“So those two voices met; so Joy and Death
Mingled their accents; and, amidst the rush
Of many thoughts, the listening poet cried,
O! thou art mighty, thou art wonderful,
Mysterious Nature! Not in thy free range
Of woods and wilds alone, thou blendest thus
The dirge note and the song of festival;
But in one heart, one changeful human heart,—
Ay, and within one hour of that strange world,—
Thou call’st their music forth, with all its tones
To startle and to pierce!—the dying Swan’s,
And the glad Sky-lark’s,—Triumph and Despair!”
Our tale is running rapidly to a close; and we must no more loiter to gather flowers by the wayside, but depict the events which now come thickly crowding together, to make up the mingled catastrophe.
When the sheriff and his scores of exulting assistants reached the village with their prisoner,—the desperate villain, whom they had, with so much difficulty and danger, dislodged and seized in his rocky den in the mountains,—the latter requested a postponement of his examination till the afternoon of the next day, that he might have time to send for, and obtain, his lawyer. This request was the more readily granted, as the party sent up the lakes with Moose-killer, for more evidence, had not yet returned, and as their expected discoveries, or at least their presence with those already made, might and would be required to fasten the crime, in law, on the undoubted criminal. The court, therefore, was adjourned to an indefinite hour the next afternoon; and the crowd, except the court, its officers, and those from a distance, dispersed to assemble, the next day, with increased numbers, to witness the final disposal of one who had now become, in the minds of all, the monster outlaw of the settlement. The prisoner was then taken to an adjoining old and empty log-house, a straw-bed laid on the floor for him, and a strong guard placed over him, both within and around the house without; so that, being constantly under the eyes of vigilant, well-armed men, there should be no possibility of his escape, either by his own exertions, or by the aid of secret accomplices. And these precautions being faithfully observed, the night wore away without alarm, or any kind of disturbance. The fore part of the succeeding day also passed, though people soon began to pour into the village from all quarters, with singular quietness,—all seeming to be oppressed with that deep feeling of hushed expectation which may often be seen to predispose men to a sort of restless silence, on the known eve of an exciting event. And, through the whole of it, no incident or circumstance transpired affecting the great interest of the occasion, till about noon; when the news spread that the anxiously-awaited party from the upper lakes were approaching. As they came up to the tavern, the now excited crowd quickly closed around them, and eagerly listened to their report. Of Claud Elwood, whom they had unknowingly passed and repassed, on their way up and down the lakes, while he was lying helpless in the secluded retreat to which his fair and devoted preserver had conveyed him, they had heard nothing, seen nothing, and discovered no clues by which his locality or fate could be traced or conjectured. But they had visited, and carefully examined, the place pointed out by Moose-killer as the one where Mark Elwood was supposed to have been slain; and, although they had failed to find the body on the land, or in the lake, with the best means they could command for dragging it, and although time had measurably effaced the traces by which the sagacious Indian had judged of the suspected deed, yet every appearance went to confirm the strict accuracy of his previous account. And, in addition, they at last found, slightly imbedded in the bark of a tree, in the range of the path, and a short distance to the south of the spot, a rifle bullet, which had evidently been, before striking the tree, smeared with a bloody substance, and also slightly flattened, as it might naturally have been, in striking a bone, on its way through a man’s body. This seemed to establish, as a fact, the commission of a murder; but on whom committed was still left a debatable question. The movers of the prosecution had hoped, through this mission up the lakes, to obtain evidence which would conclusively establish the guilt of the prisoner. But, to effect this, and thus insure his conviction, something more conclusive was still obviously wanting. And it was then that the indefatigable hunter made, as the reader has already been apprised, his last rapid but fruitless journey to the chief’s residence, in the hope that his mysteriously absent daughter might have returned with discoveries that would complete the chain of evidence. He having come back, however, without accomplishing any part of his object, and the prisoner’s counsel having arrived, and, after a consultation with his client, become strangely clamorous to proceed at once to the examination, they finally concluded to go into the hearing with the presumptive evidence in possession, and, backing it with the showing of Gaut’s previously suspicious character, for which they were now well prepared, call themselves willing to abide the result. All this being now settled, the court was declared open, and the counsel for the prosecution was requested to proceed with the case.
After the attorney for the prosecution had read the papers on which it was founded, and made a statement of what was expected to be proved in its support, the witnesses in that behalf were called and sworn. The first testimony introduced was that of Codman and others, to show the deep malice and implied threats of revenge which the prisoner had so clearly exhibited towards the supposed murdered man, in the prosecution of which the latter was a principal mover, the winter before. But this evidence, when sifted by the long and severe cross-examination that followed, and found to consist, instead of definite words, almost wholly of menacing looks and other silent demonstrations of rage, which are ever extremely difficult to bring out in words with their original effect, amounted to so little that the prisoner’s counsel attempted to turn it into ridicule with considerable show of success. Testimony in relation to the canoe of the Elwoods, recently found washed up among the rapids, which was next introduced, was found, when tested in the same way, in despite of the opinions of the practical boatmen who were the witnesses, to be almost equally inconclusive of the prisoner’s guilt; so much so, indeed, that his counsel seemed greatly inclined to appropriate it, as showing the probable manner in which the Elwoods, if they were not still both alive, had come to their end.
