"I know, father, but death seems terrible to me sometimes when I am alone here in the night."
Mrs. Thrasher began to sob and Mrs. Allen looked down upon her child in pale grief.
"Ah, why cannot I, who am old, and used to trouble, take her place," she said, drearily.
"Yes, mother, I want courage. At first, when they left me, I was a coward, but it is not so of late, at least not often. Something here grows stronger every day."
The girl laid one hand on her heart, while a soft glow came to her face.
"And that is faith," said Mr. Thrasher.
"It seems like a living presence; as if my babe had turned to an angel, and were folding its wings here. How can any one think I killed it--I who gloried so in being its mother."
"We know that you never harmed it," said Mrs. Allen. "That is one comfort, my child."
"No, no; we never thought it, neither your father nor your two mothers,"
said Mrs. Thrasher, planting herself by Mrs. Allen"s side; thus suggesting her own right to be considered.
"It is strange," said Katharine, thoughtfully, "very strange that any one can believe such things of a poor girl. I am sure no woman in the world ever got this idea of herself."
"No woman would have the heart to think it," muttered Mrs. Thrasher; "but the law, that is stern and cruel enough for any thing."
"To-morrow it will prove cruel with me, I am sure," said Katharine; "when they took me away from home the little children looked after me as if there was blood on my clothes. It made my heart ache to see their frightened faces at the windows as the wagon went by. If children can judge one so harshly, what will a court full of stern men do."
"The men who look so stern are sometimes very kind at heart," said Mr.
Thrasher.
Katharine lifted her eyes to his face.
"You will be there, father, and you--and you, my mothers?"
"Yes, Katharine, we will be there," said both the women at once.
"And a greater than they will be there, Katharine," added the old man, solemnly, and resting one hand on her head a moment, he turned away.
The two women saw that his lip quivered as he pa.s.sed through the door, but to Katharine he was an embodiment of sublime strength, and it took away half her courage when his shadow disappeared from the threshold of her prison. Alas, she was nothing but a girl, timid from want of experience, and greatly dependent for strength on those she loved. When Katharine Allen was left alone she began to realize that the day of her great trouble was near at hand. A faintness like that of death itself crept over her, and she sat down in the midst of her dungeon chamber, sinking down upon the floor in a wild, dreary way, that would have brought tears to the eyes of her worst enemy.
By many an anxious question she had won from the jailor a general knowledge of the forms which attend a criminal trial. She knew that crowds of curious people, perhaps coa.r.s.e-hearted people, would jostle her on the way to prison--that scores on scores of eyes would follow her with hate and loathing. She saw the band of jurors grasping her life in their will, listening with heavy countenances to the evidence of a crime that was not hers, but of which it seemed impossible that any human tribunal could absolve her.
Then, going to and from the trial, little children would look up at her as they had done when she pa.s.sed the red school-house at Shrub Oak, some with timid pity, others with coa.r.s.e amazement, and others still ready to break forth into hoots and sneers, as if some abhorrent animal had crossed their path. These thoughts were hard to endure. She had so dearly loved little children, and turned so naturally for affection toward all living things, that the edict of hate, though undeserved, made her shrink with absolute pain.
She took up her Bible and tried to read, but the letters ran together on the page, hara.s.sing her sight, but giving back no sense. Thus the evening found her going out into blank s.p.a.ce till the darkness crept through her prison bars and fell over her like a pall.
CHAPTER LII.
THE STREETS AND THE COURT HOUSE.
The next day found a crowd around the court house, hours before the time for opening--an eager-eyed, jostling throng, to whom a trial for life was sure to bring keen excitement of some kind. In a Puritan State, where places of amus.e.m.e.nt are seldom found, any thing calculated to excite public curiosity is an event which makes the most painful occasions a sort of holiday for the populace. The horrible fascination which a trial like that always possesses for the human mind was added to other feelings with which the people of that day frequented the courts of justice, and any trial which had a tragic interest for the people, drew crowds around the court house, full of eager curiosity, and sometimes almost ferocious excitement--crowds which watched the progress of events like men enthralled by the horror of a terrible play.
The events which caused the arrest of Katharine Allen had been a favorite theme of conversation for months. Public excitement was at its highest pitch; and, when the day of her trial came, a stranger, pa.s.sing through the streets, might have believed that some event was transpiring in which the highest interests of the whole community were at stake.
