“A shout as of waters—a long-uttered cry: Hark! hark! how it leaps from the earth to the sky! From the sky to the earth, from the earth to the sea It is grandly reechoed, We are free, we are free!”
Every thing, the next morning, seemed as quiet and peaceful in the village, as if nothing unusual had occurred there. The commotion of the preceding night appeared to have wholly subsided. With such secrecy and caution, indeed, had the revolutionists managed, that no knowledge of their movements had yet reached the ears of any of their opponents. And so guarded was their conduct, through the whole morning, that the court party leaders, although their spies had early been out, prowling round the whole village, were yet kept in entire ignorance of all that had transpired among the former during the night. Being consequently deceived by the false appearance which every thing within the reach of their observation had been made to wear, and feeling thus relieved of their last night's guilty fears of a popular outbreak, these cruel and dastardly minions of royalty now counted on their triumph as complete, and, soon giving way to noisy exultation, they began openly to boast of the sanguinary measure by which their supposed victory had been achieved. And, about nine o'clock in the forenoon, the judges and officers of court, with a select number of their most devoted adherents, all in high spirits, and wholly unsuspicious of the storm that was silently gathering around them, formed a procession at the house of Brush, and, attended by a strong armed escort, marched ostentatiously through the street to the Court House, and entered the courtroom to commence the session.
After the judges had been ushered to their seats, and while they were waiting for the crowd to enter and settle in their places, Chandler, who had kept aloof till the procession had begun to form, was seen to run his wary and watchful eye several times over the assembly, to ascertain whether there were any discoverable indications there pointing to any different state of things from the one so confidently assumed by his confederates, when he soon appeared to have noted some circumstance which caused him suddenly to exchange the bland smile he had been wearing for a look of thoughtfulness and concern.
“Do you notice anything unusual in the crowd this morning, Judge Sabin?” he said to his colleague, in an anxious whisper as he closed his scrutiny.
“No, your honor,” replied the other, “unless it be the cheering sight of encountering none but friendly faces, instead of the hostile ones, which a man would have been led to expect to meet here, after so much clamor about popular disaffection.
“Ay,” responded the former, with a dubious shake of the head—“ay, but that is the very circumstance that puzzles me. Had a portion of the assembly been made up of our opponents, quietly mingling with the rest, as I had rather hoped, I should have construed it into a token of submission; or, had a committee been here to present a petition, or a remonstrance or two, I should have been prepared for that, and could have managed, by a little encouragement, and a good deal of delay, to give every troublesome thing the go-by, till the storm had blown over. But this entire absence of the disaffected looks a little suspicious, don't it?”
“Why, no,” answered the stiff and stolid Sabin; “I can see nothing suspicious about it. Indeed, it goes to show me that the rebellion is crushed; for, as I presume, the honest but well-meaning part of the rebels are ashamed, and their leaders afraid to show their faces here to-day, after last night's lesson.”
“I hope it may be as you suppose; but I have my doubts in the matter,” returned Chandler, with another dissenting shake of the head, as he turned away to renew his observations on the company before him.
On resuming his scrutiny, the uneasy judge soon perceived that the assembly, during his conversation with his colleague, had received an accession of several individuals, whom he recognized as belonging to the party whose absence had awakened his suspicions. But the presence of these persons, after he had carefully noted their appearance, instead of tending to allay only went to confirm, his apprehensions; for, as he closely scanned the bearing and countenance of each, and marked the assured and determined look and covert smile which spoke of anticipated triumph, attended with an occasional expectant glance through the windows, he there read, with the instinctive sagacity sometimes seen in men of his cast of character, enough to convince him, with what he had previously observed, that a movement of a dangerous magnitude was somewhere in progress, and soon to be developed against the court party. And he instantly resolved to lose no time before trimming his sails and preparing to meet the coming storm. And the next moment, to the surprise of his colleague and the officers of the court, he was on his feet, requesting silence that he might address the assembly. He then proceeded to remark on the unfortunate occurrences of the previous night, with a show of much feeling and regret, and concluded by expressing his disapprobation of the course taken in the affair by the sheriff and his abettors, in a manner that would have given the highest offence to all implicated, had they not believed that the speech was secretly designed only as a game on their opponents, whom he might think it expedient to quiet and delude a little longer. They, therefore, winked knowingly to each other, and remained silent; while the speaker sat down with the mental exclamation,—
“There, let it come now! That speech will do to be quoted. I can refer them to it as the public expression of my views before I knew what was coming.”