By this time,—as the court of inquiry was not opened till nearly sunset, and as the examinations, cross-examinations, and preliminary speeches of the opposing counsel, on disputed points of evidence, had been drawn out to seemingly almost interminable lengths,—by this time, it was nearly midnight; and the prosecuting party now proposed an adjournment till morning. But this was strenuously opposed by Gaut’s lawyer, who, affecting to believe that the whole affair was a malicious prosecution growing out of the suit last winter, and got up by certain men who had banded together to revenge their defeat on that occasion, and ruin his client, boldly demanded that the prisoner should be discharged, or his conspiring enemies be compelled to proceed at once with “their sham prosecution,” as he put on the face to call it.
This stand, which was obviously instigated by the prisoner himself, who narrowly watched the proceedings, and, from time to time, was seen whispering in the ear of his counsel, produced the desired effect: the motion was overruled, and the counsel for the prosecution told to go on with his evidence.
Moose-killer was then called on to the witnesses’ stand, when, for the first time, Gaut exhibited evident signs of uneasiness, and whispered something in the ear of his counsel, who thereupon rose and went into a labored argument against the admissibility of the evidence of an Indian, who was a pagan, and knew nothing about the God whose invocation constituted the sacred effect of the oath he had taken. But, on the questioning of the court, Moose-killer declared his full belief in the white Christian’s God and Bible, and this objection was overruled, and the witness requested to proceed with his story.
The demure Indian, unmoved by the burning and vengeful eye of Gaut, which was kept constantly riveted upon him, then succinctly but clearly related all the facts, of which the reader has been apprised in the preceding pages, in relation to the atrocious deed under investigation. And at the conclusion of his story he produced the bullet found imbedded in the tree, called attention to its smeared and flattened appearance, and then asked for the prisoner’s rifle, to see whether it would fit in the bore. The rifle in question was then brought into court, the bullet applied to the muzzle, and pronounced an exact fit! A shout of exultation burst from the crowd, and in a tone so significant of the public feeling, and of their unanimous opinion on this point, that for a moment both the prisoner and his counsel were completely disconcerted. But, soon rallying, the latter started to his feet, and, having summoned back to its place his usual quantum of brass, demanded “the privilege of just looking at that rifle they were all making such a fuss about.” It was accordingly handed to him; when, after noticing the size of the bore, which was a common one, and then glancing at some other rifles held in the hands of different spectators, he confidently requested that the first half-dozen rifles to be found among the crowd should be brought on to the stand. Five of the designated number were soon gathered and brought forward; and it was found, in the comparison, that three of them were of the same bore as that of Gaut, and that the ball in question would fit one as well as another.
“There! what has become of your bullet evidence now?” sneeringly exclaimed the exulting attorney. “Wondrous conclusive, a’n’t it? But, as weak as the whole story is, I will make it still weaker. It is my turn with you now, my foxy red friend,” he added, settling back in his seat to commence his cross-examination.
His vaunted cross-examination, however, resulted in giving him no advantage. The Indian could not be made, in the whole hour the brow-beating inquisitor devoted to him, either to cross himself or vary a single statement of his direct testimony, and he was petulantly ordered to leave the stand.
“Not done talk yet,” said Moose-killer, lingering, and glancing inquiringly to the court and the counsel for the prosecution. “More story me tell yet.”
Gaut’s lawyer looked up doubtfully to the witness; but, thinking he must have told all he could to implicate the prisoner, and that any thing now added might show discrepancies, of which some advantage could be taken, remained silent, and, for once, interposed no objection to letting the Indian take his own course; when the latter, on receiving an encouraging intimation to speak from the other attorney, proceeded, in his peculiarly broken but graphic manner, to make in substance the following extraordinary revelation:
About ten years ago (he said), there came, from what part nobody knew, a strange, questionable personage, into the neighborhood of a few families of St. François Indians, encamping for the hunting season around the head-water lakes of the Long River, as he termed the Connecticut, and went to trapping for sable and beaver. But he soon fell into difficulties with the Indians, who believed he robbed their traps; and with one family in particular he had a fierce and bitter altercation. This family had a small child, that began to ramble from the wigwam out into the woods, and that, one night, failed to come home. They suspected who had got it, and next day followed the trail to the man’s camp; when they soon found where the child had been butchered, cut up, and used to bait his sable-traps! But the monster, becoming alarmed, had fled, and never afterwards could be found.
With this, Moose-killer, who had evidently put his story in this shape to avoid interruption, suddenly paused, and then, with one hand raised imploringly towards the court and the other stretched out menacingly towards the prisoner, wildly exclaimed:
“O, that was my child! and this was the man who murdered it!”
