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THE WAYS OF THE HOUR.

The Theft
The Ways of the Hour

“This bears some resemblance, Mr.[Mr.] Wilmeter, to an interview
in a convent. I am the novice, you the excluded friend, who is
compelled to pay his visit through a grate.”
Ways of the Hour. Page 115.

THE

WAYS OF THE HOUR.

A TALE.

BY

J. FENIMORE COOPER.

‘Is this the way

I must return to native dust?’

NEW YORK:

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1892.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, In the year 1861, by

W. A. TOWNSEND AND COMPANY,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE.

The object of this book is to draw the attention of the reader to some of the social evils that beset us; more particularly in connection with the administration of criminal justice. So long a time has intervened since the thought occurred, and so many interruptions have delayed the progress of the work, that it is felt the subject has been very imperfectly treated; but it is hoped that enough has been done to cause a few to reflect on a matter of vital importance; one that to them may possess the interest of novelty.

A strange indifference exists as to the composition of the juries. In our view, the institution itself, so admirable in a monarchy, is totally unsuited to a democracy. The very principle that renders it so safe where there is a great central power to resist, renders it unsafe in a state of society in which few have sufficient resolution to attempt even to resist popular impulses.

A hundred instances might be given in which the juries of this country are an evil; one or two of which we will point out. In trials between railroad companies and those who dwell along their lines, prejudice is usually so strong against the former, that justice for them is nearly hopeless. In certain parts of the country, the juries are made the instruments of defeating the claims of creditors who dwell at a distance, and are believed to have interests opposed to the particular community where the debtor resides. This is a most crying evil, and has been the source of many and grievous wrongs. Whenever there is a motive for creating a simulated public opinion, by the united action of several journals, justice is next to hopeless; such combinations rarely, if ever, occurring in its behalf. In cases that are connected with the workings of political schemes, and not unfrequently in those in which political men are parties to the suits, it is often found that the general prejudices or partialities of the out-door factions enter the jury-box. This is a most serious evil too; for, even when the feeling does not produce a direct and flagrant wrong, it is very apt so far to temper the right as to deprive it of much of its virtue. In a country like this, in which party penetrates to the very bottom of society, the extent of this evil can be known only to those who are brought into close contact with the ordinary workings of the institution.

In a democracy, proper selections in the material that are necessary to render juries safe, become nearly impossible. Then, the tendency is to the accumulation of power in bodies of men; and in a state of society like our own, the juries get to be much too independent of the opinion of the court. It is precisely in that condition of things in which the influence and authority of the judge guide the juror, and the investigation and substantial power of the juror react on the proceedings of the court, that the greatest benefits have been found to accrue from this institution. The reverse of this state of things will be very likely to produce the greatest amount of evil.

It is certain that the juries are falling into disrepute throughout the length and breadth of the land. The difficulty is to find a substitute. As they are bodies holding the lives, property and character of every member of the community, more or less, in their power, it is not to be supposed that the masses will surrender this important means of exercising their authority voluntarily, or with good will. Time alone can bring reform through the extent of the abuses.

The writer has not the vanity to suppose that any thing contained in this book will produce a very serious impression on the popularity of the jury. Such is not its design. All that is anticipated is to cause a portion of his readers to reflect on the subject; persons who probably have never yet given it a moment of thought.

There is a tendency, at the present time, to court change for its own sake. This is erroneously termed a love of reform. Something very like a revolution is going on in our midst, while there is much reason to apprehend that few real grievances are abated; the spurious too exclusively occupying the popular mind, to render easy a just distinction between them. When an American prates about aristocracy, it is pretty safe to set him down as knavish or ignorant. It is purely cant; and the declaimers would be puzzled to point to a single element of the little understood and much decried institution, the country being absolutely without any, unless the enjoyment of the ordinary rights of property can be so considered. But the demagogue must have his war-cry as well as the Indian; and it is probable he will continue to whoop as long as the country contains minds weak enough to furnish him with dupes.

Cooperstown, March 12, 1850.

THE WAYS OF THE HOUR.

CHAPTER I.

Mar. My lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford armed?

Aum. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.

King Richard II.

In one respect, there is a visible improvement in the goodly town of Manhattan, and that is in its architecture. Of its growth, there has never been any question, while many have disputed its pretension to improvement. A vast expansion of mediocrity, though useful and imposing, rarely satisfies either the judgment or the taste; those who possess these qualities, requiring a nearer approach to what is excellent, than can ever be found beneath the term just mentioned.

A town which is built of red bricks, that are faced with white marble, the whole garnished with green blinds, can never have but one outward sign—that of tawdry vulgarity. But this radical defect is slowly disappearing from the streets of Manhattan; and those who build, are getting to understand that architecture, like statuary, will not admit of strong contrasts in colours. Horace Walpole tells us of a certain old Lord Pembroke, who blackened the eyes of the gods and goddesses in the celebrated gallery at Wilton, and prided himself on the achievement, as if he had been another Phidias. There have been thousands of those who have laboured in the spirit of this Earl of Pembroke in the streets of all the American towns; but travelling, hints, books and example, are slowly effecting a change; and whole squares may now be seen in which the eye rests with satisfaction on blinds, facings and bricks, all brought to the same pleasing, sober, architectural tint. We regard this as the first step, in advance, that has been made in the right direction, so far as the outward aspect of the town is concerned, and look forward, with hope, to the day when Manhattan shall have banished its rag-fair finery altogether, and the place will become as remarkable for the chaste simplicity of its streets, as they have hitherto been for their marked want of taste.

With this great town, mottled as it is, in people as well as in hues, with its native population collected from all parts of this vast republic, and its European representatives amounting to scores of thousands, we shall have much to do in the succeeding pages. Our researches, however, will be bestowed more on things moral than on things physical; and we shall endeavour to carry the reader with us through scenes that, we regret to say, are far more characteristic than novel.

In one of the cross streets that communicate with Broadway, and below Canal, stands a dwelling that is obnoxious to all the charges of bad taste to which there has already been allusion, as well as to certain others that have not yet been named, at all. A quarter of a century since, or within the first twenty years of its own existence, the house in question would have been regarded as decidedly patrician, though it is now lost amid the thousands of similar abodes that have arisen since its own construction. There it stands, with its red bricks periodically painted redder; its marble facings, making a livery of red turned up with white; its green blinds, its high stoop, its half-buried and low basement, and all its neatness and comfort, notwithstanding its flagrant architectural sins. Into this building we now propose to enter, at the very early hour of eight in the morning.

The principal floor was divided, as usual, between a dining and a drawing-room, with large communicating doors. This was the stereotyped construction of all Manhattanese dwellings of any pretension, a quarter of a century since; and that of Mr. Thomas Dunscomb, the owner and occupant of the house in question, had been built in rigid conformity with the fashion of its day. ’Squire Dunscomb, as this gentleman was termed in all the adjacent country counties, where he was well known as a reliable and sound legal adviser; Mr. Thomas Dunscomb, as he was styled by various single ladies, who wondered he never married; or Tom Dunscomb, as he was familiarly called by a herd of unyoked youths, all of whom were turned of sixty, was a capital fellow in each of his many characters. As a lawyer, he was as near the top of the bar as a man can be, who never had any pretensions to be an orator, and whose longest effort seldom exceeded half an hour. Should the plan of placing eloquence in hobbles reach our own bar, his habit of condensing, his trick of getting multum in parvo, may yet bring him to the very summit; for he will have an immense advantage over those who, resembling a country buck at a town ball, need the whole field to cut their flourishes in. As a man of the world, he was well-bred, though a little cynical, very agreeable, most especially with the ladies, and quite familiar with all the better habits of the best-toned circles of the place. As a boon companion, Tom Dunscomb was an immense favourite, being particularly warm-hearted, and always ready for any extra eating or drinking. In addition to these leading qualities, Dunscomb was known to be rich, having inherited a very tolerable estate, as well as having added much to his means, by a large and lucrative practice. If to these circumstances we add that of a very prepossessing personal appearance, in which age was very green, the reader has all that is necessary for an introduction to one of our principal characters.

