hazard in this case. Letthe witness proceed."

  Ollie shuddered like one entering cold water as she let her eyes take aflight out over the crowd. Perhaps she saw something in it that appalledher, or perhaps she realized only then that she was about to expose thenakedness of her soul before the world.

  "Go ahead, Mrs. Chase," prompted Hammer. "You say you know about thatsack of money?"

  "I was taking it away with me," said she, drawing a long breath andexpelling it with an audible sigh.

  She seemed very tired, and she looked most hopeless, pitiable, andforlorn; still there was no wavering from the task that she had set forherself, no shrinking from its pain. "I was going to meet Curtis Morgan,the book-agent man that you've asked me about before. We intended to runoff to the city together. Joe knew about it; he stopped me that night."

  She paused again, picking at her fingers nervously.

  "You say that Joe stopped you--" Hammer began. She cut him off, takingup her suspended narrative without spirit, as one resumes a burden.

  "Yes, but let me tell you first." She looked frankly into JudgeMaxwell's eyes.

  "Address the jury, Mrs. Chase," admonished Hammer. She turned and lookedsteadily into the foreman's bearded face.

  "There never was a thing out of the way between me and Joe. Joe nevermade love to me; he never kissed me, he never seemed to want to. WhenCurtis Morgan came to board with us I was about ready to die, I was sotired and lonesome and starved for a kind word.

  "Isom was a hard man--harder than anybody knows that never worked forhim. He worked me like I was only a plow or a hoe, without any feelingor any heart. Morgan and me--Mr. Morgan, he--well, we fell in love. Wedidn't act right, and Joe found it out. That was the day that Mr. Morganand I planned to run away together. He was coming back for me thatnight."

  "You say that you and Morgan didn't act right," said Hammer, notsatisfied with a statement that might leave the jurymen the labor ofconjecture. "Do you mean to say that there were improper relationsbetween you? that you were, in a word, unfaithful to your husband, IsomChase?"

  Ollie's pale face grew scarlet; she hung her head.

  "Yes," she answered, in voice shamed and low.

  Her mother, shocked and astounded by this public revelation, sat as ifcrouching in the place where Ollie had left her. Judge Maxwell noddedencouragingly to the woman who was making her open confession.

  "Go on," said he.

  His eyes shifted from her to Joe Newbolt, who was looking at Ollie withevery evidence of acute suffering and sympathy in his face. The judgestudied him intently; Joe, his attention centered on Ollie, wasinsensible to the scrutiny.

  Ollie told how she and Morgan had made their plans in the orchard thatafternoon, and how she had gone t
o the house and prepared to carry outthe compact that night, not knowing that Joe had overheard them and sentMorgan away. She had a most attentive and appreciative audience. Shespoke in a low voice, her face turned toward the jury, according toHammer's directions. He could not afford to have them lose one word ofthat belated evidence.

  "I knew where Isom hid his money," said she, "and that night when Ithought Joe was asleep I took up the loose board in the closet of theroom where Isom and I slept and took out that little sack. There wasanother one like it, but I only took my share. I'd worked for it, andstarved and suffered, and it was mine. I didn't consider that I wasrobbing him."

  "You were not," Hammer assured her. "A wife cannot rob her husband, Mrs.Chase. And then what did you do?"

  "I went downstairs with that money in my hand and laid it on the kitchentable while I fixed my hat. It was dark in the kitchen, and when I wasready to go to meet Mr. Morgan in the place agreed on between us, Istruck a match to find my way to the door without bumpin' into a chairor something and making a noise that would wake up Joe.

  "I didn't know he was already up and watching for me to start. He was atthe door when I opened it, and he told me to light the lamp. I wouldn'tdo it. I didn't want him to see me all dressed and ready to leave, and Iwanted to try to slip that sack of money off the table before he saw it,too. He came in; I guess he put his hat down on the table in the dark,and it fell on top of the sack.

  "When he lit the lamp in a minute you couldn't have told there wasanything under the hat unless you stood in a certain place, where itshowed a little under the brim. Joe told me he knew all about Morgan andme, and that he'd sent him away. He said it was wrong for me to leaveIsom; he said that Isom was better than Morgan, bad as he was.

  "I flared up and got mad at Joe, but he was gentle and kind, and talkedto me and showed me where I was wrong. I'd kind of tried to make love toJoe a little before that," she confessed, her face flushing hotly again,"before Mr. Morgan came, that was. I'll tell you this so you'll knowthat there was nothing out of the way between me and Joe.

  "Joe didn't seem to understand such things. He was nothing but a boytill the night Isom was killed. He didn't take me up on it like Morgandid. I know it was wrong in me; but Isom drove me to it, and I'vesuffered for it--more than I can ever make you understand."