A crowd gathered about the old jail, which loomed up in the midst of the town--a dark monument of human sorrow and human crime. A moving throng was in every street which led from thence to the court house--men, women, and little children, brought out as for a holiday show, all waiting, breathless and eager, for the appearance of the poor girl they were ready to hunt to an ignominious death.
Now and then you pa.s.sed a face that looked grave or sad, as if the moral lesson of that trial was felt, and not without sympathy for the poor young creature who was to be its object.
The crowd had been waiting for hours, and so singularly organized is this miserable human nature of ours, so dependent are our feelings upon the position in which we are placed, so completely do our sympathies waver to and fro, according to our particular situation, that it was noticeable, as time wore on, that murmurs grew harsher and more sullen.
The hard faces grew harder; even those which had expressed something akin to pity lost their softness, and wherever a knot of such women as love scenes of this kind were gathered, execrations and complaints against the criminal were the most severe and cruel.
At last there was a little bustle in the jail yard; the crowd responded by eager murmurs. Slowly the heavy gates swung open; a simultaneous rush was made toward them, and it required all the efforts of the armed constables to force back the eager mob.
At length, a pa.s.sage was made down the street, and the crowd pushed back on either side. Then slowly, with a dull, ominous sound, a wagon, drawn by a single horse, rolled out of the jail yard and took its way through the street.
In this wagon, with an officer upon either side, sat Katharine Allen.
She was deadly pale, her sunny hair, too bright for a scene like that, was brushed smoothly back under her bonnet; a large shawl was thrown over her white dress, and she sat between her guards so still and silent that she hardly seemed conscious of her position, or terrified by the danger which gathered closer and closer about her.
A new murmur of pity went up from the people who thronged the sidewalks.
In her statue-like quiet, the girl looked so young and fair, it appeared incredible that she could have been guilty of the crime with which she was charged.
At that sound, Katharine raised her head quickly, her great eyes wandered to and fro, hopeless, helpless, a vivid crimson swept over her whole countenance, then it faded almost as quickly as it came, leaving the features paler than before. With a low moan, the poor young creature closed her eyes, her lips moved tremulously. Amid all the terror of that scene--with judgment and death so near--a calm, such as she had not before felt, settled down upon her soul.
I do believe that in that hour of supreme agony, G.o.d sent His angels to whisper comfort and peace. By no human law could one have accounted for the change which came over her.
On through the street pa.s.sed the little cortege, the constables marching in front, and pushing aside the people, who, faithful to their New England instincts, yielded almost ungrumblingly to the dictates of those armed with the power they so reverenced--that of the law.
Katharine did not look up again; the deathly pallor had left her face; but around the lips, which still moved at intervals, a smile had settled like a ray of sunlight.
It was a glorious morning; the sun lay golden and warm upon the town; it fell caressingly upon the girl in the prison wagon, revealing her broadly to the rude gaze of those curious eyes.
As they approached the court house, the crowd grew denser. The wagon moved more and more slowly, and the people grew keenly eager, as if curiosity and interest had reached a climax when the victim was about disappearing from their sight.
The court room was a bare, gloomy apartment, where every thing seemed to deepen the usual horror connected with such a place--a dark chamber where the shadows never wholly dispersed. No matter how brightly the sun shone without, the golden radiance broke against the window panes, as if frightened by the appearance of the place, and in pa.s.sing through the dusty windows, seemed to lose all brilliancy and warmth.
On that day it was packed with a dense crowd, all waiting eagerly for the entrance of the girl whose conviction they had come to witness.
Every one was there--the judge upon his bench, cold and silent as a marble image of justice; the jury in their box, and, a little way off, the witnesses.
Mrs. Allen sat by the side of old Mr. Thrasher; he had taken her hand, meaning to speak some last word of consolation, but the agony in her eyes froze the words upon his lips; he could only hold fast to that withered hand, which in her anguish she wrenched away from him, impatient even of sympathy.
The dead silence of the court room was broken by a dull murmur from without, through which the rattle of the wagon wheels was distinctly audible.
A sound upon the stairs--the tread of heavy feet, and the door swung slowly upon its hinges. A shiver ran through Mrs. Allen"s frame; she sank heavily back, moaning. She knew that her child had been brought in; she heard the bustle with which they placed her in the criminal"s seat, but when she tried to raise her eyes it seemed as if the lids had turned to iron.
When silence was again restored she made one violent effort and looked up. Katharine was sitting still and white in her place of shame. The mother half rose, with a vague impulse to rush forward and save her child. That moment Katharine lifted her heavy eyes, and met that longing gaze--unconsciously she extended her arms.