Having thus placed himself in a position, as he believed, where he could easily turn himself to meet any contingency,—where, in case the apprehended overthrow of the court party took place, he could easily and safely leap the next hour to a favorable, if not a high stand among the new dispensers of place and power, or where, should the present authorities be able to sustain themselves, he could as easily explain away his objectionable doings, and retain his standing among them. Having done this, he then turned his attention to the official duties of his place, and ordered the crier to give the usual notice, that the court was now open for business. This being formally done, the court docket was called over, and the causes there entered variously disposed of for the time being, by the judges, till they came to that of Woodburn versus Peters; which was a petition for a new trial for the recovery of the petitioner's alleged farm, that had been decided, at the preceding term, to be the property of Peters, on the ground and in the manner mentioned in a former chapter.
“Who answers for this Woodburn?” said Sabin, with a contemptuous air. Significant glances were exchanged among the tory lawyers and officers about the bar at the question, and a malicious smile stole over the features of Peters, who had found a seat among them.
“I move the court,” said Stearns, the attorney of Peters, “for a judgment in favor of my client for his costs, and also for a writ of possession of his land, of which he has been so unjustly kept out by this vexatious proceeding. And, as the petitioner has not entered his appearance according to rule, whereby he tacitly admits that his cause cannot be sustained, I will not permit myself to doubt that the court will so order, even at this early hour—they certainly have the power to do so.”
“They have also the power to postpone the hearing, even to the last day of the term, before rendering judgment,” bluntly interposed Knights, a large, plain-looking practitioner at the bar, who had taken no active part either for or against the court party.
“We all know how this young man is debarred from appearing here to-day; and it seems to me manifestly unjust that any power which deprives a man of the opportunity of appearing at court, should render judgment against him in consequence of his non-appearance. I would, therefore, suggest a delay in this cause. Perhaps, within a short time, he will employ counsel, or be liberated.”
“And perhaps be hung for treason,” said Stearns, in a sneering under-tone.
“Do you answer for him or not, Mr. Knights?” demanded Sabin, impatiently.
“No, your honor; he has not authorized me. I only made a suggestion,” answered the former.
“Then judgment must go for Peters,” rejoined Sabin, with ill suppressed warmth. “Traitors and rebels must look somewhere else for favor, beside this court, while I hold a seat here.”
“Nobody has yet been convicted of treason, I believe,” promptly responded Knights, while an expression of indignant scorn flashed over his manly and intelligent countenance; “and till such is the case, I take it the rights of all have an equal claim on the court. I should be pleased to hear the opinion of the chief justice in this matter.”
“Although I may have my doubts on this subject, Mr. Knights,” graciously replied Chandler, “you could hardly expect me to be guilty of so great a discourtesy to my colleague here, as to interfere, after the intimation he has just given.”
“Make the entry, Mr. Clerk,” said Sabin, hastily; “judgment for costs, and a writ of possession. I am not troubled with any doubts in the matter, and will take the responsibility of the decision.”
Scarcely was the cause thus decided before Peters glided up to the clerk, and whispered in his ear; when the latter, nodding assentingly, opened his desk, and taking out two nicely-folded papers, handed them slyly to the other, who, receiving them in the same manner, immediately left the court-room and proceeded down stairs. As the exulting suitor passed through the crowd gathered round the main entrance, he beckoned to a short, thick set, harsh-featured fellow, who immediately followed him around a corner of the building.
“Well, Fitch,” said Peters, pausing as soon as they were out of the reach of observation, “have you done up your business in town, so as to be ready for a start for Guilford?”
“Yes; don't know but I have. But you can't have got your decision, papers made out, and all, so soon as this?” replied the other.
“All complete!” returned Peters, triumphantly.
“Why, the court has not been in session an hour!”
“True, but I had spoken to Judge Sabin to have my case taken up this morning; and, as nobody was authorized to answer for Woodburn, the case was disposed of in a hurry. And the clerk, with whom I had also arranged matters, had made out the papers before going into court, and got them all signed off and ready, in anticipation; and here they are, ready for your hands, Mr. Constable.”