  She appealed to the judge in her manner of saying that; appealed as forthe absolution which she had earned by a cruel penance. He noddedkindly, his face very grave.

  "Yes, Mrs. Chase," said Hammer. "And then what did you do next?"

  "Well, while Joe was persuading me to go back to bed I put my armsaround his neck. I wanted to smooth it over with him, so he'd go to bedfirst and I could take the money and put it back, for one thing; andbecause I really was sorry for what I'd done, and was ashamed of it, andfelt lonesome and kicked out, and like nobody didn't care.

  "Isom came in and saw us standing there that way, with my hands on Joe'sshoulders, and he rushed up and said: 'I'll kill you!' He said we wasstanding there hugging each other, and that we'd disgraced him; but thatwasn't so. It was all my fault, but Joe didn't tell him that."

  "And what did Joe tell him, Mrs. Chase?" asked Hammer, aglow with thevictory which he felt to be already in his hand. He looked with gloatingtriumph at the prosecuting attorney, who sat at the table twirling apencil in his fingers, and did not lift his eyes.

  "Joe told Isom he was making a mistake, and then Isom ripped and sworeand threatened to kill us both. He looked around for something to do itwith, and he saw that sack of money under Joe's hat. He jumped for thetable and grabbed it, and then he made for the gun. I told Joe to stophim, and Joe tried. But he was too late. The rest of it happened justlike Joe's already told you."

  Ollie's head drooped forward wearily, and her hands lay passively in herlap. It seemed that she considered the story concluded, but Hammer wasnot of that mind.

  "After Isom fell--after the gun went off and Isom fell--what did you andJoe do?" he asked.

  "We heard somebody coming in a minute. We didn't know who it could be,but I was afraid. I knew if it got out on me about my start to run offwith Morgan, and all the rest of it, I'd be ruined and disgracedforever.

  "Joe knew it too, better than I did. I didn't have to tell him, and Inever even hinted for him to do what he did. I never even thought ofthat. I asked him what we'd do, and he told me to go upstairs and leavehim to do the talking. I went. I was coward enough to go and leave himto bear the blame. When Joe lied at the inquest to save me, I backed himup in it, and I stuck to it up till now. Maybe I was a little mad at himfor coming between me and Mr. Morgan, but that was just a streak. That'sthe only lie Joe's told, and you can see he never would have told thatto save himself. I don't want to see him suffer any more for me."

  Ollie concluded her recital in the same low, dragging and spiritlessvoice in which she had begun it. Conscience whipped her through, butit could not make her unafraid. Hammer turned to the prosecutorwith questioning eyes. Lucas announced that he did not desire tocross-examine the witness, and the judge dismissed her.

  Ollie went back to her mother. No demonstration accompanied her passing,but a great sigh sounded over the room as the tenseness of the listeningstrain relaxed, and the fulness of satisfaction came in its place.

  Mrs. Newbolt still clung to her son's hand. She nodded at theprosecuting attorney with glowing eyes, as if glorying over him in themoment of his defeat. Alice Price smiled joyously, and leaned back fromher posture of concentration. The colonel whispered to her, bringing thepalms of his hands together in silent but expressive applause. Theprosecuting attorney stood.

  "Your honor--" he began, but Judge Maxwell, lifting his head from thereflecting pose into which he had fallen when Ollie left the stand,silenced him with an impatient gesture.

  "One moment, Mr. Prosecutor," said he.

  The prosecutor flushed, and sat down in ruffled dignity.

  "I merely wanted to make a motion for dismissal," said he, sarcastically,as if it was only the merest incidental in the day's proceedings.

  "That is not the procedure," said the judge. "The state owes it to thisdefendant to absolve him before the public of the obloquy of thisunfounded and cruel accusation."

  "Vindication is what we demand, your honor," said Hammer grandly;"vindication before the world!"

  He spread his arms wide, as if the world stood before him, fat and bigof girth like himself, and he meant to embrace it with the next breath.

  "You shall have it, Mr. Hammer," said the judge. He turned to the jury."Gentlemen of the jury, this case has come to a sudden and unexpectedend. The state's case, prosecuted with such worthy energy and honorableintention, has collapsed. Your one duty now, gentlemen, is to return averdict of not guilty. Will it be necessary for you to retire to thejury room?"

  The jurymen had been exchanging glances. Now the foreman rose, tall andsolemn, with beard upon his breast.

  "Your honor, it will not be necessary for the jury to retire," said he."We are ready to return our verdict."

  According to the form, the foreman wrote out the verdict on the blankprovided by statute; he stood with his fellows while the clerk of thecourt read it aloud:

  "We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty."

  The judge looked down at Joe, who had turned to his mother, smilingthrough his tears.

  "You are free, God bless you!" said he.

