Part 14

On the next morning some intervening court business made it late before the case was called for continuance. The crowd was still greater when Greyhurst, as the plaintiffs’ counsel, rose to sum up, with some return of his usual self-confidence.

“May it please your honor, and you, gentlemen of the jury, I represent here to-day the cause of the widow and orphans of a Confederate soldier. The claimant is rich—indeed, far beyond our modest conceptions of wealth. His agent is a young man who served in the war which has left us ruined, oppressed, and insulted. Until just in time for effect in this trial, we heard very little of certain much-vaunted generous intentions. Let us hope that they were more honest than Mr. Hood’s former policy would seem to make credible. The opposing counsel has seen fit to speak of his personal relation to this case. In his use of witnesses he has made implications in regard to me which justify me in saying that I personally, at least, can afford to smile at slander which represents me as lying, and which leaves the statement for use in the safe hands of a female and a vagabond.”

“My heavens, general!” said Trescot, “I cannot stand that.” He rose at once. “Stop!” he said. “Sir, whatever statements have been made,—and you have utterly misrepresented them,—I alone am responsible. No gentleman could have said what you have just now permitted yourself to say!”

Greyhurst laughed: “The shaft has found its mark. I had heard, sir, that in the sense in which Southern gentlemen use the phrase, you did not consider yourself responsible.”

Trescot, still on his feet, said quietly, “I have said that I am responsible.”

The general looked from the one man to the other, uneasy and amazed that Trescot had been badgered into assuming at last a position so opposed to his principles.

Greyhurst returned sharply, “Well, I am relieved to hear it. It was unexpected.” And then, as Trescot resumed his seat, he turned to the jury, saying: “And now for this boasted evidence.”

As he went on, Trescot sat still, conscious of having been goaded by insult to commit himself to what he knew to be wrong. As he sat, he thought a moment of Alexander Hamilton, whom he greatly admired. Then he said to himself: “When the evil takes shape I will deal with it,” and began again to listen to his antagonist. Greyhurst dwelt long on the untrustworthy character of the evidence given by Coffin,—on his convincing reasons for offering assistance to the defendant with utter disregard of the truth. Trescot, again self-controlled, and listening quietly, felt at ease as to his case. His opponent’s criticisms left his witnesses’ testimony uninjured. What doubt was possible was thrown on the absence of deeds, on the slight value of the surveyor’s notes so providentially preserved, on the failure to pay taxes. In fact, as an old lawyer whispered to Trescot, “he has no case at all, and had better throw it up.” He finished with a passionate appeal to the jury to see the equity of the situation—where natural causes had swept away land and given to the greed of avarice a motive to add one more cause of poverty to the ruin of an old and honored family.

A murmur of applause in the audience assured him, as he sat down, that he must have equally affected the jury.

The court adjourned to meet for the judge’s charge in the afternoon.

The case was of unusual importance, and the charge of the judge to the jury was of great length. He gave the usual caution as to the weight and consideration to be given to the facts as stated, and as to the credibility of witnesses. He charged the jury that if these and the extraordinary discovery and production of the blazes, and the description of the land, were proved to their satisfaction, they must of need find for the defendant. He urged that the unfortunate personalities of the trial be set aside, and that, with no regard to the sectional prejudices which, with as little relation, had been brought forward, they should decide as true men.

Besides dealing with the evidence, he had felt obliged to make entirely clear the decisions as to the changes in ownership of riparian rights made by these frequent erosive alterations in the courses of the great Western rivers. The lamps around the walls of the court-room were lighted before the judge had finished, and it was late when he gave the case to the jury and retired to await their verdict.

No one moved. The interest the case excited was such as to keep people in their seats, although the room was hot and the air oppressive. Within the rail, where the lawyers sat, there was equal interest, and a feeling, expressed in undertones, that the words which had passed between counsel must soon or late result seriously.

During the hour in which men waited to hear the verdict Greyhurst sat still. He had scarce a hope of success, and to fail would be for him a grave calamity. He reflected on this, or considered plans for future litigation, as he sat still; or, seeing the hands of the clock pass the hour, began to believe in a disagreement of the jury. But ever at times his face, which he had never learned to control, changed, as, with his eyes half closed, he frowned and gripped the arms of his chair. He thought of the way in which he had been fooled by Coffin and baffled by this frail-looking young lawyer. He recalled the amused faces of the listening counsel, the exasperating quiet and gentle manners of Trescot. “Damn him!” Now and again a flash of anger lit his face with passion, as the lightning illuminates for a second the darkness of a stormy night.

