McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader Part 52

The Solway Frith, on the southwest coast of Scotland, is remarkable for its high spring tides.

Bonnet is the ordinary name in Scotland for a man's cap.

XCIX. SPEECH ON THE TRIAL OF A MURDERER. (352)

Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I can not have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice.

But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how much soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing this deed of midnight a.s.sa.s.sination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.

This is a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent anywhere; certainly none in our New England history. This b.l.o.o.d.y drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lionlike temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood.

An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited in an example, where such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the bloodshot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose, rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal nature, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his character.

The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circ.u.mstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet,--the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The a.s.sa.s.sin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half-lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves the lock by soft and continued pressure till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim pa.s.ses, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death!

It is the a.s.sa.s.sin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart; and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, pa.s.ses out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder; no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe!

Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of G.o.d has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon; such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men.

True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and wilt come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, everything, every circ.u.mstance connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circ.u.mstance into a blaze of discovery.

Meantime, the guilty soul can not keep its own secret. It is false to itself, or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to G.o.d nor man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or a.s.sistance either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will.

He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts.

It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarra.s.s him, and the net of circ.u.mstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession.

--Daniel Webster.

NOTE.--The above extract is from Daniel Webster's argument in the trial of John F. Knapp for the murder of Mr. White, a very wealthy and respectable citizen of Salem, Ma.s.s, Four persons were arrested as being concerned in the conspiracy; one confessed the plot and all the details of the crime, implicating the others, but he afterwards refused to testify in court. The man who, by this confession, was the actual murderer, committed suicide, and Mr. Webster's a.s.sistance was obtained in prosecuting the others. John F. Knapp was convicted as princ.i.p.al, and the other two as accessaries in the murder.

C. THE CLOSING YEAR. (355)

George Denison Prentice, 1802-1870, widely known as a political writer, a poet, and a wit, was born in Preston, Connecticut, and graduated at Brown University in 1823. He studied law, but never practiced his profession. He edited a paper in Hartford for two years; and, in 1831, he became editor of the "Louisville Journal," which position he held for nearly forty years. As an editor, Mr. Prentice was an able, and sometimes bitter, political partisan, abounding in wit and satire; as a poet, he not only wrote gracefully himself, but he did much by his kindness and sympathy to develop the poetical talents of others. Some who have since taken high rank, first became known to the world through the columns of the "Louisville Journal."

'T is midnight's holy hour, and silence now Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds, The bell's deep notes are swelling; 't is the knell Of the departed year.

No funeral train Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood, With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred As by a mourner's sigh; and, on yon cloud, That floats so still and placidly through heaven, The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand-- Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, And Winter, with his aged locks--and breathe In mournful cadences, that come abroad Like the far wind harp's wild and touching wail, A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year, Gone from the earth forever.

'Tis a time For memory and for tears. Within the deep, Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim, Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold And solemn finger to the beautiful And holy visions, that have pa.s.sed away, And left no shadow of their loveliness On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts The coffin lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love, And, bending mournfully above the pale, Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers O'er what has pa.s.sed to nothingness.

The year Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful, And they are not. It laid its pallid hand Upon the strong man; and the haughty form Is fallen, and the flas.h.i.+ng eye is dim.

It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged The bright and joyous; and the tearful wail Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song And reckless shout resounded. It pa.s.sed o'er The battle plain, where sword, and spear, and s.h.i.+eld Flashed in the light of midday; and the strength Of serried hosts is s.h.i.+vered, and the gra.s.s, Green from the soil of carnage, waves above The crushed and moldering skeleton. It came, And faded like a wreath of mist at eve; Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, It heralded its millions to their home In the dim land of dreams.

Remorseless Time!-- Fierce spirit of the gla.s.s and scythe!--what power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt His iron heart to pity! On, still on He presses, and forever. The proud bird, The condor of the Andes, that can soar Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave The fury of the northern hurricane, And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness; And Night's deep darkness has no chain to bind His rus.h.i.+ng pinion.

Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise, Gathering the strength of h.o.a.ry centuries, And rush down, like the Alpine avalanche, Startling the nations; and the very stars, Yon bright and burning blazonry of G.o.d, Glitter awhile in their eternal depths, And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pa.s.s away, To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time, Time the tomb builder, holds his fierce career, Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, To sit and muse, like other conquerors, Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

CI. A NEW CITY IN COLORADO. (358)

Helen Hunt Jackson, 1830-1885, was the daughter of the late Professor Nathan W. Fiske, of Amherst College. She was born in Amherst, and educated at Ipswich, Ma.s.sachusetts, and at New York. Mrs. Jackson was twice married. In the latter years of her life, she became deeply interested in the Indians, and wrote two books, "Ramona," a novel, and "A Century of Dishonor," setting forth vividly the wrongs to which the red race has been subjected. She had previously published several books of prose and poetry, less important but charming in their way. The following selection is adapted from "Bits of Travel at Home."

Garland City is six miles from Fort Garland. The road to it from the fort lies for the last three miles on the top of a sage-grown plateau. It is straight as an arrow, looks in the distance like a brown furrow on the pale gray plain, and seems to pierce the mountains beyond. Up to within an eighth of a mile of Garland City, there is no trace of human habitation.

