The Steadfast Heart/Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Judge Winterhouse emerged from his private room and mounted the bench, a dignified figure of habits and dress belonging rather to the early, leisurely eighties than to the generation of which he remained a part. He wore a Prince Albert. His shining collar was affixed to an equally shining shirt by a gold collar button, and it was only when he turned his head at an acute angle that you perceived that his white beard made unnecessary a cravat. He wore that mantle of preoccupation which is one of the trappings detaching the bench from the ordinary run of mankind.
A hush fell upon the crowded courtroom, and upon the unfortunates who pressed about the doors and thronged the corridors because of lack of seating capacity within. Rainbow was present en masse with its environs and even its remoter farming districts. Only on the Fourth of July or on Farmer’s Day were so many equipages aligned under Rainbow’s maple trees, for no incident in the village’s history had so stirred it as this trial of the miscreant who had shot down its sheriff in the prosecution of his duty. Had the day been made public holiday by proclamation, no more people would have been present and no more lunch pails and boxes would have been packed.
Prosecutor Crane, papers in hand, obviously under mental stress, and equally obviously desirous that all should be aware of the importance of his position, took his place at the table. Young Craig Browning, attorney at law and solicitor in Chancery, occupied the opposite side, sitting with apparent nonchalance, and hoping his prospective clients in the audience would observe his ease of bearing and coolness in this first great moment of his life. His eyes looked dreamily out of the window at the early sunshine, as he pictured this day to himself as the first of a long succession of dramatic successes at the bar…. As Dave Wilkins had anticipated, young Browning gladly accepted the defense of Angus Burke, his only fee the twenty-five dollars he would receive from the county as the attorney assigned for the defense of an accused who would otherwise be deprived of the benefit of counsel.
Presently the door opened—the door leading to the cells below—and Deputy Pilkinton, solemn-visaged, of an importance unbelievable, dragged Angus Burke into view. The child was handcuffed to his wrist…. The spectacle tickled Rainbow’s humor and it laughed nervously. A deputy rapped for order.
“Pilk’ hain’t one to git venturesome,” whispered Lafe Fitch, Rainbow’s omnibus driver. “Notwithstandin’, he's a brave man—Pilk’ is. Now, jest supposin’ that desprit criminal took it into his head to run. Jest supposin’! With Pilk’ hitched onto him with a handcuff. Seems like Pilk’ ’ud git drug over half the county ’fore his arm pulled clean out of the socket.”
The business of selecting a jury in a trial for murder is not one which is commonly finished with expedition; in this case it was completed with what seemed to the spectators undue and reprehensible haste. Not only did the assemblage consider that young Browning was slighting his client’s interests, but, what was more important, cheating their own curiosity. They wanted things done in order with nothing omitted; and, least of all did they desire to have omitted searching scrutiny into the private lives of such of their neighbors as were on the panel. But Browning took only the most cursory interest in the jury. It is true he made two challenges, both peremptory, but these, as he explained later, were matters of personal prejudice, one victim being cross-eyed and the other afflicted with such a twitching of the left cheek as would have fascinated the young lawyer and distracted his attention from the matter in hand. Crane was more meticulous, but twelve good and true men were sworn and ready to listen to testimony long before the noon recess.
Angus Burke, released from Pilkinton’s handcuff, was seated beside Craig Browning. One might have expected his attorney would have seen to it he was combed and washed and made as pleasing to the eye as possible—to create upon the jury a favorable impression. But it was not so. His hair was straggling and unkempt; his face not altogether clean. His clothes were no better, no more thoroughly provided with buttons than when Alvin Trueman first saw him laboring at the woodpile. A saddening, neglected, friendless little figure he was—as Browning wished him to be.
The boy sat immovable, looking straight in front of him as if unconscious of the presence of other human beings…. On entering the courtroom he had cast upon the huddled crowd a startled glance, and one tinged with curiosity at the judge upon his raised platform—as if he wondered vaguely why he had been placed there. After that he had fallen into that apathy which seemed his habitual state of mind…. He was a frowzy, pitiful object, dull, expressionless, apparently without realization of the straits he was in or of the importance to him of the proceedings which went on about him.
Malcolm Crane got to his feet and began his opening address. It was the speech of a prosecutor who seeks conviction for its own sake, bitter, full of veiled vindictiveness. It held the boy up to scorn, painted his life in colors calculated rather to prejudice than to express the exact truth. He described the crime and was apt to attribute a sufficient motive, referring to Angus as degenerate, possessed of a precocious-criminal mind, with dreadful inheritances from unspeakable parents. He saw in the child a menace to society, a sort of human mad dog to be shut away from the light of day and from contact with mankind. One inferred his regret that Michigan was not a hanging state…. An able address of its kind it was, and on the faces of jury and spectators could be read its effect. All eyed Angus with abhorrence, with repulsion. Their eyes saw not a boy but a monster.