Meanwhile, Trescot, confident and happy, chatted with Averill or others.

Time ran on, and it was now late. At the close of an hour the judge, returning to his seat, recalled the jury. “It is plain, gentlemen,” he said, “that you may require some time to reach a conclusion. I shall remain in my room until eight o’clock to hear from you. I shall then leave. If, after that hour, you are of one mind and will return to the clerk of the court a written verdict, he will instruct you that it must be signed by every one of you and sealed. You will then be discharged, and avoid the necessity of being detained here all night.” With this the court broke up, and the audience left.

It will be unnecessary to dwell at length upon the effect which this delay had upon the several persons concerned. Trescot went home confident as to the lawsuit, and intent on concealing the gravity of the personal question he had yet to face. His wife was uneasy, and was also doing her best to hide her anxiety.

While to them the result of the trial was, for many reasons, a matter of interest, to Greyhurst it meant far more. He went slowly homeward in the dusk, a troubled, anxious, irritated man. He ate his supper hastily and sat down in his library, resolving to rid his mind of the cares of a disappointing day. He took up a book. His taste in literature was good, and the loneliness his temperament fostered had helped to make him a reader. But now the thoughts of the day’s passions could not easily be dismissed. He closed a volume of Burke, and sat still; but whether he reflected on his gathering debts, his political ambitions, or the loss an adverse verdict would mean, he recurred, as was habitual with him, to some human instrument as responsible; and now it was, above all, the Yankee lawyer whose triumph would cost him so dear, and who had insulted him, and, although Greyhurst did not confess it, had preserved that serenity of temper which so exasperates those for whom a slight is an outrage, and a hasty word an insult. He knew full well the mischief-making capacity of his temper, and at times dreaded the possible results of such consequent outbreaks as others feared, and as had cost him many hours of regretful penitence. He was no master of himself, and now an evil mood possessed the hour. He drank more than was his habit, and at last went to bed, only to pass a restless night and to awaken unrefreshed.

A great crowd was pouring into or gathering around the court-house next morning. As Greyhurst passed through it, sullen and anxious, he fancied men were smiling at him and his probable defeat. Trescot nodded to him coldly as he entered within the bar, but the elder man stared at him with set face, and without returning the salutation.

A little after ten the jury entered; the judge took his seat amid profound silence. The clerk announced that at half-past nine the night before the jury, having agreed, had all signed a verdict which had then been sealed. The clerk having handed the paper to the foreman, it was opened and read aloud: “We, the undersigned, find a verdict for the defendant.” Each juryman was asked, in turn, if this were his verdict, and the jury was discharged.

Amid the buzz and stir this announcement made in the court-room, a few pleased, the larger number disappointed, Greyhurst moved toward Trescot, and then, as if otherwise minded, turned aside and gathered up his papers. No one spoke to him, while Averill and several of the older members of the bar gathered about Trescot. As they discussed some of the points of the case, a young lawyer who had left the court-room returned and said to Trescot:

“Mrs. Trescot is waiting outside. She asked me to tell you to come to her at once. She desired me to say it was very important.”

Trescot turned to Averill and said: “My wife is outside and has sent for me in haste. I shall be back in a few minutes.”

He hurried out of a side door and found Constance waiting.

“I heard it, George. You have won. Oh, I am glad! Mr. Randolph told me. But come over here in the shade. How pale you are!”

“Yes; my arm is giving me pain.”

“I am sorry, George. Come over here to that bench under the trees. I have bad news.”

“What is it? A telegram?”

“Yes; read it. Uncle Rufus is dead. I thought you ought to know of it at once.”

He read:

“TO MRS. GEORGE TRESCOT:

“Uncle died last night, at eleven o’clock, suddenly. Knowing of the trial, and your great anxiety, I add that there is no will. I am sure of this. We are the sole heirs. Let George act as seems best. I shall approve. See letter to follow.

“SUSAN HOOD.”

That Constance felt the shock of her uncle’s sudden death was certain, but far more to her was her husband’s interest, and just now even his safety. She had tried not to let him see her anxiety. It was very great, for she had not failed to see the material of a serious quarrel in the scenes of the court-room; and now here was death bringing peace, and power to consider generously the people concerned in the suit, and, above all, release from fear, and freedom to fly to more congenial surroundings.

He was very grave as he twice read the telegram. Constance sat still. There was much to think about.

“You are the sole heirs,” he said; “and I suppose, dear, it is a great estate.”

“Yes, yes; but now—at once—use this, George. Do settle at once. Give them half—give them all.”