Though a bachelor, Mr. Dunscomb did not live alone. He had a nephew and a niece in his family, the orphan children of a sister who had now been dead many years. They bore the name of Wilmeter, which, in the family parlance, was almost always pronounced Wilmington. It was Jack Wilmington, and Sally Wilmington, at school, at home, and with all their intimates; though Mr. John Wilmeter and Miss Sarah Wilmeter were often spoken of in their little out-door world; it being rather an affectation of the times to prove, in this manner, that one retains some knowledge of the spelling-book. We shall write the name as it is written by the parties themselves, forewarning the reader that if he desire to pronounce it by the same family standard, he must take the unauthorized spelling as a guide. We own ourselves to a strong predilection for old familiar sounds, as well as old familiar faces.

At half-past 8, A. M., of a fine morning, late in May, when the roses were beginning to show their tints amid the verdure of the leaves, in Mr. Dunscomb’s yard, the three individuals just mentioned were at the breakfast-table of what it is the fashion of New York to term a dining-room. The windows were open, and a soft and fragrant air filled the apartment. We have said that Mr. Dunscomb was affluent, and he chose to enjoy his means, not à la Manhattan, in idle competition with the nouveaux riches, but in a more quiet and rational way. His father had occupied lots, ‘running through,’ as it is termed; building his house on one street and his stables on the other; leaving himself a space in the rear of the former, that was prodigious for a town so squeezed into parallelograms of twenty-five feet by a hundred. This open space was of the usual breadth, but it actually measured a hundred and fifty feet in length, an area that would have almost justified its being termed a ‘park,’ in the nomenclature of the town. This yard Sarah had caused to be well garnished with shrubbery, and, for its dimensions, it was really a sort of oasis, in that wilderness of bricks.

The family was not alone that morning. A certain Michael Millington was a guest of Jack’s, and seemingly quite at home in the little circle. The business of eating and drinking was pretty well through with, though each of the four cups had its remains of tea or coffee, and Sarah sat stirring hers idly, while her soft eyes were turned with interest on the countenances of the two young men. The last had a sheet of writing-paper lying between them, and their heads were close together, as both studied that which was written on it in pencil. As for Mr. Dunscomb, himself, he was fairly surrounded by documents of one sort and another. Two or three of the morning papers, glanced at but not read, lay opened on the floor; on each side of his plate was a brief, or some lease or release; while a copy of the new and much talked of code was in his hand. As we say in our American English, Mr. Dunscomb was ‘emphatically’ a common-law lawyer; and, as our transatlantic brethren would remark in their sometime cockney dialect, he was not at all ‘agreeable’ to this great innovation on ‘the perfection of human reason.’ He muttered occasionally as he read, and now and then he laid down the book, and seemed to muse. All this, however, was quite lost on Sarah, whose soft blue eyes still rested on the interested countenances of the two young men. At length Jack seized the paper, and wrote a line or two hurriedly, with his pencil.

“There, Mike,” he said, in a tone of self-gratulation, “I think that will do!”

“It has one merit of a good toast,” answered the friend, a little doubtingly; “it is sententious.”

“As all toasts ought to be. If we are to have this dinner, and the speeches, and all the usual publications afterwards, I choose that we should appear with some little credit. Pray, sir,” raising his eyes to his uncle, and his voice to correspond, “what do you think of it, now?”

“Just as I always have, Jack. It will never do at all. Justice would halt miserably under such a system of practice. Some of the forms of pleadings are infernal, if pleadings they can be called at all. I detest even the names they give their proceedings—complaints and answers!”

“They are certainly not as formidable to the ear,” returned Jack, a little saucily, “as rebutters and sur-rebutters. But I was not thinking of the code, sir; I was asking your opinion of my new toast.”

“Even a fee could not extract an opinion, unless I heard it read.”

“Well, sir, here it is: ‘The constitution of the United States; the palladium of our civil and religious liberties,’ Now, I do not think I can much better that, uncle Tom!”

“I’m very sorry to hear you say so, Jack.”

“Why so, sir? I’m sure it is good American sentiment; and what is more, it has a flavour of the old English principles that you so much admire, about it, too. Why do you dislike it, sir?”

“For several reasons—it would be common-place, which a toast should never be, were it true; but there happens not to be a word of truth in your sentiment, sonorous as it may sound in your ears.”

“Not true! Does not the constitution guaranty to the citizen religious liberty?”

“Not a bit of it.”

“You amaze me, sir! Why, here, just listen to its language, if you please.”

Hereupon Jack opened a book, and read the clause on which he relied to confute one of the ablest constitutional lawyers and clearest heads in America. Not that Mr. Dunscomb was what is called an “expounder,” great or small; but he never made a mistake on the subject in hand, and had often caused the best of the “expounders” to retrace their steps. He was an original thinker, but of the safest and most useful sort; one who distinguished between the institutions of England and America, while he submitted to the fair application of minor principles that are so common to both. As for his nephew, he knew no more of the great instrument he held in his hand, than he had gleaned from ill-digested newspaper remarks, vapid speeches in Congress, and the erroneous notions that float about the country, coming from “nobody knows whom,” and leading literally to nothing. The ignorance that prevails on such subjects is really astounding, when one remembers the great number of battles that are annually fought over this much-neglected compact.

“Ay, here is the clause—just please to hear it, sir,” continued Jack.—“‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.’ There, I think that will go far towards justifying the whole toast, Mike.”

This was said a little triumphantly, and not a little confidently.[confidently.] The only answer Mr. Dunscomb condescended to make, was an expressive “Umph!” As for Michael Millington, he was a little timid about expressing an opinion, and that for two reasons; he had often experienced Mr. Dunscomb’s superior wisdom, and he knew that Sarah heard all that passed.

“I wish your uncle would lay aside that code for a minute, Jack, and let us know what he thinks of our authorities,” said Michael, in an under tone.

“Come, Uncle Tom,” cried the more hardy nephew—“come out of your reserve, and face the constitution of your country. Even Sarah can see that, for once, we are right, and that my toast is of proof.”

“It is a very good proof-sheet, Jack, not only of your own mind, but of half the minds in the country. Ranker nonsense cannot be uttered, however, than to say that the Constitution of the United States is the palladium of anything in which civil or religious liberty is concerned.”

“You do not dispute the fidelity of my quotation, sir?”

“By no means. The clause you read is a very useless exhibition of certain facts that existed just as distinctly before it was framed, as they do to-day. Congress had no power to make an established religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, or that of the press, or the right of the people to petition, before that amendment was introduced, and consequently the clause itself is supererogatory. You take nothing by your motion, Jack.”

“I do not understand you, sir. To me, it seems that I have the best of it.”

“Congress has no power but what has been conceded to it directly, or by necessary connection. Now, there happens to be nothing said about granting any such authority to Congress, and consequently the prohibition is not necessary. But, admitting that Congress did really possess the power to establish a religion previously to the adoption of this amendment, the constitution would not prove a palladium to religious liberty, unless it prohibited everybody else from meddling with the opinions of the citizen. Any state of this Union that pleases, may establish a religion, and compel its citizens to support it.”

“Why, sir, our own state constitution has a provision similar to this, to prevent it.”

“Very true; but our own state constitution can be altered in this behalf, without asking permission of any one but our own people. I think that even Sarah will understand that the United States is no palladium of religious liberty, if it cannot prevent a state from establishing Mohamedanism, as soon as a few forms can be complied with.”

Sarah coloured, glanced timidly at Michael Millington, but made no reply. She did not understand much of what she had just heard, though rather an intelligent girl, but had hoped that Jack and his friend were nearer right than was likely to turn out to be the case. Jack, himself, being a young limb of the law comprehended what his uncle meant, and had the grace to colour, too, at the manner in which he had manifested his ignorance of the great national compact. With a view to relieve himself from his dilemma, he cried, with a ready dexterity,—

“Well, since this won’t do, I must try the jury. ‘The trial by jury, the palladium of our liberties.’ How do you like that, sir?”

“Worse than the other, boy. God protect the country that has no better shield against wrong, than that which a jury can hold before it.”