  When a judge says so much more upon the bench than precedent, form, andcustom prescribe for him to say; when he puts down the hard mask of thelaw and discovers his human face behind it, and his human heart movinghis warm, human blood; when a judge on the bench does that, what can beexpected of the unsanctified mob in front of him?

  It was said by many that Captain Taylor led the applause himself, butthere were others who claimed that distinction for Colonel Price. Nomatter.

  While the house did not rise as one man--for in every house there areold joints and young ones, which do not unlimber with the same degree ofalacrity, no m
atter what the incitement--it got to its feet insurprising order, with a great tossing of arms and waving of hats andcoats. In the midst of this glad turmoil stood Uncle Posen Spratt, headand shoulders above the crowd, mounted on a bench, his steer's hornear-trumpet to his whiskered lips, like an Israelitish priest, blowinghis famous fox-hound blast, which had been heard five miles on a stillautumn night.

  Less than half an hour before, the public would have attended JoeNewbolt's hanging with all the pleasurable and satisfactory thrillswhich men draw from such melancholy events. Now it was clamoring to lifthim to its shoulders and bear him in triumph through the town.

  Judge Maxwell smiled, and adjourned court, which order nobody but hisclerk heard, and let them have their noisy way. When the people saw himcome down from the bench they quieted, not understanding his purpose;and when he reached out his hand to Joe, who rose to meet him, silencesettled over the house. Judge Maxwell put his arm around Joe's shoulderin fatherly way while he shook hands with Mrs. Newbolt. What he said,nobody but those within the bar heard, but he gave Joe's back anexpressive slap of approval as he turned to the prosecuting attorney.

  People rushed forward with the suddenness of water released, to shakehands with Joe when they understood that the court was in adjournment.They crowded inside the rail, almost overwhelming him, exclaiming inloud terms of admiration, addressing him familiarly, to his excessiveembarrassment, pressing upon him their assurances that they knew, allthe time, that he didn't do it, and that he would come out of it withhead and tail both up, as he had come through.

  Men who would have passed him yesterday without a second thought, andwho would no more have given their hands to him on the footing ofequality--unless they had chanced to be running for office--than theywould have thrust them into the fire, now stood there smiling andjostling and waiting their turns to reach him, all of them chatteringand mouthing and nodding heads until one would have thought that each ofthem was a prophet, and had predicted this very thing.

  The old generals, colonels, majors, and captains--that was the lowestrank in Shelbyville--and the noncommissioned substantial first citizensof the county, were shaking hands among themselves, and nodding andsmiling, full of the fine feeling of that moment. It was a triumph ofchivalry, they said; they had witnessed the renaissance of the oldspirit, the passing of which, and the dying out and dwindling of it inthe rising generation, they had so long and lamentably deplored.

  There, before their eyes, they had seen this uncouth grub transformedinto a glorious and noble thing, and the only discord in the miraculousharmony of it was the deep-lying regret that it was not a son ofShelbyville who had thus proved himself a man. And then the colonels andothers broke off their self-felicitation to join the forward mob in thefront of the room, and press their congratulations upon Joe.

  Joe, embarrassed and awkward, tried to be genial, but hardly succeededin being civil, for his heart was not with them in what he felt to benothing but a cheap emotion. He was looking over their heads, andpeering between their shoulders, watching the progress of a little redfeather in a Highland bonnet, which was making its way toward himthrough the confusion like a bold pennant upon the crest of battle. Joepushed through the wedging mass of people around, and went to the bar tomeet her.

  In the time of his distress, these who now clamored around him withprofessions of friendliness had not held up a hand to sustain him, norgiven him one good word to shore up his sinking soul. But there was onewho had known and understood; one whose faith had held him up to theheights of honor, and his soul stood in his eyes to greet her as hewaited for her to come. He did not know what he would say when handtouched hand, but he felt that he could fall down upon his knees as asubject sinks before a queen.

  Behind him he heard his mother's voice, thanking the people who offeredtheir congratulations. It was a great day for her when the foremostcitizens of the county came forward, their hats in their hands, to paytheir respects to her Joe. She felt that he was rising up to his placeat last, and coming into his own.

  Joe heard his mother's voice, but it was sound to him now without words.Alice was coming. She was now just a little way beyond the reach of hisarm, and her presence filled the world.

  The people had their quick eyes on Alice, also, and they fell apart tolet her pass, the flame of a new expectation in their keen faces. Afteryesterday's strange act, which seemed so prophetic of today's climax inthe case, what was she going to do? Joe wondered in his heart with them;he trembled in his eagerness to know.

  She was now at the last row of benches, not five feet distant from him,where she stood a second, while she looked up into his face and smiled,lifting her hand in a little expressive gesture. Then she turned asideto the place where Ollie Chase sat, shame-stricken and stunned, besideher mother.

