The Old Homestead Part 14

CHESTER'S TRIAL.

In his dusty web the spider lay-- All bloated and black was he, And he watched his victim pa.s.s that way, With a quiver of horrid glee!

A few mornings before the little birth-day party described in our last chapter, two men were seen to enter the Mayor's office, accompanied by the Alderman, whom we have seen closeted with him before. The Mayor was alone in his private room, and the Alderman left his two companions in the outer office, while he held a moment's private conversation with his honor. There was a sort of boisterous exultation in the Alderman's manner, which rather displeased the Mayor, who looked upon the exhibition of any feeling as a weakness, but he received his friend with his usual bland smile, and requested him to be seated.

The Alderman drew his leather-cushioned seat close to the Mayor, and laid his broad red hand on his honor's knee.

"They are here--both the witnesses are here ready to enter a complaint--I told you they were just the men to nail this Chester?"

"Here!" said the Mayor, "my friend--my good fellow--you should not have brought the witnesses here. In all these doubtful cases--do you understand?--_I_ never receive a direct complaint. It must come through the Chief of Police. This one especially. He must call upon me officially to act!"

"The chief!" exclaimed the Alderman, in dismay, "why Chester is one of his especial pets. It will never do to entrust the business with him."

"Oh! have no fear. His duty forces him to present the complaint, when once entered, before him. Further than that, he has no power, no voice in the matter. It rests by law with the Mayor alone. He is judge--juror. He is _the law_ in these cases, you know."

"Then you think we may venture the case with the chief?" said the Alderman, still doubtful. "He will do all in his power to save Chester, I am certain."

"But he has no power! He has no right even to hear the evidence, unless I desire it. His interference is a mere form--but it has a good appearance--half these fellows know nothing about the law, and when we break them it casts some of the odium on him. It gives him an appearance of responsibility, but not a particle of power. Take your witnesses to the chief--to the chief, my dear fellow, and leave the rest to me--_to the law_."

The Alderman rejoined his witnesses, and went to the chief's office.

From that office, twenty-four hours after, was sent the letter which Chester received on the night of his birth-day.

The day of trial came. Within the railing of the chief's office sat his honor, the Mayor, calmly shaving down the point of a pencil, which he tried from time to time on a sheet of paper that lay on the desk before him. At his elbow was the clerk, with a quire of foolscap neatly arranged, and holding a pen idly in his hand.

In a little room back of the office sat the Chief of Police--his portly person filling the circ.u.mference of a comfortable office chair, and his jovial, good-humored countenance somewhat clouded with anxiety for the fate of the n.o.ble young man on trial, for he had learned both to love and respect the accused. His presence was evidently annoying to his honor, who dreaded the shrewd observation, the keen knowledge of men and things which would be brought to bear on the examination.

He would rather have encountered the whole bar of New York, than the sharp, but apparently careless scrutiny of this one man. But there sat the chief just within the shadow of his private closet, the star of office glittering on his broad chest, linked to his garments by a chain of ma.s.sive gold. The walls behind him were garnished with heavy oaken clubs, highly polished hand-cuffs and iron shackles, with various other grim insignia of his office.

In vain the Mayor moved restlessly in his chair. In vain he turned his cold and repelling look toward the immovable chief. You might have seen a covert smile now and then gleam in the eyes of that obstinate functionary, but otherwise he seemed profoundly unconscious that his presence was in the least disagreeable. The Mayor did not venture upon the unprecedented step of requiring him to withdraw, so after a good deal of meaningless delay, the trial went on.

Chester stood without the railing which encircled the Mayor and his clerk. His air was firm, his countenance calm, and almost haughty.

He awaited the proceedings with quiet indignation. Behind him stood the two men whom he had followed from the dram-shop on the night of his fall, and in a corner of the office sat Jones, the liquor dealer, with two or three persons entirely unknown to Chester.

The Mayor lifted his eyes, but they glanced beyond Chester. With all his coolness he had not the nerve to look directly into the proud and searching eyes bent so calmly on him.

"Is your counsel here, Mr. Chester?" inquired his honor.

"I am here, needing no other counsel, if I am to have a fair trial,"

replied Chester, firmly.

"I hope you do not doubt that your trial will be a fair one!" said the Mayor, sharpening his pencil afresh, for he wanted some occupation for both eyes and hands.

Chester smiled with so much reproachful scorn, that the Mayor felt it without turning his glance that way.

"I am waiting," said Chester, "for proof of the charges that have been preferred against me!"

At a sign from the Mayor, the man Smith came forward and was placed under oath. Chester's eyes were upon him as he touched the book, and the man turned visibly pale. But in his false oath--for the man perjured himself in the first sentence--he gained more courage.