Knowing that the city must be near, you look in all directions for a glimpse of it; the hills ahead of you rise sharply across your way. Where is the city? At your very feet, but you do not suspect it.

The sunset light was fading when we reached the edge of the ravine in which the city lies. It was like looking unawares over the edge of a precipice; the gulch opened beneath us as suddenly as if the earth had that moment parted and made it. With brakes set firm, we drove cautiously down the steep road; the ravine twinkled with lights, and almost seemed to flutter with white tents and wagon tops. At the farther end it widened, opening out on an inlet of the San Luis Park; and, in its center, near this widening mouth, lay the twelve-days-old city. A strange din arose from it.

"What is going on?" we exclaimed. "The building of the city," was the reply. "Twelve days ago there was not a house here. To-day there are one hundred and five, and in a week more there will be two hundred; each man is building his own home, and working day and night to get it done ahead of his neighbor. There are four sawmills going constantly, but they can't turn out lumber half fast enough. Everybody has to be content with a board at a time. If it were not for that, there would have been twice as many houses done as there are."

We drove on down the ravine. A little creek on our right was half hid in willow thickets. Hundreds of white tents gleamed among them: tents with poles; tents made by spreading sailcloth over the tops of bushes; round tents; square tents; big tents; little tents; and for every tent a camp fire; hundreds of white-topped wagons, also, at rest for the night, their great poles propped up by sticks, and their mules and drivers lying and standing in picturesque groups around them.

It was a scene not to be forgotten. Louder and louder sounded the chorus of the hammers as we drew near the center of the "city;" more and more the bustle thickened; great ox teams swaying unwieldily about, drawing logs and planks, backing up steep places; all sorts of vehicles driving at reckless speed up and down; men carrying doors; men walking along inside of window sashes,--the easiest way to carry them; men shoveling; men wheeling wheelbarrows; not a man standing still; not a man with empty hands; every man picking up something, and running to put it down somewhere else, as in a play; and, all the while, "Clink! clink! clink!"

ringing above the other sounds,--the strokes of hundreds of hammers, like the "Anvil Chorus."

"Where is Perry's Hotel?" we asked. One of the least busy of the throng spared time to point to it with his thumb, as he pa.s.sed us. In some bewilderment we drew up in front of a large unfinished house, through the many uncased apertures of which we could see only scaffoldings, rough boards, carpenters' benches, and heaps of shavings. Streams of men were pa.s.sing in and out through these openings, which might be either doors or windows; no steps led to any of them.

"Oh, yes! oh, yes! can accommodate you all!" was the landlord's reply to our hesitating inquiries. He stood in the doorway of his dining-room; the streams of men we had seen going in and out were the fed and the unfed guests of the house. It was supper time; we also were hungry. We peered into the dining room: three tables full of men; a huge pile of beds on the floor, covered with hats and coats; a singular wall, made entirely of doors propped upright; a triangular s.p.a.ce walled off by sailcloth,--this is what we saw. We stood outside, waiting among the scaffolding and benches. A black man was lighting the candles in a candelabrum made of two narrow bars of wood nailed across each other at right angles, and perforated with holes. The candles sputtered, and the hot fat fell on the shavings below.

"Dangerous way of lighting a room full of shavings," some one said. The landlord looked up at the swinging candelabra and laughed. "Tried it pretty often," he said. "Never burned a house down yet."

I observed one peculiarity in the speech at Garland City. Personal p.r.o.nouns, as a rule, were omitted; there was no time for a superfluous word.

"Took down this house at Wagon Creek," he continued, "just one week ago; took it down one morning while the people were eating breakfast; took it down over their heads; putting it up again over their heads now."

This was literally true. The last part of it we ourselves were seeing while he spoke, and a friend at our elbow had seen the Wagon Creek crisis.

"Waiting for that round table for you," said the landlord; " 'll bring the chairs out here's fast's they quit 'em. That's the only way to get the table."

So, watching his chances, as fast as a seat was vacated, he sprang into the room, seized the chair and brought it out to us; and we sat there in our "reserved seats," biding the time when there should be room enough vacant at the table for us to take our places.

What an indescribable scene it was! The strange-looking wall of propped doors which we had seen, was the impromptu, wall separating the bedrooms from the dining-room. Bedrooms? Yes, five of them; that is, five bedsteads in a row, with just s.p.a.ce enough between them to hang up a sheet, and with just room enough between them and the propped doors for a moderate-sized person to stand upright if he faced either the doors or the bed. Chairs? Oh, no! What do you want of a chair in a bedroom which has a bed in it? Washstands? One tin basin out in the unfinished room. Towels?

Uncertain.

The little triangular s.p.a.ce walled off by the sailcloth was a sixth bedroom, quite private and exclusive; and the big pile of beds on the dining-room floor was to be made up into seven bedrooms more between the tables, after everybody had finished supper.

Luckily for us we found a friend here,--a man who has been from the beginning one of Colorado's chief pioneers; and who is never, even in the wildest wilderness, without resources of comfort.

"You can't sleep here," he said. "I can do better for you than this."

"Better!"