CHAPTER XXVII.

THE VERDICT.

The court came in on the second day of the trial. Dr. Lynch was present, as he had promised to be. His appearance had greatly changed since he went on the stand the day before. He looked like a man who had endured a lifetime of misery in a single night. His pale face and sunken eyes were the emblems of penitence. People were prepared by what had occurred on the first day for some extraordinary event. The doctor was suffering; he showed it in his looks and in his movements; the damp of the night watch seemed to be clinging to him. Those who saw him pitied him. It was sad to see a man so mighty as the popular physician fall from his high estate.

Doubtless Dr. Lynch had suffered intensely; doubtless he had not closed his eyes to sleep during the night; doubtless he had endured untold agonies between the setting and the rising of the sun. He was sorry for something; for what has not yet been told. He was certainly in excellent condition to appear on the stand as a penitent; he was well “made up” for this character.

The doctor was placed upon the stand as soon as the court was opened. There was a breathless silence in the room. The audience strained their eyes to obtain a glance at the face of the witness. People were almost prepared to hear him say that he himself had slain Buckstone. That he was in Poppleton under an assumed name was enough to excite the gravest suspicions.

“Dr. Lynch, I am informed that you desire to correct your testimony as given yesterday,” began the attorney for the government.

“I do.”

“What correction do you wish to make?”

“So far as my evidence related to Mr. Birch, it was false,” replied the witness in quivering tones, hollow and sepulchral. “I acknowledge, with the utmost shame and with a loathing of myself I cannot describe, that I have attempted to injure Mr. Birch; that I have sworn to what I knew to be untrue.”

The fall of a pin could have been heard in the court-room. This open, square, and unequivocal confession excited the contempt of all honest men, but pity was by far the stronger feeling. Some thought the doctor was a fool to confess; others that he need not have said so much; and fast men blamed him for not “putting it through” as he had begun: but the general sentiment was grief that one standing so high in the estimation of the community should have sacrificed himself. Christian men thought that, great as was the wrong he had done, the humiliating atonement he made ought to satisfy the sternest lover of justice.

“Were you with Mr. Buckstone on the night he was murdered?” continued Mr. Lowe, very gently.

“I was.”

“Was Mr. Birch with him also?”

“He was not.”

“Did you go to the island with Buckstone?”

“I did.”

“Did you see the prisoner on that night?”

“I did; Buckstone left me on the beach, and went up the rocks to speak with Ross Kingman. They went off together.”

“Did you see the murder committed?”

“I did not.”

“While you were on the beach were you conscious that a murder had been committed?”

“I was not.”

While he was on the beach he certainly was not conscious of the fact; it did not take place until after he had left the beach.

“Have you any knowledge whatever of the murder except what you obtained from Ross Kingman?”

“I have not.”

“Did you see the blow struck? Did you hear any angry words?”

“I did not.”

“That is all; the witness is yours, Mr. Darling,” said the government attorney.

Mr. Lowe deemed it his duty to prove that a murder had been committed, and that it had been committed by the prisoner. This was the issue which the jury were to try, and the government had nothing to do with the question in dispute between Dr. Lynch and Mr. Birch. The latter had been vindicated, and the truth, so far as it related to the murderer, had been fully elicited.

Mr. Darling asked a few questions of the witness, and he was permitted to retire. Of course, Dr. Lynch was in very bad odor, and everybody suddenly knew that Dick Birch had always been a just and upright man.

The trial proceeded. The fact that Mary Kingman had been grievously wronged, outraged, insulted, was made apparent. This was the terrible provocation of the prisoner. Mr. Darling made the most eloquent plea of his life. He pictured the condition of the deserted girl, who had believed she was a wife; the strong affection that existed between the prisoner and his sister. She had no friend, no protector, but this brother. Her father had absolutely driven her from his roof in his drunken frenzy. To whom could she look for justice but to this brother?

He depicted her sick room, with Ross watching night and day by her side, loving and pitying her, and nursing his vengeance against her betrayer. He had gone to New York, plucked her from the poverty and disgrace to which she had been reduced by her unnatural protector. He had brought her home. He held in his fraternal arms the wreck of the beloved sister, wasted by disease, shattered by her mental suffering, disgraced, defiled, cast off. It was not right that the prisoner should slay the villain who had desolated the fond hopes of this loved one; but if ever man was justified in wielding the bolt of vengeance, Ross Kingman was.