Jack looked at Michael, and Michael looked at Jack; while Sarah looked at both in turn.

“You surely will not deny, sir, that the trial by jury is one of the most precious of the gifts received from our ancestors?” said the first, a little categorically, Sarah brightening up at this question, as he fancied that her brother had now got on solid ground.

“Your question cannot be answered in a breath, Jack,” returned the uncle. “The trial by jury was undoubtedly a most precious boon bestowed on a people among whom there existed an hereditary ruling power, on the abuses of which it was often a most salutary check.”

“Well, sir, is it not the same check here; assuring to the citizens independent justice?”

“Who compose the ruling power in America, Jack?”

“The people, to be sure, sir.”

“And who the jurors?”

“The people, too, I suppose,” answered the nephew, hesitating a little before he replied.

“Well, let us suppose a citizen has a conflict of rights with the public, which is the government, who will compose the tribunal that is to decide the question?”

“A jury, to be sure, sir. The trial by jury is guarantied by the constitution, to us all.”

“Ay,” said Mr. Dunscomb, smiling, “much as are our religious and political liberties. But according to your own admission, this is very much like making one of the parties a judge in his own case. A. insists that he has a right to certain lands, for instance, which the public claims for itself. In such a case, part of the public compose the tribunal.”

“But is it not true, Mr. Dunscomb,” put in Millington, “that the popular prejudice is usually against government, in all cases with private citizens?”

Sarah’s face looked brighter now than ever, for she felt sure that Mike, as her brother familiarly called his friend, had asked a most apposite question.

“Certainly; you are right as to particular sets of cases, but wrong as to others. In a commercial town like this, the feeling is against government in all cases connected with the collection of the revenue, I admit; and you will see that the fact makes against the trial by jury in another form, since a judge ought to be strictly impartial; above all prejudice whatever.”

“But, uncle, a judge and a jury are surely very different things,” cried Sarah, secretly impelled to come to Michael’s rescue, though she scarce knew anything of the merits of the subject.

“Quite right, my dear,” the uncle answered, nodding his head kindly, casting a glance at his niece that caused her to blush under the consciousness of being fully understood in her motives, if not in her remark. “Most profoundly right; a judge and a juror ought to be very different things. What I most complain of is the fact that the jurors are fast becoming judges. Nay, by George, they are getting to be legislators, making the law as well as interpreting it. How often does it happen, now-a-days, that the court tell the jury that such is the law, and the jury comes in with a verdict which tells the court that such is not the law? This is an every-day occurrence, in the actual state of public opinion.”

“But the court will order a new trial, if the verdict is against law and evidence,” said Michael, determined that Sarah should be sustained.

“Ay, and another jury will be quite likely to sustain the old one. No—no—the trial by jury is no more a palladium of our liberties, than the Constitution of the United States.”

“Who, or what is, then, sir?” demanded Jack.

“God! Yes, the Deity, in his Divine Providence; if anything is to save us. It may not be his pleasure to let us perish, for it would seem that some great plan for the advancement of civilization is going on, and it may be a part of it to make us important agents. All things regarded, I am much inclined to believe such is the fact. But, did the result depend on us, miserable instruments in the Almighty hands as we are, woeful would be the end!”

“You do not look at things couleur de rose, Uncle Tom,” Sarah smilingly observed.

“Because I am not a young lady of twenty, who is well satisfied with herself and her advantages. There is but one character for which I have a greater contempt than that of a senseless grumbler, who regards all things à tort et à travers, and who cries, there is nothing good in the world.”

“And what is the exception, sir?”

“The man who is puffed up with conceit, and fancies all around him perfection, when so much of it is the reverse; who ever shouts ‘liberty,’ in the midst of the direst oppression.”

“But direst oppression is certainly no term to be applied to anything in New York!”

“You think not? What would you say to a state of society in which the law is available to one class of citizens only, in the way of compulsion, and not at all, in the way of protection?”

“I do not understand you, sir; here, it is our boast that all are protected, alike.”

“Ay, so far as boasting goes, we are beyond reproach. But what are the facts? Here is a man that owes money. The law is appealed to, to compel payment. Verdict is rendered, and execution issued. The sheriff enters his house, and sells his very furniture, to extort the amount of the debt from him.”

“That is his misfortune, sir. Such things must happen to all debtors who cannot, or will not, pay.”

“If this were true, I should have nothing to say. Imagine this very debtor to be also a creditor; to have debts due to him, of many times the sums that he owes, but which the law will not aid him in collecting. For him, the law is all oppression—no protection.”

“But, surely, Uncle Tom, nothing of the sort exists here!”

“Surely, Miss Sarah Wilmeter, such things do exist here in practice, whatever may be the theory on the subject; what is more, they exist under the influence of facts that are directly connected with the working of the institutions. My case is not supposititious, at all, but real. Several landlords have quite recently felt all the rigours of the law as debtors, when it was a dead letter to them, in their character of creditors. This has actually happened, and that more than once; and it might happen a hundred times, were the landlords more in debt. In the latter case, it would be an every-day occurrence.”

‘What, sir,’ exclaimed Michael Millington; ‘the law enforce, when it will not protect?’

“That it does, young man, in many interests that I could point out to you. But here is as flagrant a case of unmitigated tyranny as can be cited against any country in Christendom. A citizen is sold out of house and home, under process of law, for debt; and when he asks for the use of the same process of law to collect his undeniable dues, it is, in effect, denied him. And this among the people who boast that their independence is derived from a spirit that would not be taxed! A people who are hourly shouting hosannas in honour of their justice!”

‘It cannot be, Uncle Tom, that this is done, in terms,’ cried the astounded nephew.

“If, by terms, you mean professions of justice, and liberty, and equal rights, they are fair enough; in all those particulars we are irreproachable. As ‘professors’ no people can talk more volubly or nearer to the point—I allude only to facts.”

“But these facts may be explained—qualified—are not as flagrant as they seem under your statement?”

“In what manner?”

“Why, sir, this is but a temporary evil, perhaps.”

“It has lasted, not days, nor weeks, nor months, but years. What is more, it is an evil that has not occurred in a corner, where it might be overlooked; but it exists within ten miles of your capital, in plain sight of your legislators, and owes its impunity solely to their profound deference to votes. In a word, it is a part of the political system under which we live; and that far more so than any disposition to tyranny that might happen to manifest itself in an individual king.”

“Do not the tenants who refuse to pay, fancy that their landlords have no right to their estates, and does not the whole difficulty arise from misapprehension?” asked Michael, a little timidly.

“What would that have to do with the service of process, if it were true? When a sheriff’s officer comes among these men, they take his authority from him, and send him away empty. Rights are to be determined only by the law, since they are derived from the law; and he who meets the law at the threshold, and denies it entrance, can never seriously pretend that he resists because the other party has no claims. No, no, young gentleman—this is all a fetch. The evil is of years’ standing; it is of the character of the direst oppression, and of oppression of the worst sort, that of many oppressing a few; cases in which the sufferer is cut off from sympathy, as you can see by the apathy of the community, which is singing hosannas to its own perfection, while this great wrong is committed under its very nose. Had a landlord oppressed his tenants, their clamour would have made itself heard throughout the land. The worst feature in the case, is that which connects the whole thing so very obviously with the ordinary working of the institutions. If it were merely human covetousness struggling against the institutions, the last might prove the strongest; but it is cupidity, of the basest and most transparent nature, using the institutions themselves to effect its purpose.”

“I am surprised that something was not done by the last convention to meet the evil!” said Jack, who was much struck with the enormity of the wrong, placed before his eyes in its simplest form, as it had been by his direct-minded and clear-headed kinsman.

“That is because you do not know what a convention has got to be. Its object is to push principles into impracticable extremes, under the silly pretension of progress, and not to abate evils. I made a suggestion myself, to certain members of that convention, which, in my poor judgment, would have effectually cured this disease; but no member had the courage to propose it.[it.] Doubtless, it would have been useless had it been otherwise.”

“It was worth the trial, if such were likely to be its result. What was your plan, sir?”