As for Angus, he might have been listening to words about quite another person, one negligible to him—or he might not have been listening at all. His face did not change; no flush colored his cheeks, no shame or shrinking made itself visible. He sat like a boy of stone, with unseeing eyes fastened upon the steps which led up to the witness chair. It was no artificial garment of callousness that he wore, but the impassivity, the phlegm of a sluggish brain, a brain battened down by cruelty and hardship, a brain which had never been awakened to life by the activities and interests of boyhood…. In Angus’s life there had been no interests….
Browning elected to make his opening at the close of the prosecution’s case, and then sank back in his chair a hunched, nonchalant figure, apparently neglectful of his duty and careless of what went on about him…. The crowd criticized. It looked for a battle of wits, for sharp tilts between keen brains—but this new young lawyer seemed to exercise but slight vigilance over the strategy of his opponent.
To Crane, now that he had estimated and appraised Browning, his task appeared easy. His manner reflected his comfort of mind. Clearly, succinctly, he established the killing and its relevant surroundings. Of these matters there was evidence in plenty…. Browning paid no compliment of attention to the witnesses, and, to the disgust of everyone, declined to cross-examine. Then his rating as a lawyer sunk to lowest ebb. Half the delight of a trial lay in merciless cross-examinations. Even Judge Winterhouse seemed disturbed and ventured a question which amounted to a suggestion.
“Do I understand, Mr. Browning,” he asked, “that you do not wish to question the people’s witnesses?”
Browning shot him a look, caught only by his Honor, which said plainly he wished no interference from the bench. It was not an arrogant, not an impertinent glance, and Judge Winterhouse felt somehow reassured that the defense of the accused lay not in incompetent hands and that Browning was abundantly able to take care of himself. He felt more so after Browning’s brief reply to his question.
“The witnesses,” said Browning courteously, “seem to be telling the truth. I am content.”
Browning’s opening to the jury was brief. “Gentlemen of the jury,” he said in a conversational tone, “we admit the shooting. Angus Burke yonder fired the gun which killed Sheriff Bates. He fired that gun in circumstances which, to him, justified him in shooting and shooting to kill. I shall prove to you that Angus Burke fired in self-defense, in defense of his home, such as it was, and of his mother…. I shall prove that he was justified in believing it necessary to shoot to save his own life. This I shall prove by one witness—the defendant.” He turned to Angus and spoke kindly, casually.
“Will you go and sit in that chair, Angus?” He pointed to the witness box.
Angus complied stolidly. He looked about him at the crowd and at the jury; then his eyes returned to Craig Browning and never left his face.
“Angus, do you understand what an oath is?” Browning asked.
Angus nodded.
“Please speak so the gentlemen of the jury can hear you. Don’t nod.”
“Yes,” said Angus.
“If you are sworn to tell the truth and then tell a lie, what will happen?”
Angus paused an instant before replying, “God will be angry.”
Wilkins nudged Alvin Trueman. “Get that. Effective, eh? That’s Browning. He taught the boy to say that.”
Browning regarded judge and prosecutor. “I think the boy understands the nature of an oath,” he said, and Judge Winterhouse nodded. He was eying Browning now, giving young Browning the closest attention. The old judge and lawyer was beginning to see a light, as Browning’s methods became dimly visible to him. Crane, gratified by his own skillful work, undervalued his opponent, and felt no perturbation.
“Now, Angus,” said Browning, “I want you to start in the afternoon of the day you killed Sheriff Bates, and tell me everything that happened—everything—until you found yourself in jail here. Can you do that?”
Angus began, speaking slowly and without emotion. He described preparing the evening meal, the coming of his father, the sordid tragedy of the black pills, his father’s desertion. As he proceeded, as his dormant brain commenced to function under the stimulus of necessity, his face became almost animated; emotions were born…. It was a transformation. He pictured in the simple, graphic words of childhood the effects of the drug upon his mother, even quoting a snatch of the song which had contributed to his terror. So vivid became his recollection of the strangling fear of that dreadful night, that stark terror was mirrored on his face for the convincing of all beholders. Here was no acting, no lying, but a bare, visible human emotion. He cowered, his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as he repeated his mother’s tales of crime…. The jury leaned forward, ears cupped in hands, held by the boy, fascinated, gripped in the inexorable flow of the tale he told, moved by the truth, the terrible, recognizable truth of the words which described the tragedy of that one day in his life…. Now he began to describe how he had taken down his father’s rifle and trained it upon the door.