A thrill of horror ran through the crowd as the witness came to the conclusion of his revolting story. And so completely were all taken by surprise by the startling, and as most of them believed truthful, revelation, and so great was the sensation produced by the appalling atrocities it disclosed, that the proceedings of the court were for some moments brought to a dead stand. But soon the shrill, harsh voice of Gaut’s lawyer was heard rising above the buzz of the excited crowd, and bursting in a storm of denunciation and abuse on the witness, and all those who had a hand in bringing him forward, to thrust in, against all rule, such a story,—which, if true, had no more to do with the prosecution now in progress than the first chapter of the Alcoran. But it was not true. It was a monstrous fabrication. It represented as a fact what never occurred in all Christendom. It was stamped with falsehood on the face of it; and not only spoke for itself as such, but was a virtual self-impeachment of the witness, whose whole testimony the court should now throw to the winds. And so, for the next half-hour, he went on, ranting and raving, till the court, interposing, assured him that the witness’ last story would not be treated as testimony in the case; when he became pacified, and took his seat.
The counsel on the other side, who, during his opponent’s explosive display of rhetorical gas and brimstone, had been holding an earnest consultation with Phillips (now also at hand with a disclosure which had been reserved for the present moment), then calmly rose, and said he had a statement to make, which he stood ready to substantiate, and to which he respectfully asked the attention of the court, as a matter that should be taken into the account in considering the prisoner’s guilt in the present case, it being one of the many offences that appeared to have marked his career of almost unvarying crime and iniquity. He was well aware of the general rule of evidence, which excludes matters not directly connected with the point at issue; but there were cases in which that rule often had, and necessarily ever must be, materially varied,—as in the crim. con. cases reported in the books, where previous like acts were admitted, to show the probability of the commission of the one charged, and also in cases like the present, resting, as he admitted it thus far did, on presumptive evidence. In this view, notwithstanding all that had been said or intimated, he believed the concluding testimony of the last witness proper to be considered in balancing the presumptions of the prisoner’s guilt or innocence. And especially relevant did he deem the statement, and the introduction of the evidence he had at hand to substantiate it, which he had now risen to offer. But, even were it otherwise, it would soon be seen that the step he was about to take would be particularly suitable to be taken while the court and the officers of justice were together, and the prisoner under their control. With these preliminary remarks, he would now proceed with the statement he had proposed.
“This man,” continued the attorney (whom we will now report in the first person), “the man who stands here charged, and, in the minds of nine out of ten of all present, I fearlessly affirm, justly charged, with a murder, to the deliberate atrocity of which scarce a parallel can be found in the world’s black catalogue of crime,—this man, I say, is a felon-refugee from British justice.
“Many years ago,—as some here present may know, as a matter of history,—a secret and somewhat extended conspiracy to subvert the government of Lower Canada was seasonably discovered and crushed at Quebec, which was its principal seat, and which, according to the plan of the conspirators, was to be the first object of assault and seizure. This was to be effected by the contemporaneous rising of a strong force within the city, headed by a bold adventurer, a bankrupt merchant from Rhode Island, and of an army of raftsmen, collected from the rivers, without, led on by a reckless and daring, half-Scotch, half-Indian Canadian, who had acquired great influence over that restless and ruffian class of men. The former had been in the province in the year before, and, from witnessing the popular disaffection then rampant from the enforcement of an odious act of their Parliament to compel the building of roads, had, with the instigation of such desperate fellows as the latter, his Canadian accomplice, conceived this plot, and had now come on, with a small band of recruits, to carry it into execution; when, as all was nearly ripe for the outbreak, the whole plot was discovered. The poor Yankee leader was seized, tried for high treason, condemned to death, and strung up by the neck from the walls of Quebec.[5] But the more wary and fortunate Canadian leader, though tenfold more guilty, escaped into the wilderness, this side of the British line; lingered a year or two in this region, trapping and robbing the Indians; then took to smuggling; engaged in the service of the man whose murder we are now investigating, followed him to the city, nearly ruined him there, and then dogged him to this settlement to complete his destruction.”
“Who do you mean?” thundered Gaut Gurley.
“Ask your own conscience,” replied the attorney, fearlessly confronting the prisoner.
“’Tis false as hell!” rejoined Gaut, with a countenance convulsed with rage.
“No, you mistake,—it is as true as hell,” promptly retorted the other; “or, rather, as true as there is one for such wretches as you. Mr. Phillips,” he added, turning to the hunter, who stood a little in the background, with his rifle poised on his left arm, with an air of carelessness, but, as a close inspection would have shown, so grasped by his right hand, held down out of sight, as to enable him to bring it to an instant aim,—“Mr. Phillips, were you in the habit of going to Quebec, fall and spring, to dispose of your peltries, about the time of this plotted insurrection?”
“I was.”
“Did you ever have the Canada leader I have spoken of pointed out to you, previous to the outbreak?”
“Often, on going down the Chaudiere river, often; why, I knew him by sight as well as the devil knows his hogs!”
“Did you afterwards see and identify him in this region?”
“I did.”
“Is not, then, all I have stated true; and is not the prisoner, here, the man?”
“All as true as the Gospel of St. Mark; and that is the man, the very man; under the oath of God, I swear it!”