“Ay, I see; but what is the necessity of serving them so immediately?”
“Why, there's no knowing what may happen, Fitch. If the rebels, in revenge for last night's peppering, should send over the mountain for old Ethan Allen and his gang to come here to stir up and lead on the disaffected, all legal proceedings might be stopped. I know most of our folks think, this morning, that the enemy are fairly under foot. But Chandler, who is as keen as a fox for smelling out trouble, acts to me as if he was frightened; and I think he must have scented mischief brewing, somewhere.”
“Some say he is a very timorsome man.”
“Yes; but watchful and sagacious, and therefore an index not to be disregarded.”
“May be so. But what are your orders about these papers?”
“With this, the writ of possession, go, in the first place, and turn the old woman, his mother, neck and heels, from the house; and then get some stiff fellow in for a tenant, rent free the first year, if you can do no better, provided he will defend the premises against Woodburn, if he escapes unhung. And with this paper, an execution for costs, as you will see, seize the fellow's cow and oxen, and all else you can find, and sell them as soon as the law will let you.
“Why, you won't leave enough of the fellow for a grease spot.”
“Blast him; I don't intend to. But now is the time to do it, before he can get out of jail and back there to give fight and trouble us. So you fix all these matters about right for me, Fitch and I'll do the handsome thing by you when I come over, after the roads get settled, in the spring.”
“Never fear me, as long as I know what a friend's wishes are,” replied the constable, with a significant wink, as he stuffed the documents into his hat, and bustled off on the detestable mission of his more detestable employer.
While Peters and his official minion was thus engaged, Tom Dunning was seen coming, with hasty strides, along the road, from the direction of his cabin, which was situated without the village, about a half mile north of the Court House, from which it would have been visible but for the pine thicket by which it was partially enclosed. As the hunter was entering the village, he met Morris, hastening up the street, from the opposite part of the town.
“Well met,” said Morris; “for I was bound to your quarters with a message, which——”
“Which I am ditter ready to receive, and give you one, which I started to carry to your folks, in return. So, first for yours.”
“Mine is, that we are now drawn up, two hundred strong, in the first woods south of the village, and are ready to march.”
“And mine, that we are der ditto; besides being a hundred better than you, all chafing, like ditter tied-up dogs, to be let on.”
“I will back, then, to my post with the news; and in less than a half hour, tell them, they shall hear our signal of entering the village, as agreed, which we will expect you to answer, and then rush on, as fast as you please, to effect a junction, as we wheel into the court-yard. But stay: have the prisoners been apprized that their deliverance is at hand?”
“Yes; I ran up at the time the court ditter went in, and, in the bustle, got a chance to tell them through the grate.”
“All right; but how are the wounded doing?”
“Ditter well, except French, who is fast going.”
“Indeed! Poor fellow! But his blood will now soon be avenged,” said Morris, as the two now separated and hastened back to their respective posts.
After Peters had despatched the constable on his work of legal plunder and revenge, he returned to the court-room for the purpose of pressing to a hearing some other cases which he had pending against political opponents, and which he hoped, through the favor of a biased and corrupt court, to curry as easily as the one wherein he had just so wickedly triumphed. But he was not permitted to reap any more of his despicable advantages; for he found that another, actuated by motives no less unworthy than his own, had already gained the attention of the court to a case of which he had been the prime mover and complainant. This was Secretary Brush; and the trial he had been urging on, through Stearns, the acting state's attorney, was that of the alleged murderer, to whose somewhat mysterious, as well as suspicious, arrest and imprisonment allusion has already been made.
“As you say the witnesses are in court, Mr. Stearns,” observed Chandler, after a moment's consultation with his colleague, “as all the witnesses are here, we have concluded to take up the criminal case in question. You may therefore direct the sheriff to bring the prisoner into court without delay.”
The sheriff, accordingly, left the court-room, and, in a short time, reappeared with the prisoner, followed by two armed men, who closely guarded and conducted him forward to the criminal's box.
The prisoner was a man of the apparent age of sixty, of rather slight proportions of body, but with a large head, and coarse features, that seemed to be kept almost constantly in play by a lively, flashing countenance, in which meekness and fire, kindness and austerity, were curiously blended. As he seated himself, he turned round and faced the court with a fearless and even scornful air, but promptly rose, at the bidding of the chief judge, to listen to the information, which the clerk proceeded to read against him at length, closing by addressing to the respondent the usual question as to his guilt or innocence of the charge.
