LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2603, 10 August 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

»LI: OB THE OB I SATE JURYMAN.

UNBSita boat, high and dry, at low tide, on the beach, John Wood was ssated in the sheltered f on the sun in the boat's sfeadjw, absorb«d in the laying on of vordigris. IS was Wool's boat, but he was not a boatman ; he painted cleverly, bDt he was not a painter. He kept the brown store Wider the elm* of the main attest, now hot and still, whare at this moment his blushing ■sister was captivating the heart of an awkward farmer's boy, as she sold him a pair of 3.ri ; ;e.l eus~ender«. As the church clock st.-uok the l«t of twelve decided blows, throe children rushing out of the house CO the baak above the beach. It was one c£ those deceptive New England cottiges. weather worn without, but and bounu'ully home-like within, The children sea-jpared across the road, and then the oldo-t hushed the others and sent a little brother ahead to steal, barefoot, along the chining sea weed to his father. The plotted surprise appeared to succeed completely. The pa'nter was seizad by the ears from fcellnrt, and oaptured. 'Gne:s who's hnre, or you can't get up,' Mid tiie infant captor. * It's Napoleon Bonaparte; doa't joggle,' oald his father, runcing a brush steadily along the water-line. 'Not no t no!' with shouts of laughter from the whole attacking party. * Then it's Captain Ezekiei ?' This excitsd great merriment ; Captain Ecekiel was an a;?cd purblind man, who leaned on a cane. Aft-'r various attempts to identify the Invader the victim reached over his shoulder, and, seizins; tho assailant by a handful of calico j:toket, brought him round bafore him,

' Now,' ha said, rerdi jria.' Great applans9 from tb.9 reserve force behind. ' I suppose mother sent yon to flay dinner's ready,' said (he father, rising and surveying the green bottom of the b>at And with a child on each shanlder, and the third from behind with her hea-*, he marched toward the kitchen, where, between two opposite netted doo a, the table wa» trimly sot. * Who can that be ?' said the mother, an elderly, hilf-offi]i&l-looking man stopped bia horse at the front gate and alighted. She man left the horse unchecked to browse by the roadside, and c *me to the door. 'Oh, its—-you, Captain Bourse,' saH Wood, rising to open the netting door, and holding out his hand ; ' come to summons • me as a witness in something about the Bank case, I suppose. Lot me introduce Captain Nouraa, Mary,' he said, ' deputy sheriff. Sit down, captain, and have some dinner with us.' 'Ho, I guess I wont sat,' said the captain; * I cal'lated not to eat till I get home, in the middle o' the a'ternooa. No, I'll s*t down in eye-shot of the mare, and read the paper while you eat.' 'I hope they <?oa't want me to testify ■mywhere to-day,' said Wood ; ' because my boat's half vardigrla'd, end I want to finish her this afternoon.' 'No testimony to-day,' said the captain. After dinner Wood wont ont bare-heided, and leaned on the fence by the captain. His wife stood juat inside the door, loo'iing out at them. The ' B ink case ' was the great sensation of the town, and Wood was one til the main witnesses, for he had been taking tha place of the absent oashler whsn the sife was |broken open and rifled, to the widespread distress of depositors and stockholders and the ruin of Hon. Edward Clark, the amaident. Wood had locked tho sa'e on the s* afternoon before the eventful night, and bad oarried home the key with him, and he was to testify to the oor tents of the sife as he bad left it. ' I guess they're glad they've got such a witness as John,' said his wife to herself, as ■he laoked at hltn fondly, ' and I guess they think there won't bj mush doubt about what he nt-ys * captain,' said Wood, jocosely, 'I know but you'd come to arrest ma.' The o&ptain calmly smiled a? only a man can smile who has been accosted with the ■ame hnmourous remark a dozen times a day for twenty years. Then he said, shortly—- ' That's what I've come for.' Wood, still leaning on the fence, looked at him, and said nothing. * That's jast what I've came for,' said Captain Nourse • • I've goS to arrest you ; hera's the warrant.' And he handed it to Um.