“Simply to disfranchise any district in which the law could not be enforced by means of combinations of its people. On application to the highest court of the state, an order might be granted that no polls should be held in one, or more, towns, or counties, in which combinations existed of a force sufficient to prevent the laws from being put in force. Nothing could be more just than to say that men who will not obey the law shall not have a voice in making it, and to me it really seems that some such provision would be the best possible expedient to check this growing evil. It would be choking the enemy with his own food.”

“Why was it not done, sir?”

“Simply because our sages were speculating on votes, and not on principles. They will talk to you like so many books touching the vices of all foreign systems, but are ready to die in defence of the perfection of their own.”

“Why was it necessary to make a new constitution, the other day,” asked Sarah, innocently, “if the old one was so very excellent?”

“Sure enough—the answer might puzzle wiser heads than yours, child. Perfection requires a great deal of tinkering, in this country. We scarcely adopt one plan that shall secure everybody’s rights and liberties, than another is broached, to secure some newly-discovered rights and liberties. With the dire example before them, of the manner in which the elective franchise is abused, in this anti-rent movement, the sages of the land have just given to the mass the election of judges; as beautiful a scheme for making the bench coalesce with the jury-box as human ingenuity could invent!”

As all present knew that Mr. Dunscomb was bitterly opposed to the new constitution, no one was surprised at this last assertion. It did create wonder, however, in the minds of all three of the ingenuous young persons, when the fact—an undeniable and most crushing one it is, too, so far as any high pretension to true liberty is concerned—was plainly laid before them, that citizens were to be found in New York against whom the law was rigidly enforced, while it was powerless in their behalf. We have never known this aspect of the case presented to any mind, that it did not evidently produce a deep impression, for the moment; but, alas! “what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” and few care for the violation of a principle when the wrong does not affect themselves. These young folk were, like all around them, unconscious even that they dwelt in a community in which so atrocious a wrong was daily done, and, for the moment, were startled when the truth was placed before their eyes. The young men, near friends, and, by certain signs, likely to be even more closely united, were much addicted to speculating on the course of events, as they conceived them to be tending, in other countries. Michael Millington, in particular, was a good deal of a general politician, having delivered several orations, in which he had laid some stress on the greater happiness of the people of this much favoured land, over those of all other countries, and especially on the subject of equal rights. He was too young, yet, to have learned the wholesome truth, that equality of rights, in practice, exists nowhere; the ingenuity and selfishness of man finding the means to pervert to narrow purposes, the most cautious laws that have ever been adopted in furtherance of a principle that would seem to be so just. Nor did he know that the Bible contains all the wisdom and justice, transmitted as divine precepts, that are necessary to secure to every man all that it is desirable to possess here below.

The conversation was terminated by the entrance of a fourth colloquist, in the person of Edward McBrain, M. D., who was not only the family physician, but the bosom friend of the lawyer. The two liked each other on the principle of loving their opposites. One was a bachelor, the other was about to marry his third wife; one was a little of a cynic, the other much of a philanthropist; one distrustful of human nature, the other too confiding; one cautious to excess, the other absolutely impetuous, whenever anything strongly interested his feelings. They were alike in being Manhattanese by birth, somewhat a novelty in a New Yorker; in being equally graduates of Columbia, and classmates; in a real love of their fellow-creatures; in goodness of heart, and in integrity. Had either been wanting in these last great essentials, the other could not have endured him.

CHAPTER II.

O change!—stupendous change!

There lies the soulless clod;

The sun eternal breaks—

The new immortal wakes—

Wakes with his God.

Mrs. Southey.

As Dr. McBrain entered the room, the two young men and Sarah, after saluting him like very familiar acquaintances, passed out into what the niece called her “garden.” Here she immediately set her scissors at work in clipping roses, violets, and other early flowers, to make bouquets for her companions. That of Michael was much the largest and most tasteful; but this her brother did not remark, as he was in a brown study, reflecting on the singularity of the circumstance that the Constitution of the United States should not be the “palladium of his political and religious liberties.” Jack saw, for the first time in his life, that a true knowledge of the constitution was not to be found floating about in society, and that “there was more in the nature of the great national compact than was dreamt of in his philosophy.”

“Well, Ned,” said the lawyer, holding out his hand kindly but not rising from his chair, “what has brought you here so early? Has old Martha spoilt your tea?”

“Not at all; I have paid this visit, as it might be, professionally.”

“Professionally! I never was better in my life; and set you down as a false prophet, or no doctor, if you like that better, for the gout has not even given a premonitory hint, this spring; and I hope, now I have given up Sauterne altogether, and take but four glasses of Madeira at dinner——”

“Two, too many.”

“I’ll engage to drink nothing but sherry, Ned, if you’ll consent to four, and that without any of those forbidding looks.”

“Agreed; sherry has less acidity, and consequently less gout, than Madeira. But my business here this morning, though professional, does not relate to my craft, but to your own.”[own.”]

“To the law? Now I take another look at you, I do see trouble in your physiognomy; am I not to draw the marriage settlements, after all?”

“There are to be none. The new law gives a woman the entire control of all her property, they tell me, and I suppose she will not expect the control of mine.”

“Umph! Yes, she ought to be satisfied with things as they are, for she will remain mistress of all her cups and saucers, even,—ay, and of her houses and lands, in the bargain. Hang me, if I would ever marry, when the contract is so one-sided.”

“You never did, when the contract was t’other-sided. For my part, Tom, I’m disposed to leave a woman mistress of her own. The experiment is worth the trial, if it be only to see the use she will make of her money.”

“You are always experimenting among the women, and are about to try a third wife. Thank Heaven, I’ve got on sixty years, quite comfortably, without even one.”

“You have only half lived your life. No old bachelor—meaning a man after forty—knows anything of real happiness. It is necessary to be married, in order to be truly happy.”

“I wonder you did not add, ‘two or three times.’ But you may make this new contract with greater confidence than either of the others. I suppose you have seen this new divorce project that is, or has been, before the legislature?”

“Divorce! I trust no such foolish law will pass. This calling marriage a ‘contract,’ too, is what I never liked. It is something far more than a ‘contract,’ in my view of the matter.”

“Still, that is what the law considers it to be. Get out of this new scrape, Ned, if you can with any honour, and remain an independent freeman for the rest of your days. I dare say the widow could soon find some other amorous youth to place her affections on. It matters not much whom a woman loves, provided she love. Of this, I’m certain, from seeing the sort of animals so many do love.”

“Nonsense; a bachelor talking of love, or matrimony, usually makes a zany of himself. It is terra incognita to you, my boy, and the less you say about it, the better. You are the only human being, Tom, I ever met with, who has not, some time or other, been in love. I really believe you never knew what the passion is”

“I fell in love, early in life, with a certain my lord Coke, and have remained true to my first attachment. Besides, I saw I had an intimate friend who would do all the marrying that was necessary for two, or even for three; so I determined, from the first, to remain single. A man has only to be firm, and he may set Cupid at defiance. It is not so with women, I do believe; it is part of their nature to love, else would no woman admire you, at your time of life.”

“I don’t know that—I am by no means sure of that. Each time I had the misfortune to become a widower, I was just as determined to pass the remainder of my days in reflecting on the worth of her I had lost, as you can be to remain a bachelor; but somehow or other, I don’t pretend to account for it, not a year passed before I have found inducements to enter into new engagements. It is a blessed thing, is matrimony, and I am resolved not to continue single an hour longer than is necessary.”

Dunscomb laughed out, at the earnest manner in which his friend spoke, though conversations, like this we have been relating, were of frequent occurrence between them.

“The same old sixpence, Ned! A Benedict as a boy, a Benedict as a man, and a Benedict as a dotard——”

“Dotard! My good fellow, let me tell you——”

“Poh! I don’t desire to hear it. But as you came on business connected with the law, and that business is not a marriage-settlement, what is it? Does old Kingsborough maintain his right to the Harlem lot?”

“No, he has given the claim up, at last. My business, Tom, is of a very different nature. What are we coming to, and what is to be the end of it all!”

