Out of the Hurly-Burly Part 20

He was haggard and pale, and his eyes were cast down to the floor.

"Why, d.i.c.k, what's the matter?" asked the doctor.

"Dr. Ricketts, I have come to make a shameful confession. I--"

"Well?" said the doctor, suspiciously and impatiently, as d.i.c.k's voice faltered.

"I will not hesitate about it," said d.i.c.k, hurriedly; "I am afraid it is even now too late. I stole the diamond brooch."

"What?" exclaimed the doctor, jumping to his feet in a frenzy of indignant excitement.

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"I am the cause of all this trouble. It was my fault that Mary Engle was accused and convicted, and it will be my fault if she is punished. Oh, doctor, cannot something be done to save her? I never intended it should go so far."

"You infamous scoundrel!" said the doctor, unable to restrain his scorn and contempt; "why did you not say this before? Why did you permit all this misery and shame to fall upon the defenceless head of a woman for whom an honest man should have sacrificed his very life? How was this villainy consummated? Tell me, quickly!"

The poor wretch sank upon his knees, and with a trembling voice exclaimed,

"I loved her. I hated Tom Willitts. He sent her a bracelet. I knew it would come. I broke open father's cabinet and took his brooch. With threats and money I induced Tom's servant to lend me the box for a few moments before he entered the house. I placed the brooch in it. She thought it came from Tom, and she resolved to die rather than betray him, although she thinks him the cause of her ruin. It was vile and mean and wicked in me, but I thought Tom would be the victim, not she; and when the trouble came, I could not endure the shame of exposure. But you will save her now, doctor, will you not? I will fly--leave the country--kill myself--anything to prevent this awful crime."

The miserable man burst into tears. Dr. Ricketts looked at him a moment with eyes filled with pity and scorn, and then said,

"So my theory was right, after all. Come, sir, you will go to the governor with me, and we will see if he will grant a pardon upon your confession."

"What, to-night?" asked d.i.c.k.

"Yes, to-night--now; and it will be well for you and your victim if fleet horses carry us to Dover and back before ten to-morrow morning."

In five minutes the pair were seated in a carriage, and through the black night they sped onward, the one with his heart swelling with hope, joy and humanity, the other cowering in the darkness, full of misery and self-contempt, and of horrible forebodings of the future.

Sat.u.r.day morning--a cold, raw, gusty morning in May.

The town was in a small uproar. Men lounged on the porches of the taverns, in front of which their horses were hitched, talking politics, discussing crop prospects, the prices of grain, the latest news by coach and schooner from Philadelphia. Inside the bar-room men were reading newspapers a month old, drinking, swearing and debating with loud voices.

But the attraction that morning was in another quarter. In the middle of the market street there was a common--a strip of green sod twenty feet wide fringed on either side with a row of trees. In the centre of this stood the whipping-post and pillory.

The hour of ten tolled out from the steeple down the street. It was the same bell that called the people together on Sunday to worship G.o.d and to supplicate his mercy. It was a bell of various uses. It summoned the saints to prayer and the sinners to punishment.

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At its earliest stroke the jailer issued from the prison with a forlorn-looking white man in his clutches. He hurried his prisoner up the ladder, and prepared to fasten him in the pillory. The boys below collected in knots, and fingered the missiles in their hands. The jailer descended. A boy lifted his hand and flung a rotten egg at the pilloried wretch. It hit him squarely in the face, and the feculent contents streamed down to his chin. That was the signal. Eggs, dead cats, mud, stones, tufts of sod and a mult.i.tude of filthy things were showered upon the prisoner, until the platform was covered with the _debris_. He yelled with pain, and strove vainly to shake from his face the blood that streamed forth from the cut skin and the filth that besmeared it.

The crowd hooted at him and laughed at his efforts, and called him vile names, and jested with him about his wooden collar and cuffs, and no human heart in all that a.s.sembly had any pity for him. For an hour he stood there, enduring inconceivable torture. When the steeple clock struck eleven, he was taken out in wretched plight, almost helpless and sorely wounded. No more pillory that day. It was the turn of the whipping-post now. There were two women to be whipped, one of them white, the other black. We know who the white woman was.

The negro was to suffer first. She was dragged from the jail wild with fright and apprehension. Around her legs a soiled skirt of calico dangled. About her naked body, stripped for the sacrifice, a fragment of carpet was hung. The jailer brought her by main force to the post through the jeering crowd, and while she begged wildly, almost incoherently, for mercy, promising vague, impossible things, the officer of the law clasped the iron cuffs about her uplifted hands, so that she was compelled to stand upon her toes to escape unendurable agony.