“Then,” he said hoarsely, “we heard a hoss stop and men git out…. Ma she screeched and I knowed it was robbers. Ma screeched agin. The robbers was still fer a spell. They had come close to the house and was waitin’. One of ’em banged the door like that!” He illustrated and a juryman started nervously. “Then Ma says, ‘Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!’” He repeated the word four times, just as the woman had done. “Then I pulled the trigger. It pulled hard—hard.” One could feel the agony of fear which must have been Angus’s as he had doubted his strength to pull that trigger. “Then it went off—bang!” In his excitement the boy shouted the word…. A faint scream sounded from the back of the courtroom, but went unreproved. “It went bang,” Angus repeated, “and I killed the robber…. The rest busted in and drove me and Ma off in a wagon and fetched us here.”
Browning stopped him. “Is that all that happened?”
“Yes,” said Angus, still trembling, with eyes preternaturally bright and staring.
“Have you told the truth?”
“Yes.”
“That,” said Browning to Crane, “is all.”
Among the spectators was a suppressed murmur, almost hysterical—and as the crowd, so with the jury. The twelve men who had in their keeping the life of Angus Burke listened to Malcolm Crane’s stumbling argument and to Browning’s statement that he had no argument to make, and followed the deputy to the room set aside for their deliberations. Presently a rap sounded from within and the jury filed into the courtroom and stood before the judge.
“Have you selected a foreman?” he asked.
William Bowman stepped forward a pace.
“Have you arrived at a verdict?”
“We have.”
“Guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty.”
“So say you all?”
“So say we all,” repeated the twelve men in unison, but their words were drowned in the clamor of the spectators—a clamor of cheers and sobs.
For an instant Malcolm Crane eyed the boy malevolently, sinking deep into his heart a grudge. This child had wronged him, had cheated him…. Hatred of Angus Burke was born then, to live so long as Crane’s life should last…. Angus continued to sit silent and motionless in his chair. He was bewildered, without comprehension of what had happened, without understanding that he was now free—just as he had been without full understanding of why he had been imprisoned…. He waited phlegmatically for what unpleasantness was to come next, for that anything save unpleasantness could come next did not occur to him. His life had been a constant looking forward to the unpleasant…. If, in his short life, he had ever looked ahead with pleasant anticipation, it had not been to the happening of some gracious event, but negatively, to the non-happening of the disagreeable. So he remained passive, waiting, his brain confused, his face stolid.
“Well,” said Browning to Wilkins and Trueman, who had come forward with congratulations, “what’s to be done with him?”
Wilkins shot a glance at Trueman and his eyes twinkled mischievously at the pastor’s embarrassment; at the evident struggle taking place inside the good man to face the situation…. He could not compel himself to lift the burden. It was too heavy, and he turned away his head, with a feeling that he was betraying the high standards of his calling; that he was scantily exemplifying the teachings of the Master which he taught by word and sought to teach by the example of his life…. But, to take this boy into his home—he could not; his own children were there—the influence!… the example!… the association!… And public opinion.
“Wilkins,” he said with emotion, “I can’t do it—I can’t.”
Wilkins’s eyes mirrored his respect. At any rate Trueman made no hypocritical excuses. He met the issue squarely and flunked it honestly.
“I calc’late I can arrange things for the time being,” said Wilkins. “There’s a spare room back of mine. Maybe it’s a risk—my associating with such a person—but I guess he won’t muss up my morals to speak of…. That’ll serve for the present.”
Trueman’s face spoke his gratitude…. Wilkins laid his hand on Angus’s arm. “Sonny,” he said, “how’d you like to come and bunk with me for a spell? Don’t need to if you got other plans…. You’ll be as welcome as a sliver in a finger.”
The boy’s dull eyes scrutinized the man’s face. What he saw appeared to satisfy him—if, indeed, he were looking for anything. He made no verbal response, but got to his feet ready to follow. There were no thanks, no exhibition of gratitude, no comprehension. Probably he was unacquainted with the emotion of gratitude, for he had known scant use for it….
“Wilkins,” said Craig Browning, as they walked down the hill through straggling, staring loungers, showing the first sign of embarrassment of lack of self-assurance the editor ever had discovered in the young attorney, “er—this is going to cost you money…. No reason for you to—do it alone. I—no reason I shouldn’t stand half.”
Wilkins chuckled inwardly. He was not one to deny to another the carrying into execution of a worthy impulse.
“Suits me,” he said briefly.
And so, with two sponsors—neither fitted by nature or experience for the task—Angus Burke entered upon the second phase of his life—a phase which presented obstacles, difficulties, prospects of bitter unhappiness, heart-burnings, and misery: but which offered compensations, not the least of which was food.