“I once,” calmly responded the prisoner—“I once knocked up a pistol, pointed at my breast by a robber. It went off and killed one of his fellows, and——”
“Say, guilty or not guilty?” sternly interrupted the clerk.
“Not guilty, then,” answered the other, determined, while going through these preliminary forms, that his accusers, the court, and audience, should hear what, under other circumstances, he would have reserved for the more appropriate time of making his defence, or left to his counsel. “Ay, not guilty; and that gentleman,” he rapidly continued, pointing to Brush, “that gentleman, who has offered to free me if I would submit to be robbed, well knows the truth of what I say. The witnesses, whom he has suborned, also know it, if they know any thing about that luckless affray.”
“Liar!” shouted Brush, springing up, in high excitement, as soon as he could recover from the surprise and confusion into which this bold and unexpected charge had thrown him.
“The man's insane—evidently insane, your honors!” cried Stearns, who, in his anxiety to shield his friend Brush, thought not of the effect of such a remark.
“I thank the attorney for the government for that admission, may it please the court,” said Knights, rising, with a sarcastic glance at Stearns. “I may wish to make use of it.”
“Are you counsel for the prisoner, sir?” sharply demanded the other.
“I am, sir,” coolly replied Knights; “and you may find, before we get through the trial, that what the prisoner has said, as much out of place as it was, is not the only truth to be developed. But before the case proceeds any further, I offer a plea to the jurisdiction of this court, and at once submit, whether a man can be tried here for an offence alleged to have been committed in another county, without a special order from the governor for that purpose.”
“That order is obtained and on file, sir. So that learned bubble is burst, as will all the rest you can raise in favor of the miserable wretch you have stooped to defend,” said Stevens, exultingly. “Mr. Clerk, pass up that order to the court.”
“Are you satisfied now, Mr. Knights?” asked Sabin, with undignified feeling, after glancing at the order which had been laid before the judges. “Mr. Stearns, proceed with the cause.”
But that court, on whom the subservient attorney and his corrupt and arrogant friend depended to convict an innocent man of an infamous crime, that a private and nefarious object might thereby be enforced—that court were now destined to be arrested in their career of judicial oppression before they had time to add another stain to their already blackened characters: for, at this moment, a deep and piercing groan, issuing from one of the prison-rooms beneath, resounded through the building so fearfully distinct, as to cause every individual of the assembly to start, and even to bring the judges and officers of the court to a dead pause in their proceedings. A moment of death-like silence ensued; when another and a sharper groan of anguish, bursting evidently from the same lips, and swelling up to the highest compass of the human voice, and ending in a prolonged screech of mortal agony, rang through the apartment, sending a thrill of horror to the very hearts of the appalled multitude!
“Who? What? For God's sake, what is that?” exclaimed a dozen eager and trembling voices at once, as nearly the whole assembly started to their feet, and stood with amazed and perplexed countenances, inquiringly gazing at each other.
“Don't your consciences tell you that?” exclaimed the prisoner, Herriot, in a loud, fearless voice, running his stern, indignant eye over the court, its officers, and leading partisans around the bar. “Don't your consciences tell you what it was? Then I will! It was the death-screech of the poor murdered French, whose tortured spirit, now beyond the reach of your power, went out with that fearful cry which has just assailed your guilty ears!”
“Mr. Sheriff! Mr. Sheriff!” sputtered Sabin, boiling with wrath, and pointing menacingly to the prisoner.
“Silence, there, blabbing miscreant!” thundered Patterson.
“Ah! No wonder ye want silence, when that name is mentioned,” returned Herriot, unflinchingly.
Struck dumb with astonishment at the unexpected audacity of the prisoner in thus throwing out, in open court, such bold and cutting intimations of their guilty conduct, the judges and officers seemed perfectly at a loss how to act, or give vent to their maddened feelings, for some moments. Soon, however, the most prompt and reckless among them found the use of their tongues.
“Shoot him down, Patterson!” exclaimed Brush, with an oath.
“Treason! I charge him with treason, and demand that he be ironed and gagged on the spot!” shouted Gale, bringing down his clinched fist heavily on the desk before him!
