Bart Ridgeley Part 38

and pa.s.sed one arm around the slender girl.

"Please! please!" cried her pleading voice, with her face still away. "This is my secret--you will not tell--let him find it out for himself--please!"

"Certainly; I will leave to him the joy of hearing it from you," said the elder, in her inmost soul sympathizing with the younger.

What a deep and tranquil joy possessed the heart of the mother, and with what wonder she contemplated the now conscious maiden! and how she wondered at her own blindness! And so the threatening cloud broke for her: broke into not only a serene peace, but a heartfelt joy and grat.i.tude; and she parted with Julia with the first kiss she had ever bestowed upon her.

At the ensuing fall term of the Geauga Common Pleas, Myers was indicted for horse-stealing. The prosecuting officer refused to make terms with him, and permit him to escape, on condition of furnishing evidence against others, as he had hoped when he made his confession; and when arraigned, he plead not guilty, and upon proper showing, his case was continued to the next term, in January.

A great crowd from all parts of the adjacent country, and many from a distance, had a.s.sembled to witness the trial of Myers. The region of Eastern Ohio had, like many new and exposed communities, suffered for years from the occasional depredations of horse thieves. It was supposed that an organization existed, extending into Pennsylvania.

The horses taken were traced to the mountain region in that State, where they disappeared; and although Greer and Brown were never before connected with this branch of industry, it was thought that the horses in question, which had been intercepted, were in the regular channels of the trade, which it was hoped, would now be broken up. One noticeable thing at the court was the presence of Greer, who apparently came and went at pleasure. He was cool and elegant as usual, and seemingly unconcerned and a little more exclusive. His being at large was much at variance with the understood programme, and necessitated its reconstruction. Little was said about Bart, and it was apparent that the public mind had returned to a more favorable tone towards him.

CHAPTER XLIV.

FINDING THE WAY.

On an early December evening, in a bright, quiet room, at the Delavan House, in Albany, sat Bart Ridgeley alone, thoughtfully and sadly contemplating a ma.n.u.script, that lay before him, which ran as follows:

"UNIONVILLE, Nov. 27, 1838.

"_My Dear Bart_:--Poor Sartliff has, it seems, finally found the way.

It was that short, direct, everlasting old way, so crowded, which everybody finds, and n.o.body loses or mistakes. You told me of your last interview with him, as did he, not long after you left. It seemed to have depressed him. He spoke of you as one who could have greatly aided him, but did not blame you.

"The next time I saw him, I found him much changed for the worse.

He was thin and haggard--more so than I had ever seen him. His old hopefulness and buoyancy were gone, and he was given to very gloomy and depressing views of things. He thought he had made great progress, in fact had reached a new discovery, and it was not in the least encouraging.

"He finally concluded that the grand and wondrously beautiful spirits that he seemed to get glimpses of, and whose voices he used to hear, were really convict spirits, or angels, imprisoned on or banished to this earth, for a period of years, or for eternity, for crimes committed in the sun, or some less luminous abode; and I presume are cutting up here, much after their old way. Though it must be conceded that this world is a place of severe punishment.

"He went on to a more depressing view of us mortals, and said he had concluded that our souls were also the souls of beings who had inhabited some more favored region of the universe, also sent here for punishment; and that each was compelled to enter and inhabit a human body, for the lifetime of that body; and to suffer by partaking of all of its wretched, sensual, and degrading vicissitudes; and that whenever the soul is sufficiently punished, the body dies and permits it to escape.

"I suggested that it made no difference where the soul came from, if there was one, nor how many bodies it had inhabited; and that it made against his idea, that the soul was older than the body; for if it was, it would be conscious of that pre-existence. He said that every soul did at times have a consciousness of existence in another and older form, which was very dark from its transgressions. But he took the part of the native body against this alien soul, and felt hurt and grieved that our world was a mere penal colony--a penitentiary for all the scabbed and leprous souls and spirits of the rest of G.o.d's creation. It was bad economy; and he grieved over it as a deep and irreparable personal injury.

"This was a month ago; and I never saw him again. He wandered off down into the neighborhood of Erie, where he had many acquaintances, took less care of himself, went more scantily clad, was more abstemious in diet, and more and more disregarded the conditions of human existence.

Finally, his mind became as wandering as his body.

"He wanted nothing, asked for nothing, rejected food, and refused shelter, and as often as taken in and cared for, he managed to escape, and wander away, feebly and helplessly, from human a.s.sociation and ministration. He complained to himself that his great mother, Nature, had deserted him, a helpless child, to wander and perish in the wilderness. He said he had gone after her, until weary, starving, and worn, he must lie down and die. He had called after her until his voice had sunk to a wail; and he finally died of a child's heart-broken sense of abandonment and desertion.

"He was found one day, nearly unconscious, with the tears frozen in his eyes, and on being cared for, wailed his life out in broken sobs.

"Let us not grieve that he has found rest.

"I am too sad to write of other things, and you will be melancholy over this for a month.

"CASE."

CHAPTER XLV.

SOME THINGS PUT AT REST.

