Читать книгу Westover of Wanalah - George Cary Eggleston - Страница 8

It was the chivalric custom of the Virginians to protect their woman-kind in all circumstances, at all costs and at all hazards, not only against wrong and danger, but equally against annoyance and especially the annoyance of publicity. Women in Virginia were proudly feminine; men intensely and bravely masculine.

Accordingly the news of Boyd Westover's case had only begun to spread abroad when all the male relatives of all the girls in Le Voiser's school set themselves to hurry their daughters, sisters and nieces into secure hiding, so that they might be spared the annoyance of appearing in court as witnesses in a criminal case.

Short as the time was, the officers sent to serve summonses upon such as were wanted found the school well nigh deserted. Some even of those on whom they succeeded in serving their subpœnas were protectingly abducted before the day of the trial by relatives who braved the penalties of contempt of court in rescue of delicately nurtured maidens dear to them.

Nevertheless there were one or two of the girls present in court when Boyd Westover was called to the bar. These had been in hiding, but their places of concealment had been discovered and the girls themselves brought by force to the court. Then too the matron was there prepared to bear unhesitating witness to Boyd's identity with the offender.

A good deal of time was consumed in securing a jury. The first man called declared:

"I would not believe this charge against Boyd Westover even if I had been present, seeing him with my own eyes." Others expressed their incredulity in different forms of words but with equal positiveness, and of course all such were rejected. It thus happened that the jury was not completed till a late hour in the day. But on the other hand it took very little time for the Commonwealth's witnesses to give their testimony, and after one or two fruitless attempts to secure from them an admission of doubt or possible mistake, Jack Towns forbore to cross examine them.

He had no witnesses to offer in his client's behalf. He had nothing to depend upon indeed except a certain persuasive eloquence which had often served him well, and this he brought to bear with all his passionate nature to stimulate it. He spoke for an hour. He argued, pleaded, persuaded. He set forth the character of his client and of the distinguished family from which he was sprung. He dwelt upon the utter improbability of the commission of such a crime by such a man. He pointed out and emphasized the fact that a girls' school was not the place that any housebreaker in his senses would think of entering in search of booty. He ended with an impassioned setting forth of the ruin and disgrace that must fall upon this high-charactered young man as the result of an adverse verdict. So eloquently and so pathetically did he present the pitiful aspect of the matter that tears ran down scores of cheeks, and the Judge himself bowed his head upon the desk in front of the bench, as if to conceal an emotion he could not control.

The Commonwealth's Attorney—the prosecuting officer—rose, but instead of making the usual speech, simply said, in a voice choked with sobs:

"The testimony is before you, gentlemen of the jury. I have nothing to add to it."

There was but one result possible. Ten minutes after the jury retired, it filed into court again bearing a verdict of "Guilty."

Boyd Westover was a convicted felon. The sun of his fair young life had gone down amid clouds of black disgrace, and it could know no rising. Worse than death a thousand fold, worse than the cruelest torture was this to a proudly sensitive nature, nurtured in traditions of honor that held every slightest character stain to be an indelible blot.

Yet it was with head erect, with dry eyes, with unshaken nerves and unflinching spirit that he met this decree of doom. It was the tradition of his race to meet Fate without faltering, to fight while the possibility of fighting lasted, and when it failed, to shroud an undaunted soul in the chain mail of unconquerable courage.

When the verdict was rendered, the young man turned to his friend and counsellor, and in an entirely unemotional voice, said:

"I thank you sincerely for all you have done and tried to do. I have need of a little time in which to arrange my affairs. Can you do me a final favor by securing it for me?"

The matter was easily arranged. The Judge, full of compassion for the ruined youth, and in spite of reason, testimony, and everything else, still not believing in Boyd Westover's guilt, asked if ten days would suffice. Then without renewing the bail bonds that had expired with the beginning of the trial, he appointed the tenth day thereafter for sentence. It was the Commonwealth's Attorney's business to move for the renewal of the bonds, without which the condemned man was in fact under no restraint whatever, but he made no motion of the kind. When asked by Jack Towns some time afterwards why he had not done his duty in that respect, he replied:

"I simply couldn't. Boyd Westover and I were schoolmates, you know, and I lived for many months in his father's house. I knew he wouldn't run away. Who ever heard of a Westover flinching? Why should I subject him to an indignity?"

Thus, in Virginia, did character—personal and inherited—count. There were some things that a gentleman could not do. He might commit a crime of violence, but he could not do a cowardly or treacherous act. The bailiff who had trusted Boyd Westover's word of honor, knew that and risked the loss of his place upon his confidence in it. The Commonwealth's Attorney knew it and took the chance of impeachment upon it.

The net result was that on the day of his conviction Boyd Westover walked out of court an absolutely free man except in so far as he was bound by his own sense of honor and by the traditions of the race from which he was sprung. These bound him to appear in court for sentence at the end of the ten days allowed to him, and as everybody knew, the bond was amply sufficient.

Jack Towns took him in the meanwhile to his own house.

"You'll be my guest," he said, "and I'll see that we aren't interrupted."

"You still don't mind that?" Boyd asked.

For response he got an earnest look in the eyes, and the verbal answer:

"Don't be a fool, Boyd."

After a minute, Boyd asked, reflectively:

"How is it, Jack, that you and some others seem still to believe in me? In view of the evidence—"

"Hang the evidence," interrupted the lawyer. "Don't you know that character is the most important and the most trustworthy fact in life? You don't suppose for a moment that I have a doubt in your case, do you? If you do, you grievously wrong my friendship."

"How then do you account for the facts as set forth in the testimony against me?"

"What do you mean, Boyd? Are you trying to convince me that you are guilty of a crime that I know to be utterly impossible to you?"

"No. I am only trying to find out the grounds of your confidence in me, so that I may know how far to impose on them in making my arrangements for the future. That's the purport of my question, which, by the way, you haven't answered yet."

"Oh well, as to that, you're the victim of some hideous mistake. If you had let me stave off your trial for six months the chances are we should have found out what the mistake is. As it is—"

"As it is, I couldn't have lived for six months in such suspense as that. Neither could you, in like case. We're the sort of men who say to the lightning, 'Strike if you will, but don't prolong your threats.' Besides, I cannot see how this thing could have been bettered by delay. Those girls honestly believe they recognized me as an intruder in the school. They would believe that quite as firmly six months hence as now."

"Perhaps so. But six months hence not one of them would have been in Virginia to testify against you. Their friends would have taken care of that."

"Yes, I know. And I should have been suspected of securing my acquittal by spiriting away the witnesses against me. I couldn't live under so black a shadow as that."

"I understand. But all this is profitless. We have much to do to get your affairs in order. Let us address ourselves to that. First of all I've had all your mail sent up here from the hotel. Suppose you read it now, and after supper we'll set to work."