The Graysons: A Story of Illinois

"Ye-es." Dave now stood on his left foot.

"And you could see what kind of a pistol it was?" This was said with a little laugh very exasperating to the witness.

"Yes, I could," answered Dave, with dogged resolution not to be faced down.

"And just how the barrel was hung to the stock?" There was a positive sneer in Lincoln's voice now.

"Yes." This was spoken feebly.

"And you twenty feet or more away?"

"I've got awful good eyes, an' I know what I see," whined the witness, apologetically.

Here Lincoln paused and looked at Sovine, whose extreme distress was only made the more apparent by his feeble endeavor to conceal his agitation. The counsel, after regarding his uneasy victim for a quarter of a minute, thrust his hand into the tail-pocket of his blue coat, and after a little needless fumbling drew forth a small pamphlet in green covers. He turned the leaves of this with extreme deliberation, while the court-room was utterly silent. The members of the bar had as by general consent put their chairs down on all-fours, and were intently watching the struggle between the counsel and the witness. The sallow-faced judge had stopped the scratching of his quill, and had lowered his spectacles on his nose, that he might study the distressed face of the tormented Sovine. Mrs. Grayson's hands were on her lap, palms downward; her eyes were fixed on Abra'm, and her mouth was half open, as though she were going to speak.

Barbara found it hard to keep her seat, she was so eager for Lincoln to go on, and Tom was leaning forward breathlessly in the dock; his throat felt dry, and he choked when he tried to swallow; it seemed to him that he would smother with the beating of his heart. But it was worth while to turn away from these more interested parties to look for a moment at the ruddy face of Bob McCord, which was puckered to a kind of focus with an expression that was customary with him in a moment of supreme interest, as when he was drawing a sure bead on a bear or deer. It was worth while to regard Rachel Albaugh, who had lifted the veil from her face radiant with interest. Lincoln appeared to be the only perfectly deliberate person in the room. He seemed disposed to protract the situation as long as possible. He held his victim on the rack and he let him suffer. He would turn a leaf or two in his pamphlet and then look up at the demoralized witness, as though to fathom the depth of his torture and to measure the result. At last he fixed his thumb firmly at a certain place on a page and turned his eyes to the judge.

"Now, your Honor," he said to the court, "this witness," with a half-contemptuous gesture of his awkward left hand toward Sovine, "has sworn over and over that he recognized the accused as the person who shot George Lockwood, near the Union camp-meeting on the night of the 9th of last August, and that he, the witness, was standing at the time twenty feet or more away, while the scene of the shooting was nearly a mile distant from the torches inside the circle of tents. So remarkably sharp are this witness's eyes that he even saw what kind of pistol the prisoner held in his hands, and how the barrel was hung to the stock, and he is able to identify this pistol of Grayson's as precisely like and probably the identical weapon." Here Lincoln paused and scrutinized Sovine. "All these details he saw and observed in the brief space of time preceding the fatal shot, – saw and observed them at 10 o'clock at night, by means of moonlight shining through the trees – beech-trees in full leaf. That is a pretty hard story. How much light does even a full moon shed in a beech woods like that on the Union camp-ground? Not enough to see your way by, as everybody knows who has had to stumble through such woods." Lincoln paused here, that the words he had spoken might have time to produce their due effect on the judge, and especially on the slower wits of some of the jury. Meanwhile he turned the leaves of his pamphlet. Then he began once more: "But, may it please the court, before proceeding with the witness I would like to have the jury look at the almanac which I hold in my hand. They will here see that on the night of the 9th of last August, when this extraordinary witness" – with a sneer at Dave, who had sunk down on a chair in exhaustion – "saw the shape of a pistol at twenty feet away, at 10 o'clock, by moonlight, the moon did not rise until half-past 1 in the morning."

Sovine had been gasping like a fish newly taken from the water while Lincoln uttered these words, and he now began to mutter something.

"You may have a chance to explain when the jury get done looking at the almanac," said the lawyer to him. "For the present you'd better keep silence."

There was a rustle of excitement in the court-room, but at a word from the judge the sheriff's gavel fell and all was still. Lincoln walked slowly toward the jury-box and gave the almanac to the foreman, an intelligent farmer. Countrymen in that day were used to consulting almanacs, and one group after another of the jurymen satisfied themselves that on the night of the 9th, that is, on the morning of the 10th, the moon came up at half-past 1 o'clock. When all had examined the page, the counsel recovered his little book.

"Will you let me look at it?" asked the judge.

"Certainly, your Honor"; and the little witness was handed up to the judge, who with habitual caution looked it all over, outside and in, even examining the title-page to make sure that the book was genuine and belonged to the current year. Then he took note on a slip of paper of the moon's rising on the night of August 9 and 10, and handed back the almanac to Lincoln, who slowly laid it face downward on the table in front of him, open at the place of its testimony. The audience in the court-room was utterly silent and expectant. The prosecuting attorney got half-way to his feet to object to Lincoln's course, but he thought better of it and sat down again.