As the doctor looked far more than he expressed, Dunscomb was struck with his manner. The Siamese twins scarce understand each other’s impulses and wishes better than these two men comprehended each other’s feelings; and Tom saw at once that Ned was now very much in earnest.

“Coming to?” repeated Dunscomb. “Do you mean the new code, or the ‘Woman-hold-the-Purse Law,’ as I call it? I don’t believe you look far enough ahead to foresee all the damnable consequences of an elective judiciary.”

“It is not that—this, or that—I do not mean codes, constitutions, or pin-money. What is the country coming to, Tom Dunscomb—that is the question, I ask.”

“Well, and has the country nothing to do with constitutions, codes, and elective judges? I can tell you, Master Ned McBrain, M. D., that if the patient is to be saved at all, it must be by means of the judiciary, and I do not like the advice that has just been called in.”

“You are a croaker. They tell me the new judges are reasonably good.”

“‘Reasonably’ is an expressive word. The new judges are old judges, in part, and in so much they do pretty well, by chance. Some of the new judges are excellent—but one of the very best men on the whole bench was run against one of the worst men who could have been put in his place. At the next heat I fear the bad fellow will get the track. If you do not mean what I have mentioned, what do you mean?”

“I mean the increase of crime—the murders, arsons, robberies, and other abominations that seem to take root among us, like so many exotics transplanted to a genial soil.”

“‘Exotics’ and ‘genial’ be hanged! Men are alike everywhere. No one but a fool ever supposed that a republic is to stand, or fall, by its virtue.”

“Yet, the common opinion is that such must be the final test of our institutions.”

“Jack has just been talking nonsense on this subject, and now you must come to aid him. But, what has your business with me, this morning, to do with the general depreciation in morals?”

“A great deal, as you will allow, when you come to hear my story.”

Dr. McBrain then proceeded forthwith to deliver himself of the matter which weighed so heavily on his mind. He was the owner of a small place in an adjoining county, where it was his custom to pass as much time, during the pleasant months, as a very extensive practice in town would allow. This was not much, it is true, though the worthy physician so contrived matters, that his visits to Timbully, as the place was called, if not long, were tolerably numerous. A kind-hearted, as well as a reasonably-affluent man, he never denied his professional services to his country neighbours, who eagerly asked his advice whenever there was need of it. This portion of the doctor’s practice flourished on two accounts,—one being his known skill, and the other his known generosity. In a word, Dr. McBrain never received any compensation for his advice, from any in the immediate neighbourhood of his country residence. This rendered him exceedingly popular; and he might have been sent to Albany, but for a little cold water that was thrown on the project by a shrewd patriot, who suggested that while the physician was attending to affairs of state, he could not be administering to the ailings of his Timbully neighbours. This may have checked the doctor’s advancement, but it did not impair his popularity.

Now, it happened that the bridegroom-expectant had been out to Timbully, a distance of less than fifteen miles from his house in Bleecker street, with a view to order matters for the reception of the bride, it being the intention of the couple that were soon to be united to pass a few days there, immediately after the ceremony was performed. It was while at his place, attending to this most important duty, that an express came from the county town, requiring his presence before the coroner, where he was expected to give his evidence as a medical man. It seems that a house had been burned, and its owners, an aged couple, had been burnt in it. The remains of the bodies had been found, and an inquest was about to be held on them. This was pretty much all that the messenger could tell, though he rather thought that it was suspected the house had been set on fire, and the old people, consequently, murdered.

As a matter of course, Dr. McBrain obeyed the summons. A county town, in America, is often little more than a hamlet, though in New York they are usually places of some greater pretensions. The state has now near a dozen incorporated cities, with their mayors and aldermen, and with one exception, we believe these are all county towns. Then come the incorporated villages, in which New York is fast getting to be rich, places containing from one to six or seven thousand souls, and which, as a rule, are steadily growing into respectable provincial towns. The largest of these usually contain “the county buildings,” as it is the custom to express it. But, in the older counties, immediately around the great commercial capital of the entire republic, these large villages do not always exist; or when they do exist, are not sufficiently central to meet the transcendental justice of democratic equality—a quality that is sometimes of as exacting pretension, as of real imbecility; as witness the remarks of Mr Dunscomb, in our opening chapter.

The county buildings of —— happen to stand in a small village, or what is considered a small village, in the lower part of the state. As the events of this tale are so recent, and the localities so familiar to many persons, we choose to call this village “Biberry,” and the county “Dukes.” Such was once the name of a New York county, though the appellation has been dropped, and this not from any particular distaste for the strawberry leaves; “Kings,” “Queens,” and “Duchess” having been wisely retained—wisely, as names should be as rarely changed as public convenience will allow.

Dr. McBrain found the village of Biberry in a high state of excitement; one, indeed, of so intense a nature as to be far from favourable to the judicial enquiry that was then going on in the court-house. The old couple who were the sufferers in this affair had been much respected by all who knew them; he as a common-place, well-meaning man, of no particular capacity, and she as a managing, discreet, pious woman, whose greatest failing was a neatness that was carried somewhat too near to ferocity. Nevertheless, Mrs. Goodwin was, generally, even more respected than her husband, for she had the most mind, transacted most of the business of the family, and was habitually kind and attentive to every one who entered her dwelling; provided, always, that they wiped their feet on her mats, of which it was necessary to pass no less than six, before the little parlour was reached, and did not spit on her carpet, or did not want any of her money. This popularity added greatly to the excitement; men, and women also, commonly feeling a stronger desire to investigate wrongs done to those they esteem, than to investigate wrongs done to those concerning whom they are indifferent.

Doctor McBrain found the charred remains of this unfortunate couple laid on a table in the court-house, the coroner in attendance, and a jury empanelled. Much of the evidence concerning the discovery of the fire had been gone through with, and was of a very simple character. Some one who was stirring earlier than common had seen the house in a bright blaze, had given the alarm, and had preceded the crowd from the village, on the road to the burning dwelling. The Goodwins had resided in a neat, retired cottage, at the distance of near two miles from Biberry, though in sight from the village; and by the time the first man from the latter reached the spot, the roof had fallen in, and the materials were mostly consumed. A dozen, or more, of the nearest neighbours were collected around the ruins, and some articles of household furniture had been saved; but, on the whole, it was regarded as one of the most sudden and destructive fires ever known in that part of the country. When the engine arrived from the village, it played briskly on the fire, and was the means of soon reducing all within the outer walls, which were of stone, to a pile of blackened and smouldering wood. It was owing to this circumstance that any portion of the remains of the late owners of the house had been found, as was done in the manner thus described, in his testimony, by Peter Bacon, the person who had first given the alarm in Biberry.

“As soon as ever I seed it was Peter Goodwin’s house that made the light,” continued this intelligent witness, in the course of his examination,—“I guv’ the alarm, and started off on the run, to see what I could do. By the time I got to the top of Brudler’s Hill, I was fairly out of breath, I can tell you, Mr. Coroner and Gentlemen of the Jury, and so I was obliged to pull up a bit. This guv’ the fire a so much better sweep, and when I reached the spot, there was little chance for doing much good. We got out a chest of drawers, and the young woman who boarded with the Goodwins was helped down out of the window, and most of her clothes, I b’lieve, was saved, so far as I know.”

“Stop,” interrupted the coroner; “there was a young woman in the house, you say.”

“Yes; what I call a young woman, or a gal like; though other some calls her a young woman. Waal, she was got out; and her clothes was got out; but nobody could get out the old folks. As soon as the ingyne come up we turned on the water, and that put out the fire about the quickest. Arter that we went to diggin’, and soon found what folks call the remains, though to my notion there is little enough on ’em that is left.”

“You dug out the remains,” said the coroner, writing; “in what state did you find them?”

“In what I call a pretty poor state; much as you see ’em there, on the table.”

“What has become of the young lady you have mentioned?” enquired the coroner, who, as a public functionary, deemed it prudent to put all of the sex into the same general category.

“I can’t tell you, ’squire; I never see’d her arter she was got out of the window.”

“Do you mean that she was the hired-girl of the family,—or had the old lady no help?”