"Chester," he said, "had entered the dram-shop, where he and his friend"--here the man pointed to his accomplice--"were quietly pa.s.sing an hour before going to fulfill an engagement. Here he spent perhaps half an hour, drinking brandy-and-water by the stove. They had noticed him particularly, knowing it to be against the law for policemen to indulge in drinking while on duty. The witness went out with his companion, leaving Chester by the stove, evidently much affected by what he had drank. As he and his companion stood beneath an old tree that grew in front of the liquor store, Chester came forth, reeling in his walk, and after a vain effort to maintain his foothold, fell upon the pavement wholly intoxicated. Several other persons saw him in this position, but the witness and his friend led him home, and consigned him to the care of his wife."

It was a plausible perjury, and several innocent persons came forward to strengthen it. They had seen Chester down upon the ice, and had been told that he was intoxicated; so in good faith, and with no intention of wrong, they corroborated the treacherous story that was to destroy a good name.

Chester stood by as this story was artfully strengthened by the sweet-toned and subtle questionings of the Mayor. His face was very pale, and he trembled from head to foot with honest and stern anger--nay, he felt something of horror, something unselfish, in a.n.a.lyzing the cold-blooded craft, and unflinching perjury that had been brought to bear upon him. There was absolute sublimity in his pale silence, as he allowed witness after witness to pa.s.s from the box unchallenged--unquestioned. And all this foul perjury the clerk registered down, and the Alderman who had arranged the charges stood by to hear.

Then Chester was called upon for his defence. He stood upright, grasping the railing with his right hand. His voice was low and deep-toned as a bell; it made the Mayor start with its clear, searching accents. He told the truth, the simple, natural truth, as it has been given to the reader, but with eloquence, and energy which the pen has no power to describe.

"That man," he said, turning as he stood, and pointing his finger at the perjured Smith, "that man--let him step forward and tell the story he has sworn to, with his face lifted to mine, eye to eye, with the man he accuses. If he can do this, I ask no other defence. Let him say who it is that has instigated him to heap this foul wrong upon an innocent man, what is to be his reward--whose deeper and more subtle enmity he is working out! Let him but speak these things with his eye looking into mine, and I am content."

The craven thus addressed, did look in Chester's eyes as a bird gazes upon the eye of a serpent; he could not do otherwise--his face, his very mouth were white; he trembled from head to foot. Conscience tugging at his evil heart, had well-nigh dragged forth the truth, but the cold, low voice of the Mayor, drove it back again, even from his pallid lips.

"The witness has told his story under oath--others have substantiated it. You had the right to question him then. There is no reason why he should undergo a second examination."

This speech had its desired effect. Smith drew a deep breath, and putting on an air of dogged bravado, looked round at his companions like a mastiff who had been just rescued from a fight that threatened to destroy him. The Mayor fell to sharpening his pencil again, and the Alderman made an effort to open a little gate in the corner of the railing, and would have approached his honor. But the constraining look with which his attempt to open the gate was received by that prudent functionary, checked him. The Mayor felt that any appearance of understanding even with the Alderman, might be perilous, while the Chief sat regarding the proceedings with such real interest and apparent unconcern.

"And have you nothing else to offer--no witnesses?" said the Mayor, addressing Chester.

"None!" answered Chester, wiping the drops from his forehead. "I have told the truth; if that is not believed all the witnesses on earth would be of no avail."

Then came from an outer chamber, grated by the iron door of a cell where chance prisoners were sometimes locked, and hung with gilded stars, and firemen's banners, a young figure diminutive, and of pale and sickly features.

"Mary, my poor child!" said Chester, but she only lifted her large eyes to his an instant, and going up to the railing held to it with her hand.

"May I be sworn as those men have been?" she said, addressing the startled Mayor in the same sweet tones that had claimed his compa.s.sion months before.

"You! what can you know of the matter?" said his honor sharply, and almost thrown off his guard.

"Not much, but something I do know," answered the child meekly. "May I speak?"

"But you are too young--how old are you?" cried the Mayor, hoping to have found a legal reason for sending away the obtrusive little imp, as he called the child in his heart.

"I am twelve, sir--just twelve."

The Mayor cast an uneasy glance at the Chief's closet and then at the child.

"Sir," said Chester, "I do not know what this poor child desires to say, but it is my wish that she be heard."

"If she is offered as a witness there is no disputing her right to speak," replied his honor, but with a disturbed countenance, and taking a little worn Bible, marked with a broad cross from the desk before him, his honor held it toward the child.

She took the Bible between both her hands and pressed her lips reverently upon it.

"Now," said the Mayor, "what do you wish to say?"

"It was so still out yonder that I could not help but hear--poor Mrs.

Chester was very anxious, and I thought perhaps some one might give me good news to carry home."

"This has nothing to do with the matter, child."

"I know," replied the little girl, meeting the Mayor's rebuff with her usual humility. "But I thought perhaps you might ask how I came by the door. Well, sir, I heard what these men said about Mr. Chester.

I knew their voices, sir, for I have heard them before, on the night they were talking about, as they stood under the great elm tree waiting for Mr. Chester to come out."