During this brief but terribly pointed dialogue, Gaut Gurley,—whose handcuffs, on his complaint that they galled his wrists, had been removed after he came into court,—sat watching Phillips with that same singularly sinister expression which we have, on one or two previous occasions, tried to describe him as exhibiting. It was a certain indescribable, whitish, lurid light, flashing and quivering over his countenance, that made the beholder involuntarily recoil. And, as the last words were uttered, his hand was seen covertly stealing up under the lapel of his coat; but it was instantly arrested and dropped, at the sharp click of the cocking of the hunter’s rifle, which was also seen stealing up to his shoulder.
“Nonsense!” half audibly said the sheriff, to something which, during the bustle and sensation following these manifestations, the hunter had been whispering in his ear; “nonsense! I searched him myself, and know there is nothing of the kind about him.”
“I am not so sure about that,” responded the hunter, edging along through the crowd, with his eye still on the prisoner, and soon disappearing out of the door.
This little judicial interlude in the remarks of the attorney being over, he resumed:
“My statement having been thus corroborated, and, as I am most happy to find, without any of the expected interruptions, it now only remains for me to say, that this indefatigable Mr. Phillips, becoming perfectly convinced that the prisoner was a man of whom it was a patriotic duty to rid the settlement, has, within the last two months, made a journey into Canada; obtained a written official request from the governor-general, addressed to the governor of New Hampshire, for the delivery of Gaut Gurley, at the time when, on notice, the proper officers would be in waiting to receive him; that our governor has responded by issuing his warrant; which,” he continued, drawing out a document, “I now, in this presence, deliver to the sheriff, to be served, but only served, in case we fail—as I do not at all anticipate—to secure the commitment and final conviction of the prisoner, on the flagitious offence now under investigation, and loudly demanding expiation under our own violated laws, in preference to delivering him up for the punishment of other and less crying felonies.”
The prisoner and his counsel, on this new and unexpected development, held an earnest whispered consultation. The latter had supposed, till almost the last moment, that his opponent was intending only to bring in another piece of what he deemed wholly irrelevant testimony, in the shape of another gone-by transaction; and he was preparing another storm of wrath for the judicial outrage. But, when he found that the statement was a preliminary to a different and more alarming movement, and especially when he saw placed in the sheriff’s hands a warrant for delivering up his client to the British, to be tried for a former felony, from the punishment of which, he feared, from what he had just heard, there would be no escape, he was sadly nonplussed, and knew not which way to turn himself. And it was not until Gaut, who, though thus suddenly brought into a dilemma which he was little expecting, was yet at no loss to decide on his course,—that of making every possible effort to escape the more immediate pending danger, and then of trusting to chance for eluding the more remote one just brought to view,—it was not till Gaut, with assurances of the last being but a miserable, trumped-up affair, had pushed and goaded him up to action, that the dumbfounded attorney recovered his old confidence. He then straightened back in his seat, and, with the air of one who has meekly borne some imposition, or breach of privilege, till it can be borne no longer, turned gruffly to his opponent, and said:
“Well, sir, having dragged every thing into this case except what legitimately belongs to it, I want to know if you are through, now? We, on our side, have no need of introducing testimony to meet any thing you have yet been able to show. Why, you have not even established the first essential fact to be settled in prosecutions for homicide. You have arraigned my client for killing a man, and yet have shown nobody killed! No, we shall introduce no witnesses till the body of the alleged murdered man is produced; for, till then, no court on earth——But I am not making a speech, and will not anticipate. All I intended was, to ask, as I do again, are you through with your evidence now?”
The attorney for the prosecution then admitted—rather prematurely, as it was soon seen—that he thought of nothing more which he wished to introduce.
“Go on with your opening speech, then,” resumed the former.
“No,” said the other, “I waive my privilege of the opening and close, and will only claim the closing speech.”
“O, very well, sir,” said Gaut’s lawyer, throwing a surprised and suspicious look around, as if to see whether some trap was not involved in this unexpected waiver of the usually claimed privilege. “Very well; don’t blame you; shouldn’t think you could find honest materials even for one speech.”
The hard-faced attorney, who was reputed one of the best of what are sometimes termed devil’s lawyers, in all that part of the country, then consequentially gathered up his minutes of the testimony, glanced over them, and, clearing his throat, commenced his great final speech, which was to annihilate his opponent, and quash the whole proceedings of the prosecution.
But he had scarcely spoken ten words, before a tremendous shout, rising somewhere in the direction of the bridge,—to which their attention had been before called, when a part of it had been swept away during the first hours of the night,—broke and reverberated into the room, bringing him to an instant stand. Feeling that something extraordinary had occurred, the startled court, parties and spectators, alike paused, and eagerly listened for something further to explain the sudden outbreak. But, for several minutes, all was still, or hushed down to the low hum of mingling voices, and not a distinct, intelligible sound reached their expectant senses. Soon, however, the noise of trampling feet and the rush of crowds was heard, and perceived to be rapidly approaching the door of the court-room. And the next moment the clear, loud voice of the now evidently excited hunter was heard exultantly ringing out the announcement:
“A witness, a new witness! A witness that saw the very deed!”