“I kinder think she was a boarder, like; one that paid her keepin’,” answered the witness, who was not a person to draw very nice distinctions, as the reader will have no difficulty in conceiving, from his dialect. “It seems to me I heer’n tell of another help in the Goodwin family—a sorter Jarman, or Irish lady.”

“Was any such woman seen about the house this morning, when the ruins were searched?”

“Not as I’ner. We turned over the brands and sticks, until we come across the old folks; then everybody seemed to think the work was pretty much done.”

“In what state, or situation, were these remains found?”

“Burnt to a crisp, just as you see ’em, ’squire, as I said afore; a pretty poor state for human beings to be in.”

“But where were they lying, and were they near each other?”

“Close together. Their heads, if a body can call them black lookin’ skulls heads, at all, almost touched, if they didn’t quite touch, each other; their feet lay further apart.”

“Do you think you could place the skeletons in the same manner, as respects each other, as they were when you first saw them? But let me first enquire, if any other person is present, who saw these remains before they had been removed?”

Several men, and one or two women, who were in attendance to be examined, now came forward, and stated that they had seen the remains in the condition in which they had been originally found. Selecting the most intelligent of the party, after questioning them all round, the coroner desired that the skeletons might be laid, as near as might be, in the same relative positions as those in which they had been found. There was a difference of opinion among the witnesses, as to several of the minor particulars, though all admitted that the bodies, or what remained of them, had been found quite close together; their heads touching, and their feet some little distance apart. In this manner then, were the skeletons now disposed; the arrangement being completed just as Dr. McBrain entered the court-room. The coroner immediately directed the witnesses to stand aside, while the physician made an examination of the crisped bones.

“This looks like foul play!” exclaimed the doctor, almost as soon as his examination commenced. “The skulls of both these persons have been fractured; and, if this be anything near the positions in which the skeletons were found, as it would seem, by the same blow.”

He then pointed out to the coroner and jury, a small fracture in the frontal bone of each skull, and so nearly in a line as to render his conjecture highly probable. This discovery gave an entirely new colouring to the whole occurrence, and every one present began to speculate on the probability of arson and murder being connected with the unfortunate affair. The Goodwins were known to have lived at their ease, and the good woman, in particular, had the reputation of being a little miserly. As everything like order vanished temporarily from the court-room, and tongues were going in all directions, many things were related that were really of a suspicious character, especially by the women. The coroner adjourned the investigation for the convenience of irregular conversation, in order to obtain useful clues to the succeeding enquiries.

“You say that old Mrs. Goodwin had a good deal of specie?” enquired that functionary of a certain Mrs. Pope, a widow woman who had been free with her communications, and who very well might know more than the rest of the neighbours, from a very active propensity she had ever manifested, to look into the affairs of all around her. “Did I understand you, that you had seen this money yourself.”

“Yes, sir; often and often. She kept it in a stocking of the old gentleman’s, that was nothing but darns; so darny, like, that nobody could wear it.[it.] Miss Goodwin wasn’t a woman to put away anything that was of use. A clusser body wasn’t to be found, anywhere near Biberry.”

“And some of this money was gold, I think I heard you say. A stocking pretty well filled with gold and silver.”

“The foot was cramming full, when I saw it, and that wasn’t three months since. I can’t say there was any great matter in the leg. Yes, there was gold in it, too. She showed me the stocking the last time I saw it, on purpose to ask me what might be the valie of a piece of gold that was almost as big as half a dollar.”

“Should you know that piece of gold, were you to see it, again?”

“That I should. I didn’t know its name, or its valie, for I never seed so big a piece afore, but I told Miss Goodwin I thought it must be ra’al Californy. Them’s about now, they tell me, and I hope poor folks will come in for their share. Old as I am—that is, not so very old neither—but such as I am, I never had a piece of gold in my life.”

“You cannot tell, then, the name of this particular coin?”

“I couldn’t; if I was to have it for the telling, I couldn’t. It wasn’t a five dollar piece; that I know, for the old lady had a good many of them, and this was much larger, and yellower, too; better gold, I conclude.”

The coroner was accustomed to garrulous, sight-seeing females, and knew how to humour them.

“Where did Mrs. Goodwin keep her specie?” he enquired. “If you saw her put the stocking away, you must know its usual place of deposit.”

“In her chest of drawers,” answered the woman eagerly. “That very chest of drawers which was got out of the house, as sound as the day it went into it, and has been brought down into the village for safe keeping.”

All this was so, and measures were taken to push the investigation further, and in that direction. Three or four young men, willing volunteers in such a cause, brought the bureau into the court-room, and the coroner directed that each of the drawers should be publicly opened, in the presence of the jurors. The widow was first sworn, however, and testified regularly to the matter of the stocking, the money, and the place of usual deposit.

“Ah! you’ll not find it there,” observed Mrs. Pope, as the village cabinet-maker applied a key, the wards of which happened to fit those of the locks in question. “She kept her money in the lowest draw of all. I’ve seen her take the stocking out, first and last, at least a dozen times.”

The lower draw was opened, accordingly. It contained female apparel, and a goodly store of such articles as were suited to the wants of a respectable woman in the fourth or fifth of the gradations into which all society so naturally, and unavoidably, divides itself. But there was no stocking full of darns, no silver, no gold. Mrs. Pope’s busy and nimble fingers were thrust hastily into an inner corner of the drawer, and a silk dress was unceremoniously opened, that having been the precise receptacle of the treasure as she had seen it last bestowed.

“It’s gone!” exclaimed the woman. “Somebody must have taken it!”

A great deal was now thought to be established. The broken skulls, and the missing money, went near to establish a case of murder and robbery, in addition to the high crime of arson. Men, who had worn solemn and grave countenances all that morning, now looked excited and earnest. The desire for a requiting justice was general and active, and the dead became doubly dear, by means of their wrongs.

All this time Dr. McBrain had been attending, exclusively, to the part of the subject that most referred to his own profession. Of the fractures in the two skulls, he was well assured, though the appearance of the remains was such as almost to baffle investigation. Of another important fact he was less certain. While all he heard prepared him to meet with the skeletons of a man and his wife, so far as he could judge, in the imperfect state in which they were laid before him, the bones were those of two females.

“Did you know this Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Coroner?” enquired the physician, breaking into the more regular examination with very little ceremony; “or was he well known to any here?”

The coroner had no very accurate knowledge of the deceased, though every one of the jurors had been well acquainted with him. Several had known him all their lives.

“Was he a man of ordinary size?” asked the doctor.

“Very small. Not taller than his wife, who might be set down as quite a tall old lady.”

It often happens in Europe, especially in England, that the man and his wife are so nearly of a height as to leave very little sensible difference in their statures; but it is a rare occurrence in this country. In America, the female is usually delicate, and of a comparatively small frame, while the average height of man is something beyond that of the European standard. It was a little out of the common way, therefore, to meet with a couple so nearly of a size, as these remains would make Goodwin and his wife to have been.

“These skeletons are very nearly of the same length,” resumed the doctor, after measuring them for the fifth time. “The man could not have been much, if any, taller than his wife.”

“He was not,” answered a juror. “Old Peter Goodwin could not have been more than five feet five, and Dorothy was all of that, I should think. When they came to meeting together, they looked much of a muchness.”