The blanket was torn from her shoulders, and with dilated eyes glistening with terror, she turned her head half around to where the sheriff stood, ready to execute the law.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FLOGGING SEVENTY YEARS AGO.]

This virtuous officer felt the sharp thongs of his "cat" complacently as he listened with dull ear to the incessant prayers of the woman; and when the jailer said, "Forty lashes, sheriff," the cat was swung slowly up, and the ends of the lashes touched the victim's back, bringing blood at the first blow.

The crowd laughed and applauded. The sheriff accepted the applause with the calm indifference of a man who feels the greatness of his office and has confidence in his own skill.

As the lashes came thick and fast, the skin swelled up into thick purple ridges, and then the blood spurted out in crimson streams, flowing down upon the wretched skirt and staining it with a new and dreadful hue. The woman's piercing screams rang out upon the air and filled some kind hearts with tender pity. But as it was a "n.i.g.g.e.r," the tendency to human kindness was smothered.

Beneath the blows she writhed and contorted and shrank forward, until at last, faint with loss of blood, with terrible pain and nervous exhaustion, she sank helplessly down and hung by her arms alone. At first the sheriff thought he would postpone the rest of the punishment until she recovered. But there were only five more lashes to be given, and he concluded that it would be as well to finish up the job. They were inflicted upon the insensible form, and then the jailer came forward with a pair of shears. The sheriff took them coolly and clipped away a portion of the woman's ears. Her hands were then unshackled; and bleeding, mutilated, unconscious, she was carried into the prison.

Her agonized cries had penetrated those walls already and brought a whiter hue to the pale cheeks of the woman who by this ignominy had learned her sisterhood with the poor black. There were two other women in the cell, Mrs. Engle and Mrs. Willitts. The former controlled herself for her daughter's sake, but dared speak no word to her. Mrs. Willitts, through her tears, tried to comfort Mary as with hesitating hands she disrobed her for her torture:

"The day will come, Mary dear, when you will be vindicated, and these wicked men will hide their heads with bitter shame and humiliation. But bear up bravely, dear. Have good courage through it all. Perhaps it will not be so hard. 'Though there be heaviness for a night, joy cometh in the morning.' We will all be happy together yet some day."

Mary Engle stood there, speechless, statue-like, immovable, as they took away her garments, and her fair white skin glistened in the dim light.

It was almost time. The black woman was being dragged through the door to the next cell. The murmur of the crowd came up from the street. Mrs.

Willitts placed the blanket upon those ivory shoulders, and Mary, turning to her mother, flung her arms about her and kissed her. In a whisper she said,

"I shall die, mother. I will not live through it. I will never see you again."

But there was not a tear in her eye. Wrapping the blanket tightly about her, with the calmness of despair she prepared to step from the cell at the call of the impatient jailer.

A great commotion in the streets. The noise of horse's hoofs. A din of voices; then a wild cheer.

Dr. Ricketts dashed in, flourishing a paper in his hand.

"She is pardoned! pardoned!" he shouted; "go back! take her back!" he said as the jailer laid his hand upon Mary. "See this!" and he flung the paper open in his face.

The long agony was over, and the reaction was so great that Mary Engle, hardly conscious of the good thing that had happened to her, and not fully realizing the events by which her innocence was proved, stood stupefied and bewildered. Then she felt faint, and laying her upon the low bed, they told her all the story; and when the doctor said that Tom was not a guilty man, she turned her face to the wall to hide the blinding tears, and she muttered:

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"Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d for that!"

As she came out of the prison doors, leaning on the doctor's arm, the crowd, now largely increased, hailed her with a hurrah, but Mary drew her veil over her face and shuddered as she thought how these very people had a.s.sembled to see her flogged.

"It is my theory, my dear," said the doctor, "that human beings are equally glad when their fellow-creatures get into trouble and when they get out of it."

Back once again in her old home, Mary was besieged by friends whose regard had suddenly a.s.sumed a violent form, and who were now eager to congratulate her upon her vindication.

Tom Willitts came to the door and inquired for Mrs. Engle.

"Can I come in now?" he inquired, with a glow upon his face.

He did go in, and there, before them all, he clasped Mary in his arms, while she begged him to forgive her for all the suffering she had caused him.

But Tom wanted to be forgiven, too; and as both confessed guilt, repentance and an earnest wish to be merciful, they were soon better friends than ever.

"I used to love you," said Tom, "but now I worship you for your heroism and your sacrifice for me."