This sudden and exciting announcement of an occurrence which had been hoped for, in some shape, on one side, and feared on the other, but, at this late hour of the night, little expected by either, at once threw all within the crowded court-room into bustle and commotion. Both parties to the prosecution were consequently taken by surprise; and both, though neither of them were yet apprised of the character of the witness, were aroused and agitated by the significant announcement. But, of all present, none seemed so much stirred as the obdurate prisoner, who had, thus far in the examination, scarcely once wholly lost his usual look of bold assurance, but who now was seen casting rapid, uneasy, and evidently troubled glances towards the door; doubtless expecting, each moment, to see the fear which had haunted him from the first—that Claud Elwood would turn up alive, and appear in court against him—realized in the person of the new witness. His lawyer also, appeared to be seized with similar apprehensions; and, the next moment, he was heard loudly demanding the attention of the court. He objected, he pointedly objected, he protested, in advance, against the admission of further testimony. He had borne every thing during the hearing, but could not bear this. The pleas were closed, and the case concluded against the introduction of new evidence; and that, too, by the express notice and agreement of the counsel for the prosecution. And now to open it would be in glaring violation of all rule, all law, and all precedent. In short, it would be an outrage too gross to be tolerated anywhere but in a land of despotism. And, if the court would not at once decide to exclude the threatened testimony, he must be heard at length on the subject.
But the court declining so to decide, and intimating that they were willing to hear an argument on the point, of any reasonable length, he spread himself for the wordy onset. The sheriff,—who, in the mean time, had started for the door to make an opening in the crowd for the expected entrance,—seeing that a long speech was in prospect, now went out, conducted the proffered witness, in waiting near by, to another room in the house to remain there till called; and then returned, and, in a low tone, made some communication to the court.
The pertinacious lawyer then went on with his heated protest, as it might be called far more properly than an argument, to the length of nearly an hour. The calm, manly, and cogent reply of his opponent occupied far less time, but obtained far more favor with the sitting magistrates; who, after a short consultation among themselves, unanimously decided to hear the proposed evidence, and thereupon ordered the sheriff to conduct the witness at once into court.
A breathless silence now ensued in the court-room, and every eye was involuntarily turned towards the door. In a few minutes the sheriff, closely followed by two females, made his appearance, and cleared his way up to the stand that had been occupied by the witnesses. No names had been announced, and both the ladies were veiled, so that their faces could not be seen in the dusky apartment, lighted only by two dim candles, made dimmer, seemingly, by the morning twilight, then beginning to steal through the windows, and to produce that dismal and almost sickening hue peculiar to the equal mingling of the natural light of day with the artificial light of lamp or taper. And it was not consequently known, except to one or two individuals, who they were; but enough was seen, in the enlarged form and sober tread of the one, and in the rounded, trim figure and elastic step of the other, to show the former to be a middle-aged matron, and the latter a youthful maiden. Each was garbed in rich black silk, to which were added, in the one case, some of the usual emblems of mourning, and in the other, a few simple, tastily contrasted, light trimmings.
“What are these ladies’ names? or rather, first, I will ask, which of them is the witness?” said the leading magistrate.
“I am, I suppose,” said the maiden, in tones as soft and tremulous as the lightly-touched chord of some musical instrument, as she threw back her veil, and disclosed a beauty of features and sweetness of countenance that at once raised a buzz of admiration through the room.
“Your name, young lady?”
“Fluella, sir; and this lady at my side is Mrs. Mark Elwood, who comes only as my friend.”
“You understand the usages of courts, I conclude; and, if so, will now receive the oath, and go on to tell what you know relative to the crime for which, you have doubtless heard, the prisoner here is arraigned.”
At once raising her hand, she was sworn, and proceeded directly to state that part of the transaction she had witnessed on the lake, which the hunter, in the conversation she found means to have with him while waiting to be taken into court, had advised her was all that would be important as evidence in the case.
Gaut Gurley, the alarmed prisoner, who at first had appeared greatly relieved on finding that the announced witness was not the reänimated young Elwood, as he had feared, now seemed utterly at fault to conjecture what either of these women could know of his crime. But the moment the maiden, whom he had seen the previous year, and regarded with jealous dislike, as the possible rival of his daughter, revealed herself to his view, his looks grew dark and suspicious; and when she commenced by mentioning, as she did at the outset, that she was on a boat excursion along the western shore of the Maguntic, on the well-remembered day when he consummated his long cherished atrocity, he seemed to comprehend the drift of what was coming, and his eyes fastened on her with the livid glare of a tiger; while those demoniac flashes, before noted as the usual precursor of hellish intent with him, began to burn up and play over his contracting countenance.