  The women who had been sitting near Ollie had withdrawn from her, as ifshe had become unclean with her confession. And now, as Aliceapproached, Ollie's mother gave her a hard, resentful look, and put herarm about her daughter as if to protect her from any physicalindignities which Alice might be bent on offering.

  Ollie shrank against her mother, her hair bright above her somber garb,as if it was the one spot in her where any of the sunshine of her pastremained. Alice went to her with determined directness. She bent overher, and took her by the hand.

  "Thank you! You're the bravest woman in the world!" she said.

  Ollie looked up, wonder and disbelief struggling against the pathetichopelessness in her eyes. Alice bent lower. She kissed the young widow'spale forehead.

  Joe was ashamed that he had forgotten Ollie. He saw tears come intoOllie's eyes as she clung closer to Alice's hand, and he heard theshocked gasping of women, and the grunts of men, and the stirring murmurof surprise which shook the crowd. He opened the little gate in therailing and went out.

  "You didn't have to do that for me, Ollie," said he, kindly; "I couldhave got on, somehow, without that."

  "Both of you--" said Ollie, a sob shaking her breath; "it was for bothof you!"

  There was a churchlike stillness around them. Colonel Price hadadvanced, and now stood near the little group, a look of understandingin his kind old face. Ollie mastered her sudden gust of weeping, andshook her disordered hair back from her forehead, a defiant light in hereyes.

  "I don't care now, I don't care what _anybody_ says!" said she.

  Her mother glanced around with the fire of battle in her eyes. In thatlook she defied the public, and uttered her contempt for its valuationand opinion. Alice Price had lifted her crushed and broken daughter up.She had taken her by the hand, and she had kissed her, to show the worldthat she did not hold her as one defiled. Judge Maxwell and all of themhad seen her do it. She had given Ollie absolution before all men.

  Ollie drew her cloak around her shoulders and rose to her feet.

  "Remember that; for both of you, for one as much as the other," saidshe, looking into Alice's eyes. "Come on, Mother; we'll go home now."

  Ollie walked out of the court-room with her head up, looking the worldin the face. In place of the mark of the beast on her forehead, she wascarrying the cool benediction of a virtuous kiss. Joe and Alice stoodlooking after her until she reached the door; even the most carelessthere waited her exit as if it was part of some solemn ceremony. Whenshe had passed out of sight beyond the door, the crowd moved suddenlyand noisily after her. For the public, the show was over.

  Alice looked up into Joe's face. There was uncertainty in his eyesstill, for he was no wiser than those in their generations before himwho had failed to read a woman's heart. Alice saw that cloud hoveringbefore the sun of his felicity. She lifted her hands and gave them tohim, as one restoring to its owner something that cannot be denied.

  Face to face for a moment they stood thus, hands clasped in hands. Forthem the world was empty of prying eyes, wondering minds, impertinentfaces. For a moment they were alone.

  The jurors had come out of the box, and were following the crowd. Hammerwas gathering up his books and pape
rs, Judge Maxwell and the prosecutingattorney were talking with Mrs. Newbolt. The sheriff was waiting nearthe bar, as if he had some duty yet before him to discharge. A smile hadcome over Colonel Price's face, where it spread like a benediction asJoe and Alice turned to enter the world again.

  "I want to shake hands with you, Joe," said the sheriff, "and wish yougood luck. I always knowed you was as innercent as a child."

  Joe obliged him, and thanked him for his expression, but therewere things in the past which were not so easily wiped from thememory--especially a chafed ring around his left wrist, where thesheriff's iron had galled him when he had fretted against it duringthe tense moments of those past days.

  Sam Lucas offered Joe his hand.

  "No hard feeling, Joe, I hope?" said he.

  "Well, not in particular--oh, well, you were only doing your duty, asyou saw it," said Joe.

  "You could have saved the county a lot of money, and yourself and yourfriends a lot of trouble and anxiety, if you'd told us all about thisthing at the beginning," complained Lucas, with lingering severity.

  "As for that--" began Colonel Price.

  "You knew it, Miss Price," Lucas cut in. "Why didn't you make himtell?"

  "No," said Alice, quietly, "I didn't know, Mr. Lucas. I only believed inhim. Besides that, there are some things that you can't _make_ agentleman tell!"

  "Just so," said Judge Maxwell, coming down from the bench with his booksunder his arm.

  "Bless your heart, honey," said Mrs. Newbolt, touching Alice's hair withgentle, almost reverent hand, "you knew him better than his old motherdid!"

  Colonel Price bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Newbolt.

  "I want you and Joe to come home with us for some refreshment," said he,"after which the boy and I must have a long, long talk. Mr. Hammer,sir," said he, giving that astonished lawyer his hand, "I beg the honorof shaking hands with a rising gentleman, sir!"