The Bondboy Part 56

"We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty."

The judge looked down at Joe, who had turned to his mother, smiling through his tears.

"You are free, G.o.d bless you!" said he.

When a judge says so much more upon the bench than precedent, form, and custom prescribe for him to say; when he puts down the hard mask of the law and discovers his human face behind it, and his human heart moving his warm, human blood; when a judge on the bench does that, what can be expected of the unsanctified mob in front of him?

It was said by many that Captain Taylor led the applause himself, but there were others who claimed that distinction for Colonel Price. No matter.

While the house did not rise as one man--for in every house there are old joints and young ones, which do not unlimber with the same degree of alacrity, no matter what the incitement--it got to its feet in surprising order, with a great tossing of arms and waving of hats and coats. In the midst of this glad turmoil stood Uncle Posen Spratt, head and shoulders above the crowd, mounted on a bench, his steer's horn ear-trumpet to his whiskered lips, like an Israelitish priest, blowing his famous fox-hound blast, which had been heard five miles on a still autumn night.

Less than half an hour before, the public would have attended Joe Newbolt's hanging with all the pleasurable and satisfactory thrills which men draw from such melancholy events. Now it was clamoring to lift him to its shoulders and bear him in triumph through the town.

Judge Maxwell smiled, and adjourned court, which order n.o.body but his clerk heard, and let them have their noisy way. When the people saw him come down from the bench they quieted, not understanding his purpose; and when he reached out his hand to Joe, who rose to meet him, silence settled over the house. Judge Maxwell put his arm around Joe's shoulder in fatherly way while he shook hands with Mrs. Newbolt. What he said, n.o.body but those within the bar heard, but he gave Joe's back an expressive slap of approval as he turned to the prosecuting attorney.

People rushed forward with the suddenness of water released, to shake hands with Joe when they understood that the court was in adjournment.

They crowded inside the rail, almost overwhelming him, exclaiming in loud terms of admiration, addressing him familiarly, to his excessive embarra.s.sment, pressing upon him their a.s.surances that they knew, all the time, that he didn't do it, and that he would come out of it with head and tail both up, as he had come through.

Men who would have pa.s.sed him yesterday without a second thought, and who would no more have given their hands to him on the footing of equality--unless they had chanced to be running for office--than they would have thrust them into the fire, now stood there smiling and jostling and waiting their turns to reach him, all of them chattering and mouthing and nodding heads until one would have thought that each of them was a prophet, and had predicted this very thing.

The old generals, colonels, majors, and captains--that was the lowest rank in Shelbyville--and the noncommissioned substantial first citizens of the county, were shaking hands among themselves, and nodding and smiling, full of the fine feeling of that moment. It was a triumph of chivalry, they said; they had witnessed the renaissance of the old spirit, the pa.s.sing of which, and the dying out and dwindling of it in the rising generation, they had so long and lamentably deplored.

There, before their eyes, they had seen this uncouth grub transformed into a glorious and n.o.ble thing, and the only discord in the miraculous harmony of it was the deep-lying regret that it was not a son of Shelbyville who had thus proved himself a man. And then the colonels and others broke off their self-felicitation to join the forward mob in the front of the room, and press their congratulations upon Joe.

Joe, embarra.s.sed and awkward, tried to be genial, but hardly succeeded in being civil, for his heart was not with them in what he felt to be nothing but a cheap emotion. He was looking over their heads, and peering between their shoulders, watching the progress of a little red feather in a Highland bonnet, which was making its way toward him through the confusion like a bold pennant upon the crest of battle. Joe pushed through the wedging ma.s.s of people around, and went to the bar to meet her.

In the time of his distress, these who now clamored around him with professions of friendliness had not held up a hand to sustain him, nor given him one good word to sh.o.r.e up his sinking soul. But there was one who had known and understood; one whose faith had held him up to the heights of honor, and his soul stood in his eyes to greet her as he waited for her to come. He did not know what he would say when hand touched hand, but he felt that he could fall down upon his knees as a subject sinks before a queen.

Behind him he heard his mother's voice, thanking the people who offered their congratulations. It was a great day for her when the foremost citizens of the county came forward, their hats in their hands, to pay their respects to her Joe. She felt that he was rising up to his place at last, and coming into his own.

Joe heard his mother's voice, but it was sound to him now without words.

Alice was coming. She was now just a little way beyond the reach of his arm, and her presence filled the world.

The people had their quick eyes on Alice, also, and they fell apart to let her pa.s.s, the flame of a new expectation in their keen faces. After yesterday's strange act, which seemed so prophetic of today's climax in the case, what was she going to do? Joe wondered in his heart with them; he trembled in his eagerness to know.