But these suspicious indications had escaped the notice of all,—even of the watchful hunter, whose looks, with those of the rest, were for the moment hanging, with intense interest, on the speaking lips of the fair witness. And she proceeded uninterrupted, till, having described the position in the thicket on shore, in which she was standing, as Mark Elwood, followed by Gaut Gurley, both of whom she recognized, came along, she, nerving herself for the task, raised her voice and said:
“I distinctly saw Mr. Elwood fall, convulsed in death,—heard the fatal shot, and instantly traced it to Gaut, before he had taken his smoking rifle from his shoulder,—this same man who now——”
When, as she was uttering the last words, and turning to the prisoner, she stopped short, recoiled, and uttered a loud shriek of terror. And, the next instant, the deafening report of a pistol burst from the corner where the prisoner was sitting, filling the room with smoke, and bringing every man to his feet, in the amazement and alarm that seized all at the sudden outbreak.
There was a dead pause for a moment; and then was heard the sudden rush of men, the sharp, brief struggle, and the heavy fall of the grappled prisoner, as he was borne overpowered to the floor.
“Thank God!” exclaimed the hunter, the first to reach the bewildered maiden, and ascertain what had befell from this fiendish attempt to take her life simply because she was instrumental in bringing a wretch to justice,—“thank God, she is unhurt! The bullet has only cut the dress on her side, and passed into the wall beyond.”
“Order in court!” sternly cried the head magistrate. “It is enough! Mr. Phillips, conduct these ladies to some more suitable apartment. We wish for no more proof. The prisoner’s guilt is already piled mountain-high. We commit him to your hands, Mr. Sheriff. Within one hour, let him be on his way to Lancaster jail, there to await his final trial and doom, for one of the foulest murders that ever blasted the character of human kind!”
We will not attempt to describe, in detail, the lively and bustling scene, which, for the next hour or two, now ensued in and around the tavern, that had lately been the unaccustomed theatre of so many new and startling developments. The running to and fro of the excited and jubilant throng of men, women, and children, who, in their anxiety to witness and know the result of the trial, had passed the whole night in the place,—the partaking of the hastily snatched breakfast, in the tavern, by some, or on logs or bunches of shingles in the yard, by others, from provisions brought along with them from home,—the hurried harnessing of horses and running out of wagons, preparatory to the departure of those here with the usual vehicles of travel,—the resounding blows and lumbering sounds of the score of lusty men who had volunteered to replace and repair the bridge from the old materials luckily thrown on the bank a short distance down the stream, so as to permit the departing teams, going in that direction, to pass safely over,—and, lastly, the bringing out, the placing on his bed of straw in the bottom of a wagon, and the moving off of the caged lion, with his cavalcade of guards before and behind,—the fiercely exultant hurrahing of the execrating crowd, as he disappeared up the road to the west, together with the crowning, extra loud and triumphant kuk-kuk-ke-o-ho! of Comical Codman, who had mounted a tall stump for the purpose, and made the preliminary declaration that, if he was ever to have another crow, it should be now, on seeing the Devil’s unaccountable and first cousin, to say the least, in relationship, so handsomely cornered, and, at last so securely put in limbo,—these, all these combined to form a scene as stirring to the view, as it was replete with moral picturesque to the mind. But we must content ourself with this meagre outline; another and a different, quickly succeeding scene in the shifting panorama, now demands our attention.
Among the crowd who had arranged themselves in rows, to witness the departure of the court officials and the prisoner, were the two now inseparable friends, Mrs. Elwood and Fluella; who, on turning from the spectacle, had strolled, arm-in-arm, to a green, shaded grass-plot at the farther end of the tavern building, and were now, with pensive but interested looks, bending over the garden fence, and inspecting a small parterre of budding flowers, which female taste had, even in a place so lately redeemed from the forest as this, found means to introduce. They were lingering here, while others were departing, for the arrival of expected friends, though evidently not conscious of their very near approach. But even then, as they stood listlessly gazing over upon the mute objects of their interest, those friends were coming across the bridge, in the singularly contrasted forms of an aged man, walking without any staff, and with a firm elastic tread, and quite a youngerly one, walking with a cane, and with careful steps and a restrained gait, betokening some lingering soreness of body or limb. On reaching the nearest part of the tavern-yard, the young man gazed eagerly round among the still numerous crowd, when, his eye falling on those of whom he seemed to be in search, he turned to his companion and said:
“There they are, Chief. I will go forward and take them by surprise.”
The next moment he was standing closely behind the unconscious objects of his attention; when, with a smiling lip but silent tongue, he gently laid a hand on a shoulder of each.
“Claud!” burst from the lips of the surprised and reddening maiden, the first to turn to the welcome intruder.
“Claud! Claud!” exclaimed the agitated matron, as she also turned, in grateful surprise, to greet, for the first time since his return, her heart’s idol. “My son! my son!” she continued, with gathering emotion, “are you indeed restored alive to my arms, and, but for you, my now doubly desolate home? Thank Heaven! O thank Heaven! for the happy, happy restoration!”
“That is right, dear mother!” at length responded the visibly touched young man, gently disengaging himself from the long maternal embrace; “that is all right. But,” he added, turning to the maiden, whose sympathetic tears were coursing down her fair cheeks, “if you would thank any earthly being for the preservation of my life, it should be this good and lovely girl at your side.”