" IM give yoa a coat of

' What does thia mean V aaid Wood ; ' I can't make head nor tail of this ' ' Well,' said tha oaptaln, ' the long and short la, these high toned detectives that -theylve. had down from town, seeia' as cur Own force wasn't good enough, allow that the safe waa unlocked with a key, in due form, and then the Icck waa broke afterward, to lo3k aa if it had been forced open. They've had the foreman of the safe men down, too, and he says the same tblng. Naturally, the _ argument is—There were only two keya in existence; one was ssfe with the president of the Bank, and Is about ■JI he's got to show out of forty years' savings ; the only other one you had, consequently it heav< a on yuu.' «I see,' tald Wood ; • I will so with with yon. Do you want to o;me into the house with me while I get my coat ?' ' Well, I suppose I must keep yoa in sight •—now, you know.' And they went into the house. • Mary,' said her hußband ; ' the folks that lost by Clark when the Bank broke have been at him until he's felt obliged to pitch on somebody, and he's pitched on me ; and Captain Nours9 has com 6to a-rest me. I ■hall get bail before long ' She s.Ud nothing, and did not shed a tear till he was gone. Bai then Wide watea of salt marsh to the right, Imprisoning the upland with a vain promise Of lofinite liberty, and, between low, distant ■wnd hills, a lim of sea. In the doorway of • little oottage, warmed by the soft slanting rayj of the September sun, a rongh man, burnt and freckled, waa sitting, at his feet ■ net, engaged upon some handiwork which two liitle glr'a were watehk'g. Close by Um lay a setter, his nose between his paws. Occasionally the man raised his eye 3 to scan the sea. 'There's Joel,' ho said ; 'comin' in around the bar. Not mu;h air stlrrln' now.' Xhen he turned to his work again. And M ha worked he made a great show of labonr. But the sight of Joel's broad white ■ail hsd not brought pleasant thoughts to Us mind. For Joel had hailed him, off tha Shoal, the afternoon before, and had obligingly offered to buy his fish, right there, and so lot him go directly home, omitting to mention that sudden jump of price duo to an empty rarrkot. 'Wonder what poor man he's took a dollar oat of to day. Well, I s'piEe it's all rights: fho-.e that's got money, want money.' 'Whit be you, Eli— ganging on hooks?' aaid Aunt Patience, aa she tip-toed into the kitchm behind him, from his wife's aick. r*om, and softly cloied the door after her. 'Ho,' 3iid tha elder of the children ; 'he's mending our st.ckings, and showing me how.'

Though, on this quiet af cernoon of Fatnrjilay, the peaco cf the approaching Sabbath B&><mei already broidicg over the little dwelling, paaoa had not Itnt her hand to the building of the home. Every foot of land, ©very abingle, every nail, had been wrung from the reluctant aea. IS very voyage had contributed something. It was a great day whea Eli was able to buy ths land. Then, between two voyages, he dug a callar and laid a foundation ; then he saved enough to build the main part of the cottage and to finish the front room, landing his own hand to the work. Tben ha ured to get let era at orery port, telling of progress—how lizzie, Mm wife, had adorned the front room with a bright nine-penny paper, of which a little piece was oceloßed, which he kept as a sort o£ charm about him and exhibited to his friends ; how she r.nd her little brother bad lathed the entry and the kitchen, and how they had set oat blackberry vines from the wocda. Then another letter told of a surprise that awaited him on his return ; and, In dae time, coming home as third mat a from Hong Kong to a seaman's tumultous welcome, he had found that a great, goodnatured maßtm, with whose sick child his wife had watched, n'ght after night, had appeared one day with lime and hair and rand, and ia whito raiment, and had plastared the entry aud the kitchen, and fioi-hed a room up s:aira. And so, for years, at home and on the Boa, at Few York, end at Valparaiso,

and in the Straits ol Malacca, the little bouse and the little family within it had grown into the fibre of. Eli's heart. The supper things were cleared away. The children had said goodnight and gone to bed, and Eli had been sitting for an hour by his wife's bedside. He had been talking now of the coming w«ek, when he was to serve upon the jury in the adjoining county town.

1 1 cal'late I can come home aboat every night,' ho said, ' and it'll be quito a change, at any rate.' * Bat you don't seem so cheerful about it as I counted you would be,' said his wife, ' are you afraid you'll have to be oa the Bank case ?'

'Not much !* he answered; 'no trouble 'n that case I Jury wont leave the r r soats. Th6se fity fellsrs'll find they've bit eff morn'n they can chew when trying to figure out John Wood done that. I ouly hope I'll have the luck to be on that oaso —all bands on the jury whisper together a minute, and then dear him, right on the spot, and then shake hands with him sit rcund I'

'But something 1b worrying you,*shesa'.d; ' what is it ? You have looked it since noon.'

•Oh, nothln',' he replied; 'only George came cp to-noon to s?y that he was goin' West next week, and that he would have to have tbat money he let me have a while ago. And where to got it—l don't kcow.'

The Court-room was packed. John Wood's trial was drawing to its close. Eli was on the jury. Some one had advired the prosecuting attorney, in a whisper, to challenge him, but he bad shaken his heal and said :