“Yes, high treason; let us re-arrest him, and see if we can hang him on that, should he escape on the other charge,” chimed in Stearns.
“I have my doubts,” began Chandler, who was growing every moment more wavering and uneasy.
“No doubts about it,” interrupted Sabin, almost choking with rage. “I'll not sit here and see the king's authority insulted, and his court treated with such contempt and treasonable defiance; and I order him instantly in irons—chains—yes, chains, Mr. Sheriff!”
“You can chain the body, but shall not fetter the tongue,” responded Herriot, in no way dismayed by the threats of his enraged persecutors, or their preparations to confine and torture his person; “for I will speak, and you shall hear, ye tyrants! Listen then, ye red-handed assassins! The blood of your murdered victim has cried up to God for vengeance. The cry has been heard! the unseen hand has already traced your doom on the wall! and this day, ay, within this hour,” he continued, glancing through the window to a dark mass of men, who might now be partially discerned drawn up behind the point of woods at the north—“ay, within this very hour, that doom shall be fulfilled! Hark!” he added, in startling tones, after a momentary pause—“hark! do ye hear those signal guns, echoing from post to post, round your beleaguered Babylon? Do you hear those shouts? The avengers of blood are even now at your doors. Hear, and tremble!”
As the speaker closed his bold denunciations, he descended from the bench which he had mounted for the purpose, and, advancing to the sheriff and his assistants, now standing mute and doubtful with their hastily procured fetters in their hands, he paused, and stood confronting them with an ironical smile, and with folded arms, in token of his readiness now to submit himself to their hands. But a wonderful change had suddenly come over the whole band of these tory dignitaries. The dark and angry scowls of mediated revenge, and the more fiery expressions of undisguised wrath, which were bent on the dauntless old man during the first part of his denunciations, had, by the time he made his closing announcement, all given way to looks of surprise and apprehension. No one offered to lay hands on him; for, as the truth of what he said was every moment more strongly confirmed by the increasing tumult without, no one had any thoughts to spare for any but himself. And soon the whole assembly broke from their places, and, in spite of the loud calls of the officers for silence and order, began to cry out in eager inquiries, and run about the room in the utmost confusion and alarm. At this juncture, David Redding, who had been thus far the most reckless and bloodthirsty tory of all, burst into the room, hurriedly exclaiming,—
“The people have risen in arms, and are pouring in upon us, by hundreds, from every direction! In five minutes this house will be surrounded, and we in their power. Let every man look to his own safety! I shall to mine,” he added, rushing back down to the front door, where, instead of attempting to escape through the back way, as he might then have done, he began to shout, “Hurra for Congress!” and, “Down with the British court!” at the very top of his voice.
“I resign my commission,” cried Chandler, jumping up in great trepidation. “Let it be distinctly understood,” he repeated, raising his voice in his anxiety to be heard—“yes, let it be distinctly understood, that I have resigned my commission as judge of this court.”
“D——n him! what does he mean by that?” muttered Gale, turning to Patterson.
“It means he is going to turn tail, as I always thought he would,—the cursed cowardly traitor!” replied the latter, gnashing his teeth. “But let him, and that pitiful poltroon of a Redding, go where they please. We will see to matters ourselves. I don't believe it is any thing more than a mere mob, who will scatter at the first fire. So follow me, Gale; and all the rest of ye, that aint afraid of your own shadows, follow me, and I'll soon know what can be done.”
And, while lawyers and suitors were hastily snatching up their papers, and all were making a general rush for the door, in the universal panic which had seized them, the boastful sheriff, attended by his assistants and the tiger-tempered Gale, pushed his way down stairs, shaking his sword over his head, and shouting with all his might,—
“To arms! Every friend to the court and king, to arms! Stand to your guns there below, guards, and shoot down every rebel that attempts to enter!”
But, when he reached the front entrance, the spectacle which there greeted his eyes seemed to have an instant effect in cooling his military ardor. There, to his dismay, he beheld drawn up, within thirty paces of the door, an organized and well-armed body of more than three hundred men; while small detachments, constantly arriving, were falling in on the right and left, and extending the wings round the whole building. And as the discomfited loyalist ran his eye along the line of the broad-breasted and fierce-looking fellows before him, and recognized among them the Huntingtons, the Knights, the Stevenses, the Baileys, the Brighams, the Curtises, and other stanch and leading patriots, from nearly every town bordering on the Connecticut, and saw the determined look and the indignant flashing of their countenances, he at once read not only the entire overthrow of his party in this section of the country, but the individual peril in which he, and his abettors in the massacre, now stood before an outraged and excited populace.