“I know it,” said the mother, after a thoughtful pause, “I know it; and, Claud, I would that she were indeed my daughter.”
There was an embarrassing pause. But the embarrassment was not perceived and felt by these two young persons alone. Another, unknown to them, had silently witnessed the whole interview from an open, loosely-curtained window of the chamber above; and perceived, and felt, and appreciated, all that had transpired, in word and look, no less keenly than the young couple, whose beating hearts, only, were measuring the moments of their silent perplexity. That other was Gaut Gurley’s lovely and luckless but strong-hearted daughter. Having instinctively read her father’s guilt, she had come to his trial with a sinking heart; shut herself up alone in this small chamber; so arranged the screening curtains that she could sit by the open window unseen, and kept her post through that long night of her silent woe, hearing all that was said by the crowd below, and, through their comments, becoming apprised of all that was going on in the court-room, in the order it transpired. She had known of Fluella’s arrival,—her perilous passage over the river,—of the report she then made to the hunter of her discoveries,—of her bringing back the wounded Claud in safety,—of the dastardly attempt of the prisoner to take that heroic girl’s life,—of his sentence, and, finally, of his departure for prison, amidst the execrations of a justly indignant people. She had known all this, and felt it, to the inmost core of her rent heart, with the twofold anguish of a broken-hearted lover and a fate-smitten daughter. She had wrestled terribly with her own heart, and she had conquered. She had determined her destiny; and now, on witnessing the last part of the tender scene enacting under her window, she suddenly formed the high resolve of crowning her self-immolation by a public sacrifice.
Accordingly she hastily rose from her seat, and, without thought or care of toilet, descended rapidly to the yard, and, with hurrying step and looks indicative of settled purpose, moved directly towards the deeply surprised actors in the little scene, of which she had thus been made the involuntary witness.
“No ceremony!” she said, in tones of unnatural calmness, with a forbidding gesture to Claud, who, while Fluella was instinctively shrinking to the side of the more unmoved but still evidently disturbed Mrs. Elwood, had advanced a step for a respectful greeting. “No ceremony—it is needless; and no fears, fair girl, and anxious mother—they are without cause. I come not to mar, but to make, happiness. Claud Elwood, my heart once opened and turned to you, as the sunflower to its god; and our paths of love met, and, for a while, ran on pleasantly together as one. But, even then, something whispered me they would soon again diverge, and lead off to separate destinies. The boded divergence, as I feared, began with the fatal family feud of last winter, and has now resulted, as I still more feared, in plunging us, respectively, in degradation and sorrow, and also in placing our destinies as wide as the poles asunder. Claud, Claud Elwood,—can you love this beautiful girl at your side? You speak not. I know that you can. I relinquish, then, whatever I may have possessed of your heart, to her, if she wills. And why should she not? Why reject one whose life she would peril her own to save? She will not. Be you two, then, one; and may all the earthly happiness I once dreamed of, with none of the bitter alloy it has been my lot to experience, be henceforth yours. You will know me no more. With to-morrow’s sun, I travel to a distant cloister, where the world, with its tantalizing loves and dazzling ambitions, will be nothing more to me forever. Farewell, Claud! farewell, gentle, heroic maiden! farewell, afflicted, happy mother! If the prayers of Avis Gurley have virtue, their first incense shall rise for the healing of all the heart-wounds one of her family has inflicted.”
As the fair speaker ceased, and turned away from this doubtless unspeakably painful performance of what she deemed her last worldly duty, as well as an acceptable opening act in the life of penance to which she had resolved now to devote herself, an audible murmur of applause ran through the throng, who, in spite of their wish not to appear intrusive, had paused at a little distance, to listen to and witness the unexpected and singular scene. Among the voices which had been thus more distinctly raised was that of a stranger, who, having arrived a few minutes before, given his horse to the waiter, shook hands with the hunter and the chief, to whom he appeared well known, had joined the crowd to see what was going on, and who had been particularly emphatic in the open expression of his admiration. The remembered tones of his voice, though attracting no attention from others, instantly reached the quick ears of one of the more silent actors of the little scene we have been describing. She threw a quick, eager glance around her; and, having soon singled out from the now scattering crowd, the person of whom her sparkling eye seemed in search, she flew forward towards him, with the joyful cry:
“My father! my white father! I am glad, O, so glad you have come!” and she eagerly grasped his outstretched hand, shook it, kissed him, and, being now relieved from the embarrassment she had keenly felt in the position in which she had just been so unexpectedly placed, appeared to be all joy and animation.
“Come, come, Fluella, don’t shake my arm off, nor bother me now with questions,” laughingly said the gentleman, thus affectionately beset, as he pulled the joyous girl along towards the spot where the wondering Mrs. Elwood and her son were standing. “You must not quite monopolize me; here are others who may wish to see me.”
“Arthur!” exclaimed Mrs. Elwood, with a look of astonishment, after once or twice parting her lips to speak, and then pausing, as if in doubt, as the other was coming up with his face too much averted to be fairly seen by her; “it is—it is—Arthur Elwood!”