Now, there is nothing on which a prudent and regular physician is more cautious than in committing himself on unknown and uncertain ground. He has his theories, and his standard of opinions, usually well settled in his mind, and he is ever on the alert to protect and bolster them; seldom making any admission that may contravene either. He is apt to denounce the water cure, however surprising may have been its effects; and there is commonly but one of the “opathies” to which he is in the least disposed to defer, and that is the particular “opathy” on which he has moulded his practice. As for Dr. McBrain, he belonged strictly to the alapathic school, and might be termed almost an ultra in his adherence to its laws, while the number of the new schools that were springing up around him, taught him caution, as well as great prudence, in the expression of his opinions.[opinions.] Give him a patient, and he went to work boldly, and with the decision and nerve of a physician accustomed to practise in an exaggerated climate; but place him before the public, as a theoretical man, and he was timid and wary. His friend Dunscomb had observed this peculiarity, thirty years before the commencement of our tale, and had quite recently told him, “You are bold in the only thing in which I am timid, Ned, and that is in making up to the women. If Mrs. Updyke were a newfangled theory, now, instead of an old-fashioned widow, as she is, hang me if I think you would have ever had the spirit to propose.” This peculiarity of temperament, and, perhaps, we might add of character, rendered Dr. McBrain, now, very averse to saying, in the face of so much probability, and the statements of so many witnesses, that the mutilated and charred skeletons that lay on the court-house table were those of two females, and not those of a man and his wife. It was certainly possible he might be mistaken; for the conflagration had made sad work of these poor emblems of mortality; but science has a clear eye, and the doctor was a skilful and practised anatomist. In his own mind, there were very few doubts on the subject.

As soon as the thoughtful physician found time to turn his attention on the countenances of those who composed the crowd in the court-room, he observed that nearly all eyes were bent on the person of one particular female, who sat apart, and was seemingly labouring under a shock of some sort or other, that materially affected her nerves. McBrain saw, at a glance, that this person belonged to a class every way superior to that of even the highest of those who pressed around the table. The face was concealed in a handkerchief, but the form was not only youthful but highly attractive. Small, delicate hands and feet could be seen; such hands and feet as we are all accustomed to see in an American girl, who has been delicately brought up. Her dress was simple, and of studied modesty; but there was an air about that, which a little surprised the kind-hearted individual, who was now so closely observing her.

The doctor had little difficulty in learning from those near him that this “young woman,” so all in the crowd styled her, though it was their practice to term most girls, however humble their condition, “ladies,” had been residing with the Goodwins for a few weeks, in the character of a boarder, as some asserted, while others affirmed it was as a friend. At all events, there was a mystery about her; and most of the girls of Biberry had called her proud, because she did not join in their frivolities, flirtations and visits. It was true, no one had ever thought of discharging the duties of social life by calling on her, or in making the advances usual to well-bred people; but this makes little difference where there is a secret consciousness of inferiority, and of an inferiority that is felt, while it is denied. Such things are of every-day occurrence, in country-life in particular, while American town-life is far from being exempt from the weakness. In older countries, the laws of society are better respected.

It was now plain that the blight of suspicion had fallen on this unknown, and seemingly friendless girl. If the fire had been communicated intentionally, who so likely to be guilty as she? if the money was gone, who had so many means of securing it as herself? These were questions that passed from one to another, until distrust gathered so much head, that the coroner deemed it expedient to adjourn the inquest, while the proof might be collected, and offered in proper form.

Dr. McBrain was, by nature, kind-hearted; then he could not easily get over that stubborn scientific fact, of both the skeletons having belonged to females. It is true that, admitting this to be the case, it threw very little light on the matter, and in no degree lessened any grounds of suspicion that might properly rest on the “young woman”; but it separated him from the throng, and placed his mind in a sort of middle condition, in which he fancied it might be prudent, as well as charitable, to doubt. Perceiving that the crowd was dispersing, though not without much animated discussion in under tones, and that the subject of all this conversation still remained in her solitary corner, apparently unconscious of what was going on, the worthy doctor approached the immovable figure, and spoke.

“You have come here as a witness, I presume,” he said, in a gentle tone; “if so, your attendance just now will no longer be necessary, the coroner having adjourned the inquest until to-morrow afternoon.”

At the first sound of his voice, the solitary female removed a fine cambric handkerchief from her face, and permitted her new companion to look upon it. We shall say nothing, here, touching that countenance or any other personal peculiarity, as a sufficiently minute description will be given in the next chapter, through the communications made by Dr. McBrain to Dunscomb. Thanking her informant for his information, and exchanging a few brief sentences on the melancholy business which had brought both there, the young woman arose, made a slight but very graceful inclination of her body, and withdrew.

Dr. McBrain’s purpose was made up on the spot. He saw very plainly that a fierce current of suspicion was setting against this pleasing, and, as it seemed to him, friendless young creature; and he determined at once to hasten back to town, and get his friend to go out to Biberry, without a moment’s delay, that he might appear there that very afternoon in the character of counsel to the helpless.

CHAPTER III.

“I am informed thoroughly of the cause.

Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?”

Merchant of Venice.

Such was the substance of the communication that Doctor McBrain now made to his friend, Tom Dunscomb. The latter had listened with an interest he did not care to betray, and when the other was done he gaily cried—

“I’ll tell the widow Updyke of you, Ned!”

“She knows the whole story already, and is very anxious lest you should have left town, to go to the Rockland circuit, where she has been told you have an important case to try.”

“The cause goes over on account of the opposite counsel’s being in the court of appeals. Ah’s me! I have no pleasure in managing a cause since this Code of Procedure has innovated on all our comfortable and venerable modes of doing business. I believe I shall close up my affairs, and retire, as soon as I can bring all my old cases to a termination.”

“If you can bring those old cases to a termination, you will be the first lawyer who ever did.”

“Yes, it is true, Ned,” answered Dunscomb, coolly taking a pinch of snuff, “you doctors have the advantage of us, in this behalf; your cases certainly do not last for ever.”

“Enough of this, Tom—you will go to Biberry, I take it for granted?”

“You have forgotten the fee. Under the new code, compensation is a matter of previous agreement.”

“You shall have a pleasant excursion, over good roads, in the month of May, in an easy carriage, and drawn by a pair of as spirited horses as ever trotted on the Third Avenue.”

“The animals you have just purchased in honour of Mrs. Updyke that is—Mrs. McBrain that is to be—” touching tho bell, and adding to the very respectable black who immediately answered the summons, “Tell Master Jack and Miss Sarah I wish to see them. So, Ned, you have let the widow know all about it, and she does not pout or look distrustful—that is a good symptom, at least.”

“I would not marry a jealous woman, if I never had a wife!”

“Then you will never marry at all. Why, Dr. McBrain, it is in the nature of woman to be distrustful—to be jealous—to fancy things that are merely figments of the brain.”

“You know nothing about them, and would be wisest to be silent—but here are the young people already, to ask your pleasure.”

“Sarah, my dear,” resumed the uncle in a kind and affectionate tone of voice, one that the old bachelor almost universally held towards that particular relative, “I must give you a little trouble. Go into my room, child, and put up, in my smallest travelling bag, a clean shirt, a handkerchief or two, three or four collars, and a change all round, for a short expedition into the country.”

“Country! Do you quit us to-day, sir?”

“Within an hour, at latest,” looking at his watch. “If we leave the door at ten, we can reach Biberry before the inquest reassembles. You told those capital beasts of yours, Ned, to come here?”

“I told Stephen to give them a hint to that effect. You may rely on their punctuality.”

“Jack, you had better be of our party. I go on some legal business of importance, and it may be well for you to go along, in order to pick up an idea, or two.”

“And why not Michael also, sir? He has as much need of ideas as I have myself.”

A pretty general laugh succeeded, though Sarah, who was just quitting the room, did not join in it. She rather looked grave, as well as a little anxiously towards the last-named neophyte of the law.

“Shall we want any books, sir?” demanded the nephew.

“Why, yes—we will take the Code of Procedure. One can no more move without that, just now, than he can travel in some countries without a passport. Yes, put up the code, Jack, and we’ll pick it to pieces as we trot along.”

“There is little need of that, sir, if what they say be true. I hear, from all quarters, that it is doing that for itself, on a gallop.”

“Shame on thee, lad—I have half a mind to banish thee to Philadelphia! But put up the code; thy joke can’t be worse than that joke. As for Michael, he can accompany us if he wish it; but you must both be ready by ten. At ten, precisely, we quit my door, in the chariot of Phœbus, eh, Ned?”

“Call it what you please, so you do but go. Be active, young gentlemen, for we have no time to throw away. The jury meet again at two, and we have several hours of road before us. I will run round and look at my slate, and be here by the time you are ready.”[ready.”]