“What ails your men, Squire Sheriff?” cried Barty Burt, now grown to a soldier in the ranks of the assailants, as he pointed tauntingly to the company of tory guards who had been stationed in the yard, but who now, sharing in the general panic, had thrown down their arms, and stood huddled together near the door; “why don't they pick up their shooting-irons, and blaze away at the 'd——d rebels,'' as I think I heard you order, just now?”
“And if that won't ditter do,” exclaimed the well-known voice of Tom Dunning from another part of the ranks, “suppose you ditter read another king's proclamation at us: no knowing but we might be ditter done for, entirely.”
The sheriff waited to hear no more, but hastily retreated into the house, followed by a shout of derisive laughter; and his place was the next moment occupied by Chandler, who bustled forward to the steps, and, in a flustered, supplicatory manner, asked leave to address his “respected fellow-citizens.”
“Short speeches, judge!” impatiently cried Colonel Carpenter, who seemed, from his position on horseback among the troops and other appearances, to be chief in command—“short speeches, if any. We have come here on a business which neither long speeches nor smooth ones will prevent us from executing.”
The judge, however, could not afford to take this as a repulse; and, with this doubtful license, he went on to say, that on hearing, in the morning, as he did with astonishment and horror, of the unauthorized proceedings of last night, he had denounced the outrage, in an address at the opening of the court; and not finding himself supported, he had resigned, and left his seat on the bench.
“And now,” he added in conclusion, “being freed from the trammels of my oath of office, which have lately become so painful to me, I feel myself again one of the people, and stand ready to cooperate with them in any measure required by the public welfare.”
A very faint and scattering shout of applause, in two or three places, mingled with hisses and murmurs in others, was the only response with which this address was received. But even with this equivocal testimony of public feeling towards him, this despicable functionary felt gratified. “I am safe,” said he to himself, with a long-drawn breath, as he descended the steps, to watch an opportunity to mingle with the party with whom he was now especially anxious to be seen, and to whom he was ready to say, in the words of the satirist,—
“I'm all submission, what you'd have me, make me; The only question is, sirs, will you take me?”
At this moment a sash was thrown up, and the prisoner, Herriot, appeared at a window of the court-room above.
“I have been brought up here this morning,” he said, shaking back his gray locks, and raising his stern, solemn voice to a pitch clearly audible to all in the grounds below—“I have been brought here from my dungeon to answer to the charge of a foul crime; and both my accusers and triers, fleeing even before any one appeared to pursue, have left their places, having neither tried nor condemned me. But scorning to follow their example, I now appear, to submit myself for a verdict, to the rightful source of all power—the people.”
“Neither will we condemn thee,” cried Knowlton, pursuing the scriptural thought of the other; “if thy accusers and judges have left thee uncondemned, thou shalt not be condemned by us; at least not by me, who have long had my opinions of the character of this prosecution.”
“As also have I,” responded Captain Wright. “I know something of the witnesses, on whom, it is said, they depended to convict father Herriot; and I would not hang a dog on their testimony. I move, therefore, that we here pronounce a verdict of acquittal. Who says, ay?”
“Ay!” promptly responded a dozen voices; and “Ay!” the next instant rose in one loud, unanimous shout from the whole multitude.
“A thousand thanks to you, my friends, for your generous confidence in my innocence,” returned the old man with emotion; “and, thank God, your confidence is not misplaced. I was formerly guilty of much, which has cost me many bitter tears of repentance; but there is no blood on my hands, and I will now return to my hermit hut, from which they dragged me, there to pray for the success of the good cause in which you are engaged, leaving to you what lesson shall be taught those Hamans who have filled these dungeons with the dying and wounded, now demanding your care.”
The effect of the old man's closing hint was instantly visible on the multitude, who decided by acclamation to act upon it without delay; and accordingly a score of resolute fellows were detached to proceed to the with their murderous oppressors.
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