“Yes, you are right, sister Alice,” responded the hard-visaged little man thus addressed, extending his hand. “It is the same odd stick of an old bachelor that he always was. But who is this?” he added, with an inclination of the head towards Claud. “Your son, I suppose?”
The formal introduction to each other of the (till then) personally unacquainted uncle and nephew; the full developing to the astonished mother and son of the fact, already inferred from what they had just witnessed, that this, their eccentric kinsman, was no other than the foster-father of Fluella,—that he was the owner of large tracts of the most valuable wild lands around these lakes, the oversight of which, together with the unexpected tutelary care of the Elwood family since their removal to the settlement, he had intrusted to the prudent and faithful Phillips,—and, finally, the melancholy mingling of sorrows for the untimely death of the fated brother, husband, and father of these deeply-sympathizing co-relatives, now, like chasing lights and shadows from alternating sunshine and cloud on a landscape, followed in rapid succession, in unfolding to the mournfully happy circle their mutual positions and bonds of common interest.
“Evil has its antidotes,” remarked Arthur Elwood, as the conversation on these subjects began to flag and give room for other thoughts growing out of the association; “evil has its antidotes, and sorrow its alleviating joys. And especially shall we realize this, if the suggestions of that self-sacrificing girl, who has just addressed you so feelingly, be now followed. What say you, Claud?”
“They will be,” promptly responded the young man, at once comprehending all which the significant question involved; “they will be, on my part, uncle Arthur, joyfully,—proudly.”
“And you, Fluella?” persisted the saucy querist, turning to the blushing girl.
“He has not asked me yet,” she quickly replied, with a look in which maiden pride, archness, and unuttered happiness, were charmingly blended. “If he should, and you should command me”——
“Command? command! Now, that is a good one, Fluella,” returned the laughing foster-father. “Well, well, a woman will be a woman still, any way you can fix it. All right, however, I presume. But, chief,” he added, turning to the natural father, who stood with the hunter a little in the background, “what has been going on here cannot have escaped your keen observation; and you ought to have a voice in this matter. “What do you say?”
“The chief,” replied the other, with his usual dignity, “the chief has had one staff, one light of his lodge; he will now have two. Wenongonet is content.”
“It is settled, then,” rejoined the former, whose usually passionless countenance was now beaming with pleasure; “all right, all round. Now, sister Alice, let us all adjourn to your house, where you and Fluella, from some of those splendid lake trout which I and Mr. Phillips, who, as well as the chief, must be of the party, will first go out and catch for you,—you and Fluella, I say, must cook us up a nice family dinner, over which we will discuss matters at large, and have a good time generally.”
In a few minutes more the happy group were on their way to the Elwood cottage.
The principal interest of our story is at an end; and with it, also, the story itself should speedily terminate. A few words more, however, seem necessary, to anticipate the inquiries which will very naturally arise in the mind of the reader, respecting what might be expected soon to follow the eclaircissement of the few last pages; and, accordingly, as far as can be done without marring the unity of time, we will proceed, briefly, to answer the inquiries thus arising.
The body of the fated Mark Elwood, perforated through the breast by the bullet of his cold-blooded murderer, having broken from the sinking weights attached to it, and risen to the surface of the lake, was found in about a fortnight, brought home, and buried on his farm.
Not far from the same time the faithful hunter received, from the hands of a gentleman passing through the settlement, a deed of gift of three hundred acres of valuable timber-land, adjoining his own little patch of a lot, all duly drawn, signed, and executed by Arthur Elwood; who, after a pleasant sojourn of a week at the Elwood cottage, apprising its inmates of what he had in store for them, in the line of property, had departed for his home, a happier man than he had been, since, for secret griefs, he had dissolved partnership with his brother Mark, and left the little interior village where the pair first made their humble beginning in life.
Codman, the trapper, continued to trap it still, and, as all the settlers within a circuit of many miles around them were often unmistakably made aware, to crow as usual on all extra occasions.
Tomah, the college-learned Indian, immediately left, with the escort of the prisoner, and, kept away by the force of some associations connected with the settlement as disagreeable to him as they were conjecturable to others, was never again seen in the settlement; against which, on leaving, he seemed to have kicked off the dust of his feet behind him.
Carvil, the cultivated amateur hunter, had also immediately departed, with the court party, on his way to his pleasant home in the Green Mountains; not wholly to relinquish, however, his yearly sojourns in the forests, to regain health impaired for the want of a more full supply of his coveted, life-giving oxygen.
And, lastly, Gaut Gurley, whose infernal scheming and revolting atrocities have been so inseparably interwoven with the main incidents of our story, broke jail, on the night preceding the day set for his final trial, by digging through the thick stone wall of his prison, with implements evidently furnished from without, leaving bloody traces of his difficult egress through the hardly sufficient hole he had effected for the purpose; and, though instant search was everywhere made for him, he was not, to the sad disappointment of the thousands intending to be in at the hanging, anywhere to be found or heard of in the country. And the mystery of his retreat, and the still unexplained mystery of his strange and ruinous influence over the man whom he at last so flagitiously murdered, were not cleared up until years afterwards.