He reviewed the evidence, drawing from it every item which tended to show the sad condition of Mary, the strong provocation of Ross. Mr. Lowe followed with legal definitions, distinctions, and discriminations. He showed what murder was; what was English law, what was French law, what was American law. Having done enough to satisfy himself, and the bar, and the bench, that he was a sound lawyer, he contented himself with arguing very lucidly that a murder had been committed, and that the prisoner had committed it. As no one doubted this, not much was gained by his plea.

In the matter of the provocation, Mr. Lowe was more useful to the jury. A sufficient provocation sometimes reduced the killing from murder to manslaughter; and this was the answer to the presumed malice which was the essential element in murder (1 Russ. Cr. 440); but the killing, except in self-defence, could not be absolutely justified by law, common or statute. He argued that if the prisoner was not guilty of murder, he was surely guilty of manslaughter. The jury could not avoid this conclusion.

The presiding justice charged the jury. He defined murder, manslaughter, homicide, and pointed out the legal distinctions, so that the old farmers were as clear as noonday on the subject. He told them what malice was, what provocations were legally recognized. He convinced them that the court had a full and earnest conviction of the enormity of Buckstone’s offence; but society must be protected from the dagger of the assassin. He pointed out the exceeding great peril of justifying a man in taking the law into his own hands to resent real or fancied injuries.

At five o’clock in the afternoon the jury went out to consider their verdict. Mary Kingman fainted before the door had closed behind them. The words of the stern and impartial judge, who had spoken for the bench, had filled her with awe and terror. Eugene lifted her up, and bore her to an adjoining room: but she recovered, and the words of assurance spoken by Dick Birch enabled her to return to the court-room in season to hear the verdict.

The jury came in. They were grave men, impressed by the heavy responsibility which rested upon them, and nothing could be gleaned from their faces. They had been out less than an hour, and it was plain that there had been no serious disagreement among them. The court-room was hushed as the twelve men stood up, and the usual formalities were solemnly disposed of.

“Mr. Foreman, have you agreed upon your verdict?” asked the clerk.

“We have.”

“What say you--is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?”

“NOT GUILTY!”

Though this result had been expected, it was not the less welcome. A storm of applause followed the rendering of the verdict, which all the hammering and shouting of the sheriff could not silence for a moment. The people had spoken through the jury, and now they spoke for themselves.

Ross Kingman was discharged. The court adjourned, and he rushed to Mary, clasped her in his arms, and both wept tears of joy. Ross was a notable. Hundreds took him by the hand, and congratulated him. Dr. Lynch was one of the number. When he had done so, he left the court, and drove home.

Mary and Ross, Eugene and Dick, occupied the Pine Hill carriage. Ross asked a great many questions about Dr. Lynch and the astounding event of the morning. To his surprise, both of his friends spoke kindly and charitably of the erring man. He had done wrong; he had publicly acknowledged his error, and they had forgiven him.

The party were warmly welcomed at Pine Hill by Julia and her mother. The exciting events of the day were narrated, and Eugene volunteered to accompany Mary to her home. He had no opportunity to speak to her of the subject nearest to his heart until they reached the house on The Great Bell. He was not willing to waste a moment. Mary was dearer to him than ever. Her missionary labors had more clearly exhibited her character to him.

“Mary, the trial is over, and Ross is free,” said he, while they were seated in the parlor, her brother being with the rest of the family in the kitchen.

“He is; and how much we owe to you and Mr. Birch I need not remind you,” replied she.

“You need not, Mary. I have done for him what I would have done for my own brother. But I did not remind you that the trial was over in order to speak of what has been done by any one. You remember your promise.”

“I do,” she replied, much embarrassed.

“I have faithfully kept mine. I have not spoken to you on the subject which was always claiming a word in my heart.”

“You have not, Mr. Hungerford.”

“Why do you speak so coldly and formally to me?”

“I dare not speak otherwise.”

“Mary, all my happiness in this world is bound up in you. If you do not love me, Mary, say so.”

“Eugene, I do love you!”

She wept in spite of all her struggles to repress her tears.

“Then why do you hesitate? Say that you will be my wife.”

“No; I cannot say it.”

“Then you do not love me.”

“It is because I love you--because I respect and reverence you--that I cannot be your wife. My conscience smites me when I think of dragging you down from your lofty height to the plane of shame and disgrace upon which I dwell.”

“Mary, you are true and good. I care not what men say. Be mine; that is all I ask.”

“I cannot consent to injure you so much.”

“I fought your battle at the mill; let me fight it in the great world.”