He smiled at her urgency. He was pleased to be set at liberty to act kindly, but his nature did not admit of the excitement which Constance felt. He said, as they sat in the shade: “Nothing can be done in haste. We must wait for Susan’s letter.”

“Yes, yes; I know; but you can at least see the general now—at once—and ask him to let these poor people know that we intend to be reasonable; my uncle never was.”

He sat for some minutes talking, and at last said:

“You are practically Susan’s attorney. At all events, she will do as we think best. It is a vast relief.”

He read the telegram again.

“It is a strange fate, Constance. She says he died at eleven. Had he died before the verdict was signed,—that was at half-past nine,—it would have been a mistrial and all to go over again. I should not have been sorry to have compromised matters without a trial.”

“But you will do something, George, now. I insist that you do not delay.”

“Yes, dear, and most gladly.”

“And you won’t delay?”

“I will not. And now, dear, I must go. I will come back soon; wait for me here.” Rising, he put the telegram in the left-hand pocket of his waistcoat, saying: “I shall find Averill at once and ask him to see Greyhurst.” Constance sat down on the bench under the trees.

As he moved away the crowd went by, talking, gesticulating, excited. Trescot, moving on, sought eagerly for Averill among the lawyers and others now coming out of the side exit. When not more than twenty feet away, he observed the general on the top step. At the same moment he saw Greyhurst emerge from the crowd, and knew that he must meet him first. He would show him the telegram, and offer to divide the land. It pleased him, and, forgetful of the insults he had received, and smiling at the kindly thought, he raised his lame hand to take the telegram from his pocket. As he did so he was aware of Greyhurst’s leveled revolver. He stood facing his foe, motionless; saw the crowd scatter, heard Constance scream, and heard no more on earth. He fell on his face, clutching the telegram.

Twenty feet away Greyhurst stood still, pistol in hand. Averill caught him by the shoulder and swung him round. “You scoundrel! to shoot an unarmed, crippled man!”

“No man shall call me that and live!”

“You fool! A bullet in me and you swing in ten minutes from one of these trees!”

“He was drawing on me.”

“He was not. He never went armed, and you knew it.”

Greyhurst made no reply. It was wild, quick talk, and meanwhile a crowd gathered where Constance knelt beside her husband. They turned him over on his back. “Is he dead?” she cried, looking up. “How can he be dead?” The features twitched, the face grew white, and the eyes became set. No one spoke. “Tell me,” she cried. “Will no one tell me? Is he dead?”

Some one said softly, “He is dead.”

She rose and looked about her, as if in search of something, and then with both hands struck aside the yielding crowd. She walked swiftly to where Greyhurst stood. He fell back a step or two, the pistol in his hand. She said, as if with effort, slowly, word by word:

“You have murdered an unarmed man. Oh, coward! coward!”

A crowd gathered quickly, excited, curious, silent, while the woman stood a moment, paling, motionless, unable to say more, her lips moving, her face twitching.

Greyhurst stared at her. He said nothing, but his face changed. The wild madness of anger was gone.

“My God!” she cried, and fell at his feet. The man moved a step toward her, and then stood still, horror-stricken.

She was mercifully insensible, convulsed and quivering as they carried her to the porch of the court-house.

Averill said: “Go on, Dudley, and tell my wife. Send me a carriage at once.” Then he turned to Greyhurst: “If, sir, you feel insulted, I am at your disposal. Gentlemen in my State do not murder unarmed men. I will see your seconds at any time; but never dare to speak to me again.” He waited an answer for a moment, and receiving none, moved away.

Greyhurst, turning, stared after him. Some one said: “How was it, Greyhurst? What did he do?”

“Oh, go to ——!” he returned; and dropping the pistol into his pocket, he walked slowly away, men silently looking after him.

He went to a magistrate and gave himself up. After a brief hearing bail was accepted, and he went away to his home, now seeing the woman’s face of anguish, and now the smiling triumph of the man he had killed. He tried to think that, according to his Western code, he was justified. He had been told that Trescot never carried arms. He had not believed it at the time, and now fell back on this remembrance. Most men went armed, and certainly Trescot had seemed to him about to draw a pistol; and the man had said he was responsible, which in St. Ann meant that he was prepared to expect attack.