She was now at the last row of benches, not five feet distant from him, where she stood a second, while she looked up into his face and smiled, lifting her hand in a little expressive gesture. Then she turned aside to the place where Ollie Chase sat, shame-stricken and stunned, beside her mother.

The women who had been sitting near Ollie had withdrawn from her, as if she had become unclean with her confession. And now, as Alice approached, Ollie's mother gave her a hard, resentful look, and put her arm about her daughter as if to protect her from any physical indignities which Alice might be bent on offering.

Ollie shrank against her mother, her hair bright above her somber garb, as if it was the one spot in her where any of the suns.h.i.+ne of her past remained. Alice went to her with determined directness. She bent over her, and took her by the hand.

"Thank you! You're the bravest woman in the world!" she said.

Ollie looked up, wonder and disbelief struggling against the pathetic hopelessness in her eyes. Alice bent lower. She kissed the young widow's pale forehead.

Joe was ashamed that he had forgotten Ollie. He saw tears come into Ollie's eyes as she clung closer to Alice's hand, and he heard the shocked gasping of women, and the grunts of men, and the stirring murmur of surprise which shook the crowd. He opened the little gate in the railing and went out.

"You didn't have to do that for me, Ollie," said he, kindly; "I could have got on, somehow, without that."

"Both of you--" said Ollie, a sob shaking her breath; "it was for both of you!"

There was a churchlike stillness around them. Colonel Price had advanced, and now stood near the little group, a look of understanding in his kind old face. Ollie mastered her sudden gust of weeping, and shook her disordered hair back from her forehead, a defiant light in her eyes.

"I don't care now, I don't care what _anybody_ says!" said she.

Her mother glanced around with the fire of battle in her eyes. In that look she defied the public, and uttered her contempt for its valuation and opinion. Alice Price had lifted her crushed and broken daughter up.

She had taken her by the hand, and she had kissed her, to show the world that she did not hold her as one defiled. Judge Maxwell and all of them had seen her do it. She had given Ollie absolution before all men.

Ollie drew her cloak around her shoulders and rose to her feet.

"Remember that; for both of you, for one as much as the other," said she, looking into Alice's eyes. "Come on, Mother; we'll go home now."

Ollie walked out of the court-room with her head up, looking the world in the face. In place of the mark of the beast on her forehead, she was carrying the cool benediction of a virtuous kiss. Joe and Alice stood looking after her until she reached the door; even the most careless there waited her exit as if it was part of some solemn ceremony. When she had pa.s.sed out of sight beyond the door, the crowd moved suddenly and noisily after her. For the public, the show was over.

Alice looked up into Joe's face. There was uncertainty in his eyes still, for he was no wiser than those in their generations before him who had failed to read a woman's heart. Alice saw that cloud hovering before the sun of his felicity. She lifted her hands and gave them to him, as one restoring to its owner something that cannot be denied.

Face to face for a moment they stood thus, hands clasped in hands. For them the world was empty of prying eyes, wondering minds, impertinent faces. For a moment they were alone.

The jurors had come out of the box, and were following the crowd. Hammer was gathering up his books and papers, Judge Maxwell and the prosecuting attorney were talking with Mrs. Newbolt. The sheriff was waiting near the bar, as if he had some duty yet before him to discharge. A smile had come over Colonel Price's face, where it spread like a benediction as Joe and Alice turned to enter the world again.

"I want to shake hands with you, Joe," said the sheriff, "and wish you good luck. I always knowed you was as innercent as a child."

Joe obliged him, and thanked him for his expression, but there were things in the past which were not so easily wiped from the memory--especially a chafed ring around his left wrist, where the sheriff's iron had galled him when he had fretted against it during the tense moments of those past days.

Sam Lucas offered Joe his hand.

"No hard feeling, Joe, I hope?" said he.

"Well, not in particular--oh, well, you were only doing your duty, as you saw it," said Joe.

"You could have saved the county a lot of money, and yourself and your friends a lot of trouble and anxiety, if you'd told us all about this thing at the beginning," complained Lucas, with lingering severity.

"As for that--" began Colonel Price.

"You knew it, Miss Price," Lucas cut in. "Why didn't you make him tell?"

"No," said Alice, quietly, "I didn't know, Mr. Lucas. I only believed in him. Besides that, there are some things that you can't _make_ a gentleman tell!"

"Just so," said Judge Maxwell, coming down from the bench with his books under his arm.

"Bless your heart, honey," said Mrs. Newbolt, touching Alice's hair with gentle, almost reverent hand, "you knew him better than his old mother did!"

Colonel Price bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Newbolt.

"I want you and Joe to come home with us for some refreshment," said he, "after which the boy and I must have a long, long talk. Mr. Hammer, sir," said he, giving that astonished lawyer his hand, "I beg the honor of shaking hands with a rising gentleman, sir!"