Part 60 (1/2)
Then Larry could stand it no longer. He sprang up and clapped Richard on the shoulder. ”Come, lad, come! We'll go to this trial together. Do you know who's being tried? No. They'll have to get this off before they can take another on. I'm thinking you'll find your case none so bad as it seems to you now. First there's a thing I must do. My brother-in-law's in trouble--but it is his own fault--still I'm a mind to help him out. He's a fine hater, that brother-in-law of mine, but he's tried to do a father's part in the past by you--and done it well, while I've been soured. In the gladness of my heart I'll help him out--I'd made up my mind to do it before I left my mountain. Your father's a rich man, boy--with money in store for you--I say it in modesty, but he who reared you has been my enemy. Now I'm going to his bank, and there I'll make a deposit that will save it from ruin.”
He stood a moment chuckling, with both hands thrust deep in his pockets. ”We'll go to that trial--it's over an affair of his, and he's fair in the wrong. We'll go and watch his discomfiture--and we'll see him writhe. We'll see him carry things his own way--the only way he can ever see--and then we'll watch him--man, we'll watch him--Oh, my boy, my boy! I doubt it's wrong for me to exult over his chagrin, but that's what I'm going for now. It was the other way before I met you, but the finding of you has given me a light heart, and I'll watch that brother-in-law's set-down with right good will.”
He told Richard about Amalia, and asked him to wait until he fetched her, as he wished her to accompany them, but still he said nothing to him about his cousin Peter. He found Amalia descending the long flight of stairs, dressed to go out, and knew she had been awaiting him for the last half hour. Now he led her into the little parlor, while Richard paced up and down the piazza, and there, where she could see him as he pa.s.sed the window to and fro, Larry told her what had come to him, and even found time to moralize over it, in his gladness.
”That's it. A man makes up his mind to do what's right regardless of all consequences or his prejudices, or what not,--and from that moment all begins to grow clear, and he sees right--and things come right. Now look at the man! He's a fine lad, no? They're both fine lads--but this one's mine. Look at him I say. Things are to come right for him, and all through his making up his mind to come back here and stand to his guns. The same way with Harry King. I've told you the contention--and at last you know who he is--but mind you, no word yet to my son. I'll tell him as we walk along. I'm to stop at the bank first, and if we tell him too soon, he'll be for going to the courthouse straight. The landlord tells me there's danger of a run on the bank to-morrow and the only reason it hasn't come to-day is that the bank's been closed all the morning for the trial. I'm thinking that was policy, for whoever heard of a bank's being closed in the morning for a trial--or anything short of a death or a holiday?”
”But if it is now closed, why do we wait to go there? It is to do nothing we make delay,” said Amalia, anxiously.
”I told Decker to send word to the cas.h.i.+er to be there, as a deposit is to be made. If he can't be there for that, then it's his own fault if to-morrow finds him unprepared.” Larry stepped out to meet Richard and introduced Amalia. He had already told Richard a little of her history, and now he gave her her own name, Manovska.
After a few moments' conversation she asked Larry: ”I may keep now my own name, it is quite safe, is not? They are gone now--those for whom I feared.”
”Wait a little,” said Richard. ”Wait until you have been down in the world long enough to be sure. It is a hard thing to live under suspicion, and until you have means of knowing, the other will be safer.”
”You think so? Then is better. Yes? Ah, Sir Kildene, how it is beautiful to see your son does so very much resemble our friend.”
They arrived at the bank, and Larry entered while Richard and Amalia strolled on together. ”We had a friend, Harry King,”--she paused and would have corrected herself, but then continued--”he was very much like to you--but he is here in trouble, and it is for that for which we have come here. Sir Kildene is so long in that bank! I would go in haste to that place where is our friend. Shall we turn and walk again a little toward the bank? So will we the sooner encounter him on the way.”
They returned and met Larry coming out, stepping briskly. He too was eager to be at the courthouse. He took his son's arm and rapidly and earnestly told him the situation as he had just heard it from the cas.h.i.+er. He told him that which he had been keeping back, and impressed on him the truth that unless he had returned when he did, the talk in the town was that the trial was likely to go against the prisoner. Richard would have broken into a run, in his excitement, but Larry held him back.
”Hold back a little, boy. Let us keep pace with you. There's really no hurry, only that impulse that sent you home--it was as if you were called, from all I can learn.”
”It is my reprieve. I am free. He has suffered, too. Does he know yet that I too live? Does he know?”
”Perhaps not--yet, but listen to me. Don't be too hasty in showing yourself. If they did not know him, they won't know you--for you are enough different for them never to suspect you, now that they have, or think they have, the man for whom they have been searching. See here, man, hold back for my sake. That man--that brother-in-law of mine--has walked for years over my heart, and I've done nothing. He has despised me, and without reason--because I presumed to love your mother, lad, against his arrogant will. He--he--would--I will see him down in the dust of repentance. I will see him willfully convict his own son--he who has been hungering to see you--my son--sent to a prison for life--or hanged.”
Richard listened, lingering as Larry wished, appalled at this revelation, until they arrived at the edge of the crowd around the door, eagerly trying to wedge themselves in wherever the chance offered.
”Oh! Sir Kildene--we are here--now what to do! How can we go in there?” said Amalia.
Larry moved them aside slowly, pus.h.i.+ng Amalia between Richard and himself, and intimating to those nearest him that they were required within, until a pa.s.sage was gradually made for the three, and thus they reached the door and so gained admittance. And that was how they came to be there, crowded in a corner, all during the testimony of Betty Ballard, unheeded by those around them--mere units in the throng trying to hear the evidence and see the princ.i.p.als in the drama being enacted before them.
[1] The ruling of the court upon this point was afterwards justified by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in the case of Buel _v._ State, 104 Wis. 132, decided in 1899.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
BETTY BALLARD'S TESTIMONY
Betty Ballard stood, her slight figure drawn up, poised, erect, her head thrown back, and her eyes fixed on the Elder's face. The silence of the great audience was so intense that the buzzing of flies circling around and around near the ceiling could be heard, while the people all leaned forward as with one emotion, their eyes on the princ.i.p.als before them, straining to hear, vivid, intent.
Richard saw only Betty, heeding no one but her, feeling her presence.
For a moment he stood pale as death, then the red blood mounted from his heart, staining his neck and his face with its deep tide and throbbing in his temples. The Elder felt her scrutiny and looked back at her, and his brows contracted into a frown of severity.
”Miss Ballard,” said the lawyer, ”you are called upon to identify the prisoner in the box.”
She lifted her eyes to the judge's face, then turned them upon Milton Hibbard, then fixed them again upon the Elder, but did not open her lips. She did not seem to be aware that every eye in the court room was fastened upon her. Pale and grave and silent she stood thus, for to her the struggle was only between herself and the Elder.