On this suggestion everybody was set in active motion. John went for his books, and to fill a small rubber bag for himself; Michael did the same, and Sarah was busy in her uncle’s room.[room.] As for Dunscomb, he made the necessary disposition of some papers, wrote two or three notes, and held himself at the command of his friend. This affair was just the sort of professional business in which he liked to be engaged. Not that he had any sympathy with crime, for he was strongly averse to all communion with rogues; but it appeared to him, by the representations of the doctor, to be a mission of mercy. A solitary, young, unfriended female, accused, or suspected, of a most heinous crime, and looking around for a protector and an adviser, was an object too interesting for a man of his temperament to overlook, under the appeal that had been made. Still he was not the dupe of his feelings. All his coolness, sagacity, knowledge of human nature, and professional attainments, were just as active in him as they ever had been in his life. Two things he understood well: that we are much too often deceived by outward signs, mistaking character by means of a fair exterior, and studied words, and that neither youth, beauty, sex, nor personal graces were infallible preventives of the worst offences, on the one hand; and that, on the other, men nurture distrust, and suspicion, often, until it grows too large to be concealed, by means of their own propensity to feed the imagination and to exaggerate. Against these two weaknesses he was now resolved to arm himself; and when the whole party drove from the door, our counsellor was as clear-headed and impartial, according to his own notion of the matter, as if he were a judge.

By this time the young men had obtained a general notion of the business they were on, and the very first subject that was started, on quitting the door, was in a question put by John Wilmeter, in continuation of a discussion that had been commenced between himself and his friend.

“Mike and I have a little difference of opinion, on a point connected with this matter, which I could wish you to settle for us, as an arbiter. On the supposition that you find reason to believe that this young woman has really committed these horrible crimes, what would be your duty in the case—to continue to befriend her, and advise her, and use your experience and talents in order to shield her against the penalties of the law, or to abandon her at once?”

“In plain English, Jack, you and your brother student wish to know whether I am to act as a palladium, or as a runagate, in this affair. As neophytes in your craft, it may be well to suggest to you, in the first place, that I have not yet been fee’d. I never knew a lawyer’s conscience trouble him about questions in casuistry, until he had received something down.”

“But you can suppose that something paid, in this case, sir, and then answer our question.”

“This is just the case in which I can suppose nothing of the sort. Had McBrain given me to understand I was to meet a client, with a well-lined purse, who was accused of arson and murder, I would have seen him married to two women, at the same time, before I would have budged. It’s the want of a fee that takes me out of town, this morning.”

“And the same want, I trust, sir, will stimulate you to solve our difficulty.”

The uncle laughed, and nodded his head, much as if he would say, “Pretty well for you;” then he gave a thought to the point in professional ethics that had started up between his two students.

“This is a very old question with the profession, gentlemen,” Dunscomb answered, a little more gravely. “You will find men who maintain that the lawyer has, morally, a right to do whatever his client would do; that he puts himself in the place of the man he defends, and is expected to do everything precisely as if he were the accused party himself. I rather think that some vague notion, quite as loose as this, prevails pretty generally among what one may call the minor moralists of the profession.”

“I confess, sir, that I have been given to understand that some such rule ought to govern our conduct,” said Michael Millington, who had been in Dunscomb’s office only for the last six months.

“Then you have been very loosely and badly instructed in the duties of an advocate, Mr. Michael. A more pernicious doctrine was never broached, or one better suited to make men scoundrels. Let a young man begin practice with such notions, and two or three thieves for clients will prepare him to commit petit larceny, and a case or two of perjury would render him an exquisite at an affidavit. No, my boys, here is your rule in this matter: an advocate has a right to do whatever his client has a right to do—not what his client would do.”

“Surely, sir, an advocate is justified in telling his client to plead not guilty, though guilty; and in aiding him to persuade a jury to acquit him, though satisfied himself he ought to be convicted!”

“You have got hold of the great point in the case, Jack, and one on which something may be said on both sides. The law is so indulgent, as to permit an accused who has formally pleaded ‘guilty,’ thus making a distinct admission of his crime, to withdraw that plea, and put in another of ‘not guilty.’ Now, had the same person made a similar admission out of court, and under circumstances that put threats or promises out of the question, the law would have accepted that admission as the best possible evidence of his guilt. It is evident, therefore, that an understanding exists, to which the justice of the country is a party, that a man, though guilty, shall get himself out of the scrape, if he can do so by legal means. No more importance is attached to the ‘not guilty,’ than to the ‘not at home’ to a visitor; it being understood, by general convention, that neither means anything. Some persons are so squeamish, as to cause their servants to say ‘they are engaged,’ by way of not telling a lie; but a lie consists in the intentional deception, and ‘not in’ and ‘not guilty’ mean no more, in the one case, than ‘you can’t see my master,’ and in the other, than ‘I’ll run the chances of a trial.’”

“After all, sir, this is going pretty near the wind, in the way of morals.”

“It certainly is. The Christian man who has committed a crime, ought not to attempt to deny it to his country, as he certainly cannot to his God. Yet, nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of the most strait-laced Christians in the community would so deny their guilt, if arraigned. We must not tax poor human nature too heavily, though I think the common law contains many things, originating in a jealousy of hereditary power, that it is great folly for us to preserve. But, while we are thus settling principles, we forget facts. You have told me nothing of your client, Ned.”

“What would you wish to know?”

“You called her young, I remember; what may be her precise age?”

“That is more than I know; somewhere between sixteen and five-and-twenty.”

“Five-and-twenty! Is she as old as that?”

“I rather think not; but I have been thinking much of her this morning, and I really do not remember to have seen another human being who is so difficult to describe.”

“She has eyes, of course?”

“Two—and very expressive they are; though, sworn, I could not tell their colour.”

“And hair?”

“In very great profusion; so much of it, and so very fine and shining, that it was the first thing about her person which I observed. But I have not the least notion of its colour.”

“Was it red?”

“No; nor yellow, nor golden, nor black, nor brown,—and yet a little of all blended together, I should say.”

“Ned, I’ll tell the Widow Updyke of thee, thou rogue!”

“Tell her, and welcome. She has asked me all these questions herself, this very morning.”

“Oh, she has, has she? Umph! Woman never changes her nature. You cannot say anything about the eyes, beyond the fact of their being very expressive?”

“And pleasing; more than that, even—engaging; winning, is a better term.”

“Ned, you dog, you have never told the widow one-half!”

“Every syllable. I even went farther, and declared I had never beheld a countenance that, in so short an interview, made so deep an impression on me. If I were not to see this young woman again, I should never forget the expression of her face—so spirited, so sad, so gentle, so feminine, and so very intelligent. It seemed to me to be what I should call an illuminated countenance.”

“Handsome?”

“Not unusually so, among our sweet American girls, except through the expression. That was really wonderful; though, you will remember, I saw her under very peculiar circumstances.”

“Oh, exceedingly peculiar. Dear old soul; what a thump she has given him! How were her mouth and her teeth?—complexion, stature, figure, and smile?”

“I can tell you little of all these. Her teeth are fine; for she gave me a faint smile, such as a lady is apt to give a man in quitting him, and I saw just enough of the teeth to know that they are exceedingly fine. You smile, young gentlemen; but you may have a care for your hearts, in good truth; for if this strange girl interests either of you one-half as much as she has interested me, she will be either Mrs. John Wilmeter, or Mrs. Michael Millington, within a twelvemonth.”

Michael looked very sure that she would never fill the last situation, which was already bespoke for Miss Sarah Wilmeter; and as for Jack, he laughed outright.

“We’ll tell Mrs. Updyke of him, when we get back, and break off that affair, at least,” cried the uncle, winking at the nephew, but in a way his friend should see him; “then there will be one marriage the less in the world.”

“But is she a lady, doctor?” demanded John, after a short pause. “My wife must have some trifling claims in that way, I can assure you.”

“As for family, education, association and fortune, I can say nothing,—I know nothing. Yet will I take upon myself to say she is a lady,—and that, in the strict signification of the term.”

“You are not serious now, Ned!” exclaimed the counsellor, quickly. “Not a bony fide, as some of our gentlemen have it? You cannot mean exactly what you say.”