'Ob, I cjnldn't sffnd to challenge him for that; it wou'd ooly If ak out, and set the jnry against me. I'll risk his standing out agiinst this evidence.' The trial had beau short. It had been shown how the little building of the bank bad been entered. Skilled locksmiths from the city had testified that the safe was opened with a key, and that the lock was broken afterward, froai the inside—plainly to ra'se the theory of a forcible entry by ttrangera, It had been proved that the only kej in existence, not counting that kept by the president, wis in the posstsdon of Wood, who was filling, for a few days, the place of the cashier—the president's brother —in his a' sence. It had been shown that Wood was met, at one o'clock of the night in question, cro?slng the fields toward his home, from the direction of the bask, with a large wicker basket slung over his shoulder?, returning, as he had said, from eel spearing in Harlow's Creek ; and there was other circumstantial evidence. Mr Clark, the president of the bank, had won the sympathy of every one by the modest way in which, with eye-glasses in hand, he had testified to the particulars of the loss which had left him penniless, and had ruined othors whos9 little all was in his hands. And then, in reply to the formal question, he had testified, amid roars of laughter from the Court-room, that it was not he who robbed the safe. At this, even the Judge and Wood's lawyrr had not restrained a smile. This had left the guilt with Wood. His lawyer, an inexperienced young attorney—who had done more or less business for the bank, and would hardly have ventured to defend the case but that the president had kindly expressed his entire willingness that he should do so—had, of course, not thought it worth while to croBS - examine Mr Clark, and had directed his whole argument against the theory that the safe had been opened with a key, and not by strangers. But he had felt all through that, as a man po'itely remarked to him when he finished, he was only butting his ' head ag'in a s'one wall' The district-attorney had not thought it worth while to expend much strength upon his closing argument ; but he had not been able to refrain from making merry over Wood's statement that the basket which he had been seen bearing home, on the eventful night, was a basket of eels. ' Pine eels those, gentlemen! We have s en gold-fish, silver fish, but golden eels are first discovered by this defendant. The apostle, in Holy Writ, caught a fish with a coin in its mouth; but this man leaves the apostle In the dim distance when he finds eels that are all money.' It takes but little to make a school or a court room laugh, and the speech had appeared to give a good denl of amusement to the listeners. To all ? Did it amnf e that man who sat, with folded arms, harsh and rigid, at the dock ? Did it divert that white-faced woman oowerlng in a corner, listening as in a dream ? Tho judge now charged the jury briefly. It was unnecessary for him, he said, to recapitulate evidence of so simple a cbaraoter. The chief quistion for the jury was as to the credibility of the witnesses. If the witnesses for the prosecution were truthful and were not mistaken, the inference of guilt seemed inevitable ; this the defendant's counsel had conceded. The defendant had proved a good reputation. Upon that point there was only this to be said, that, while snch evidence was entitled to weight, yet, on the other hand, crimes involving a breach of trust could, from their very nature, be committed only by parsons whose good reputations secured them positions of trust. The jury room had evidsntly not been furnished by a ring. There was a long table for debate, twelve hard ohalrs for repose, twelve spittoons for luxury, and a clock. The jury sat in silence for a few moments, as old Captain Nonrse, who had them In his keeping, and eyed them as if he was afraid that he might lose one of them in a crack and be held accountable on his bond, rattled away at the unruly lock. Looking at them then, you would have seen faces all of a New England cast but one. There wss a tall, powerful negro, called George Washington, a man well known in this county town, to wr.i.-h he had come, as driftwood from the storm of war, in 'C6. Some of the * boys ' had heard him in a great praytr meeting at Washington—a city which he always spoke of as his ' namesake ' —at the tima of the great review, say, in h's strong voice, with that pathetic quaver in it, ' Like as do parched an' weary traveller hangs his harp upon de winder, an' sighs for oysters in de desert, so I longe to re3 F my soul an' my foot in Mass'chnsstts;' and they were so delighted with him that they invited him on the spot to go home with them, and took up a collection to pay his fare ; and so he is a public character. As for his occupation, when the census taker, with a wink to the boys in the store, had asked him what it was, he had said, In that same odd tone, ' Putties up gl'ss a little—whitewashes a little—' and, when the man had made a show of writing all that down, ' preaches a little.' He might have said ' preaches a big,' for yon could hear him a mile away. The foreman was a retired sea captain. ' Good cap'n—Captain Thomas ' one of his neighbors had said of him ; ' allers gits good ships—never hez to go hur.tin' round for a vessel '

'Gentlemen,' eaid the forcmsn when the officer at last had securely locked them in, ' shall we go through the formaKty of a ballot ? If the ease wera a less serious one, we might hive returned j;a verdict, in our seats.' ' What's the use foolln' 'round bsliotin ' ?' said a thick set butohjr, ' ain't we all o' my mind ?' 'lt Is for you to say, gentlemen,'s-aid the foreman; ' 1 shouldn't want to have it go abroad th»t ws had not aoted formally if there was anyone disposed to cavil.' 'Mr Speaker,' said George Washington, ' I rises to appoint to order. Wa took ballast in de prior cases, and why make flesh of one man and a fowl of another ?' 'Yery well,' sail the foreman, a trifle sharply; ' t&o longest way round is the shortest way homo.' Twelve slips of paper were handed, out, to be endorsed guilty, 'for form.' There wore collected in a hat, and the foreman told them over-"■'just for form.' ''Guilty, 'guilty,' 'guilty,' 'guilty'—wait a minute,' he said ; ' here is a mistake. Here is one ' not guilty'—whose ia this ?' There was a pause. ' Whoso la it ?' said the f reman sharply. Eli turned a little red. 'lt's mine,'ho eaid. (To be continued.')