“Do not ask me yet.”

“When will you answer me, Mary? I shall not be happy until you do.”

“To-morrow--next week; but not now.”

“Let it be to-morrow.”

“Perhaps to-morrow.”

There was a knock at the outside door. Dr. Lynch was admitted. He expressed his surprise at finding Mr. Hungerford there; if he had expected to meet him, he should have deferred his visit.

“I will retire, Dr. Lynch, if you have business with Miss Kingman.”

“I have business with Mrs. Buckstone, but it is a matter in which you are interested, Mr. Hungerford. You observe that I call our mutual friend Mrs. Buckstone. I do so purposely, as my errand will explain,” continued the doctor.

“Of course you do not call her so without good reasons.”

“Certainly not. I intend to leave town to-morrow morning, and it is necessary that I should dispose of this matter at once.”

“Why do you leave town, doctor?” asked Eugene, surprised at this announcement.

“I think it better for me to do so.”

“But you intend to return?”

“That will depend upon circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

“If the people of Poppleton can be as generous towards me as you and Mr. Birch have been, I should be glad to remain, and prove the sincerity of my contrition.”

“Doubtless they will be.”

“Let the future determine,” added the doctor, as he took a package of papers from his pocket. “Mrs. Buckstone, if I have wronged others, I have not wronged you. I think I have been a true friend to you.”

“You have, doctor; you have always been very kind to me.”

“As you have doubtless heard, I sent for Buckstone to come here. I felt that it was necessary, in order to preserve your life and health, that your wounds should be healed. I have endeavored to heal them. When it was no longer possible for you to become the wife of Buckstone,--which was the purpose I had in view when I sent for him,--I endeavored to give you the means of proving the marriage which had already taken place. Mr. Hungerford, what was your opinion of the legality of that union?”

“I had no doubt whatever in regard to its legality, if it could be proved. By the humane laws of many of the states, a mock marriage is impossible,” replied Eugene. “If either of the parties intend to marry, the marriage is legal. The difficulty in this case was, that we could obtain no evidence, and Buckstone repudiated it.”

“Mrs. Buckstone, here is your marriage certificate,” added the doctor, handing her the important document.

“Impossible!” exclaimed Eugene. “Dick and myself have used every effort to obtain proof of the marriage. We could not obtain a particle of evidence.”

“After the death of Buckstone it was an easier matter,” replied Dr. Lynch. “I found Dorning, the artist. He is a miserable fellow. At first he refused to speak a word, but I finally induced him to tell the whole truth. The marriage was solemnized by a broken-down minister; he is a blacksmith now, but preaches when he can find a pulpit. He was fully authorized to marry parties, though, in my opinion, a ten dollar bill would persuade him to marry a man to his own grandmother. The marriage was duly recorded. Dorning, his wife, and a servant girl were witnesses.”

“When was it recorded?”

“Not till after I had seen the minister. Here is the city clerk’s certificate of the fact, and here is the affidavit of Dorning and his wife, and of the servant, duly sealed and attested for use in any court in the state.”

“But you obtained all these papers last summer?”

“I did.”

“We never heard of them before. Why did you not exhibit them?”

“And let Ross be hanged for killing his brother-in-law, instead of being acquitted? Perhaps I was wrong, but this was the reason.”

“I will not pretend to say whether you were right or wrong.”

“The facts have been presented to the court and the jury just as they appeared to Ross and his sister. Buckstone denied his marriage, and deserted his wife. What Ross did was done with this understanding of the facts. It might have prejudiced the jury if they had known what was apparent to no one until long after the killing had been done. For this reason I kept the papers to myself until after the trial.”

“I am very grateful to you, doctor, for what you have done. It is a greater joy to me to know that I was truly a wife than it would be to possess all the world can give.”

“I knew it would be. These papers are the best prescription I can give for your bodily ailments.”

There could be no doubt in regard to the validity of the papers or the marriage, and Eugene was as grateful as Mary. The doctor took his leave as humbly as though he had not done a good deed--if he had done one; whether he had or not, so far as he was concerned, did not yet appear. So far as Mary was concerned, he had given back to her the reputation she had lost. She was happier in the possession of these papers than she would have been if they were the titles to an empire.

“You can speak now, Mary,” said Eugene, when the doctor had gone.

“Let it be to-morrow, Eugene,” replied she, with the sweetest smile he had seen upon her face since the death of John Hungerford.

