The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1886-12-29


tongue entertainment was no mean
thing, at least in quantity.
Just what the man thought of them
| in the 5lackness of his situation it
would be difficult to set down. Doubt
| less, picturing as he must the lonely
! father lying helpless in his lonely
house at the north end of the town,
and the dead girl lying under the damp
| ground to the east, with the memory
Of her warm blood gushing over his
hands still fresh upon him, his own
utter want of any claim upon their
! kindness, and even the injustice of it,
must have filled him with something
very like contempt for their maudling
ministerings.
When he came into court, guarded
on the one hand by the big good-nat-
ured sheriff and on the other by the
sheriff's suffering deputy, he looked
wan and old, and kept his eyes averted.
The large room, covered with mating
in the aisIes and plainly painted in
lines and panels, with a large female
figure blindfolded and holding a pair
of scales frescoed on the wall behind
! the judges desk, was full to overflow
ing with the populace of Openstone.
Judge Ashman, a rather long person
with thin, long head, light eyes, long,
fabby face and long and prominent in
the gastric region, presided with deal
of dignity and seeming fairness. He
was very popular with the OpenstOne
bar, but under his rulings justice al
ways seemed somehow very slow of at
tainment, and the law in the minds of
the people had come TO figure wildly
as thing of marvellous indirectness.
| The States Attorney, Judge Bower
and John Earring constituted the pros
ecution, while Joel had provided the
best legal talent the region afforded to
defend his unfortunate accountant.
Here, as everywhere under the present
system, a competent unbiased jury, at
the same time equal to the matter laid
before them, Jealous for the execution
of the law, and free of any interest in
serving Judge, counsel, or either the
prosecution or defense, was scarcely to
be had. John Earling, however,
though restraining himself in courtesy
to his senior associates, insisted that
any, who might feel themselves in any
sense under the feet of Joel Whitney
should be challenged. Studying the
whole burning field as he had for
months. he felt that the case could not
of necessity free itself of Joels weight.
His hand was upon SO many men
through politics and other interests,
the still book-keeper had been so re-
spectacle factor in his affairs. and the
! banker-merchant's deep dislike of the
uncompromising, unpurchasable old
father of the dead girl, led John Earl
ing to this belief. Besides, the young
man craved in his heart of hearts that
| justice might be mcted out to this noise
less viper without the dead girls repu-
tation being trampled on; without
her good name being spit from uncar-
ing lawyers lips under the feet of the
uncaring crowd and left forever in the
filth. Oh, to continue her character
unspotted for her. to leave itunspotted
for her father sake; to keep it from
the legal butchers block, from the com
mon bar where good names are law
fully and eagerly made tatters of! Yet
the bit of writing he had picked up in
that red and dreadful path Maun' s
lifeless body made in its progress from
the hills crest down to the stream,
held in its blood-sprinkled sentences
the well-nigh indubitable proof of the
book-keeper' S guilt, the crimes motive.
and the girls blight through ignorant
innocence. How could he ever submit
it to the crowds gazep He did not
care for himself, however much of
night or day might stick to his
name through revealment, success
or failure, but the name of
one who had filled his being with
music lay here in murders shadow
balancing toward foul oblivion. He
felt that she had fallen, tricked
into flowery pit through ignorance,
and that only with the coming of
love for himself into her maiden heart
had come the knowledge of her sin.
Through all these months of search
and sorrow and painful reverie, the
unutterable darkness OF the deed had
grown within his mind until it stood
there black mountain shot through
with blood and incommunicable cries.
Oh, She had been doubly slain! her
white soul murdered first and then the
beauteous temple that containedit torn
and battered down. How coald he
ever compass its enormity in words!
How reveal the awfulness of the crime as
if by tightening to the dull, half-heeding
hearts who were to Judge! Through
all the long hard-fought trial he
watched and guided and directed, much
as one might, who, pale and intense
with the fearful burden, held a life
upon some slippery crag. The case
seemed transparent to him 10 the last
atom. He saw nothing, he needed
nothing save what pertained to it.
Judge Bower and the States Attorney,
in an hour after the trial opened felt
themselves guided and borne along by
him. They felt that his grasp was
greater than theirs, that his eyes pierced
the matter as theirs could not. All!
they had not felt as he had felt, their
hearts had not been torn like his, their
souls had not gone with slain love
through all the intricate horrible n1eshes
of the deed, feeling its cause worked
outin fire and its effect stretching away
in unending blight.
But he did not take the blood
sprinkled writing from his breast pock-
ct, to save the dead girls name he
kept it there, and it seemed to Judge
Bower and his colleages that the trial
must end in their defeat. They proved
that Fowler had gone up the wooded
hill but little time before Maun
WOodman had assembled it: that the