At the January term of the Court, the case of Ohio _vs._ Myers, came up; and the defendant failing on his motion to continue, the case was brought on for trial, and a jury was sworn. His princ.i.p.al counsel was Bissell, of Painesville, a man of great native force and talent, and who in a desperate stand-up fight, had no superior at that time in Northern Ohio. He expected to exclude the confession, on the ground that Myers had been induced to make it upon representations that it would be for his advantage to do so; and if this could be got out of the way, he was not without the hope of finding the other evidence of the State too weak to work a conviction.

The interest in the case had not abated, and a great throng of people were in attendance.

Hitchc.o.c.k, with whom Henry Ridgeley was in company at the time of his death, then an able lawyer, was the prosecuting officer, aided by the younger Wilder, who had succeeded Henry as his partner.

Wilder was a young lawyer of great promise, and was the active man in the criminal cases.

He stated the case to the court and jury, saying among other things, that he would not only prove the larceny by ordinary evidence, but by the confession of the prisoner himself. Bissell dropped his heavy brows, and remarked in his seat, "that he would have a good time doing that."

Wilder called one of the officers who made the arrest, proved that fact, and then asked him the plump question, in a way to avoid a leading form, whether the prisoner made a confession? Bissell objected, on the ground that before he could answer, the defendant had a right to know whether he was induced to make it, by any representations from the witness or others.

Wilder answered, that it did not yet appear that a confession had been made. If it should be shown that one had, it would be then time to discuss its admissibility; and so the court ruled; and the witness answered that Myers did make a full confession. Wilder directed him to state it, Bissell again objected, and although Wilder urged that he had a right to go through with his witness, and leave the other side to call out the inducement, if any, on cross-examination, the court ruled that the circ.u.mstances under which the confession was made was a preliminary matter that the defendant had a right to show. When the witness answered to Bissell, that he told Myers after his arrest that they knew all about the larceny, but did not know who his accomplices were, and that if he would tell all about them he would undoubtedly be favored; and that then the defendant told his story. Upon this statement, Wilder cross-examined the witness, and managed to extract several items of the confession, when the court held that the confession was inadmissible.

Myers drew a breath of relief, but Bissell's brow did not clear. He knew that the State had gained all it expected to; it had proved that a confession was made, which was about as bad as the confession itself. Under this cloud, Wilder called his other evidence, which of itself, was very inconclusive, and which, with the added weight that a confession had been made, left much uncertainty as to the result, and Bissell was girding himself for the final struggle. Wilder then called the name of John T. Greer--when the head of Myers dropped, and midnight fell upon the brow of Bissell.

Placidly and serenely, that gentleman answered the call, and took the stand--seemingly the only unconcerned gentleman present. He said that he knew Myers well--had known him for years; that on the morning after the larceny, he saw him and another man, at McMillan's, near Youngstown; that they brought with them a pair of horses, which he described exactly as the stolen horses, and that Myers told him they got them the night before, at Conant's barn in Troy; that he denounced Myers to his face as a horse thief, and threatened to expose him.

This evidence produced a prodigious sensation. Bissell put the witness through a savage cross-examination. In answer to the questions, he said that Myers and himself, and others, belonged to an a.s.sociation, of which Jim Brown was the head, for manufacturing paper currency and coin, and supplying it at various points; had never pa.s.sed a dollar himself; that he broke with Myers because he was a thief, and no gentleman; that the a.s.sociation had never had any connection with running off horses, &c.

"To whom did you first disclose this act of Myers?"

"To a young lawyer at Jefferson, in his private room."

"Who was he?"

"Barton Ridgeley." Great sensation, and men looked at one another.

"Did he belong to your financial a.s.sociation?"

"Never!" Sensation.

"Why did you go to him?"

"I had a little acquaintance with him, and had great confidence in him. I wanted to consult somebody, and I went to him." He went on to say that he consulted him as a lawyer and not as a friend; that when he told Ridgeley of the a.s.sociation, which was drawn out of him by a cross-examination, Ridgeley told him at once, that while he would not use this against the witness, he certainly would against his a.s.sociates. That soon after Mr. Wade came in, and he found out that Ridgeley had managed to send for him. That Ridgeley then insisted that he should tell the whole story to Mr. Wade, and he did. That Wade called in a United States Deputy Marshal, and induced the witness to make an affidavit, when the Marshal went to Columbus, got warrants, and arrested Brown and others.

He was asked what fee he paid young Ridgeley, and he answered, nothing. He offered him a liberal fee, and he refused it. He understood Ridgeley had gone East, but did not know; nor who furnished him with money.

The prosecution rested.

Wade was present, and Bissell called him; and in answer to Wilder, said he proposed to contradict Greer. Wilder replied, that although he was not ent.i.tled to such a privilege, yet he had no objection; and Wade, in the most emphatic way, corroborated Greer throughout. He said that Ridgeley was at that time at the Albany law-school, and would soon be back to answer for himself; and when asked if he was not poor, answered, that friends always came to such young men, with a glance at the bench, where Markham sat with Humphrey. The perfect desperation of his case alone warranted Bissell in calling Wade, with whose testimony the trial closed; and on the verdict of guilty, Myers was sentenced to the Penitentiary for ten years. And for the third or fourth time Barton's acquaintances were disposed to regard him as a hero.