And Averill? He was in no mood for another quarrel. As concerned the legal consequences he was in no wise disturbed, nor, indeed, did they at all occupy him. He had had affrays in wild mining-camps, had himself been wounded, but had never killed a man. Now, being a person with some imagination, and sensitive as to his own moods, he began to reflect on this tremendous fact. He had killed a man. By the time he reached his home he had become uneasy in mind. A certain uncontrollable rush of thoughts came over him—a jostling of self-excuses, a sense of wrong done to himself, of insult, a wish that he had been less hasty. “Oh, my God; that woman!” he murmured, as he entered his home. To-morrow he would consider it all; now he must cease to think, for to think was torment and led to nothing helpful. He went up-stairs, and drank glass after glass of whisky, until he had drugged himself into a state where he ceased to reason, and where memory was dulled, and at last dead. He lay on a lounge all day and through the night, without undressing, sleeping a drunken slumber.

At morning, when he awakened, it all came back to him by degrees, and again he recalled the verdict, and was filled with dull anger. The evening before he had made himself incapable of efficient reasoning. Now one aspect of the affair presented itself, and now another. Bits of the death-scene appeared—the woman’s wide-open eyes, their color; that her chin-muscles had twitched before she fell; how, as by instinct, he had made a step forward to pick her up, and then did not. Some unseen hand was jangling the wires of puppet memories—he a helpless looker-on.

He had regret rather than anything as positive as remorse, and soon recovered the power to deal with the facts. Seated in his library in sunshine, he was at last able to dismiss the emotional disturbance which had disquieted him the day before, and to consider the effect of what he had done on his legal and political career and on his social position. His anger still burned, and he lost nothing of his hatred. He was sorry only because of the hasty form his revenge had taken for what he considered insulting. With a few men like Averill it would injure him. A duel would have been wiser. Then he thought of the woman in the madness of her grief. She had called him “coward.” It stung him like a whip.

Well, he would outlive it, and as he must live and had interests in and near the town, he must learn to control a temper which he knew had lost him friends, influence, and opportunities. He hoped to be chosen by the county to represent it in the legislature. The death by his hand of an unpopular land agent—a Yankee officer—would hardly trouble the rough country-folk.

He rose and walked about among his books. He had lived much alone since his wife had left him; and, as is often the case in small towns, had read as men in larger communities do not. As he rose early, he was apt, after breakfast, to sit down for an hour with a cigar and a book. It was the habit of a lonely man.

“Now,” he said to himself, “I must do just as I usually do.” He sat down and took up the volume he had been reading—a life of John Marshall. It had lost interest. He could not keep his attention on the text. His cigar went out. “Damn it!” he exclaimed, “if this goes on—” Of a sudden the naked fact of having killed came back to him. This was not murder. No one would call it that. Once he had read:

“The devil owns the minutes, God the years.”

This began to say itself over and over in his mind, bringing back again the fatal scene. What had the devil’s minute brought? What would the “years of God” bring?

Time would go on. People would forget. Mrs. Trescot would go away, of course. He would see her stately grace no more. The thought of her called up the face of another woman far away in Sacramento. What would she say? What would she think?

“Well,” he said, “I had better go out and show myself.” He went to his room and took his watch from the table. He had forgotten to wind it. Then he picked up his revolver, glanced at the one empty barrel, hesitated a moment, put it back on the table, and went down to his office. As he passed Trescot’s home he looked across at the house and quickened his steps.

The next day he left St. Ann and remained absent until, as he supposed, the funeral of his victim would be over.

XVII

The days went by, and it was now late in October. Mrs. Averill waited at the foot of the stairs. “Will she live?” she said, as she met Dr. Eskridge, a war-worn old Confederate surgeon.

“Yes,” he said, “unhappily she will live.” He had known and liked Constance. “What she will be or what she will do when this wild hysteria is over, no one can say. Now she knows nothing.”

“I was with her all last night, doctor. At times she lay in a stupor; at others she talked, laughing, about her child, and said, over and over, ‘It must be called George.’”

“Poor lady, that hope is at an end.”

“Yes; and more’s the pity.”

“I still think that her sister should not see her.”

“She understands that,” said Mrs. Averill. “A most sensible, thoughtful young woman, and so considerate. My poor husband is distressed beyond measure. I did not think there was possible for him any other sorrow on earth except my death, and I am old. But this young man was, in some ways, like my son Harry. I am worried about the general. I wish you would talk to him.”

“I will. In a few weeks—perhaps abruptly—Mrs. Trescot will come out of this state, perhaps well, perhaps physically broken in health. Then she must go away and never return.”

“I suppose that will be best. These two young women are both rich, my dear doctor, and can go where they please. Mr. Hood did not mean to leave them much money, but he died without leaving a will, and now they have all. He was a singular man, and really this dreadful affair was caused by his obstinate hardness.”

“I have heard as much,” said the doctor.

“He made a dozen wills, and fortunately burned the last one the day before he died.”