"Now, may it please the court," Lincoln went on, "I wish at this point to make a motion. I think the court will not regard it as out of order, as the case is very exceptional – a matter of life and death. This witness has solemnly sworn to a story that has manifestly not one word of truth in it. It is one unbroken falsehood. In order to take away the life of an innocent man he has invented this atrocious web of lies, to the falsity of which the very heavens above bear witness, as this almanac shows you. Now why does David Sovine go to all this trouble to perjure himself? Why does he wish to swear away the life of that young man who never did him any harm?" Lincoln stood still a moment, and looked at the witness, who had grown ghastly pale about the lips. Then he went on, very slowly. "Because that witness shot and killed George Lockwood himself. I move your Honor, that David Sovine be arrested at once for murder."

These words, spoken with extreme deliberation and careful emphasis, shook the audience like an explosion.

The prosecutor got to his feet, probably to suggest that the motion was not in order, since he had yet a right to a re-direct examination of Sovine, but, as the attorney for the State, his duty was now a divided one as regarded two men charged with the same crime. So he waved his hand irresolutely, stammered inarticulately, and sat down.

"This is at least a case of extraordinary perjury," said the judge. "Sheriff, arrest David Sovine! This matter will have to be looked into."

The sheriff came down from his seat, and went up to the now stunned and bewildered Sovine.

"I arrest you," he said, taking him by the arm.

The day-and-night fear of detection in which Dave had lived for all these weeks had wrecked his self-control at last.

"God!" he muttered, dropping his head with a sort of shudder. "'T ain't any use keepin' it back any longer. I – didn't mean to shoot him, an' I would n't 'a' come here ag'inst Tom if I could 'a' got away."

The words appeared to be wrung from him by some internal agony too strong for him to master; they were the involuntary result of the breaking down of his forces under prolonged suffering and terror, culminating in the slow torture inflicted by his cross-examination. A minute later, when his spasm of irresolution had passed off, he would have retracted his confession if he could. But the sheriff's deputy, with the assistance of a constable, was already leading him through the swaying crowd in the aisle, while many people got up and stood on the benches to watch the exit of the new prisoner. When at length Sovine had disappeared out of the door the spectators turned and looked at Tom, sitting yet in the dock, but with the certainty of speedy release before him. The whole result of Lincoln's masterful stroke was now for the first time realized, and the excitement bade fair to break over bounds. McCord doubled himself up once or twice in the effort to repress his feelings out of respect for the court, but his emotions were too much for him; his big fist, grasping his ragged hat, appeared above his head.

"Goshamity! Hooray!" he burst out with a stentorian voice, stamping his foot as he waved his hat.

At this the whole court-roomful of people burst into cheers, laughter, cries, and waving of hats and handkerchiefs, in spite of the sheriff's sharp rapping and shouts of "Order in court!" And when at length the people were quieted a little, Mrs. Grayson spoke up, with a choking voice:

"Jedge, ain't you a-goin' to let him go now?"

There was a new movement of feeling, and the judge called out, "Sheriff, order in court!" But his voice was husky and tremulous. He took off his spectacles to wipe them, and he looked out of the window behind him, and put his handkerchief first to one eye, then to the other, before he put his glasses back.

"May it please the court," said the tall lawyer, who had remained standing, waiting for the tempest to subside, and who now spoke in a subdued voice, "I move your Honor, that the jury be instructed to render a verdict of 'Not guilty.'" The judge turned to the prosecuting attorney.

"I don't think, your Honor," stammered Allen, "that I ought to object to the motion of my learned brother, under the peculiar circumstances of this case."

"I don't think you ought," said the judge, promptly, and he proceeded to give the jury instructions to render the desired verdict. As soon as the jury, nothing loath, had gone through the formality of a verdict, the sheriff came and opened the door of the box to allow Tom to come out.

"O Tom! they are letting you out," cried Janet, running forward to meet him as he came from the dock. She had not quite understood the drift of these last proceedings until this moment.

This greeting by little Janet induced another burst of excitement. It was no longer of any use for the judge to keep on saying "Sheriff, command order in court!" All the sheriff's rapping was in vain; it was impossible to arrest and fine everybody. The judge was compelled to avail himself of the only means of saving the court's dignity by adjourning for the day, while Mrs. Grayson was already embracing her Tommy under his very eyes.

As for Barbara, overcome by the reaction of feeling, she sat still in passive happiness which she did not care to show to this crowd, whose late unfriendly manifestations toward Tom she could not yet quite forgive. Hardly conscious of what was passing around her, she did not observe that her mother had presently let go her hold on Tom, and that Tom had come near and was standing in front of her. Her natural reserve made her wish to avoid a scene in public, but there are times when natural reserve is not a sufficient barrier. Tom gently put his hand on her shoulder and said "Barb," then all sense of the presence of others was obliterated in an instant. The only fact that she took note of was that her brother was there before her with unmanacled hands, free to go where he listed and forever delivered from the danger that had hung over him so imminently. Of what she did you must not expect a description; embraces and kisses of joy would seem hysterical if set down here in black and white for readers of our time, who like the color washed out of a human passion before it is offered to them. No! no! let us turn away – we do not like such things. But those hearty Illinois folk who looked on that scene between Barbara and Tom, and whose quick sympathies made them part of it, did not feel the slightest disapproval when they saw the faithful sister put her arms about Tom's neck; and every one of her kisses they seconded with clapping of hands and cheers, and some of the people were even foolish enough to weep for sympathy.