“As you will, dearest,” added he, taking her hand. “I can wait, because your smile tells me what your answer will be.”

He kissed her blushing cheek. It was the first time since they had been scholars together. The clouds appeared suddenly to have rolled away. They were happy; both forgot the past.

“I hope Dr. Bilks, or Dr. Lynch, will not leave Poppleton,” said she. “I am sure he is a good man at heart. He could not have done so many kind things if he had not been.”

“He has many good traits of character. Of course I can never regard him as I did before; that would be impossible.”

“Self-interest and ambition often lead men astray. He has done very wrong.”

“And we will freely forgive him.”

Eugene returned to Pine Hill. Though it was late, Dick Birch and the family were still in the sitting-room. They had been talking of Dr. Lynch, but they had unanimously forgiven him.

“You are late, Hungerford,” said Dick, with a smile.

“I was detained.”

“No doubt of it,” laughed Dick. “A fellow is very apt to be detained under certain circumstances. I hope you are not committed.”

“I have been committed from the beginning. I intend that Mary shall be my wife; and the sooner the better.”

“Of course I have nothing to say.”

“Are you still opposed?”

“I am.”

Eugene exhibited Mary’s papers, which he had brought with him for this purpose. There was not a legal doubt expressed in regard to them, and all were pleased to have the appearance of wrong removed from Mary, especially since it had become a settled fact that she was to be the mistress of the Pine Hill mansion. For some reason, not apparent to others, Dick Birch did not seem to be so much interested in the marriage papers as might have been expected. He said but little about them, and avoided the subject; but no one doubted that he was as much pleased with her vindication as Eugene himself.

“Now, Dick, what have you been about all summer?” asked Eugene, after the ladies had retired.

“I have been following Dr. Bilks that was. I went first to the medical colleges in Philadelphia; there was no such name as Bilks on the books. I described him to the officers of the one at which the doctor said he was graduated. I had his photograph. They told me the picture was Tom Lynch’s. Of course I was satisfied then. I went to Baltimore, and saw Mr. Loring. He told me Tom had ‘run himself out,’ spent his money, and left Dayton, where he had settled. I went there. So far from having ruined himself, he had left the place in the full tide of success, and with plenty of money in his pocket. I next went to New York. I was there six weeks, looking up Buckstone’s affairs. While I was thus engaged, I saw the name of Sandy McGuire in the court column. He had lost his money, or part of it, and in a drunken brawl had struck a man a fatal blow. He was sentenced to the state prison for life for manslaughter.

“I went up to Sing Sing, and found him. He told me the whole truth, and I had his deposition taken. I found his wife, who was a nurse in the hospital. I came to Summerville next, where I staid a week, and worked up my case.”

“What did you learn about Buckstone?”

“I found his rooms, and obtained some of the doctor’s letters. My only object in looking him up was, to establish his relations with the doctor. But up to Tuesday night, though I had the means of showing that the witness had lied a dozen times, I had no actual proof that he was the stranger.”

“Why did he confess?”

“He whined around me until I told him I should overwhelm him the next day. He confessed the whole then, and seemed to be very penitent.”

“I have no doubt he was.”

“It was good policy to be so.”

“I think he was really sorry.”

“I hope he was.”

“He is going away for a time.”

“Indeed? Will he return?”

“If he thinks he shall be well received, he will.”

“I hope he will remain. Julia, I dare say, will not be quite willing to have him go,” added Dick, trying to look indifferent, which was as impossible as for water to run up hill.

“Julia is a mystery to me. I don’t know what she thinks.”

Dick took this answer as a rebuff, and he said no more of Julia. Eugene was not willing to speak for her, and he changed the subject. He talked about his chapel and his missionaries, his model houses, and his battle with the mill people. But these were dry topics after the exciting events of the day; and at midnight both of them retired.

The next day the Poppleton Mercury came, with a full account of the trial of Ross Kingman; but this was already an old story, and Eugene’s thought was soon riveted to a paragraph which called the attention of the reader to the appropriate column where would be found the announcement of the marriage of Eliot Buckstone and Mary Kingman. The article stated that Mrs. Buckstone had her marriage certificate and other papers to confirm the fact of her union with the unfortunate man who had sought to rob her of her title of wife. These papers had been sent to Mrs. Buckstone at a late hour on the day of the trial, up to which time she had been entirely ignorant of their existence.

Of course Dr. Lynch was the author of the paragraph, and the people of Poppleton must by this time be satisfied that Mary had been a wife, and was now a widow.